[The following introductory notes and
remarks by Ernest Mandel were translated from the French
manuscript for the Bulletin in Defense of Marxism by Stuart
Brown.]
On January 18, in Moscow, at the headquarters of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Russian edition of
the magazine “Socialism of the Future” was presented to the
media. It is a theoretical journal published by the
Spanish, Italian, French, and German Social Democratic parties,
bringing together in a pluralist forum representatives of
various currents in the international workers’ movement.
The directors and editorial staff include in particular Mikhail
Gorbachev; Zdenek Mylnar, the former general secretary of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party during the period of the Prague
Spring; Adam Schaff, Polish Marxist expelled from the Communist
Party during the 1980s; Ota Sik; Andre Gorz; Ralph Miliband; and
Ernest Mandel, representing the Fourth International.
At this news conference, the journal was represented by
Adam Schaff (initiator of the magazine), a member of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the USSR CP, Ernest
Mandel, and Zdenek Mlynar.
The importance of the event lies in the fact that, for
the first time since the expulsion of the Left Opposition in
1927-28, the Trotskyist political current as such is recognized
in the USSR as a real and legitimate part of the workers’
movement. This constitutes a step forward in the context
of a renewed recognition of the importance of Trotsky’s role in
the history of the Soviet Union -- and a step forward in the
publication of his writings. Mandel demanded in his
comments not only that all the writings of Trotsky and the
principal leaders of the Soviet Left Opposition be published in
the USSR, but also the main works by representatives of the
Fourth International.
During his trip to Moscow, Mandel was given a long
interview concerning Trotsky, Trotskyism, and the Fourth
International by the weekly publication, “Argumenti i Fakti,”
which has the largest circulation of any newsweekly in the world;
almost 30 million copies. The theoretical review, “Dialog,”
which prints 400,000 copies, published an article by him
concerning the organization of a democratic, self-managed,
planned economy, in opposition to both the despotism of
capitalist wealth and the despotism of the state. Mandel
gave several lectures at scientific institutions and met with
representatives of the principal left organizations in Moscow.
We print here the text of the comments made by Ernest Mandel
before the Soviet media:
Dear Friends and Comrades,
The Fourth International, in whose name I speak today,
continues the fight of Lev Davidovich Trotsky and the other
militants of the Left Opposition against bureaucratism and
Stalinism, against capitalism, imperialism, and fascism.
We pursue the struggle for emancipation and for direct democracy
which inspired the October revolution. Stalin considered
the Opposition to be his principle enemy. He assassinated
all of its militants, practically without exception. He
assassinated a million communists using the pretext of
Trotskyism or of an alliance with Trotskyism. These are the
crimes of counterrevolution, not the product of revolution.
Today, the historical truth about Trotsky and the
Opposition is coming to light. This work, of moral and
political importance, must be completed. We demand of the
USSR’s judicial authorities that they lift from Trotsky and his
son Leon Sedov all the infamous accusations made against them as
part of the verdict of the first Moscow trial in 1936. We
demand that all the works of Trotsky and of other spokespeople
of the Opposition be published in the USSR, as well as the
principal writings by representatives of the Fourth
International.
As a citizen of a country occupied by German imperialism
in May 1940, as a militant from the first hours of the popular
antifascist resistance in my my country, as a former prisoner of
the Nazi camps, I consider it my duty to express here my
recognition of and admiration for the indomitable courage of the
Soviet army and the citizens and peoples of the Soviet Union,
and for all the workers of Moscow, of Leningrad, and of besieged
Stalingrad. Thanks to their heroic resistance the attempt
at world domination by German imperialism under the Nazis failed.
All humanity owes an eternal debt to these heroes and heroines.
Hitler wanted to exterminate 100 million people in Central and
Eastern Europe. There would have been additional millions in
Africa and Asia if he had been able to break the resistance of
the USSR. It is above all the Soviet Union which foiled
this bloody and barbaric project.
The activities of the Soviet workers between 1941 and
1944 are the material and moral product of the October socialist
revolution. Here that revolution finds an incontestable
historic justification. But the bureaucrats who usurped
and monopolized power from 1923 -- who suffocated the real power
of the Soviets, who strangled democracy within the Communist
Party and the trade unions in order to defend their exorbitant
material privileges -- undermined and discredited the work of
this great revolution.
They discredited it with their monstrous crimes against
the communists, the workers, the peasants, the oppressed
nationalities of the USSR, against the peoples of Eastern Europe,
against the workers of many countries. They undermined it
by suffocating the creative initiative of the masses and of the
intellectuals, by a generalized irresponsibility and
indifference in the economy. The failure of their “command
economy” is obvious today for all to see. The economic,
social, political, moral crisis which results is extremely grave.
Faced with this crisis, some call for the privatization
of industry as the only possible alternative. They assert
likewise that, without the predominance of the private sector,
personal liberty, a state based on law, and democratic freedoms
for the masses and for nationalities cannot be guaranteed.
However, the experience of the capitalist world demonstrates
that when private property is predominant, the great majority of
working men and women are subject to the despotism of the
wealthy. This is no less serious than the despotism of the
state. The masses must, under these circumstances, submit to
chronic or conjunctural unemployment, to the periodic lowering
of wages, to material and moral misery as a result of decisions
over which they have no control, which are imposed behind their
backs. There are today, in those countries considered rich, 40
million unemployed. This will grow to 50 million during the
course of the economic crisis which has already begun. More than
100 million live in poverty.
In the capitalist countries of the Third World, there
are more than 100 million unemployed and a billion living in
poverty. The attempt to impose a regime of private property in
Poland has already brought about a 35 percent lowering of real
wages, a grave decline in production, and a crushing poverty.
The politics of Reagan and of Mrs. Thatcher have
produced in the United States and in Great Britain a graver
economic crisis than in other countries. The gap between
rich and poor has increased without letup during the last
decade.
On a worldwide scale, this gap has grown even more.
Between 1980 and 1988 the per capita income went down, in an
absolute sense, in 62 countries totaling 808 million inhabitants.
In Africa it is 50 times lower than in the USA. And it is
certain that if the Soviet economy becomes privatized, the USSR
will become a Third World country, not a Sweden or a Finland.
As the masses resist, sooner or later, against these
abominations through their struggles -- including with big
strikes -- the defenders of private property will have to use
repression, restrictions on democratic liberties, just like open
dictatorial regimes, in order to protect free enterprise.
Private economy and the rights of men and women are, therefore,
opposed to one another; they are far from mutually reinforcing
each other.Faced with these two dictatorships -- of the state
and of great capitalist wealth -- we, socialists of the Fourth
International, defend a third path: one of a collective,
self-managed, and democratically planned economy.
The meaning of this can be summed up in the idea that
the masses of producers/consumers decide for themselves -- after
a democratic, public, open, pluralist debate -- the broad
priorities of what should be produced, how it should be produced,
and how it should be distributed. The decisions on
economic management should be imposed neither by the state nor
by the market, but made consciously and democratically by the
people themselves.
When we say “collective economy” we do not mean “state
economy.” We mean the power to make decisions resting in
the hands of the producers/consumers. This means that one
part of the product remains at the disposition of the workers of
each enterprise; another part goes to the citizens of each
municipality, of each region, of each nationality, and to the
country as a whole. But the decisions must be coordinated,
and therefore planned -- by industrial branch, by commune, by
nationality, in the entire country -- through democratic bodies
elected from below.
This third path is not only more democratic than the
dictatorship of the state or the dictatorship of wealth, it is
also more efficient. It liberates an immense creative
capacity, not only for a small minority of independent
entrepreneurs (which only makes up a small percentage of the
population in the West) but for the great majority. They
will sense, finally -- convinced by experience -- that they are
working for themselves and for their own, verifiable and
measurable interests. To eliminate unemployment, to reduce
the hours of work, to assure goods and consumer services of a
high quality, to guarantee a rapid and honest distribution of
goods: this will become the business of each and all.
The third economic model thus satisfies a moral
requirement. This is not the least of its advantages. Men
and women do not live by bread alone. In discrediting
socialism, in demoralizing the workers and the masses, the
Stalinist dictatorship created an immense moral and ideological
void. Out of this void today arise cynicism, egoism,
indifference, and scorn with regard to others -- indeed
criminality -- as well as retrograde ideas which find their
sustenance their: irrationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia,
anti-Semitism, racism. In the face of this unfurling of
reactionary mentality, we reaffirm our belief in everything that
is rational and generous in human nature, particularly
cooperation and solidarity as fundamental qualities for the
reconstruction of the economy, of society, and of the world.
This has become literally a question of physical survival for
humanity -- since the struggle of each against all, egoism,
thirst for private profit, contempt for others, are leading us
directly to disaster: nuclear catastrophes, wars of
extermination, ecological breakdowns, appalling misery in the
Third World.
Each year 17 million children die of hunger or curable
diseases. Every four years as many dead as during the
Second World War. Every four years a world war against
children. One hundred million children work in inhumane
conditions, often approaching slavery.Solidarity, cooperation --
even more, equality -- must be extended to everyone, but above
all to the most deprived. This means especially the sick,
the disabled, the retired, single mothers, marginalized layers,
the “new poor.” On a world scale it means the most
oppressed and persecuted, our brothers and sisters of South
Africa, Central America, and Palestine.We must energetically
condemn the war of the Western powers against Iraq. We
must condemn the collaboration between the governments of the
United States and the USSR which tolerate these two acts of
aggression.
After a long period of persecution and isolation, the
Fourth International is today recognized as a part of the
workers’ movement and of the “new social movements” in a series
of countries, thanks to the role which we play within the mass
movement. We have developed within these movements a
profoundly unifying approach. We advocate unity in the
struggle for common objectives, overcoming all the differences
that separate the Communist parties on the one hand, and the
Social Democratic parties on the other.
These differences deal with the duty of socialists to
defend intransigently the interests of the workers, of women, of
oppressed nationalities, of ethnic minorities, of the
environment, and of peace -- against anything which might harm
them. They deal with the duty of socialists to be
intransigent defenders of democratic rights without restriction,
notably against any limitation on the right to strike and
freedom of the press. They concern the duty of socialists
to stimulate the self-activity, the mobilization, the
self-organization, and the democratic leadership of the masses,
without subordination to any considerations of “realpolitik” or
to the manipulations and hesitations of bureaucratic structures.
The confrontation of different ideas and strategies of
struggle is inevitable under such conditions. But this prohibits
neither unity in action nor dialogue. That is the reason I
am participating in the publication of this magazine as a leader
of the Fourth International. Without such an ongoing
dialogue, our indispensable unity in action is impossible. That
is why the confrontation over ideas and strategies must take
place under conditions that exclude the utilization of violence
and repression, of prohibitions against written works, of
slander, of lies, of falsification of texts, of censorship --
regarding anyone who is part of the workers’ or mass movements.
Respect for these principles is indispensable for the conquest
of socialist democracy, of democratic socialism, or a real
democratic soviet power elected on the basis of political
pluralism.
Thank you for your attention |