The International Situation and State of CommunismBy Mansoor Hekmat
Interoduction
Two Decisive Trends
The Crisis of Bourgeois Socialisms
The Failure of the State-Capitalist Models
The Ideological and Political Dimensions of the Crisis
Worker-communism: Potentials and ObstaclesThe events of the last few years in the sphere of international economy and politics are undoubtedly stunning. The most important of these, which is still in progress, is the fundamental turns made in the Soviet Union, and, intimately connected with this, in the relations of imperialist powers. The agreements over the reduction of nuclear arms and the change in the position of the USSR on the international scene are only some manifestations of these developments. Fundamental changes have taken place in the ranks of the whole international bourgeoisie on the question of the role of the state in capitalist economy. The diverse models of state-capitalism and state intervention in the economy, not only in Eastern Europe but in all the industrial societies, have been subjected to revision. Important developments are about to take place in the international centres of crisis and conflict - in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The economic development strategy of the fifties and sixties in countries under imperialist domination has failed and for the majority of these countries the problem of development has turned into one of economic survival. Not only the 'liberation' movements but also the countries where such movements came to power have resorted to an unprecedented shift towards the West. Socialism and Marxism are losing their influence as the ideological cover of independence and 'anti-imperialist' struggles. In Western Europe and North America, Social Democracy and the Left wing of the bourgeoisie as a whole have slipped into a deep ideological and programmatic crisis. They are engaged in revising the fundamentals of their political and economic outlook and methods and making a structural and fundamental shift to the right. The power of the trade unions in these countries has declined dramatically. The crisis of the 'state form' in countries under imperialist domination, a characteristic of the world of the late seventies and early eighties, has gradually, against a background of increasing compromises between the imperialist powers, begun to subside. The bourgeoisie in the dominated countries has come to enjoy a greater room for action and greater political independence, etc.
None of these developments has occurred out of the blue. Many could clearly be seen even three years ago. They are all rooted in the development of capitalism in the post- war period, being the result of more lasting and fundamental trends. But what has become manifest in the recent period - this being essentially connected with the developments in the USSR - is that these changes, as a whole, are leading to an irreversible and completely new situation. We are witnessing fundamental changes in the economic, political and ideological profile of the capitalist world; changes which will have profound effects on the life and struggle of the working class and the conditions and requirements of the struggle for communist revolution.
The present situation vindicates two basic facts:
1. The staggering growth of capitalism in the last few decades and the immense revolution which has taken place in the productive capacities of society, on the one hand, and the enormous dimension of the hardship that is the lot of the labouring and propertyless masses in the same world on a scale running into hundreds of millions, on the other, have objectively turned communism into a real, realisable and imperative way to salvation for the entire humanity.
2. Bourgeois communisms and bourgeois socialisms, in all their offshoots and sects, have reached an impasse and are in their last throes. This impasse and collapse, however, is taking place not under the pressure of radical, worker socialism, which at present lacks social coherence and power, but in the face of the offensive of the Right wing of the international bourgeoisie. The degeneration and disintegration of bourgeois socialisms, whether in the form of the Chinese and Soviet experience, the fate of Social Democracy and Eurocommunism, or the anti-imperialist populism in countries under imperialist domination, in the immediate term leads not to the strengthening of worker socialism but to the political and ideological coherence of the bourgeoisie against socialism and workers' revolution.
Thus at no other time has the contradiction between the need of society for communist revolution, the ripeness of the conditions of production for building the society based on common ownership, and the total absence of the organised political force for undertaking this transformation, been so glaring.
The colossal development of capitalism in the post-war years is evident enough. The rapid growth of technology, the electronic and informational revolution in the recent decades, the unprecedented expansion of the application of robots and computerised systems in production and distribution point to the quantitative dimensions of this development. But the more fundamental reality lies in the extension of capitalist relations of production to the backward countries and the ex-colonies, the recruiting of hundreds of millions of people into the wage-labour market, and the integration of factors of production and the consumption-market in these countries into the world capitalist system. This massive development of capitalism and the radical changes that this has necessitated in the political and economic organisation of the bourgeoisie on the international scale is in fact the root cause of all the developments which have taken place at political and ideological levels and in the internal relations of different sections of the bourgeoisie. In the non-worker Left frame of thought, this reality is either denied, being depreciated behind phraseology about the chronic crisis of capitalism in the '70s and '80s, or is used to spread despair on the perspective of socialism and to justify postponing the socialist revolution to a more remote future. From the viewpoint of workers' revolution, however, the same reality signifies the existence of more favourable conditions for the socialist transformation. The conflict between labour and capital has today patently turned into the force spurring the social movements in the whole world and has already stamped its mark on every political conflict of our era.
The development of capitalism is accompanied by the strengthening of the political weight of the working class. The working class internationally has attained a far stronger position in production and, consequently, potentially in politics. This may seem surprising to those who take the mentality of the Left and the situation of the trade union movement in Europe as their point of reference, those who are bound up by the short- sightedness of Social Democracy and university Marxism in Europe. We are told that along with the modernisation of production, the decline of traditional heavy industry, such as steel and coal, and the rapid growth of services, the numerical weight of the proletariat in the whole population has decreased; that the trade unions have lost their influence and power; that the labour movement has been overshadowed by the peace, ecology, etc. movements; that parties with a working class base such as Social Democracy and Eurocommunism are losing their parliamentary seats and are engaged in redefining their social identity and revising the notions which in one way or another related socialism to the working class; that even the pro- Soviet parties are now openly endorsing this Social Democratic orientation. We are told that working-class politics, worker socialism and class struggle are now obsolete and outmoded concepts.
It is amazing that the idea of struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the labour-capital conflict should be applicable to nineteenth century capitalism, to the capitalism of the age of the steam engine, the capitalism confined to a handful of European countries, but should have lost relevance to a world in which capital has reached out to the farthest corners of Africa and Asia, the world of giant production units and multinational companies, a world in which the production process of a single commodity links hundreds of factories and enterprises and millions of workers in various continents to each other! The numerical percentage of the proletariat, the wage-earning worker, in modern production has not only not decreased but being a proletarian has become the way of life for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. The whole social conflict in the last decade in the advanced Europe and United States itself, as Thatcherism, Reaganism and Monetarism, etc. testify, has been over none other than raising the productivity of the very proletariat whose decline bourgeois socialism has pronounced. In all the countries under imperialist domination the emergence of a large working class in the last two decades has transformed the economic composition and the traditional political equations in society. The political crises, turbulences and revolutions in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Korea, the Philippines, South Africa and Iran are all rooted in this fundamental reality. These are turbulences stemming from the adjustment of the traditional political superstructure of these societies to the emergence of a massive working class which is voicing its demands with increasing clarity and power.
From the viewpoint of the working class and the cause of worker socialism, this general trend of the development of capitalism has, without doubt, created much more favourable objective conditions. The proletarian ranks have swelled and for the great majority of the labouring masses all over the world proletarian identity has taken priority over national, ethnic and racial identity. On the other hand, the immense growth of technology and the productive forces of humanity, the extent of socialisation and internationalisation of production, and the striking advances brought about by the electronic revolution in communications, information, data collection and assessment, etc., have made the creation of a society based on common ownership and collective control over the means of production and the labour process, conscious production on the basis of the needs of citizens, and the creation of a truly international human society, an immediately realisable and accessible objective.
The Crisis of Bourgeois Socialisms
All the same, the political and ideological situation of the present period is indicative of the numerous difficulties standing in the way of the workers' revolution. In the first place, there has been a serious political and ideological regression involving the entire actually existing socialist movements. This regression, which in reality is rooted in the economic advances of contemporary capitalism, is characterised by the political and theoretical bankruptcy of all bourgeois socialisms. It may be asked how it is that the defeat of bourgeois socialism can be considered a negative development from the viewpoint of the working class. Is not worker communism itself aiming to smash and drive to dead end the bourgeois socialism and pseudo-Marxism which has so restrained the workers' revolutionary movement? Should not the present impasse of non- proletarian socialisms be seen as an important step forward? No doubt every advance of worker communism and every expression by the working class under the banner of revolutionary socialism would amount to the isolation and the weakening of influence of bourgeois socialism. Again, there is no doubt that in a historical long-term the inability of the bourgeoisie in appropriating the slogan and ideals of socialism will facilitate the cause of worker socialism. But that does not mean that every setback of non-proletarian socialism is necessarily tantamount, immediately and automatically, to the strengthening of worker communism. Especially in the present case it is not at all so. The important point here is to analyse the concrete situation under which this regression of non-proletarian socialism has taken place. What we are witnessing today is a universal turn, on a social scale, to the Right, the impasse of the quasi-socialist reformism of the Left wing of the bourgeoisie in the face of the objective economic developments, in the face of the offensive of the New Right. Before we consider the difficulties that this regression places in the way of communism and workers' revolution, it is necessary to review briefly the main factors contributing to this crisis.
The Failure of the State-Capitalist Models
The '80s has seen the economic and political failure of models based on extensive state intervention in capitalist economy. Today, even the left wing of the bourgeoisie in the advanced industrialised countries - Social Democracy and Eurocommunism - has retreated from the policy of wide-scale state intervention in the capitalist market. Gorbachevism has sounded the trumpet of this retreat in the cradle of state-capitalism. In the less-developed countries, too, the attempts of the bourgeoisie to develop the national economy through state-capitalism have failed entirely. This retreat is the result of the entry of the capitalism of the present era into a period in which the conditions which necessitated the intervention of the state aimed at limiting the operation of the capitalist market have disappeared, making this policy itself a restrictive factor in the accumulation process. The centralisation and concentration of capital and the rise of monopolies have been major factors which, historically, have increased the role of the state as an active economic institution and a means for regulating the economic metabolism. Even in the most competitive capitalist economies today, the state has a very important and recognised function. And the whole new conservative onslaught cannot, and is not supposed to, return the situation to the free competition era. What we call the failure of state-capitalist models is the bankruptcy of quasi-socialist models which tried to harness and direct market laws and mechanisms with the help of state intervention and/or planning. The present period is witnessing the indisputable victory of the market and their advocates. At the most general level three factors which enhanced the role of the state in capitalist economy in the twentieth century can be recognised:
1. For a time the Russian revolution provided a successful model of state-economy. During the whole inter- war period, while Western Europe was hit by crisis and depression, the state-economy of the Soviet Union enjoyed very rapid growth, raising her from the position of a second-rate country in Europe into a huge economic and military power. Although these developments were taking place under the name of socialism, it was clear for the whole bourgeoisie, and in particular for the bourgeoisie in countries having a more or less similar position as that of the Soviet Union, that this country was providing a model of capitalist development by state direction and initiative. Many of the schemes in planning and economic calculation drawn up in the Soviet Union were quickly taken up by the West, becoming a component of bourgeois economic science.
2. The inter-war economic recession, the economic mobilisation during the Second World War and the post- war reconstruction efforts in Western Europe brought the state into economic activity on a large scale. After the war, state intervention was explicitly theorised as the only way of accelerating growth and capital accumulation. The conflict between factions of the bourgeoisie was essentially focused over the two alternatives: market or state? In the '50s and '60s, along with the rise in national income in countries of capitalist Western Europe, the Welfare State, which required an increase in the power of the state in the economy, became the official ideology of the state.
3. From the late '50s the question of economic development of the backward countries and newly independent colonies was widely taken up at the international level. The development of capitalism and an internal market, and the objective of an independent national economic dynamism, constituted the economic ideal of the national ism of the growing bourgeoisie of these countries. This nationalism and its economic perspective had, until the recent period, formed the dominant ideology of any non-proletarian progressiveness in countries under imperialist domination; it had been the hallmark of radicalism, revolutionism, and even socialism in these countries. From the late '50s a certain strategy for development became popular among the intelligentsia of these countries. This strategy has been based on forming independent national states, state support for the domestic market and the playing of a direct and major role by the state in creating an economic infrastructure. The vital function of the state in economic development was stressed not only by the radical factions, which were largely under the influence of the development pattern in the USSR and its proposed models, but even by conservative nationalists. The '60s and '70s were the years of testing the development strategy based on state planning and the policy of import substitution by a large spectrum of states with diverse political tendencies.
Great changes have taken place in the past few years in all these trends. The root cause for these changes should be looked for in the technological revolution of the '70s and '80s. In the Soviet Union, the limitations of state-capitalism were revealed. History showed that the Soviet capitalist model had been appropriate for a particular period in the life of the backward capitalist societies where priority was the creation of economic infrastructure and heavy industries, the mobilisation of labour force and the production of surplus-value through the ever greater recruiting of the population into the wage-labour market. But with the depletion of the labour-force reserve, with the growing of the necessity of assimilating modern technology for the production of relative surplus-value, and with the increase in the diversity of consumer needs, such a system is practically reaching a dead end. The Soviet economy, following the long recession of the Brezhnev era, must necessarily give in to fundamental changes towards a free market mechanism so as to be able to absorb the technological advances of the recent decades and thereby bridge the huge gap which has developed between its economic performance and that of Western Europe and the USA. Perestroika is the watchword of the retreat of statism, in the political and economic sphere, before the market - a retreat which will transform Soviet society and her position on the international scene.
In Western Europe the bourgeoisie has begun putting great efforts into raising labour productivity and restructuring capital in favour of productive capital. The first step in this policy, which has been most explicitly stated in the platform of the Conservative factions and put into practice, is to try to restrict state intervention in the economy and widen the scope of action of private capital and the market mechanism. Despite earlier notions, the offensive by the New Right was not a tactical and junctural move. Rather, the new Conservatism succeeded not only to take significant steps towards strengthening the private sector and liquidating the institutions and methods of Welfare Capitalism, but to practically change the ideological balance in the European countries in its own favour. Not only could Social Democracy, the initiator of the Welfare State and the staunch advocate of state intervention, not withstand these fundamental economic and ideological developments, but in effect accepted a significant part of the platform of the right.
In countries under imperialist domination the independent development strategy came to a dead end. The technological revolution in Europe and the USA once again highlighted the old problem of the economic development of the backward countries, namely the problem of technology transfer and capital shortage. The nationalist ideas based on economic development by import substitution and relying on efficient home technology proved fruitless. The gulf between the advanced industrialised countries and the less-developed countries grew wider. Impoverishment, famine and debt have become the hallmark of most of the dominated countries, so much so that the incapability of the debtor countries to pay their debts to international financial institutions has become a threat to the entire world capitalist system. Countries such as Mozambique, Angola and even Vietnam where liberation and anti-imperialist movements with a state-economy perspective and support from the Soviet Union came to power, have not been exceptions to this rule. The strategy of national economic development, both in its conservative and pro-Western form, and in its radical form, has failed. Amidst all this, the Newly Industrialised Countries in East Asia, whose development pattern, measured by the criteria of nationalist doctrines of development in the last two decades, would certainly have been labelled imperialist and dependent, are going through a different experience and have enjoyed a high and steady growth rate. In these countries, where the private sector and foreign capital have great room for action, industrial production has rapidly expanded and they have definitely left the vicious circle of underdevelopment. Thus, along with the bankruptcy of the old models of development, the imperialist development strategy relying on Western capital has acquired a greater acceptability among the bourgeoisie of countries under imperialist domination.
In view of all these trends, the leaders of the European bourgeoisie have already proclaimed the victory of the market over state. The ex-advocates of the various models of state economy have retreated. The right wing of the bourgeoisie is coherent and the left wing is disarrayed, straining to reconstruct its programmatic, political and ideological bases. Whatever the next perspective of the left wing of the bourgeoisie may be, it is already certain that state and state-economy will not have the same place in it.
The Ideological and Political Dimensions of the Crisis
The dead end of the state-interventionist perspective is a fatal blow to the bourgeois socialism of our era in all its branches and offshoots. Reducing socialism to state-economy and the attempt to overcome the contradictions of capitalism with the help of state intervention in various forms constitute the common content of all non-proletarian socialisms, from Soviet Revisionism and Social Democracy, to Eurocommunism, Trotskyism, Maoism and populism. Today, it is precisely the common content of these trends which has been declared bankrupt. The scheme, which was supposed to eliminate the contradictions of the existing capitalism, has itself, with the growth of this very capitalism, fallen into contradiction, being pushed to the margins by competition and market. This inevitably gives rise to a profound identity and political crisis in these currents. The situation of China and the Soviet Union, the predicament of Social Democracy, and the troubled state of the liberation movements and the so-called radical states in the dominated countries attest to this crisis. This socialism has lost its economic orientation, and together with this, its whole social cause. It lacks perspective, solution, alternative and even a desire to hold a position of power. With the loss of the statist economic model and social system, the progressiveness, or 'revolutionism' of these socialisms has become meaningless and bankrupt. Even in the struggle for reforms, they lack a defined policy and orientation. Thus bourgeois socialism as a whole is inevitably abandoning the field of struggle for political power and the introduction of an economic alternative, turning into a pressure group for mitigating the consequences of existing capitalism along the lines of human rights, Ecology and world peace. Bourgeois socialism will, perforce, be a socialism without a social cause and, consequently, without a political appeal. This problem reveals itself in different forms in the fate of the Soviet bloc parties, Social Democracy and the quasi-socialist populism in the dominated countries.
The Soviet crisis, as we pointed out, has a deep economic root. With Gorbachevism the circle of the failure of what the bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union foisted on the workers' revolution in the name of 'socialism in one country' is completed. In the late 20s, due to the lack of an economic perspective by the communist rank, and under the pressure of economic difficulties and the pressure of Russian nationalism, state- capitalism was imposed upon the Soviet working class as the economic content of the proletarian revolution. The cause of common ownership and abolition of wage-labour, these indivisible components of Marx's revolutionary socialism, were reduced to the nationalisation of capitals and the state planning of capitalist production. This economic pattern practically secured the rapid conclusion of the process of primitive accumulation and the accelerated building of the economic and industrial infrastructure in the Soviet Union. The illusion that the new system is socialist, the compromises between the new model and a greater freedom of action for the workers in the labour process, the existence of massive human resources in the countryside and the enormous economic resources of such a huge country, all provided the possibilities of rapid economic growth. With the termination of this period of accumulation and growth, however, the economic model of state-capitalism is losing its efficacy. Advanced capitalism requires a constant raising of labour productivity through the application of modern technology and the expansion of the diversity of production to meet the needs arising from increased national income; it requires the existence of an efficient mechanism for distribution, for the calculation of needs, for the raising of the quality of commodities, and for the allocation of capitals to more profitable areas. In the Western capitalist model, these requirements are met by competition and market, while in the Soviet capitalist model this role has been played chiefly by 'planning' and administrative measures. Such a system cannot, however, meet the requirements of an advanced capitalism and its diverse problems. Thus, precisely at a time when capitalist countries based on market are rapidly assimilating the fruits of the technological revolution, the Soviet economy has been hit by an unprecedented recession. This recession cannot any longer be overcome by applying pressure on the working class, increasing the labour intensity or raising the supply of labour force. The Soviet economy must necessarily undergo a fundamental structural change aimed at freeing the market mechanism and removing the restrictions which the political and administrative system in this country has imposed on the free movement of capital. This, then, is not just an economic switching of tracks. Rather, it necessitates a shift in all areas, in economy, in politics and in ideology. The Gorbachev trend holds the banner for this shift. The final outcome of this turn will be the disintegration of the Soviet- camp model of socialism - not just in the USSR but on an international level - and a new balance of power between the imperialist camps. The crisis of the Soviet bloc parties has already flared up. The economic model, the political strategy, the practical tactics and the ideological system of these parties have been declared bankrupt. Their slogans, political history and methods are being questioned one by one from among their own ranks. Their theoretical and political exponents are being discredited. The reconstruction of this revisionist camp, while this current from its centre is engaged in a constant reduction of its economic and political differences and conflicts with the West, seems highly improbable. Although the credit of Gorbachevism in the eyes of bourgeois liberals can in the short run postpone the course of the rapid break up of the pro-USSR parties, eventually there will be no escaping of this fate.
The situation of Social Democracy is not as grave as that of the pro-Soviet trend. The ideological and political reconstruction of European Social Democracy is already under way. The essential element in this process is the distancing of this trend from the workers' and trade-union movement, in search of a wider social base among the middle strata of society. It is unlikely that in the near future Social Democracy in countries such as West Germany and Britain becomes a trend capable of ruling. Nevertheless this trend will continue to exist as a strong opposition and as a factor for moderating the extremist aspects of the bourgeoisie's right-wing policies. But even this will be accompanied by a greater shift to the right and by giving explicitness to the estrangement of this current from working-class and socialist tendencies and policies.
In countries under imperialist domination the recent developments will have important and decisive effects on the currents in the opposition. With the bankruptcy of statism and of the myth of independent capitalism, the radical-populist nationalism is losing all substance. The change in course of the opposition movements in the dominated countries towards correspondence to Western interests is already completely discernable. Non-violent and legalistic movements striving for their future through winning concessions, chiefly in the form of the liberalisation of the political superstructure and the economic support of the West, are taking the place of the violent 'anti-imperialism' which dominated the opposition movements in these countries in the '60s and the '70s. This process has been enhanced by the Soviet Union's abandoning of support to violent anti-American struggles, and by the Soviet bloc's lack of an economic alternative and its inability to aid the economic development of these countries. Radical populism, or populist socialism, in the dominated countries has reached the end of its road and lacks a political perspective, a social alternative and a material force for this struggle.
On the whole, the present period is seeing the decline and marginalisation of non-worker radicalism. This setback is the direct reflection of the shift in the social base of these currents. The interests of various sections of the bourgeoisie have become more intimately intertwined. The economic models of East and West have converged, mainly owing to the submission of the former. The Soviet and Soviet bloc economy is proceeding towards a complete integration into the world market. Thus the rivalry shaped on the basis of the confrontation between these two different models is giving its place to new nationalist rivalries on the basis of the emergence of a multi- polar world of which Japan, West Germany, Western Europe and the Newly Industrialised Countries are also parts. The bourgeoisie in countries under imperialist domination seeks its future in a more thorough integration into international capitalism led by the USA and Western Europe. The hegemony of the market advocates has been consolidated. The problem of the raising of labour productivity has highlighted the interests of the whole bourgeoisie in its confrontation with the working class. The voicing of radical ideas, and radical protests, from within the ruling classes themselves have lost grounds. Bourgeois socialism and pseudo-Marxism is in decline, precisely be cause of the weakening of the influence of socialist tendencies within the social strata constituting its base. The bourgeoisie in the Eastern bloc countries, the intellectuals in Western Europe and the intelligentsia and modern petty-bourgeoisie in the dominated countries are losing their hopes in the former pseudo-socialist models, and are leaning towards the perspective put forward by capital in the West relying on the technological revolution. This is an irreversible development.
On a political level, non-proletarian socialism is losing its traditional fields of activity. The decline of the trade-union movement in Europe, of the left student movements, and of the anti-imperialist popular movements in countries under imperialist domination is greatly narrowing the field of political action for the actually existing communism and socialism. Everything indicates that in the coming period these pseudo- socialist currents will be driven to the fringes of the political arena.
The crisis of bourgeois socialism greatly affects the situation of the entire workers' movement and the revolutionary socialist currents. The isolation of bourgeois socialism and the turning of the middle strata to the right in both the advanced and dominated countries put the whole workers' movement and Marxism in an unfavourable situation. To date, the existing radical communism has not been able to have a field of activity different from bourgeois socialism. The same peoples and intellectuals who formed the social bases of non- proletarian socialism have also constituted the main audience of the more radical currents. As a matter of fact, radical communism has not had an existence beyond being a critical tendency, a pressure group, in relation to 'Russian Revisionism' and Social Democracy. The social base and audience of the radical Marxism of our era does not differ much from that of bourgeois socialism. The crisis and decline of the latter drives to isolation and restricts their left critics too. The failed experience of what, at any rate, has been identified in public eyes with socialism, leads to the loss of sympathy for socialist ideals and socialist criticism of the present society. The repudiation of the socialist perspective and socialist struggle comes to prevail. The influence of Marxism among intellectuals wanes and attacking Marxism, as a doctrine which has outlived itself and failed the test, gains the upper hand. It becomes harder to be socialist and to call for socialist revolution in this climate of despair. The present situation brings about the social contraction of the entire existing socialism, be it left and radical or right and reformist.
Worker-communism: Potentials and Obstacles
For worker-communism all the above developments are double-edged and conflicting. The crisis of quasi- socialist currents deprives the workers' movement of its actually existing leadership, and inevitably leads to the diminishing of the practical power of the working class in the daily struggle for reforms; on the other hand, there opens up a space for the formation of worker communist forces at the head of the workers' movement. The ebbing of the popular movements removes the middle strata from the field of struggle against the existing order, but at the same time brings out, with greater clarity, the class character of the social protest. The theoretical bankruptcy of bourgeois socialism questions the general social prestige of Marxism, but on the other hand simplifies the elaboration of an undistorted, radical interpretation of Marx's revolutionary theory. Many will leave the ranks of socialist struggle; at the same time, the socialism remaining will assume a more working-class and radical character. What should be noted is that while all the negative developments will unavoidably occur in the natural course of the events, the positive developments, on the whole, require for their realisation the conscious and planned practice of worker communism.
This, however, is a practice which enjoys all the objective preconditions for success. Worker radicalism becomes the only form of radicalism possible. Never before have the conditions been so ripe for turning communist theory into a social material force. Never before has the working class been so in need of communism and communism alone. And never before have the material conditions for turning worker communism into the liveliest and most powerful current of protest been so ripe. The growth and development of capitalist production, the immense power of the proletariat in production on a world scale, the political bankruptcy of all those currents who forbade workers to make revolution against the whole of the existing order, are all indicative of the great potential of worker communism.
But this practice requires its own suitable men and women and suitable parties. The main weakness lies here. At a time when the non-proletarian socialisms are crumbling down, worker communism is least prepared with regard to theoretical work, practical tradition, organisations and cadres. This is an issue which must be immediately addressed by the supporters of this tendency.
The above is a slightly abridged translation of a report originally written in December 1988. It was written by Mansoor Hekmat and was presented to the Third Congress of the Communist Party of Iran. Mansoor Hekmat, who was himself a founding member of the CPI, left the CPI along with other members of its leadership (the political bureau of the CPI) in November 1991 to found the Worker-communist Party of Iran.
