More Opinions

You are in > Opinions

Opinions

by Haiman El Troudi and Juan Carlos Monedero / February 20th 2007

Hindsights for the new socialism

President Chávez's former Chief of Staff Haiman El Troudi, and Spanish political analyst Juan Carlos Monedero, argue that while 21st Century Socialism maintains the emancipatory yearnings of 20th Century socialisms, it must learn from history in order to avoid repeating previous mistakes.

Juan Carlos Monedo (centre) with Venezuela's former Vice President José Vicente Rangel (right)

The triumph of the Soviet Revolution in 1917 gave the world a reference point for socialism, showing its advantages and disadvantages. Although the Revolution led by Lenin brought with it a democratising explosion around the world, it was not able to resolve certain bottle-necks that appeared from the very beginning. We must remind those who now want to limit the history of the USSR to the Black Book of Communism that:

1) Without Soviet pressure, the European social state would not have been conceivable, and

2) Russia would not have left the feudalism it was in during the early 20th Century so quickly and with so much success had it not been for the Soviet Revolution, which brought bread, education, work and health to millions of human beings.

Historical and political explanations of the Soviet Revolution, especially regarding the distortion of the enlightening socialist process, are numerous, placing the emphasis on what each one understands as the most essential elements a society must have. Therefore we find the following explanations: a lack of popular participation; the failure to convert the state into an authentic civil society (the enemy of the state became an enemy of the people), bureaucracy and corruption, a lack of social control, statism, errors in planning, a failure to create incentives, pressure from capitalist countries... On the whole, a sort of mixture of all these reasons turned the existing socialism into a regime which the peoples of these countries were not prepared to fight for when, after some slips, they started to fall.

The European socialist parties tried to construct a democratic socialism which incorporated socialism’s egalitarian discourse, and which differed from the Soviets’ disrespect of formal democracy. But social-democracy, whilst playing within the rules of capitalism, could only reproduce its errors: prolongation of exploitation, participation in neo-colonial or imperialist wars in search of international surplus, deterioration of the environment, mutation of the social and democratic state based on the rule of law to a state at the service of the global interests of big companies.

Other attempts at building socialist experiences around the world in the 20th century have also encountered varying stages of success and failure. For a variety of reasons, all attempts at socialism were forced to draw new paths based on the evolution of history. The enormous pressure applied by the western world and especially by the United States, does not allow the easy evaluation of the successes and failures of these models, especially in zones that for centuries were dominated and condemned to poverty.

The socialist countries of Europe and the Americas encountered a reality that was not defined in the [classical socialist] manuals. The drive to implement reforms before a transforming revolution had taken root, applied a brake on the development of socialism in those countries. At the same time as some social gains were being achieved, the corrupt and bureaucratic inefficiency of many socialist governments proliferated. The absence of control mechanisms, both social and institutional, was affecting every sphere of the system (economical, scientific, cultural, political and legal). New oligarchies led by socialist ruling leaders or their families replaced the capitalist oligarchies. After the 1970s the ideal of equality and improvement of the living conditions of the majority dozed off along with their governing leaders. The noble spirit that served to bring countries under feudalism into modernity, the courage that defeated Nazism, the generosity that unfolded in so many places around the world, gave way to inefficiency, gerontocracy, militarism and the widespread social apathy.

Nevertheless, it is evident that only the pressure from the Soviet Revolution made social-democratic reformism possible. The European dominant classes, pressured by the Soviet example, had to yield to and negotiate with their workers. The current dismantling of the welfare state, even in countries like Germany, Spain and France; the direct or indirect participation of social-democracy in the invasion of Iraq; the non-compliance with the Kyoto Protocol or the exploitation of immigrants are signs of the exhaustion of the social-democratic model, even when it is managed by socialists in government.

For all the reasons outlined, it is not possible to construct socialism in this new century unless a critical distancing from the socialisms of the 20th Century takes place.

Extracted from the book Social Production Companies. An instrument for
21st Century Socialism. The book can be downloaded in Spanish here:
http://www.rebelion.org/docs/43743.pdf

Article translated from Spanish by James Walsh and Rafael Lafuente