I’m nearly two months late to jump on this bandwagon, but I’m going to do it anyway. In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution this year, a lot of people looked back on 20th century socialism and hypothesized about what went right, and what went wrong. What are the lessons we can glean from this experience as we move forward in the 21st century?
I think the most profound thought to strike me is: the pace of change is slow, and the struggle will be a protracted one.
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” — V.I. Lenin
I think that a lot of the failures, shortcomings, or what have you, of Marxist-Leninist states during the 20th century occurred when the leaders of these societies made a faulty assumption: that the world was on the brink of revolution and at any moment, the capitalist house of cards would come tumbling down. They were, as we’ve seen, wrong.
In the days of the Bolshevik revolution and the following civil war, the leaders of Soviet Russia made many key decisions based on the assumption that the rest of Europe was on the brink of revolution. They believed that the more industrially developed countries on the continent would soon become soviet socialist states, given enough time, or if the new Red Army could only punch through eastern Europe and link up with them. This did not come to pass; the revolutions that did occur (except for those on Russia’s periphery) were put down and the Soviet Russia was left to fend for itself. The Central Powers forced humiliating terms upon them at Brest-Litvosk. Russia itself descended into famine and barbarism as the Reds struggled to feed and maintain morale within their own army, not to mention the population as a whole.
As unorthodox as it seems to some, Stalin’s eventual promotion of the concept of “Socialism in One Country” wasn’t wrong. It was an admission of reality: help was not coming and the newly-founded Soviet Union would have to stand on its own. The Soviets also saw the rise of fascism and predicted that another war was coming. The result was that, despite socialism theoretically promising a better quality of life and more freedom for the proletariat, working people would have to make do with less — at least for now. The Soviet Union would undergo a miraculous transformation from a war-ravaged, backward country into a modern industrial powerhouse; but the cost was famine, privation, and authoritarianism.
I think you can also see this pattern in other countries during other revolutionary waves during the 20th century — China under Mao, Che Guevara’s concept of the “new man” in Cuba, etc. The idea is that the revolution is coming, or is in progress, and that eventually socialism will bring prosperity and freedom, but for now everyone needs to knuckle down, throw themselves into the class struggle, and accept hardship in the present in exchange for greater benefits at some point down the road.
Here’s where I think that rationale breaks down: it’s been 100 years since the first Marxist-Leninist state was declared — a state, mind you, that no longer exists. While I still believe in the concept of the world revolution as ideally and theoretically valid, the notion of it being one big wave (or a series of waves) that sweep the globe is not valid. One need only to look briefly at the history of the last century to realize that the process of building socialism is slow and arduous, and that it’s not irreversible.
Further, while a hundred years is merely a blink of an eye compared to all of human history, to an individual it represents an entire human life. In practice, when socialist authorities have banked on the promise of future prosperity in exchange for present hardship, they’ve asked people to make sacrifices for a greater good that they would never live to see. It’s one thing to expect the generation who lived through and participated in a revolution to see the long game and have a sustainable ideological commitment to the cause, but it’s not realistic to expect their children’s children to have that same level of investment.
The point is this: 21st century socialist societies will have to be countries that people actually want to live in, now — not later. That’s why I think Khrushchev’s “thaw” and domestic policies (liberalization of the arts, raising material living standards to western levels, etc.) were largely correct. I think that the process of reform and opening up in China is intriguing and will possibly forge a new path in establishing a strong base from which to build socialism, without alienating its people. There are also a lot of changes occurring in Cuba; while some folks who have a dogmatic view of socialism (for or against) decry these changes as a “return to capitalism”, I see them as a creative way of building socialism that people actually want to live in that still fits within a Marxist-Leninist framework.
And yes, I do realize that 21st century Marxist-Leninist states did improve the material and often political living conditions of the proletariat; the fact that communists were improving people’s actual lives right now was the thing that converted me from an Anarchist to a Marxist in the first place. But I can’t look at what went down in Germany, Tiananmen Square, etc. in the late 80’s/early 90’s and hand-wave that all away as a conspiracy, mass delusion, or whatever. Obviously there were a lot of people that thought something was missing, and the fact that the communists couldn’t deliver led to disastrous counter-revolution.
Let’s be real. At the end of the day, people want nice things. Material things, or “consumer goods” you might call them. People want to be entertained. People don’t want to be thrown in the GULAG. We, as Marxist-Leninists, are materialists who strive toward communism — a state of prosperity and full emancipation of the proletariat. It would be contradictory of us to scorn people for wanting to be prosperous and free since that’s what we claim to be fighting for. Communists in the 21st century will have to “deliver the goods” — figuratively and literally — now, not at some indefinite point far down the road when we’ll all be dead and buried.
I believe in the world revolution, but I also believe that it will be slow, and full of decades where nothing happens. In the mean time, life goes on. Communists in the 21st century will have to be champions of enriching people’s lives, now, not long after they’re dead.
Hammer & Icicle 