Socialist answers to
the crisis:
An all-Europe approach The workers' movement used to have its models. No longer. This forces us to think but does not guarantee what the conclusions will be. There is a lot of discussion about history today, with anniversaries of the Russian Revolution and the French Revolution and challenges to the notion of any revolution. But we have to seize the opportunity offered by these beginnings of glasnost in history. It is becoming possible for the mass of the population to separate Stalinism from socialism, even if it is not very clear what socialism is. The interaction of progressive movements in resisting to what exists, to the political and economic order dictated by those on high in different parts of the world, can come together to forge a new internationalist consciousness and reject the false answers of a solution to the crisis which stabilizes actually existing social relations. The East-West battle for another Europe could be a decisive step in this sense. False alternatives Gorbachov is proposing that we build a "European home" together. He is discovering the interdependence of economy, that is the impossibility of building socialism in one country and the problems of self-sufficiency. He is
138 International Marxist Review discovering other obvious things: the ecological and nuclear threats which affect the whole of humanity, which must therefore be dealt with and resolved at a world-wide level. Our agreement with him stops at this point. Contrary to the new Soviet orthodoxy, there is not yet, unfortunately, a "human civilization" worthy of the name, over and above social classes and systems. Nor is there a universal "economic law" which is the fate of human beings, other than the banality that it is impossible to use more material and human resources than actually exist.The discussion starts after noting this banality: how can such resources best be used, to satisfy which needs, in a really "civilized" fashion? Can we swim against the stream in the ocean of the world market, and subordinate trade to the conscious choice of other social relations? Can the same house be built on other foundations? And what are the foundations proposed by the different sides?
The truth is that today in the Soviet Union they hope to put a bit of commercial cement into the shaky scaffolding of bureaucratic planning. The parallel criticism of the welfare state and the protection of administrative planning leads to the same value given to private initiative and the market. Nothing solid can be built on these foundations which give some the responsibility of excluding millions of others.
In return, it is essential for the future to break with the false alternative which paralyses all real socialist solutions to the two crises: the pseudochoice between bureaucratic planning (with its waste and repression) and the market (and freedom). Socialism has nothing to do with the repression of individual and collective initiative. It is the opposite of the "all-powerful state", or the retrograde bureaucratic plan which decides everything, camouflages waste and protects parasites. But we will never judge that wastage with the criteria and the mechanisms of capitalism. For capitalism, empty pockets do not count, the "labour factor" is a thing which "combines with lower-cost machines", unemployment is what makes it possible to increase productivity and efficiency is shown by prices. And freedom is for the stronger on the backs of the others. Capitalist Europe is and will be all that.
If we want to break with false alternatives, we have to show that the radical struggle for freedom, for full employment and social solidarity can be born from a new economic efficiency measured in the leisure time freed up, the unpleasant work eliminated, by greater skills for all, based on the workers' skills and giving them personal satisfaction, stimulating individual and collective responsibility both against the dictatorship of the market and that of the bureaucracy, allowing those immediately concerned to have a direct judgement on the techniques used, on the national resources which must also be
Socialist answers to the crisis: an all-Europe approach 139 protected, on the major options of "civilization". In other words, economic rationality has to be redefined on the basis of a reformation of the very nature of work, thus systematically challenging the systems which oppose such a civilization. How can this be done? Time for recomposition The traditional references of the organizations of the workers' movement in the West have been shaken up and they are in seeking to redefine them. The Communist Parties are both strengthened and destabilized by Gorbachovism: the Soviet Union is less off-putting — and that is all the better — but the social-democratism of big brother, the toning down of "class struggle" language, the economic policy which favours the market and private initiative in the USSR obviously poses problems. For the social democrats, Atlanticism is no longer worth it, the motor role of the United States continues, but in a destabilizing way for reformist policies. The attractive power of Gorbachov — and of a market in the East which is more open to Western capital — is the counterpart of the growing disillusion in the United States as a contributor to growth.
There is room for a vigorous and unitive offensive in direction of the whole of the workers' movement, the European pacifist and ecologist movement, young people, women, workers in the new bodies they are creating to defend themselves and establish new forms of solidarity. Western reformism and Gorbachov both come up against the logic of market competition for austerity, source of social tensions that are not very propitious to reforms. The crisis of the welfare state is also a greater incentive to count more on the self-activity of the masses. What's new in Eastern Europe: the grass roots Gorbachov, by his reliance on an opening up, is increasingly feeding the movements among young people and the intelligentsia in Eastern Europe which are looking to the West for the means to resist bureaucratism. These movements first developed on the questions of ecology, pacifism and human rights in general. The naive vision, the colossal illusions about the nature of Western civilization are still fed by the disasters of a one-party system which calls itself socialist. The new official Gorbachov speeches will not clarify anything. The idea that the market can resolve everything is equally massively wide-spread; except that, pragmatically, we can see the social problems of the
140 International Marxist Review market reforms and the workers' resistance to them. The idea that bureaucratic blockage is bound to push the mass of the workers onto the side of reforms is having an impact. Particularly as the power Solidarnosc had — and the Polish workers' capacity of resistance — can be measured in comparison with the marginal situation of the dissident groups looking to governments to make the Helsinki agreement respected in the 1970s.
The internal crisis in the USSR makes "normalization" through economic aid an impossible option for big brother. The need for détente to undertake reforms in the USSR and to benefit from world trade also make the sending in of tanks more politically and economically costly. All this encourages the idea that a Soviet intervention would now be, if not impossible, at least very unlikely, because it would in any case be an adventure where the Soviet regime would lose out. Thus the proliferation of grass-roots political and social initiatives in Eastern Europe as well as in the Soviet Union itself → and the growing efforts for coordinating them and linking them up with popular movements in the West. But then it is the problem of what programme is likely to win the support of the different populations which takes on more importance. Starting from the twin crises This is why we have to start from the crisis of the two systems (and the different attempts to reform them) to build something else, to be convincing. We must avoid at all costs the historic thaw taking place in the Soviet Union leading to a historic failure: the Yugoslav mess on a colossal scale, deeply demoralizing for the generations to come. We have to base ourselves on glasnost, encouraging a look back at history with a thorough discussion on failures and their causes, to lead us to an understanding of history and make it possible to make choices. It is a question of restarting the building of socialism, impossible in a single country, on a European scale. The resistance to market competition, to its logic of individual risk, of mass unemployment, of deepening gaps, of equalling the social advantages won during the growth period at the lowest level, can in the last resort only be victorious at the international level. The resistance to bureaucratism can in turn feed strong European traditions from the Paris Commune to the workers' councils in Hungary and Poland, from women's struggles to the youth movements, the democratic gains that have to be preserved and extended against the logic of profit. And because economic and cultural interdependence are getting closer there is a real European question.
Socialist answers to the crisis: an all-Europe approach 141
It was said that the French experience in 1981 ran into the "external con-
. Capitalist Europe will come up against very great regional and national economic, social, political and cultural inequalities. Symmetrical problems will be posed for COMECON, because the market unification and bureaucratic unification are both sources of inequality and oppression even if
It is realism, and not utopianism, to aim for a Europe that is economically integrated, respecting cultural differences but consciously reducing the economic and social differences, bringing them into line at the highest, and not the lowest level, as the market would do. To start from the most popular aspirations, from the most pressing needs felt on all sides of the borders, to draw up a single charter of social, political, cultural rights, against all oppression, against all waste, and for respect and the best use of natural and human
Such a Charter would have a universal vocation and would address the peoples of the whole world. But it could intially be European because one has to start
The existing systems have to be exposed for what they are, country by country — discussing their good points and their bad — and proposing the generalization of the most advanced social legislation and freedoms. These should become real democratic rights. People's control of ecology and the denuclearization of Europe would be integrated into a broader set of discussions and activity around the major options and criteria for investment on a continent- wide scale. The massive reduction of work time applied simultaneously would in turn be a condition for redefining trading relations and a new division of labour ensuring full employment and the transformation of work itself as the
An all-Europe front struggling on these issues could integrate a last aspect:
solidarity with the poor and indebted countries in the world. It could counterpose democratic control over aid given, on condition of a redistribution of wealth to the profit of the people, to the diktats of the IMF which make dramatic and totally ineffective austerity a condition of negotiations. This goes for the third world and for the small countries in Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia. And this would in practice be counter-posed to the logic of giving (or
Gorbachov's appeal for a broad conference on human rights should be outstraint"
in different ways.
resources.
somewhere... and the problem of Europe is posed.
first democratic human right.
withholding) bureaucratic aid by the Soviet Union.
For an all-Europe Human Rights Charter
142 International Marxist Review done. A people's Helsinki implies the creation of international commissions bringing together representatives of all the "informal", trade-union, humanitarian, political party components from East and West. None should be excluded if they are ready to struggle together on these sets of demands as redefined from below and commit themselves to fight for them to be recognized as rights and really applied. There does not have to be an agreement on the definition of "socialism" nor an understanding as to why it is incompatible with capitalism in order to agree with such a Charter of Rights. The obstacles — profit, private property, bureaucratism — will appear of their own accord and will have to be removed.
This could be the outline for a socialist answer to the European challenge.
But, comes the question, are we in a position to do this? There are an increasing number of contributions from Eastern Europe that could be used. Former leaders of the Prague Spring, expelled from their country, are contributing their thinking and their demands to the international discussions on "the left and the future of Europe" organized by social democracy. Proposals have been made, particularly by Jiri Pelikan to the European Parliament, to establish funds to develop all forms of East-West collaboration. Meetings between ecological and pacifist organizations have also increased. The organizations of the workers' movement should for example support the proposal of a European parliament for peace and democracy, composed of non-governmental organizations sited in Prague. It would be perfectly possible in such meetings to give a practical content to democratic demands and aspirations for peace: for direct and not simply parliamentary democracy; for a struggle against the inequalities which undermine democracy; for the complete elimination of the causes of war. The objections from Poland and Czechoslovakia to movements which fight for "peace" without posing the question of the freedoms necessary to guarantee it could be broadened. There cannot be peace where ideas and initiatives are repressed, and nor can there be social peace, or any peace at all and democracy where there is growing unemployment and poverty in the world including in the heartlands of the richest countries. This is how it would be possible to relate to what is already happening, not with abstract "ideological" seeming divisions but by starting from the important values of solidarity, which are what count faced with the crisis of society.
This is the only credible logic. This is why we have to think, act and fight in this direction.
• European bourgeoisie crisis of leadership - Ernest Mandel
• What social dimension to 1992? - Claude Gabriel
• The European workers' movement and 1992 - Livio Maitan
• Socialist answers to the crisis-Europe wide - Catherine Verla
İNTERNATiENAL MARXIST REVIEW
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Vol.4, No.l
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Spring 1989
• Stages in European integration - Pierre Bron
• Europe and women's rights - Penny Duggan