after the anti-bureaucratic political
But after the Hungarian, and Polish experiences we can predict with certainty that such an apparatus will be born out of the complete destruction of the trade-union apparatus tied to the bureaucreplacement by apparatus elected by working people. concerning the apparatus and manages the economy. To think attitudes of directors, engineers, econthe existing apparatus will be maintained at 80, 50 or 30 per to understand nothing about the nature of the bureaucratic apparatus as such or about workers' management of the economy, which the massive majority of workers wish to substitute for bureaucratic management.
The latter has been demonstrated in the concrete experiences of the beginnings of political revolutions that we have witnessed. What about the legal apparatus? Do Lorimer/ Percy want to leave intact the apparatus of the Gulag and the repressive 'as long as' all this fine company 'go over to the side of the workers' the day after the political revolution? We promise them an agreeable time. If they find even 1 per cent of workers
'strategic line'
How about the 'cultural apparaLorimer/Percy want to 'redeem' the good' censors, the 'good' manipulators of the press, theatre, cinema, television, school textbooks or of provided they choose the right side during the uprising of the masses. Would it not be better to demand in advance the total ending of all these abominations, as demanded by the huge majority of manual and intellectual workers and as required in the interest of the real effective building of socialism - is not this the ABC of Marxism?
What we have said here about these apparatuses also applies to the military assert that "since' entire units of the Hungarian army did in fact go over to the side of the people in 1956, then we must not say in advance that the Stalinist army apparatus should be Hungary was destroyed from top to bottom during the revolution. Another army, another apparatus were built in
Kremlin understood well that it had of this military revolution, Pal Maleter, assassinated (their main 'crime' International Viewpoint 24 February 1986 concerned their military responsibiliirreparable necessity with respect to the Polish army was one of Solidarnose's most serious ideological and political weaknesses, if not the most December 1981 defeat.
again: eliminating the present repressive apparatuses in the USSR and the other bureaucratised workers' all 'disarm' these states against imperialism. It means removing the principal obstacle to the victory of the political revolution. (8) These apparatuses can and must be replaced by new armed apparatuses (or structures). A militia army electing its own commanders would replace today's permanent army that anyway is headed by an unpopular officer caste increasingly cut off from the soldiers and likely to trigger conflicts. This technical units that are necessary for operating sophisticated weapons, but under the control and protection of the people. We are convinced that such a new army, a true workers' and peaswould be ten times in protecting against imperialism than the present army of the bureaucracy. (9)
Underlying the Australian SWP's bureaucratic apparatuses in the USSR is a systemserious underestimation of crises in this country (and the other bureaucratised workers' states) caused by the bureaucracy itself. It is an exaggeration to say that the threats hanging over the collective property relations and the planning of the economy due to wastage, corruption and more general dysfunctioning of bureaucratic management, are far greater, at least in the short and medium term, than the threats from the capitalists and their armies (although the two are linked on the historical
The leaders and journalists of the other publications of the Australian SWP, have to systematically prettify the economic, social, political and cultural reality of the USSR in order to deny this evident state of affairs. They have to present an image with
'Of course, no one will deny the need of an intelligence service against the of imperialism. As a matter of fact, it is well known that the GPU destroys not spies and imperialist agents but the political opponents of
Bonapartist apparatus state is thus an organ for eaucratic thieves and plunderers of nationless and less relationship to any reality. Like the unfortunate 'friends of the Soviet Union' of the 19331963 period they thereby condemn themselves to fall short of the much more sober image of Sovet reality that the bureaucratic leaders themselves have to depict from time to such slightly more sober image of Soviet reality that the bureaucratic leaders themcome from 'sectarian Trotskyists' but stated that one-third of the annual
Soviet industry (or the economy) are paid at a total economic loss - that is, do not correspond to any sort of production. that average Soviet economic growth rates have been declining in a nearly than thirty years. Gorbatchov has declared that a radical reform of the whole system of economic management is an urgent and vital necessity for the USSR and is Khrushchev proclaimed that Stalin had killed at least 12 million people -including a million communists. we find no trace of those facts in the Australian SWF literature. We do find puerile, apoiogetic outpourings of the following type:
It should be stressed that Soviet citizens' diets have long been adequate (!) nutritionally. The aim of food program boost supplies of such highly regarded
'Even if measured in terms of these "prestige" (!) foods, the current Soviet died is far from inferior. Already in an average of 51.1 grams of animal
- approaching European average of 52.8 grams, and well above the figure for countries such as Italy.
'Current per capita meat consump-
Soviet Union (about 61 kilograms yearly) is approximately the while Soviet shops are often sold out, believe that this state is capable "withering away" is to live the prospects away of the state open up'.
Bonapartist Philosophy 1938-39, " pp. 321, 322, "Revolution Betrayed" military/political) of the militia army over
15
too expensive for many British working-class families to buy regularly.(10) In the Soviet Union, meat prices are heavily subsidized. and supplies are snapped up soon after they hit the shelves.' (11) (Geoff Streeton in Direct Action, May 29, 1985)
•Western "Kremlinologists" continually push the idea that the Soviet economy however is simply wishful thinking. is in deep crisis There is no economic crisis in the USSR.' (David Holmes in Direct Action, July 31, 1985)
... The recent (!) decline in the rate of growth of the Soviet economy (12) is in part due to a shift of investment to consumer industries that has brought about a significant rise in the standard of living of workers and peasants ..." (The Struggle for Socialism in the Imperialist Epoch, p 67).
This whole fairy-tale fantasy of Soviet reality culminates in the report filed by the delegation of SWP youth who were at the summer 1985 Youth Festival in Moscow Direct Action, August 28, 1985):
'From the buses on our way in from the airport, Moscow looked surprisingly like any other big city, except for one thing. The entire route was lined with banners in the festival colors, carrying the main slogan: "For anti-imperialist solidarity, peace and friendship"
•Formal meetings aside, the opportunies to meet and discuss with others was limited only by the number of hours in the day ... And it seemed that the whole of Moscow wanted to be part of it. No matter where you were or what time it was, if you looked like a festival delegate, you were constantly stopped by local citizens wanting to know where you were from, offering assistance, CO Y wanting to exchange gifts?
This prose is not only ridiculous. It is repugnant from a proletarian point of view. For our innocents abroad apparently did not notice that Soviet workers work 20 per cent more hours in a year than their counterparts in imperialist countries, for a wage 35 to 50 per cent lower. They failed to notice that the number of industrial accidents is a good sight higher whilst the health care - not to mention life expectancy - of the Soviet worker is considerably worse than for workers in those imperialist countries - except the USA - where the workers' movement has managed to wrest a high level of social insurance, security from capital. Our visitors have not noticed that if Soviet workers put out a leaflet to denounce abuses by their factory director, they would be dragged in front of the courts if they are not interned as 'mad'. They did not notice that in Moscow, 16 thousands of sick and in valid poor people lack modern medicines and prostheses (i.e. artificial limbs) which the bureaucrats easily acquire for themselves. They did not happen to see that in the USSR 40 million retired persons, disabled and widows have to survive with a miserable monthly income of fifty roubles -equivalent to what a highly placed bureaucrat occasionally a single luxury banquet! They did not even notice that not a single book critical of the leadership or of the bureaucracy's ideology is on sale in the
This lack of perceptiveness says more on the education currently received by Australian SWP members sympathisers articles still 'critical' of Stalinism. In
Percy/Lorimer's underestimation of the structural crisis unsettling Soviet society and the dead weight of the bureaucracy leads them logically to drop the political revolution from their perspectives and programme. It is replaced by a vague hope of 'radical democratisation' of society under the combined effect of the bureaucracy's self-reform and pressure from below, or even as an 'organic' product of economic growth and rising cultural level of the population. But the whole experience of the last thirty years in the USSR, Eastern and in China, illustrates the fallacy of such a hope.
What the Australian SWP leadership no longer understands, given its 'reformist' position on the racy, is that the perspective of the anti-bureaucratic political revolution is not just one of Trotsky's 'fads' or a sectarian point of honour for the "Trotskyists of the Fourth International', but the inevitable result of tension between masses and the bureaucracy, once the masses emerge from their passivity.
Everything ples of very broad mass mobilisations and actions against the bureaucracy -confirms this analysis. The necessity of destroying the bureaucratic apparatuses corresponds aspirations, to the internal logic of their mass mobilisations as much as to
The Sandinistas take Managua (I R) the objective needs of a new au ance to socialism - that is the verdict of history. This is why it is part of our programme, and not due to some dogmatic prejudice.
Now we understand better what is the fundamental difference between the line of the Australian SWP and the Fourth International. The starting point for our intervention in all three sectors of the the real aspirations of the masses, particularly the proletarian masses. We make every effort to spur on and lead these concrete mobilisations to victory. We put forward the need for independent self-organisation. The SWP's line is to subordinate - certainly it is still in its first stages, a tendency, but it is likely to get stronger in the future - these actual aspira-
11. These figures are false. In reality the annual ment consumption Der capita in the USSR reached a ceiling of sixty kilos some years ago. On average it is 50% higher in capitalist Europe. It is 80 kilos in Italy and Great Britain.
12. Here are the average annual growth rates in national income, by year plan, provided by the official Soviet statistics: 1951-1955:112% 1956-1960 9.2% 1961- :6.6% 1966-1970: 7.75% 1971-1975: 5.75% 1976-1980: 4.75% 1981-1985: 3.50% International Viewpoint 24 February 1986