We publish here a text on the period of transition; it was written for the conference held in Arezzo in June, 2024 by a member and a sympathiser of Internationalist Perspective. The subject of the period of transition has not been given the attention it is due by the revolutionary milieu in recent years and we hope to receive further contributions.
THE REVOLUTION AND BEYOND
1. Is the idea of a ‘period of transition’ to be jettisoned?
The great transformation of social relations all over the world during the revolutionary period will take a certain amount of time – how much time remains to be seen. But the notion of a distinct “period of transition,” characterized by a lower and higher stage of communism as Marx described in the Critique of the Gotha Program, is a concept that is now an impediment to revolutionary understanding.
According to Marx, the law of value would persist in the lower stage of communism, and only in the higher stage of communism would “society wholly cross the narrow horizon of bourgeois right and inscribe on its banner, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’” The German-Dutch left tried to theorize a way to supposedly circumvent the law of value in the lower stage by using labor-time accounting with individual labor vouchers, but without success. The value-form would still prevail in their model and hold back social development toward communism. As IP has maintained, the idea of labor vouchers is not the way forward and if we use the calculation of labor time, as well as any modified wage system, we will be borne back ceaselessly to the past of value production. Rationing seems like a better choice not least because it is not a calculation based on individual labor.
Communization theory, a relatively new development, holds that the value-form and labor linked to it must be abolished by the revolution itself and not left as the culmination point of the period of transition. Agreeing with this, MacIntosh wrote, “What must be immediately abolished is the reduction of human activity to abstract labor and its measurement by socially necessary labor time” (IP 57, 2012). In other words, production must be for human needs, “bodily, communal, intellectual, and creative.” And the decision-making process belongs to the producers, which is the hallmark of human ‘work’ as opposed to alienated ‘labor.’ In this process, the proletariat by abolishing capital and labor transforms itself and its relation to nature and science. MacIntosh sees the logic of capitalist crisis itself creating the basis for communization, but, as he asserts, this needs further explanation. In addition, although there are some sectors that can be socialized right away, his critique of the communization movement was the difficulty in seeing the role of consciousness in the transformation of society. It won’t happen of its own momentum and there may be in this current an underestimation of the danger of missteps and indecision. Theoretical clarity requires more work. Communization theory opens a door to understanding that should be pursued.
2. What about ‘democracy’?
The concept of democracy is not the exclusive property of the capitalist state and parliamentarism. The sham democracy of the bourgeoisie does not mean “the rule of the majority” at all but the rule of a minority exploiting class. There can be no democracy with power in the hands of the few. However, eliminating the word ‘democracy’ because it is tainted is as absurd as eliminating ‘communism’ because of Stalinism or for that matter, the word ‘revolution.’ The rule of the majority, within the framework of the struggle, is the mode of functioning of the collective worker and has been throughout history, from strike committees to the Commune, to workers councils: no violence within the working class and its organs, the workers councils. And, we can add, no dictatorship of a party in the councils. “Rather than recount the sad history of the rejection of democracy for the working class from Kronstadt onward, let us point to the theoretical bases for a proletarian concept of democracy.” IP 56, ‘Does Capital Own Democracy? –Their Democracy and Ours’ p.12. Within the working class, decision-making can only be the result of consciousness and therefore of convincing – in other words, revolutionary solidarity.
3. The dictatorship of the proletariat?
The concept embodied in the idea of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ is crucial for the transformation of society. Although it’s possible that the term has outlived its usefulness, the concept behind it is still essential.
If the law of value is to be destroyed as a basis for social production, only the collective worker can find the way – not through Stakhanovite production quotas to feed the hungry, not through political pressure. If the transition to socialism means anything, it must be the product of the working class producing to satisfy its human needs. This is why the dictatorship of the proletariat, or using other words, the absolute primacy of the working class is so essential in this period.
The dictatorship of the proletariat meant that the working class should not share power with any other non-exploiting strata after the revolution; the proletariat alone, with its self-transformation, can lead the way to communism. The workers councils cannot be overruled by the state or anything else in the revolutionary period.
Will there be a state in the revolutionary period? Yes, because states are an emanation of class society. But this state will not be the capitalist state which must be destroyed; neither is it a workers’ state although the workers’ councils must interface/interact with it while maintaining their dominance over it. The aim of this state, whether we will it or not, is to preserve the status quo, the existing mode of production, in this case a transitional production, while the task of the proletariat must be to constantly revolutionize the status quo. The state representing all non-exploiting strata and people, even if the former exploiting class has been disarmed and contained, is the biggest danger to the collective proletariat and must never be identified with it. The state is not us. The revolutionary class must hold control over the state until the law of value and all oppressive social relations are abolished. As IP has pointed out, although petty producers and the peasantry were very big obstacles to the 1917 revolutionary wave, today the development of capitalism globally and of state capitalism everywhere has greatly diminished these strata. However, the huge numbers of people thrown out of the productive process, unable to integrate the productive forces, the homeless, unemployed, and others, victims of famine, disease, and war, will need time to become integrated into the new social relations. These non-exploiting strata, ground down by capitalism’s permanent crisis, will surely have a sincere and active anti-capitalist revulsion against the capitalist class and sympathy for the revolution. But it will be a balancing act, a delicate trajectory, to allow representation in the state and yet ensure working-class control. Only class consciousness can lead the way to the future and not the state. In the previous revolutionary wave in Russia, in the territorial soviets, the workers were represented by one delegate per 25,000 workers while the other strata had one to 125,000 and this was not enough to ensure hegemony to the working class (even aside from the usurpation of the party). Considering the possible needs of the revolutionary period, the working class cannot be pressured by the state into forced labor in order to feed the hungry of the world because that will never lead to socialism. And yet the world must be fed. The workers councils must maintain their autonomy from the state, the autonomy of their decision-making, as they themselves cease to be proletarians. If the state in class society is not synonymous with the exploiting class, the ruling class, how can it in any way be identified with a non-exploiting class like the working class? Just as there is no proletarian economy, no proletarian culture, and no proletarian society, there is no proletarian state. It may be time to rethink the words of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as long as the issues involved are clear and not lost in the fantasyland of an easy revolutionary landscape.
Marlowe and JA
June 2024