| NEWSNOTES Socialism And the Next Century
Prakash Karat A s the twentieth century ebbs away, there is a concerted campaign to present the century's history as the culmination of the final triumph of capitalism over socialism. The ideologues of capitalism have the immense resources of the global media to project their version of history which is as follows: The Russian revolution of 1917 was an aberration of history. The socialist State which emerged in the form of the Soviet Union was the antithesis of democracy and freedom. The rest of the history in the following decades is characterised as the drive of communism through totalitarian methods to spread its tentacles while the forces of democracy and freedom represented by the US and Western alliance fought back this grave danger to humanity and succeeded. The success is then attributed to the inherent superiority of capitalism and its version of political democracy.Such a depiction of history is more loud and dominant at present, because the last decade of the century has seen the end of the Soviet Union and the setbacks to the socialist forces. However, such a simplified and vulgarised history of the 20th century cannot withstand any deeper or objective scrutiny. It is necessary first of all to understand the origins and the basis of socialism. Socialism as an idea did not originate in the 20th century. By the end of the 19th century it had emerged as a full-fledged theory which was put to practical use in the development of the working class movement in Europe. Much before the growth of socialist ideas in Russia, German socialists had organised the Social Democratic Party led by well-known Marxists. As early as 1890 this party had acquired a mass character and polled 19.7 percent of the vote in the elections to parliament. By 1912 this mass working class party had emerged as the biggest political party in Germany polling 34.8 percent of the vote. All over Western Europe socialist oriented mass working class parties emerged in the last decade of the 19th century steadily winning adherents to the socialist cause. The October Revolution led by the Bolsheviks must be seen in the context of the
growing radicalisation of the working class in the capitalist countries and the success of
the revolutionary movement in Russia in breaking the weakest link in the chain of
imperialism. It is true that much of the 20th century has been dominated
by the clash of the two social systems and their ideologies. The struggle between
imperialism and socialism became the central contradiction of the 20th century
has been dominated by the clash of the two social systems and their ideologies. The
struggle between imperialism and socialism became the central contradiction of the 20th
century has been dominated by the clash of the two social systems and their
ideologies. The struggle between imperialism and socialism became the central
contradiction of the 20th century which provided the impetus for the major
currents of social transformation which the century experienced. There is a barrage of historical writings, cultural and media productions which would like to erase the tremendous achievements and gains for humanity due to the advances made by socialism in the last century. The crudest form in which socialism is maligned is by toting up the figures of human casualties suffered because of Communist revolutions. Thus, all that the Russian revolution is said to have produced is the loss of tens of millions of lives followed by gigantic casualties during the Chinese revolution. Socialism in the 20th century, according to this brand of writing, is nothing but a saga of genocide and mass murders. Capitalism precedes the establishment of socialism by atleast three centuries. If a catalogue of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by colonialism and imperialism spawned by the capitalist system is catalogued, then it would run into figures beyond imagination. The impact of rapacious colonial capitalism alone meant the wiping out of entire nations of indigenous people in South America and the West Indies to give one example. Under capitalism, slavery, an ancient institution in human society, got revived. Human beings became a commodity in the market place of western capitalism. It may be argued that these anti-human features of capitalism are well before the 20th century, and should not be discussed when we evaluate the 20th century. But even if we take stock of the 20th century alone, the most merciless slaughter in the two world wars was a product of capitalism turned into imperialism. The greatest evil produced in the 20th century was fascism. No other ideology produced by human society has touched such heights of cruelty and inhumanity. The intellectuals who paint capitalism in rosy colours, hide the fact that fascism was spawned by the most reactionary wing of the bourgeoisie -- whether it be in Italy, Germany or Japan. It cost the Soviet Union the lives of millions of its citizens and soldiers to throw back the Nazi hordes and smash Hitlerite Germany. Ironically, the best period for capitalism in Western Europe opened up after these tremendous sacrifices of the Soviet Union in destroying the Nazi regime. Those who are today adding up millions of deaths caused by the socialist system in the Soviet Union and China, do so in order to cover up what is actually happening in Russia after the restoration of capitalism. The death rate went up from 48.8 per thousand in 1990 to 84.1 in 1994. This means, tens of thousands of Russians have died in the 1990s as the country was thrown into the chaos and misery of rapacious capitalism. Usta Patnaik in a recent article has shown that the millions who were supposed to have died in the Chinese famine of 1959-61 calculated by western experts are vastly exaggerated. If the same norms are applied to Russia today, then such an analysis would show enormous loss of human lives within a decade in Russia. The dishonest attempt to tote up fabricated figures of those who have died due to "totalitarianism" is necessary to cover up the unprecedented achievements by socialism in the 20th century. Socialism in the 20th century led to the biggest advances in the well being for the biggest number of people ever recorded in history. Whether it be mass education and full employment, provision of food and health for citizens and collective effort to eradicate poverty -- both the Soviet Union and China have established a record which can never be matched by capitalism. The impact of socialism is not confined to those states which came under the socialist system alone. After the second world war, the entire capitalist world had to modify itself in order to survive the challenge of socialism. The welfare State which arose in Western Europe was a direct result of the socialist movement within these countries and the impact of the Soviet Union. Capitalism had to accept regulation through State intervention and this was the basis for the welfare state and the capitalist expansion which took place in the first quarter after the second world war. That period of capitalism is now over. By the last two decades of the 20th century, the regulation of capitalism stopped. A more ferocious deregulated laissez-faire type of capitalism became prevalent again. This occurred at a time when socialism was weakened and suffered setbacks in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Capitalism which is now riding high all over the world is more akin to the capitalism which entered the 20th century as a dominant imperialistic system which is seeking to aggressively colonised the world. At the end of the 20th century, the imperialist drive for globalisation has transformed capitalism in various ways. The rapid mobility of finance capital all around the world, imperialism's willingness to impose its hegemony by economic coercion and military force, the assaults on national sovereignty under the cover of globalisation and the use of the new information technology to reinforce its technological monopoly, are all creating new problems and threats for the peoples of the world. Side by side with this economic and technological changes, the global capitalist system attacks the cultural values of national and indigenous cultures with its powerful monopoly of the cultural and media channels. The fight against imperialism therefore has acquired new dimensions and imperatives. Whether it be the efforts to impose hegemony through the IMF-World Bank-WTO or the threats to national sovereignty and cultures, it is only socialism which can provide a coherent and viable base for building up resistance. The growth of ethnic and religious fundamentalism does not constitute a real challenge to imperialism even when it comes into conflict with imperialist hegemonistic efforts. In most cases imperialism is able to accommodate reactionary ethnic and religious movements and suborn them. In India too the BJP-RSS ideology leads to surrender to imperialist globalisation while enforcing a reactionary regime which is hospitable for imperialist capital. In the new century the fight against imperialist sponsored globalisation will be a dominant theme at least in the earlier decades of the century. Socialism which has been on the defensive has the reserves to marshal the resources for challenging this reactionary capitalism in the 21st century. In its quest for global hegemony the United States is already apprehensive of China which is the only major country which has experimented with socialism and survives. In the 21st century according to the Western experts, China will become an economic power comparable to the United States by 2015. The consequences of such a development are going to be significant for the course for world events. This is just one example of how the United States the seeming monopoly of global power is illusory. It will be impossible for the United States to sustain its role as a hegemonic imperialist power. Already far from being the "American century", the 20th century, particularly the latter half saw the decline of American power. It is only its military strength which has sustained its leadership of the imperialist alliance. Humanity enters the 21st century with capitalism unable to utilise the tremendous potential unleashed by the scientific and technological revolution to solve basic problems. Capitalism has led to the perpetuation of a world in which wealth gets increasingly concentrated amidst poverty. The assets of the 200 richest people of the world are more than the combined income of 41 per cent of the peoples of the world. Infact the assets of the three richest people are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries. It is amidst such concentration of wealth that one billion people cannot meet their basic consumption requirements and 840 million people are malnourished. The widening gulf between obscene wealth and mass poverty is now expressing itself at the international level in new forms of struggle and resistance. The demonstrations which took place at Seattle at the time of the WTO conference are indicative of this. While it is true that a large number of the demonstrations by workers and young people were concerned with the domestic concerns of the United States, underlying these protests were also a growing consciousness of the evils of imperialist globalisation. Socialism which has existed as a movement from the 19th century, which grew in strength and stature in the 20th century, will now have to develop further to meet the new challenges which are posed before humanity in the new millenium. The chequered development of capitalism itself shows that an alternative system to it will grow and mature over a protracted period of struggle and experimentation. The 21st century will be the arena for the unfolding of this continuing endeavour. |
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