The idea of an inevitable upward growth of the productive forces to saturation level is not only designed to stretch credulity as to the process itself, but also one would have to concede that the bureaucracy would not develop additional needs and aspirations as the level of productive forces increases. How many cars, houses, boats, electronic gadgets and aeroplanes, equal a saturation point would have to be defined for a "class" of bureaucrats and has as much to do with advertising, etc. as actual material necessity. (72) The crude understanding that intellectual and moral needs would be fulfilled by an increase in the forces of production ignores not only Marx's theory of alienation, but the empirical reality of advanced Western capitalism, where it is not only amongst the poor that such needs are not satisfied. Indeed, with this theory a possibility exists that monopoly capitalism could eventually develop in this way, if it was possible to attenuate its economic laws of motion and develop the productive forces sufficiently. At the same time socialism in the underdeveloped part of the globe is expelled from the discourse.

Shachtman also suggests the idea of Stalinism as a "new barbarism" (73) and he also considers that the major raison d'être of production under the Stalinist regime was to satisfy the needs of the bureaucracy. It is possible to see the concentration on building up heavy industry, military hardware and the mammoth architectural projects typical of the Stalinist era as the bureaucracy looking after its relatively long term interests, but on the other hand, it is possible to see the schema as over simplistic for analytical exactitude. As Cliff cogently notes,

"With the dynamism of highly developed productive forces, an economy based on gratifying the needs of the rulers can be arbitrarily described as leading to the millennium or 1984". (74)

A great deal of academic debate has been directed to this conception of bureaucratic collectivism, but I want to proceed to discuss one of the lesser known documents emanating from the left in order to consider whether it appears to be rather more internally consistent than the ideas already mentioned.

In Fantham and Machover's view, "state collectivism" is not specific to the U.S.S.R. in Stalin's time (75) but widely applicable to the underdeveloped world (76), where it can be seen as initially progressive "to the extent that state collectivism enables those societies to climb out of the pit of underdevelopment in which world capitalism trapped them . . ." (77). State collectivism, then, is a product of imperialism which blocks the potential development of the underdeveloped sector and forces these nations on to an alternative path of industrial development. The unilateral path between capitalism and socialism is rejected (78) in favour of a bifurcated view of human history. (79)

State collectivism is only seen as progressive in the sense that capitalism was in its initial stages as it paved the way for a massive increase in the productive forces. This view leads to an agreement with Ticktin that the U.S.S.R. is characterised by waste and underemployment on a huge scale (80) whereas Cuba, for instance, is still seen as being in its progressive stage because the masses still identify with the regime and an attempt has been made to "resolve acute problems of underdevelopment" at a lesser human cost than the regime of Stalin. (81) Contrary to either the "millennium" or "1984" perspective, then, state collectivism is perceived to embody the dynamic - consolidated - stagnant schema applicable to other social systems and, therefore, its origin and potential endings can be historically located. The implications of Fantham and Machover's theory are extremely important, in that "anti-capitalist revolutions" in the underdeveloped sectors of the world economy are seen to be likely to develop into "state collectivist regimes, rather than socialist ones in the post-revolutionary period" unless and until the "advanced countries" experience a socialist revolution. (82) Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, then, is rejected and the problematic for a feasible socialist revolution is truly seen as located in international interactions. I take the theory as suggesting that because socialism is reliant on a relatively high level of productive forces (which, by definition, do not exist in the underdeveloped sector) that it would only be possible in the underdeveloped sector if a socialist revolution occurred in the imperialist sector, thereby releasing productive capacity, which could be used by the imperialised economy to alleviate this problem. The uneven development inherent in imperialism is seen as a significant factor preventing the imperialist economies from breaking out of the vicious circle. For this reason, the authors see state collectivist regimes as historically progressive in this sector, whereas (obviously) they would not be so in the capitalist democracies and, in fact, the writers are correct in noting that in the advanced economies. external intervention would be necessary to "impose" such a regime. (83) The argument is not central here, but it may be said that the chances of such an imposition occurring appear minimal, in that it would require a lesser set of productive forces to supplant a higher level of these forces. Such an event would place a large question mark not only over Fantham and Machover's theory, a question mark unacknowledged by them, but over a Marxist notion of history itself.

1. The bureaucratic state collectivism analysis also upholds the typical notion of a ruling bureaucratic stratum, but the impression is that it has a lesser relative autonomy from the state than in the deformed workers' state theory where it is seen as parasitic upon society and inasmuch as the bureaucracy is seen as a product of history, it is viewed as an illegitimate one. In the b.s.c. thesis, there appears to be seen a greater fusion between the bureaucratic strata and the state in that bureaucratic management of the state defines its nature and category label. Collectivism expresses succinctly the manner in which means of production are organised and, because owned by the state, for all essential purposes owned by the bureaucracy. Like the state capitalist analysis, then, the logic of this is that the bureaucracy would be a new type of class, rather than caste, formation.

2. Again typically, the bureaucracy is seen as appropriating surplus value, but this is only relative and both Bruno Rizzi's early work and Fantham and Machover's fairly recent one, nevertheless, present an historically progressive role for the bureaucracy, in that this form of organisation is capable of raising the level of productive forces at a speed and in a manner inconceivable in an imperialist capitalist country. It is important to give an objective account and clearly state that this is perceived to be due to the superior form of economic organisation, and not at all to any altruistic impulses of the bureaucracy to improve living standards which, by the way, would be unusual behaviour for such a repressive ruling class which does not find in necessary to seek consensus from the dominated classes. It is true that the deformed workers' state analysis sees even a bureaucratically deformed workers' state as economically superior to capitalism, but without the optimistic projections regarding the level of productive forces inherent in the bureaucratic state collectivist perspectives.

3. The idea of the Soviet Union as a slave society appears as even more nonsensical now than it must have done when written. This is the kind of terminology one expects form the extreme-right where it serves not as analysis but as political abuse. In Marxist categories it would be important to show in what manner we could correlate the idea with the original tenets of historical materialism. This does not mean that a new type of slave society can be relegated as a conception totally to the realm of science fiction, but it does mean the term slave has a generally understood meaning in regards of physical restraint and general constraints on the parameters of activity which cannot be found even at the zenith of Stalinism.

Fantham and Machover's view is more coherent in that they see bureaucratic state collectivism as removing a society from any direct control by imperialism. Therefore, the working class, has been removed from the international division of labour in such a society. The advantage for the working class in this lies not in any short term gains in terms of wage remuneration or agency exercised with the social totality, but in long term social development.

4. This development is seen as the massive increase in productive forces which the bureaucratic state collectivist regime is capable of producing. The idea that such a increase automatically, in and of itself, leads to socialism has been criticised at length elsewhere and need not detain us here as it forms no part of Fantham and Machover's analysis. They see the societies as progressive as compare with the imperialist sector of the world economy and that is all. Let us now summarise the theory.

1) The economic base and the superstructures are not seen as dichotomous as in the deformed workers' state analysis. A bureaucratic state collectivism is seen as a society of a new type of running "parallel" to capitalism. (84) As such, it has its own specific economic laws of motion (85) and corresponding superstructures. Because the relationship is viewed in this manner, a revolution, rather than simply a "political revolution", is identified as necessary to change the relations of production. (86) Whereas, the Trotskyist analysis sees Stalinism as a political counter-revolution, whereby " . . . a new mode of production was established". (87) The authors place the Soviet Union in a special category as " . . . a successful proletarian revolution" (88) had occurred there and the b.s.c. regime, established by the counter-revolution, replaced a more progressive one, whereas,

"In other countries where it emerged state collectivism did so as a form definitely more progressive than the society it directly replaced". (89)

Ownership of the means of production is seen as class ownership by the bureaucracy embodied in state collectivism. This is a major challenge to the original Trotskyist analysis where the bureaucracy is seen as a mediating layer - by logical extension an unstable layer - interspersed between the means of production and the working class, i.e. a caste. After seventy years, it is clear that the original formalised schema, which viewed the bureaucracy as a temporary phenomena and the U.S.S.R. as being able to do no other than "revert" to capitalism or proceed to socialism, was simply wrong. (90) The attempt to hold fast to such a conception is the spur for Pablo's famous analysis. (91)

2. Appropriation of economic surplus is seen as essentially the same as in the first two sections. There is probably a tendency to downplay this in Fantham and Machover's analysis, in that the bureaucracy must be a progressive force - to what degree and timescale is arguable - because it can promote the building of productive forces, in the "parallel development", in a manner in which capitalism could not.

3. In fact in, an earlier critique of Trotskyism (92), Big Flame note that in typical Trotskyist theory,

"The concentration on bureaucracies as parasitical layers creates a situation where the necessity for a division of labour is seen as allowing a basis for bureaucracy". (93)

Whereas they prefer a functionalist analysis of bureaucracy,

"It is the bargaining function, not the existence of . . . bureaucrats as a separate group in the division of labour with their own distinct interests, that creates the conditions for social privileges". (94)

It is precisely the "bargaining function" which promotes "the existence of bureaucrats as a separate group" and exactly their manner of existence which enables them to carry out the "bargaining function". In trying to move away from Trotsky's supposed "sociological" analysis of material circumstances (which indicates how little they understood the attempt to integrate an understanding of bureaucracy into the internal relations of the U.S.S.R., which themselves emanate from the objective historical circumstances) and lead directly to Trotsky's international outlook, B.F.' idealist viewpoint, which views bureaucracy as abstraction, leads them to see the Cultural Revolution in China as an "anti-bureaucratic revolution" (95), rather than an intra-bureaucratic struggle, albeit involving some mass participation. (96) Big Flame read the question backwards in empiricist fashion. The function rationality of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union is defined by its role in the division of labour and not the reverse order.

The "determinate degree" of labour division in the U.S.S.R. can be understood as of a higher order in the b.s.c. model, not in the sense of any immediate differentiation in location in the social totality, but in terms of projected functional necessity - to Trotsky the bureaucracy being a procedural imposition - and historical viability. In the b.s.c. theory, the labour division would be seen as historically justified, whereas, in Trotsky's analysis, its role is identified as a blockage on the development of the productive forces. In Section A, it has already been noted that the bureaucracy's role at the initiation of socialist construction enbodies a contradiction, the main aspect of which is the pressing need for centralised economic organisation to which the strata's inegalitarianism displayed in its consumption of a disproportionately high level of surplus value, is secondary. With economic development, this contradiction is modified and assumes an eventual reverse configuration as the bureaucracy's "rational" role is superseded and the strata - by its very existence, not because of any subjective intentions - becomes an increasing drag on, not only the development of the productive forces, but on all aspects of society. (97)

4. All these theories so far considered agree that a substantial growth in productive forces has occurred. On its own, this means little, but the differentiation from "parallel" capitalist development, which also has its success stories, South Korea, Taiwan/Formosa, Hong Kong to name only three, is the manner in which this growth takes place with heavy emphasis on specific sectors. In itself, this implies some level of co-ordination or "planning" absent from capitalist development.

The b.s.c. theory as explicated by Fantham and Machover, is an attempt to grapple with some of the problems inherent in both Trotsky and Cliff's analysis. In particular, it grapples with Trotsky's view of the integral instability of Soviet society (98) and Cliff's conflating of internal and external relations. (99) Whilst they accept Ticktin's points regarding waste in the Soviet Union (100), this does not form the crux of their analysis, which is enternally coherent. They go beyond rejecting any crude Marxist view of a "unilinear sequence of modes of production", the "stages" conception, and argue for this "bifurcated" view of history. As an explanatory device, the use of the term is understandable as long as one remembers that history is a totality. Intersections and interventions occur within history, but they do not stand outside of the totality even though they may modify it.