THE TRIUMPH OF CAPITALISM? *

For Marxists, the collapse of the countries of socialist construction has substantially changed the meta-environment in which the theory operates. At least three major questions are posed.

1. Was the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 a legitimate intervention on the stage of world history?

Let us take these in turn.

One of the most important events, probably the most important event of this century was the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Why? Because it allowed some alternative paths for important aspects of the centuries development. I do not mean that Twentieth Century development was in any way causally determined by 1917, but rather that it opened up some historical potentialities which otherwise would not have otherwise existed. Without the creation of the Soviet state as a powerful geographic entity and the consequential bipolar military environment, it is extremely unlikely that the Chinese, North Korean and Vietnamese revolutions would have succeeded: they would simply have been crushed by the military force of the imperialists. (Clough, 1992, pp.102-5) Certainly, there would have been no Cuba just ninety-miles from the heart of the imperialist superpower.

This proposition exists despite the foreign policy of the Soviet elite which, as discussed later, was often utterly reactionary.

"the failure of the November Revolution in Germany, (was) as momentous for the history of Europe as the success of the October Revolution in Russia." (Anderson, 1979, p.328)

There can be no doubt that the success of the German and Hungarian revolutions would have been a tremendous political/psychological reinforcement for the Bolsheviks. Whilst it is necessary to reject any crude ideas that a German revolution would have immediately solved the problem of the productive forces in the fledgling U.S.S.R., by means of a transfer of forces of production from the former to the latter, (Riddell, 1986) nevertheless it is the case that the demise of these revolutions meant that the early Soviet regime was left chronically isolated.

The adverse situation meant that many procedures had to be enacted in the Soviet Union which were inimical to the building of socialism. Productive forces theory was strongly represented in early positivist interpretations of Marxism and this tendency was reinforced by the pressing material circumstances. The first pre-requisite of the Bolshevik party was to tackle the widespread social deprivation.

Carmen Sirianni argues (1982, p.259), that an extension of Soviet democracy would not only have had the effect of raising the political level of the masses, but would actually have been more economically efficient than the turn to authoritarian measures by the Bolsheviks. Whatever the efficacy of this perspective, the fact is that it was not implemented and we saw the fairly rapid development of a bureaucratic elite based on the distribution of goods in a period of scarcity. (Trotsky, 1973, p.112) The party became an institution which substituted for, and ruled on behalf of, the working class rather than being its direct instrument of rule. In this environment it was extraordinarily difficult for the working class to intervene in any real way in the construction process and thereby to achieve the level of political consciousness necessary for leadership.

Precisely due to the extremely adverse circumstances which conditioned the aftermath of 1917: civil war, economic disruption, famine etc., the Bolshevik regime was forced to implement extremely repressive measures in order to maintain its rule. Measures which tended to further narrow the social basis of the regime which had already lost many of its best supporters in the fighting. The suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion is only the most famous example that the early Bolshevik regime was prepared to physically repress opposition. (Lenin and Trotsky, 1978) In this sense there is an obvious connection between the Leninist and Stalinist governments.

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or they crush us." (1939, p.314)

"In 1926-1927 when the Soviet Union programmed industrialization the task had been absolutely clear- to make Russia the most modern industrial power in the shortest possible time at any price." (Medvedev, 1979, p.142)

At any price: the cultural constraints which we are familiar with in the West simply did mot apply in these circumstances.

The extraordinary development of the Soviet economy cannot be explained in bourgeois economic terms of self interest. It can only be explained by the fact that Soviet citizens were prepared to make tremendous short-term sacrifices for the future of socialist construction. As Hoffman mentions, "even anti- Stalinist liberals were to describe the Stalinist system as one of totalitarian democracy in order to acknowledge the popular enthusiasm it had aroused." (1990, p.16)

In the international arena the theory of 'socialism in one country' found a resonance based on a yearning for legitimation and stability amongst the new elite. Diplomacy with the imperialists replaced promotion of, or even support for, revolutionary upsurges. This policy reaped its tragic consequences in Spain where the Stalin regime appeared to be more interested in liquidating Anarchist and Trotskyist competition than in opposing the Nationalists. In Germany, in a series of bizarre swings, the Comintern veered between total organisational hostility to Social-Democracy and subservient political accommodation to it. (Poulantzas, 1978, pp.39-42)

Looking at 1917 internationally, which is the only way for Marxist-Leninists to look at it, it is clear that it opened up a variety of historic opportunities. That not all of these opportunities were taken, or that some that were were not successful is also apparent. However, it would be a kind of retrospective historical determination to condemn it with the benefit of hindsight. (Hobsbawn, 1990, pp.3-5) At least Norman Stone was prepared to condemn 1917 well before this was popular with erstwhile leftists. (Welch, 1979)

An important point of differentiation for contemporary Marxist's, then, is an upholding of the basic revolutionary character of 1917. Solidarity with Cuba is an important contemporary political expression of this injunction.

THE COLLAPSE OF SOCIALISM 

One response to the collapse of the societies of socialist construction is to deny that they ever had anything to do with socialism in the first place. (Richards, 1989a, p.110) This is the line of many Trotskyists who claim that Leninism and Stalinism were two relatively unrelated political systems with little in common, and that the collapse of the 'Stalinist Bloc' has vindicated their strong criticism of those societies. There is no requirement to explain or to accept any opprobrium for the existence and character of the erstwhile regimes in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. Callinicos argues that the countries of socialist construction differed from the "classical Marxist conception" by denying direct power to the working class and so, "by this measure it was not socialism which went into its death agonies in the late 1980s." (Callinicos, 1991, p.18)

There has always been the suggestion of a deflection to bourgeoisie ideology in views such as this, and indeed this is inherent in some of the more reductionist understandings of state capitalist theory. Nevertheless, I take Callinicos's point that his is a legitimate interpretation of the relationship between Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism rather than a "defensive manoeuvre". (p.18) However, the attempt to deny the relevance of the collapse of the countries of socialist construction for Marxist theory and practice would not satisfy me if I were a Trotskyist, and it is certainly inadequate for anyone adhering to a Leninist tradition. I share Eagleton's principled concern, "Stalinism was a monstrous parody, but I suppose it was a parody of socialism, so I don't think one can simply shut that off." (1992, p.22.)

In addition it is arguable that the "classical Marxist" tradition, which Callinicos purports to be the standard bearer of, is as unambiguous as his discussion suggests. Marx certainly did believe in the "self-emancipation" of the working class (Marx and Engels, 1977) but he also, in opposition to the anarchists, understood that a period of proletarian dictatorship was required in the transition from capitalism to socialism. (Marx, 1972) The criteria which Callinicos, amongst many others, use to define their attitude to the Soviet Union and its allies, more closely resemble those appropriate for a full Communist society than a country of socialist construction encircled by imperialism.

The most obvious point to make regarding the connection between the regimes of Lenin and Stalin is the organisational one. Stalin for many years, unlike Trotsky, was one of the most trusted lieutenants of Lenin. The simple fact is, that under the firm guidance of Lenin and the party, Stalin exhibited great revolutionary courage and endurance. Precisely due to his long party history Stalin was easily able to defeat Trotsky in the contest to lead the Bolshevik party after Lenin's premature death. Stalin went on to develop a type of rule best described as Bonapartist. It is important to note that this was a development and deepening of what had gone before and not some kind of utter deviation from it.

In opposition to idealist and personalist accounts it can be argued that the historical parameters in which the vagaries of the revolution were enacted set definite limits on the manner in which the early U.S.S.R. could be ruled.

If we accept that what was extant in the Soviet Union was, to borrow Bahro's phrase, "actually existing socialism", then it is inadequate to "shut off" the fact of its collapse. Rather, we need to explain it.

Why was socialist society unable to reproduce itself? Let us look at this question under three major headings: military, political and economic. These conceptual distinctions are to ease discussion, and do not imply that the three elements are unconnected with each other. For example, the political situation that the Soviets were presented with meant that they had to pursue an outlay on military matériel which had important economic ramifications.

Military

The encirclement of the former 'socialist bloc' by imperialism, exemplified by the Cold War, meant that the former U.S.S.R. was required to sustain a massive arms expenditure. Not only were the Soviets forced to respond to a substantial build up of nuclear weapons by the imperialists but, in addition, the U.S.A. intervened heavily in the imperialised sectors of the world economy in order to support and indeed create anti-Soviet forces. (Blum, 1986) Estimates on the amount of the Soviet budget allocated to military expenditure vary considerably from 11% of G.N.P. in the 1976-80 10th year plan, (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.144), to C.I.A. estimates of 15% of G.N.P.. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.89) If many ostensibly civilian projects, (eg. space research), which have considerable military implications are included in the calculations then the percentage of the Soviet economy devoted to military spending of one kind or another may have been much higher.

The Reagan administration deliberately pursued a policy of massive military expansion intended to weaken the Soviet economy and its leaderships resolve. It did, but at massive cost to its initiators. The U.S.A. underwent a transformation from the world's largest creditor nation to its largest debtor. The imperialists in general are so economically weak that they lack the capital to invest in the former Soviet Bloc in any powerful way. The supreme paradox of the imperialists victory in helping to promote the destruction of the countries of socialist construction is that, in a situation where there is insufficient internal capital to promote marketization, the imperialist economies are in recession and unable to expand their influence. (Meszaros, 1992,) In this sense, Halliday's assertion that in the competition of Communism with advanced capitalism, capitalism won appears premature. (p.17)

The consolidation of the Soviet Union always suggested that imperialism would have had to be subject to a decisive military defeat. The threat of a nuclear exchange was periodically present. Any attempt to construct socialism will need to seriously confront this.

Political

The growth of opportunism in the Communist Parties can be partially traced back to the environments in which proletarian revolutions occurred. In a situation where the party is substituting for a decimated working class, as in Russia, or where it rests on non-proletarian social formations, as in China, the ideological commitment and moral character of the top leadership is extremely important. This is particularily the case when the party is forced to compromise with the technical intelligentsia whose efforts are necessary to the immediate and medium term continuation of society, but whose class outlook is probably more or less hostile to the revolutionary regime. In practice, in all of the societies of socialist construction, there appears to have been a gradual conflation of Communist elements with all manner of alien class forces.

Initially, these alien elements may simply have joined the C.P.s for careerist reasons but it is clear that the C.P.s, far from providing a hostile environment for these people, reinforced their aims and aspirations. The C.P.s actually began to create petit-bourgeois layers which eventually defined the socio-political composition of most of the Communist Parties. In China, the Cultural Revolution was a desperate attempt to remove these elements from power but they were too firmly entrenched and it failed.

The growth of alien class forces developed to the extent that they were able to eventually take state power. True, there was C.I.A. intervention hostile to the C.P.s but their destruction as instruments of social change occurred mainly via internal mechanisms. (R.C.P. (U.S.), 1983)

Whilst the Bolshevik revolution was an indigenous affair which enjoyed widespread popular support, in Eastern Europe, (with the exception of Yugoslavia), socialism was imposed from above by the Red Army. The alienation of the C.P.s from the masses, to use the most diplomatic language, was never overcome and in fact became accentuated not least due to the corruption of the ruling elite. There was widespread resentment of the privileged lifestyle enjoyed by the bureaucracy. The passive political role of the working class was encouraged by the C.P.s.

The stagnation of the national entities had its reflection in the international arena where any previous dynamic was lost. (Halliday, 1990, p.17)

Hughes, drawing heavily on Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin, argues that the theory of 'socialism in one country', which summarised the overall political perspective of the ruling elites, inevitably led to national roads to socialism. Eventually this eroded and finally negated the central authority of the Comintern. (Hughes, 1977, p.4)

'Such parties are no longer longer appendages of the Sovier Union...The Communist parties of the advanced capitalist countries are reformist parties and have been so for more than thirty years.' (Dornhorst, 1977, pp.6-7)

The assertion that the national C.P.s were rigidly controlled by Moscow had more to do with a genuflection to Cold War propaganda, and its 'International Communist Conspiracy', than it did with an objective analysis of these organisations. In one sense, however, the distinction is trivial: whether these parties decayed along with their leaders hegemony or were irredeemably reformist organisations the prognosis for them as instruments of revolution was terminal.

In the advanced industrial countries the general political marginalisation of the Marxist left is a significant reason that the West was able to put tremendous ideological pressure on the Soviet Union. The imperialists have had little to cope with from their 'own' oppositional forces.

Economic

"It is an extraordinary fact that in the early thirties more than half of UK and US machine exports were destined for the Soviet Union; in some branches the figures were over 90 per cent. It was the massive imports of Western technology in the thirties and forties that laid the basis for Soviet growth up to the end of the fifties." (Blackburn, 1990, p.27)

This situation changed completely with the advent of the Cold War when the West successfully managed to isolate the Soviet Union from its technology. As an inevitable addition the Soviet Union was also relatively diplomatically isolated in the face of a unified imperialist front and, as already mentioned, forced to maintain a huge arms expenditure.

If that was the external situation which laid down important parametrically constraints for Soviet development, then it has to be acknowledged that there were substantial internal factors which the external situation tended to condition but not inevitably determine. Whilst Soviet policy was not autonomous from imperialist influences neither was it simply a product of it.

Having an essentially bourgeois idea that a socialist society resembled a bigger and better capitalist one, the Soviet elite squandered an enormous amount on prestige projects in its 'competition' with capitalism. Sport, space and prestige public buildings had expenditure lavished on them whilst basic infrastructure lay unattended.

Theoretically it is necessary to transcend the productive forces theory of socialism which relies on the simple notion that all that is required for socialism is a 'superabundance' of consumer goods. The thesis is that when such goods are freely available then people will use them only as necessary and cease to covet them as an alienated expression of their humanity. This may be termed the 'stuff their mouths with gold' theory of socialism. Whilst socialist development does require an adequate level of productive forces it should not be narrowly focused on competing with capitalism in the realm of consumer goods. This is to trivialise the whole socialist project. What is necessary is a society in which people can realise their own essential humanity.

Actually, if 'superabundance' could be provided under any system of social organisation then it would be terminal for the planet, both in terms of diminishment of resources and environmental damage. Twenty per cent of former Soviet citizens live in "ecological disaster areas" with a loss of life expectancy of seven years and a high rate of infant mortality. (Shaw and Pryce, 1990, p.140) An overwhelming concentration on short-term economic growth with no consequence paid to long-term environmental consequences is a characteristic of the process of socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. Geras advises that the aim of Communism should be the fulfilment of 'reasonable needs' which relate to social circumstances. (1985, p.83) The aim of socialism must be to provide everyone with a decent and dignified standard of living rather than the destructive and profligate levels of the affluent sections in the imperialist nations.

The increasing complexity of a socialist society as it develops means that some way is necessary of making millions of micro decisions which the state otherwise wastes time on considering, and which anyway cannot be genuinely addressed by a narrow elite in the same way as decisions regarding the sectoral development of a planned economy. Whilst the market is the fashionable answer, in fact the question was addressed by Trotsky in his classical work Revolution Betrayed. In a centralised economy the millions of micro-economic decisions which need to be made as it develops requires a level of democracy which enables the mass of the population to be involved in the decision making processes. (p.67)

Information technology could have enormously facilitated this process but posed a potential challenge to bureaucratic censorship. This is an example of how negations of socialist democracy inhibited innovation and creativity.

Soviet science suffered dramatically from state control and interference with unquantifiable but probably substantial effects on overall economic performance. (Medvedev, 1979)

By 1981-1985 the growth rate of the Soviet economy, obviously on a larger total economic base, was 3.3% compared with 11.2% in 1951-55. (Samary, 1988, P.13) In order to increase the level of consumer goods and spend money on arms the Soviets withdrew capital from long-term investment: in 1978/79 it was only 1%; in 1980 - 0.5%.

This was fatal because the limits of the Soviet economy as regards growth via extensive surplus value had been reached, and a move to the intensive accumulation of surplus value was necessary. The U.S.S.R. could not do this because of a lack of advanced technology: hence the importance of Western attempts to prevent the export of innovative technologies.

The productivity of Soviet labour has not allowed the Soviet Union to compete with the world economy on favourable terms. Mass education meant that an increasingly sophisticated working population could not be persuaded to work via a combination of authoritarian populism and repression. (In this sense Stalinism had an inbuilt self-destruct mechanism.)

The Soviet elites privileges originally rested on nationalised property relationships. Now they view their best chances of survival as a decisive shift to capitalism. Some of the former Eastern bloc nomenklatura have become successful capitalists due to their privileged access to information, capital, contacts, and the productive forces. Fundamentally, the counter-revolutions in the former countries of socialist construction were promoted by, to echo Lenin, a leadership which did not want to rule in the old way rather than by the masses who did not want to be ruled in the old way. Mass action only occurred when the dominated sectors realised the vulnerability of the leadership.

The collapse of socialism has been an essentially peaceful process. The Trotskyists who claimed that a violent counter-revolution was necessary to overthrow the nationalised property relations have been proved to be incorrect. Their theory ignored the fact that socialism is not a 'mode of production' as such but, at least in the early stages, a capitalist economic base with state power in the hands of the working class party. Initially, even much of the superstructure will be identical or similar to that pertaining before the revolution. Socialism = capitalism + the dictatorship of the proletariat in idiomatic terms. As Balibar reminds us, "socialism cannot be a classless society", therefore exploitation will still exist. (1977, p.139) It is the overall dynamic, which will not be linear, in steadily reducing exploitation which provides an indication of whether a society is progressing towards socialism or not. Socialism, then, must be defined by both property relations and social relations. There is a dialectical interaction between the two.

In the former socialist bloc widescale poverty is being experienced: a crucial error was made by Eastern citizens who imagined that because there were lots of consumer goods in the shops in the West, this meant that they would have access to them. They had no concept of rationing by price. In this sense censorship probably helped the imperialists. In the former U.S.S.R. and G.D.R. fascist ideology is a significant force further indicating the retrogressive nature of events there.

For the time being, at least, we have to accept that imperialism has won an important battle. The balance of world forces on an international scale has decisively moved in its favour.

Was the collapse inevitable? Nothing is inevitable. An indicator is China where ruthless leadership activity determined an approximate maintenance of the status quo. Such leadership was lacking in the U.S.S.R. and its satellites. No doubt the liberal response would be to loudly inform one of the iniquity of the Tiananmen Square repression. My reply is simple: the break up of China into nationalist elements would probably make the Yugoslav events look civilised.

In such a configuration, where not even the nucleus of a revolutionary organisation is extant as a remotely genuine alternative, one is forced to choose the best of a bad lot or to choose historical idealism. As it is, the situation in China may be at a rather temporary impasse as marketization creates layers basically opposed to a collective system.

One significant effect of the collapse of the countries of socialist construction has been a further marginalisation of Marxist discourse and, in particular, Marxist-Leninism. For Marx there is still some regard in the intellectual milieu: after all he is the brilliant and still uncomprehended great thinker, de rigueur in the academic tradition. (Timpanaro, p.74) On the contrary, Lenin was only an activist, and furthermore an activist whose project has collapsed in ignominious failure. Many on the left, including erstwhile Leninists, are now concerned to put some speedy intellectual distance between themselves and all aspects of Lenin's thought and practice. (Callinicos, 1991, p.12)

At the risk of appearing to be somewhat academically unsophisticated I want to suggest that not everything to do with Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution is entirely negative. In fact the achievements of the Soviet state to mention only three, range from its contribution to the defeat of Hitler to the provision of social services for its citizens and support for movements of national liberation. (Halliday, 1990, pp.12-15)

An Ideological Replacement for the Communist Menace

If Communism as a 'clear and present danger' has gone then a substitute is necessary. (Furedi, 1992, pp.88-9)

To replace the 'International Communist Conspiracy' as a unifying focus the American bourgeoisie has had to find some new enemies. The Third World 'Hitler' who has disobeyed his imperialist masters is useful for the Pentagon's budget, and as secondary rhetoric for politicians, but is hardly powerful enough to act as as a credible long-term scapegoat. In this situation there has been an attempt to develop a new, internal, enemy: those amongst the American population who do not espouse traditional 'family values' are identified as responsible for all social problems. The battle lines have been drawn in terms of a 'cultural divide'. Whilst the family unit is the subject of sickenly cloying schmaltz the term in fact encompasses, more or less, every reactionary image in the arsenal of the U.S. political rights core values: anti-abortion, pro-capital punishment, Christian religious belief, homophobia, patriotism, anti-taxation especially for welfare, education and health care, pro-censorship etc.

Whilst all of this goes down well with the religious right it does not enjoy mainstream acceptance. Apart from the fact that a rigid interpretation of 'family values' tends to attack rather a substantial minority of the American people, there, for example, appears to be a significant 'pro-choice' sentiment even amongst Republican career women.

With the "end of Communism", and therefore of the usefulness of anti-Communism, we can expect to see various alternative ideological frameworks gaining in significance. These will probably be rather more multi-faceted than anti-Communism with its strong focussing point of the Soviet Union. In this sense, U.S. supportive rhetoric may come to resemble more closely the diffuseness of the hegemonic modes in British society where anti-Communism has been only one chord in a symphony of ideological legitimation. The British ruling class have never orchestrated their ideological concerns in the same way as the U.S. bourgeoisie but, unlike the Americans, have been able to rely on the legitimation mechanisms of history and tradition whose very diffuseness tends to conceal the, largely unspoken, strategic harmony.

It is no surprise, then, that an attempt to provide a systematic and comprehensive justification for liberal democracy should emanate from the U.S.A..

It can be hard to take "the end of history" thesis seriously but it was promoted at an excellent time for its propagation, and we are forced to acknowledge its conjunctural influence. In previous intellectual climates such prophecies were plentiful and works of this nature enjoyed limited impact. (Furedi, 1992, pp.215, 223) In current times Fukuyama enjoys the same popularity, if not impact, with the dominant discourses that Weber has occupied for an extended period with his notions of the 'untranscendability' of capitalism and the alleged discrediting of historical laws of development. (Meszaros, 1989, p.154)

Ironically enough Fukuyama, who considers himself "an exemplar of bourgeois thought", (Analysis, 1992, p.27) has come under substantial attack by the political right whose strategic positions he defends. In Britain he considers that the dismissive attitude to his work here reflects two classic British right-wing concerns: "..the peculiarities of the positivist English intellectual tradition which is very hostile to Hegel" and "strong anti-Americanism" (Analysis, 1992, p. 27)

One has the impression that Fukuyama recruits the teleological premises of Hegel's histiography to reinforce the impetus of his work and lend force to an historical determinist analysis.

Fukuyama uses History in the Hegelian sense to mean the end of historical thinking. There can be no qualitative social arrangements superior to capitalism. (Furedi, 1992, 218)

"Fukuyama's thesis is ultimately reduced to the observation that since the self-proclaimed Marxist leaders are now looking for capitalist solutions, there must be something progressive about Western liberalism." (1989, p. 28

However, Fukuyama's perspectives do not mean that extraordinarily important events cannot take place within History: that history cannot proceed within History.

It is impossible to attack, or even to approach, such a view because all historical events can be explained, or explained away, as simply 'moments' within the overall Historical totality. On the other hand, relatively small social changes, such as those at the level of governmental responsibility, are stated to be of significant import. This is in contrast to a Marxist view of social change as being at the level of the nature of the state as a precursor to modifying the relations of production.

"But surely the class issue has actually been successfully resolved in the West. As Kojeve, (among others) noted, the egalitarianism of modern America represents the essential achievement of the classless society envisaged by Marx." (1989, p.9)

As Richards sardonically notes, "modern America" boasts apartheid style ghettos, deep poverty and a massive police apparatus all within a few blocks of the State Department. (Richards, 1989, p.28) Fukuyama can hardly not know this but it is not the crux of his argument. For even though he immediately contradicts himself by not denying that there are "rich people and poor people in America, or that the gap between them has not grown in recent years", he attributes this fact not to the structural nature of capitalist society but rather to "the historical legacy of premodern conditions." (Fukuyama, 1989, p.9) Using this kind of analysis one can logically resolve the distinction between a society characterised by its essential egalitarianism and yet marred by massive inequality!

"Thus black poverty in the United States is not the inherent product of liberalism but the "legacy of slavery and racism" which persisted long after the formal abolition of slavery." (Fukuyama, 1989, p.9)

It is true that the end of the Civil War in the U.S.A. ended in a compromise which, in many ways, left it "unfinished". Even so, this does not altogether explain the continuing, institutionalised, widespread and deep seated discrimination against black people in the U.S. Fukuyama's argument is ultimately undialectical because he assigns primary explanatory significance to past history. Certainly, changes in the economic base of a national entity do not automatically promote changes in the superstructures. Neither do changes in the political and legal superstructures necessarily enact modifications in the ideological superstructure. But movements in one area or areas open up the possibilities of changes in others even if there is a substantial 'lag' in terms of cause and effect. If we were to accept the staticity of Fukuyama's version then it is difficult to fathom how any change at all can occur.

Somewhere, even if the definition can only be arbitrarily declared, we have to assign some responsibility for the social totality of a society to its contemporary leadership. By Fukuyama's argument we could simply attribute the repressive nature of Stalinism to the authoritarian nature of previous Russian society. There is, of course, a kernel of truth in this but it would be completely simplistic as an overall explanation.

In contrast to Fukuyama's view that the undemocratic and inegalitarian components of liberal democracy are historical remnants a new work by an astute bourgeois commentator argues that poverty and powerlessness are structurally integral to the American system. "The contented majority", who are a majority of those who vote, are increasingly reluctant to contribute towards any public services via taxation. (Galbraith, 1992)

In fact, statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau show a deepening of poverty in the country, (14.2%, 35.7 million people in 1991), and an increasing differentiation between rich and poor. In the worlds richest country "one in every four children aged under six is in poverty." (Tisdall, 1992) Far from being a relic of a "premodern" age the increase in poverty can be located as a direct effect of economic depression and the increasing gap between rich and poor as a consequence of Republican tax handouts to the rich. Over the last decade there has been "a 49% increase in the number of African Americans living in poverty in the cities." (Tisdall, 1992) Such a close correlation between economic depression and black poverty seems to conclusively indicate that the inferior position of black people in U.S. society is rather more than a "legacy."

Fukuyama is not content merely to argue that "the class issue" has been fundamentally resolved within the major liberal democratic societies but that this is also the case between the imperialist and imperialised countries. (Of course, he does not use such terminology).

In attacking dependency theory Fukuyama argues that the examples of "tiger" economies such as Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea disproves the exploitative economic link which the left establishes between the imperialist and imperialised economies. (Fukuyama, 1992, p.101) Omitted is the fact that these "tiger" nations received massive economic aid from the imperialists after World War 11, and were able to equip themselves with a new technological base which radically promoted the extraction of intensive surplus value from their respective working classes. When allied with repressive political systems which ensured suitable conditions for the extraction of extensive surplus value, including child labour, then economic growth is hardly surprising. In a very real sense the success of these nations, initially substantially aided by the allies for their own geopolitical reasons, illustrates the presence of imperialism from the opposite angle to that which we are accustomed.

But, for Fukuyama, cultural traditions explain economic growth. (Fukuyama, 1989 p.7, 1992, pp.225-234) He asserts that despite other factors, "nonetheless, anyone who has spent time travelling or living abroad cannot help but notice that attitudes to work are decisively influenced by national cultures." (Fukuyama, 1992, p.224) This is a more subtly nuanced variation on the "they are poor because they are lazy" theme which is a perennial leitmotiv in bourgeois thought and, as Larrain points out, even in aspects of Marx and Engels thinking. (1989, 234, 236) But Marx and Engels were writing over a century ago! To put it crudely, "countries that are rich have a capitalist culture and free market ideas. Countries that are poor do not." (Richards, 1989, p.28)

"...the growing disparity between poor and rich countries and the flow of funds from the underdeveloped to the developed world. In 1890, Europe was twice as wealthy (per capita) as China or India. By 1940, it was forty times richer; in 1990 it was seventy times richer. The imbalance between poor and rich countries is growing rapidly. In each year since 1986, at least US$43 billion more had flowed from the South to the North, than vice versa. Together, Latin American, African and Asian countries pay about three times more every year just in payments to service foreign debt than the total they receive in development assistance through all channels. These debt repayments are, in essence, a forced contribution from the world's poor to the world's wealthy countries." (Dore, 1992, pp.73-4)

Far from being confined to cultural factors, then, the expanding differentiation between the poor and rich sectors of the world economy is very much an objective economic fact.

Fukuyama cites the Holy Trinity as an example of people prepared to die for an idea. (1989, p.8) The Marxist would have no absolute argument with such a conception. The 1981 Hunger Strike in north East Ireland, which led to ten deaths, would be a contemporary political example. In addition, the whole history of the Communist movement reveals many who have died for reasons closely connected with ideological concerns. Certainly it is the great ideas which motivate people. Marx was quite clear, in one of his earliest works, that when ideas become the property of a mass of people then these ideas themselves can be a "material force". (O' Malley, 1970))

To say this, however, is very different from saying that ideas solely determine social life. Neither is it the case that ideas are simply derived from social life. Marxists must argue dialectically and note that ideas have groundings in social life but are not simple reflections of that life. Rather, ideas are mediated derivations of social life and therefore enact a greater or lesser approximation to it.

"Men make their own history, but not of their own free will, not under circumstances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted." (Marx, 1973, p.146)

"Marx never argued that history would come to an end - not even with the achievement of a 'communist utopia'. It is testimony to the vulgar state of contemporary intellectual standards that such distortions can circulate without the mildest public rebuke." (Richards, 1989, p.27 )

Quite.

When capitalism can provide a reasonable minimum of nutrition, clothing and shelter for the planets inhabitants then, and only then, will it be appropriate to declare the end of Marxist-Leninism. It is the structured inability of the system to do this, and in fact a growth in the economic contradiction between rich and poor at all levels of world economy, which means that there will always be those who struggle for a better future.

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