China: sobre el estalinismo, la Restauración capitalista y la teoría marxista del Estado

China: Sobre o stalinismo, a restauração capitalista e a teoria marxista do Estado

Cina: sullo stalinismo, la restaurazione capitalista e la teoria marxista dello Stato

 

Notes on the transformation of social property relations under one and the same party regime

 

An Essay by Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 15 September 2024, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Contents

 

Introduction

 

I.            The CPC in the process of revolution and counter-revolution in 20^th century

 

II.          Character and role of the state in Marxist Theory

 

State in general, state form and “bureaucratic-military state machine”

 

Identity of political superstructure and the economic basis?

 

On the relative autonomy of the state

 

III.        Stalinism and character of the state apparatus in degenerated workers state

 

The contradictory nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy in a degenerated workers state

 

The bourgeois-bureaucratic and Bonapartist state machine of Stalinism

 

The Stalinist bureaucracy in the face of revolution and counterrevolution

 

IV.        The role of the Stalinist regime in der process of capitalist restoration

 

Excurse: On the role of the state in socio-economic transformations

 

V.          Conclusions

 

 

* * * * *

 

Introduction

 

 

 

In the first part of our series of articles we analysed the relationship between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese bourgeoisie since the early 1990s and its consequences for the class character of the ruling bureaucracy. We did show how the Stalinist bureaucracy increasingly fused with sections of the new capitalist class. [1]

 

In the second part, we shall approach this issue from a theoretical point of view. We will show how China’s transformation from a Stalinist degenerated workers state into a capitalist state – taking place under the conditions of continuing rule of the same “Communist” party – can be explained within the framework of the Marxist state theory.

 

This is all the more important since many Marxists are confused by the fact that one and the same political regime can oversee first one mode of production and later facilitate the transformation to another one. We will show that this is not only possible but also that China is by no means a unique case for such.

 

 

I. The CPC in the process of revolution and counter-revolution in 20^th century

 

 

 

We shall start with a brief summary of the history of the CPC. It was founded as a revolutionary organisation in 1921. While small at the beginning, it grew massively in the period of the Second Chinese Revolution 1925-27 and developed important links among the working class and the poor peasantry.

 

However, the Kremlin imposed the party’s subordination to the bourgeois Kuomintang party which made the CPC unprepared and helpless when Chiang Kai-shek waged a bloody counterrevolution against the party and the vanguard of the working class in 1927.

 

With the defat in 1927, the now Stalinist CPC became totally bureaucratised, lost most of its links to the urban proletariat and retreated to the countryside. It transformed towards a party mostly composed by peasants. According to Peng Shu-Tse, a CPC leader who was expelled for his support for Trotskyism, workers made only less than 1% of the party’s membership in the early 1930s. However, the party organised a rural guerilla struggle against the Kuomintang party and played a leading role in the resistance against the Japanese invasion. Through all those years, it remained closely aligned to the Stalinist bureaucracy of the Soviet Union. [2]

 

After the defeat of Japanese imperialism at the end of World War II, the CPC successfully overthrew the corrupted Kuomintang regime in 1949 (which was forced to retreat to Taiwan). Initially, the Mao leadership tried to build the Stalinist utopia of a “New Democracy” together with the capitalists. However, this project collapsed because of a) the pressure of the masses which wanted to go further, b) the sabotage of the landowners and capitalists, and c) the Cold War with the U.S. Hence, the Mao leadership was obliged – against their original intentions – to carry out a social revolution, i.e. it abolished capitalist relations of production and established a workers state based on a nationalised and planned economy.

 

However, the CPC leadership carried out this transformation with bureaucratic methods and brutal oppression against rebellious workers and peasants (including the supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Chinese section of the Fourth International). Hence, from the very beginning, the new workers state was bureaucratically degenerated, and the working class had been politically expropriated. [3]

 

The following decades saw both social and economic progress as well as vicious factions struggles within the bureaucracy. The country was shattered by devastating campaigns like the “Great Leap Forward” from 1958 to 1962 (which caused horrible famine with millions of deaths) or the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” from 1966 to 1976.

 

From 1978 onwards, the CPC, now lead by a group around Deng Xiaoping, introduced a number of market reforms which enabled economic growth but, at the same time, also resulted in acceleration of political and social contradictions. Finally, these tensions provoked a workers and student uprising in April-June 1989 which was brutally smashed by the CPC bureaucracy.

 

In the following years, the party leadership drew a balance sheet of these events and also took into account the lessons of the collapse of Stalinist rule in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The result was that the bureaucracy opted, on one hand, to accelerate the market reforms and to restore capitalism and, on the other hand, to maintain its absolute political monopoly, i.e. the one-party dictatorship. The starting point of this new course was Deng’s famous Southern Tour in 1992. As the RCIT has shown in various works, these developments resulted in the emergence of a new capitalist class and China’s transformation into a new imperialist power. ^[4]

 

All these developments were undertaken, formally, by one and the same party and its dictatorship. How can this be explained from the point of view of Marxist theory?

 

 

II. Character and role of the state in Marxist Theory

 

 

 

In order to understand the contradictory role of the Stalinist regime in China, we need to recapitulate the Marxist teachings about the character and the role of the state. Basically, the state is a product of social contradictions within a society. It emerges with the division of the society in owners and non-owners of means of production. Rising from the class divisions in the society, the state necessarily places itself above the society and becomes an institution which is both organically linked with and, at the same time, antagonistically opposed to the society.

 

As Friedrich Engels noted: „The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the ethical idea”, “the image and reality of reason”, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power seemingly standing above society that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.“ ^[5]

 

Lenin, in the same spirit, said in his 1919 lecture on the state: “History shows that the state as a special apparatus for coercing people arose wherever and whenever there appeared a division of society into classes, that is, a division into groups of people some of which were permanently in a position to appropriate the labour of others, where some people exploited others.” ^[6]

 

Furthermore, the state is not an instrument of the society but rather an instrument of the ruling class to suppress the lower classes and to control and administer the society in their interests. Therefore, the state must necessarily possess various means of coercion. In their famous Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels stated: „The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.“ ^[7] And Lenin noted in his book State and Revolution: „The state is a special organisation of force: it is an organisation of violence for the suppression of some class.“ ^[8]

 

We said above that the state is organically linked with the class society above which is resides. What does this mean? It means that the character of the state usually reflects the character of the economic fundament of the society. While there can be periods – albeit only of temporary nature – where the character of the economy and that of the state are not identical, in general they are of the same nature. The reason for this is obvious. The class of property owner is the ruling class. Hence, it usually also dominates the political sphere of the society, i.e. the state apparatus.

 

Such we arrive at the next important conclusion in determining the nature of the exploiter state: the class character of the state – slave-holder, oriental despotic, feudal, capitalist, etc. – is derived from the specific class character of the economy. China’s Empire – be it under the Tang dynasty, the Yuan dynasty or the Ming dynasty – was not dominated by a class of slave holders since slavery did not play a large role in the economic process of production and reproduction. It was rather a class dominating a despotic state machine based on the revenue which was extracted from the surplus labour of peasantry working on private or state land. Likewise, the European states in the Middle Ages were dominated by the class which possessed the land – the feudal aristocracy.

 

Marx emphasized this point on numerous occasions. For example, in Capital Vol. III he wrote: “The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers – a relation always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and thereby its social productivity – which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure, and with it the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the corresponding specific form of the state. “ ^[9]

 

 

 

State in general, state form and “bureaucratic-military state machine”

 

 

 

At this point, it is crucial to clarify the category “state”, respectively to be aware of its different meanings. ^[10] Marxists (and non-Marxists) often use this category to signify the whole social formation, i.e. the political superstructure as well as the means of production and social classes that live within a definite territory. So, for example, when we speak of the Roman Empire as a slave-holder state, of France as a “capitalist state” or of the USSR as a “degenerated workers’ state”, we have such a totality of the socio-economic formation in mind. Here, we speak about the class character of the state in general (or the state type).

 

When we use the term state in this way and seek to define its fundamental class character, we do so according to the property relations that are predominant and are actually protected by the political superstructure, no matter what class character this specific superstructure might have if analysed in isolation from this economic base. Hence, the USSR under Stalin remained a workers’ state despite the monstrous totalitarian character of its apparatus of repression.

 

However, when we speak about the state as an institution separated from the economy and the “civil society”, we mean the specific political superstructure, i.e. the state apparatus. Such a political superstructure can have various forms – from dictatorship to democracy, from monarchy to republic. Here, we speak about the class character of the state form. Hence, one and the same type of state can have different state forms. The slave-holder state in Greece or Rome, for example, saw different forms of regime like democracy, republic or monarchy. Likewise, a capitalist state can be bourgeois-democratic, bonapartist, fascist, military dictatorship, etc.

 

Such different forms of the state apparatus, however important they may be, are not “the essence” of the state. Thus, even the most representative of these institutions, subject to periodic elections under a system of universal suffrage, come and go, rise and fall, without anything fundamental changing about the essence of the “state”.

 

This is because the core of such a state apparatus is its means of coercion to oppress the lower classes. In modern history, this means the repression apparatus (police, standing army, justice) and the state bureaucracy. This constitutes the essence of what Marx and Lenin called the “bureaucratic-military state machine” – a machine which every working-class revolution must smash. “If you look up the last chapter of my Eighteenth Brumaire, you will find that I declare that the next attempt of the French Revolution will be no longer, as before, to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it, and this is the precondition for every real people's revolution on the Continent.” ^[11]

 

In the course of the historic process of social development, the role of the state becomes more and more important. This has been the case because societies have become larger, the division of labour more complex, the relations between the classes more and more entangled – and, as a result, the contradictions have become sharper and explosive. Hence, the bureaucratic-military state machine core becomes more hypertrophied and powerful vis-a-vis other components of the state.

 

 

 

Identity of political superstructure and the economic basis?

 

 

 

However, it would be mistaken to imagine that the character of the political superstructure and of the economic basis is always and fully identical. One of the most important laws of history is the uneven and combined development, as Trotsky explained, which basically means that different historical developments in societies with different social characteristics influence and shape each other. [12] A particular important factor for such unevenness is the struggle between classes since, as Marx and Engels emphasized in the Communist Manifesto, the history of all class societies is a history of class struggle.

 

Hence, it is important to recognize that temporary contradictions between the character of the political superstructure and the economic basis can exist and have repeatedly done so in history. (More on this below). Likewise, history has also seen various cases, where the economy was characterized not by only one but by two or more different relations of productions. The late Roman Empire in the 3^rd to the 5^th century or the Byzantian Empire in the 6^th to the 9^th century saw the parallel existence of ancient as well as of early feudal forms of property. Europe in the 16^th to the 19^th century and, later, numerous countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa saw the parallel, and often combined, existence of feudal, semi-feudal and capitalist property forms. As a result, the ruling class could have a contradictory and combined character in such cases.

 

Likewise, it can be the case that the political superstructure has a mixed character, combining for example semi-feudal as well as bourgeois elements. This is particularly possible in periods of transition between two different socio-economic formations.

 

In short, the relationship between the economic basis and the political superstructure knows all forms of dialectical contradictions and forms of transition and shades.

 

 

 

On the relative autonomy of the state

 

 

 

Bourgeois critiques have accused Marxism that it would preach a simplistic schema of one-sided determinism according to which the economic basis determines everything and the superstructure is merely a passive reflection of the former. While it is true that some “Marxist” revisionists have supported such ideas, neither Marx and Engels nor Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky did ever share such conceptions. They rather emphasized that the superstructure, including the state, is of course determined by the economic basis but only in the last instance. At the same time, they explained that the different parts possess a relative autonomy within the totality of a given social formation.

 

Such wrote Engels in a letter to Joseph Bloch in 1890: „According to the materialistic conception of history, the production and reproduction of real life constitutes in the last instance the determining factor of history. Neither Marx nor I ever maintained more. Now when someone comes along and distorts this to mean that the economic factor is the sole determining factor, he is converting the former proposition into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis but the various factors of the superstructure – the political forms of the class struggles and its results – constitutions, etc., established by victorious classes after hard-won battles – legal forms, and even the reflexes of all these real struggles in the brain of the participants, political, jural, philosophical theories, religious conceptions and their further development into systematic dogmas – all these exercise an influence upon the course of historical struggles, and in many cases determine for the most part their form. There is a reciprocity between all these factors in which, finally, through the endless array of contingencies (i.e., of things and events whose inner connection with one another is so remote, or so incapable of proof, that we may neglect it, regarding it as nonexistent) the economic movement asserts itself as necessary. Were this not the case, the application of the history to any given historical period would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree. We ourselves make our own history, but, first of all, under very definite presuppositions and conditions. Among these are the economic, which are finally decisive. But there are also the political, etc.“ ^[13]

 

Such a relative autonomy is based on the fact that a) the ruling class is usually divided in different factions, b) it is under pressure from other ruling classes of rivalling states, and c) it is under pressure from the oppressed classes, i.e. the class struggle from below.

 

In summary, we can state that the exploiter state is a machinery which historically evolved at a certain stage of development of human society in connection with the emergence of classes. It is a centralized instrument of the ruling class – a machinery of coercion, bureaucratic administration and manipulation – guaranteeing the exploitation of surplus labour of the oppressed classes. The type of state changes with the nature of the dominant mode of production resp. the kind of property relations which a given state defends. There can be various state forms within a given type of state. However, the relationship between the political superstructure and the economic basis is not necessarily an identical one but can rather be contradictory and uneven – at least for certain periods.

 

 

III. Stalinism and character of the state apparatus in degenerated workers state

 

 

 

When the masses in Russia took power in October 1917, they created the first workers state in history. Led by the Bolshevik party, this new state was based on councils of workers, peasants and soldiers. These institutions did regularly meet and elect delegates who were recallable. Such a pyramid-shaped system from below to the top ensured the democratic participation of the masses.

 

It was such a type of soviet state which broke up the old bureaucratic-military state machine of the exploiter state and smashed the police, standing army and bureaucracy. Instead, officials were elected from below and could be recalled at any time. No official did receive a higher wage than a skilled worker. Police and standing army were replaced by armed red guards (and, later, a new Red Army)

 

Comparing such a type of state with the Paris Commune – the first attempt of the working class to create its own state power – Lenin wrote in 1917:

 

“The fundamental characteristics of this type are: (1) the source of power is not a law previously discussed and enacted by parliament, but the direct initiative of the people from below, in their local areas—direct “seizure”, to use a current expression; (2) the replacement of the police and the army, which are institutions divorced from the people and set against the people, by the direct arming of the whole people; order in the state under such a power is maintained by the armed workers and peasants themselves, by the armed people themselves; (3) officialdom, the bureaucracy, are either similarly replaced by the direct rule of the people themselves or at least placed under special control; they not only become elected officials, but are also subject to recall at the people’s first demand; they are reduced to the position of simple agents; from a privileged group holding “jobs” remunerated on a high, bourgeois scale, they become workers of a special “arm of the service”, whose remuneration does not exceed the ordinary pay of a competent worker. This, and this alone, constitutes the essence of the Paris Commune as a special type of state. “ ^[14]

 

The new workers state, based on the support of the masses, managed to overcome the vicious counterrevolutionary forces in 1917-21 – including both the coalition of monarchists, bourgeois “democrats” and reformists as well as invading forces from 16 foreign armies. However, the first workers state remained isolated – mainly because of the combined efforts of all imperialist powers to contain the revolutionary wave but also because of the lack of experience of the new Communist Parties in Europe.

 

As a result, the USSR, where a new socialist economy and social order had to be built on the basis of a backward semi-feudal and bourgeois society, faced increasing difficulties and a process of bureaucratization began. In order to counter such a development, Trotsky and the Left Opposition proposed to focus on the internationalization of the revolution, the revitalization of party and soviet democracy as well as the creation of planned economy with an expanding industrial basis. However, the majority of the party leadership rejected such a strategy and increasingly merged with the new bureaucracy. By 1927, the Left Opposition was expelled from the party and thousands of authentic communists were imprisoned and later killed. [15]

 

Trotsky and his supporters called this process the “Thermidor” of the October Revolution where soviet democracy had been destroyed and the working class politically expropriated. The Stalinist bureaucracy created an absolutist and bonapartist dictatorship which brutally suppressed the masses. At the same time, it could not abolish the socio-economic foundation of the workers state (nationalisation of the key sectors of the economy, foreign trade monopoly, planning) on which its power – and hence its privileges – did rest.

 

 

 

The contradictory nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy in a degenerated workers state

 

 

 

It is clear that such a state was a highly contradictory phenomenon. It was neither a healthy workers state nor a capitalist state. Trotsky called it degenerated workers state, i.e. a state dominated by a petty-bourgeois bureaucracy whose power rested economically on post-capitalist, proletarian property relations and politically on a bourgeois-bureaucratic state machinery. [16]

 

Was the Stalinist bureaucracy a new class? No, Trotsky insisted. The bureaucracy was not a class but rather a caste. It did not, as a class does, own the means of production, since the bureaucracy ruled on the basis of proletarian, and not capitalist, relations of production. Under such proletarian relations of production, the law of value – which is the basis of capitalism – does not dominate the economy. Hence, in contrast to the capitalist class, the Stalinist bureaucracy is not an exploiting class which appropriates surplus value. Rather, it constitutes a caste which plays no necessary role in the running of the economy and the society as a whole. Thus, it parasitically appropriates numerous privileges because of its commanding position in the state.

 

“Embezzlement and theft, the bureaucracy’s main sources of income, do not constitute a system of exploitation in the scientific sense of the term. But from the standpoint of the interests and position of the popular masses it is infinitely worse than any “organic” exploitation. The bureaucracy is not a possessing class, in the scientific sense of the term. But it contains within itself to a tenfold degree all the vices of a possessing class. It is precisely the absence of crystallized class relations and their very impossibility on the social foundation of the October revolution that invest the workings of the state machine with such a convulsive character. To perpetuate the systematic theft of the bureaucracy, its apparatus is compelled to resort to systematic acts of banditry. The sum total of all these things constitutes the system of Bonapartist gangsterism.“ ^[17]

 

From this it follows that the ruling bureaucracy in a degenerated workers’ state is neither part of the proletariat (which the bureaucracy oppresses and robs), nor does it constitute a capitalist class – it rather possesses a petty-bourgeois character. Because of its parasitism and its conservative, anti-revolutionary role – both in the fields of international as well as domestic policy – it serves the world bourgeoisie. However, as long as it stands at the top of a workers state and administers and defends the proletarian property relations, the bureaucracy does not constitute a capitalist ruling class but rather a petty-bourgeois, counter-revolutionary caste defending the workers state in order to safeguard their privileges.

 

This is why these Stalinist countries remained (degenerated) workers states despite their domination by an anti-proletarian bureaucratic caste. It is the economic basis which a given political regime administers and defends which defines the class character of a state. „The class nature of the state is, consequently, determined not by its political forms but by its social content; i.e., by the character of the forms of property and productive relations which the given state guards and defends.“ ^[18]

 

In making analogies, Trotsky compared the ruling bureaucracy in a Stalinist workers’ state with the bureaucracy of a trade union:

 

“The class character of the state is determined by its relation to the forms of property in the means of production. The character of a workers’ organization such as a trade union is determined by its relation to the distribution of national income. The fact that Green and Company defend private property in the means of production characterizes them as bourgeois. Should these gentlemen in addition defend the income of the bourgeoisie from attacks on the part of the workers; should they conduct a struggle against strikes, against the raising of wages, against help to the unemployed; then we would have an organization of scabs, and not a trade union. However, Green and Company, in order not to lose their base, must within certain limits lead the struggle of the workers for an increase – or at least against a diminution – of their share of the national income. (…)

 

The function of Stalin, like the function of Green, has a dual character. Stalin serves the bureaucracy and thus the world bourgeoisie; but he cannot serve the bureaucracy without defending that social foundation which the bureaucracy exploits in its own interests. To that extent does Stalin defend nationalized property from imperialist attacks and from the too impatient and avaricious layers of the bureaucracy itself. However, he carries through this defense with methods that prepare the general destruction of Soviet society. It is exactly because of this that the Stalinist clique must be overthrown. The proletariat cannot subcontract this work to the imperialists. In spite of Stalin, the proletariat defends the USSR from imperialist attacks. (…)

 

The assertion that the bureaucracy of a workers’ state has a bourgeois character must appear not only unintelligible but completely senseless to people stamped with a formal cast of mind. However, chemically pure types of state never existed, and do not exist in general. The semifeudal Prussian monarchy executed the most important tasks of the bourgeoisie, but executed them in its own manner, i.e., in a feudal, not a Jacobin style. In Japan we observe even today an analogous correlation between the bourgeois character of the state and the semifeudal character of the ruling caste. But all this does not hinder us from clearly differentiating between a feudal and a bourgeois society. True, one can raise the objection that the collaboration of feudal and bourgeois forces is immeasurably more easily realized than the collaboration of bourgeois and proletarian forces, inasmuch as the first instance presents a case of two forms of class exploitation. This is completely correct. But a workers’ state does not create a new society in one day. Marx wrote that in the first period of a workers’ state the bourgeois norms of distribution are still preserved. (…) One has to weigh well and think this thought out to the end. The workers’ state itself, as a state, is necessary exactly because the bourgeois norms of distribution still remain in force.

 

This means that even the most revolutionary bureaucracy is to a certain degree a bourgeois organ in the workers’ state. Of course, the degree of this bourgeoisification and the general tendency of development bear decisive significance. If the workers’ state loses its bureaucratization and gradually falls away, this means that its development marches along the road to socialism. On the contrary, if the bureaucracy becomes ever more powerful, authoritative, privileged, and conservative, this means that in the workers’ state the bourgeois tendencies grow at the expense of the socialist; in other words, that inner contradiction which to a certain degree is lodged in the workers’ state from the first days of its rise does not diminish, as the “norm” demands, but increases. However, so long as that contradiction has not passed from the sphere of distribution into the sphere of production, and has not blown up nationalized property and planned economy, the state remains a workers’ state.” ^[19]

 

Hence, the degenerated workers states were characterized by a contradiction which has confused many Marxists. The working class was socially, economically the ruling class but, at the same time, it was politically oppressed by the bureaucracy. While this might look strange to people who don’t go beyond mechanic thinking, it is in fact not unique in history. In the late period of Tsarist Russia, the capitalist class did already dominate the country’s economy. However, they could not participate in the political leadership of the country as it was still run by the imperial dynasty and the nobility. (This issue, by the way, was also controversially debated between Trotsky and the Marxist historian M. N. Pokrovsky in the 1920s. [20]) We saw similar developments in other long-standing feudal empires.

 

 

 

The bourgeois-bureaucratic and Bonapartist state machine of Stalinism

 

 

 

It is clear that a fundamental antagonism exists between the economic basis of the workers state – the proletarian relations of production – and its anti-proletarian, petty-bourgeois bureaucracy which rules the political super-structure of this state. This showed that the political conquests of the October Revolution – workers democracy based on Soviets, a state apparatus which was under control of the masses and with officials who did not possess vast privileges, no standing army but armed forces under control of the working class – that these historic conquests had been smashed by the Stalinist bureaucracy.

 

To maintain its rule, the Stalinist bureaucracy necessitates a state apparatus which is immune from control by the working class and the popular masses, and which can be utilized against the masses to defend the bureaucracy’s privileges. Such a state apparatus, which is totally alienated from the working class, has therefore a bourgeois character. In other words, Stalinism implemented a political counterrevolution in the 1920s and 1930s which replaced the “proletarian semi-state” (Lenin) with an anti-proletarian, bourgeoisified state machine. Trotsky called this process a pre-emptive civil war of the Stalinists against the workers vanguard.

 

When Le Temps, the leading paper of the French bourgeoisie, commented on the reinstitution of symbols of ranks in the Red Army, that this move reflects a wider process in the Soviet Union and concluded “The Soviets are getting more and more bourgeois”, Trotsky wrote:

 

“We encounter such statements by the thousand. They incontrovertibly demonstrate that the process of bourgeois degeneration among the leaders of Soviet society has gone a long way. At the same time they show that the further development of Soviet society is unthinkable without freeing that society’s socialist base from its bourgeois-bureaucratic and Bonapartist superstructure” ^[21]

 

Trotsky explained that such class contradictions between the economy and the state are not only possible but had indeed already existed several times in history. In a debate with Burnham and Carter, two leaders of the Socialist Workers Party (US), in 1937 Trotsky wrote:

 

“But does not history really know of cases of class conflict between the economy and the state? It does! After the “third estate” seized power, society for a period of several years still remained feudal. In the first months of Soviet rule the proletariat reigned on the basis of a bourgeois economy. In the field of agriculture the dictatorship of the proletariat operated for a number of years on the basis of a petty-bourgeois economy (to a considerable degree it does so even now).” ^[22]

 

One could take several other examples. In many European countries in the epoch of early capitalism, a bourgeoisie, which established capitalist property relations in large sectors of the economy, coexisted with a feudal and absolutist monarchy and its state apparatus. Likewise, the Roman Empire, which was based on the slave-holder economy, did not try to impose their relations of production in several new provinces which it had conquered in Western Asia but were rather content with collecting tribute. Or, to give another example, the state of the Yuan dynasty in China (1271–1368) was a highly contradictory combination of the traditional Chinese Han society, with its elements of the Asiatic mode of production and feudalism, on one hand, and the political-military superstructure of the Mongolian conquerors, with its primitive militarized state form of organisation as a steppe people, on the other hand.

 

 

 

The Stalinist bureaucracy in the face of revolution and counterrevolution

 

 

 

The debate about the appropriate categories for the Stalinist state was not an abstract discussion or a theoretical play of words. It had profound consequences for the perspectives and the tasks of the proletarian liberation struggle. If the Stalinists had smashed the “proletarian semi-state” and replaced it with an anti-proletarian, bourgeoisified state machine, the task of working class was not to hope for peaceful reform of this machine but rather to orientate towards an armed insurrection against the bureaucracy – a political revolution.

 

In the Transitional Program – the founding document of the Forth International – Trotsky wrote that “the chief political task in the USSR still remains the overthrow of this same Thermidorian bureaucracy.” ^[23] Such an overthrow was the only way to open the road to socialism: “Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the oppressed masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development toward socialism.” In order to prepare for this task, Marxists had to build a new revolutionary party under illegal conditions.

 

Trotsky elaborated the tasks of the political revolution in his major work on Stalinism – The Revolution Betrayed:

 

“In order better to understand the character of the present Soviet Union, let us make two different hypotheses about its future. Let us assume first that the Soviet bureaucracy is overthrown by a revolutionary party having all the attributes of the old Bolshevism, enriched moreover by the world experience of the recent period. Such a party would begin with the restoration of democracy in the trade unions and the Soviets. It would be able to, and would have to, restore freedom of Soviet parties. Together with the masses, and at their head, it would carry out a ruthless purgation of the state apparatus. It would abolish ranks and decorations, all kinds of privileges, and would limit inequality in the payment of labor to the life necessities of the economy and the state apparatus. It would give the youth free opportunity to think independently, learn, criticize and grow. It would introduce profound changes in the distribution of the national income in correspondence with the interests and will of the worker and peasant masses. But so far as concerns property relations, the new power would not have to resort to revolutionary measures. It would retain and further develop the experiment of planned economy. After the political revolution – that is, the deposing of the bureaucracy – the proletariat would have to introduce in the economy a series of very important reforms, but not another social revolution.” ^[24]

 

While Trotsky did not formulate it explicitly, it is clear from his writings that he expected the working-class revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy to be much more violent than a possible capitalist restoration overthrowing the proletarian property relations. The reason for this is that the “bourgeois-bureaucratic” state machine (i.e., police, standing army, bureaucracy) is not a proletarian instrument, but one of the petty-bourgeois Stalinist bureaucracy which is much closer to the bourgeoisie than the working class. Therefore, the political revolution required not the reform but the smashing of the Stalinist-Bonapartist state apparatus. ^[25]

 

In one of his final articles on the Stalinist bureaucracy, Trotsky wrote in 1939:

 

“The Bonapartist apparatus of the state is thus an organ for defending the bureaucratic thieves and plunderers of national wealth. (…) To believe that this state is capable of peacefully “withering away” is to live in a world of theoretical delirium. The Bonapartist caste must be smashed, the Soviet state must be regenerated. Only then will the prospects of the withering away of the state open up.“ ^[26]

 

In this he foresaw that any serious attempt of the working class to topple the bureaucracy would meet the brutal armed force of the Stalinist apparatus. This is what happened in the proletarian uprisings in Eastern Germany in 1953, in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, in Poland in 1980/81, in Kosova in 1981, and in China in 1989. On the other hand, when the capitalist restoration took place in Eastern Europe, the USSR or in China in 1989-92, this was hardly met with violent resistance by any faction of the Stalinist bureaucracy. The only possible exception was the three-day operetta of a few drunken generals in Moscow in August 1991 and, given its pathetic character, it is rather a confirmation of our thesis.

 

At the same time, Trotsky considered the Stalinist caste – given the bourgeoisified character of the bureaucracy and its state machine – as closer to capitalism than to socialism. Hence, he stated in The Revolution Betrayed – following the above-mentioned quote – that the capitalist restoration would find much more support amongst the Stalinist bureaucracy than a working-class political revolution:

 

“If – to adopt a second hypothesis – a bourgeois party were to overthrow the ruling Soviet caste, it would find no small number of ready servants among the present bureaucrats, administrators, technicians, directors, party secretaries and privileged upper circles in general. A purgation of the state apparatus would, of course, be necessary in this case too. But a bourgeois restoration would probably have to clean out fewer people than a revolutionary party. The chief task of the new power would be to restore private property in the means of production.” ^[27]

 

If it is not overthrown before, Trotsky expected that the inherent tendency of the Stalinist bureaucracy to become a property-owning class would at some point break through and open the road to capitalist restoration.

 

“Let us assume – to take a third variant – that neither a revolutionary nor a counterrevolutionary party seizes power. The bureaucracy continues at the head of the state. Even under these conditions social relations will not jell. We cannot count upon the bureaucracy's peacefully and voluntarily renouncing itself on behalf of socialist equality. If at the present time, notwithstanding the too obvious inconveniences of such an operation, it has considered it possible to introduce ranks and decorations, it must inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations. One may argue that the big bureaucrat cares little what are the prevailing forms of property, provided only they guarantee him the necessary income. This argument ignores not only the instability of the bureaucrat's own rights, but also the question of his descendants. The new cult of the family has not fallen out of the clouds. Privileges have only half their worth, if they cannot be transmitted to one's children. But the right of testament is inseparable from the right of property. It is not enough to be the director of a trust; it is necessary to be a stockholder. The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion into a new possessing class. On the other hand, the victory of the proletariat over the bureaucracy would insure a revival of the socialist revolution. The third variant consequently brings us back to the two first, with which, in the interests of clarity and simplicity, we set out.” ^[28]

 

It is certainly true that this process did take longer than Trotsky expected. World War II and the gigantic mass mobilization in the USSR to defend the country against Nazi-Germany, then the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary developments after the war (particularly in Europe and Asia) and the onset of the Cold War with Western imperialism (a process which resulted in the creation of new bureaucratically degenerated workers states – against the initial intensions of Stalin), and finally the continuation of the Cold War in combination with a relative stabilization of international relations in the 1950s and 1960s – all these factors lengthened the lifetime of the Stalinist bureaucracy for a few decades.

 

However, while such an extension of the period of Stalinism in power was an important factor in world politics in the second half of the 20^th century (something which caused a lot of confusion amongst Marxists!), from a historical point of view the period of the degenerated workers states represented only a short episode – much shorter than the epochs of the slaveholder society, the Asiatic Mode of Production, feudalism or capitalism which lasted for centuries or millenniums. This fact, by the way, also confirms Trotsky’s thesis that the bureaucracy did not constitute a new class but rather a parasitic caste which didn’t play any necessary role on the production process.

IV. The role of the Stalinist regime in der process of capitalist restoration

 

 

 

The process of revolution and counterrevolution in 1989-92 was a vindication of the Marxist analysis of the anti-proletarian and bourgeoisified character of the Stalinist bureaucracy. If we leave aside the drunken operetta in August 1991, the Stalinist bureaucracy did not put up any resistance against the restoration of capitalist property relations.

 

Not only this, factions of the bureaucracy or even the vast majority actively promoted capitalist restoration and became part of the new bourgeoisie. In Eastern Europe, numerous bustling bureaucrats formed companies and used their connections and insider knowledge. The former Communist Parties usually transformed themselves into pro-capitalist social democratic parties.

 

In Russia, Boris Yeltsin – the former First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the Communist Party – became the first President of capitalist Russia. The bureaucratic-military state machine remained largely intact. Sure, some leading figures at the top of the police, military and justice were purged and the institutions were renamed (e.g. from KGB to FSB). The official Soviet institutions were formally dissolved and replaced by parliaments. However, these “Soviets” had nothing in common with the soviets of the October Revolution and were in fact pseudo-parliamentary institutions with “elections” every four years (with only the Stalinist party plus allies standing candidates). But in its essence, the state machinery with its key institutions of police, standing army, justice and the bureaucracy did not undergo substantial changes.

 

In other countries, the process of capitalist restoration proceeding under the leadership of the Stalinist bureaucracy was even more visible. In several Central Asian countries, the ruling party merely renamed itself (e.g. from Communist Party of Uzbekistan to People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan or from Communist Party of Kazakhstan to Socialist Party). However, essentially the same parties with the same bureaucracy and the same leaders remained in power for many more years. The leaders simply mutated from “First Secretary” of the regional Communist Parties into “President” of the newly independent republics. (e.g. Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan, Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan and Islam Karimovin in Uzbekistan).

 

Similarly, Slobodan Milošević – leader of the Stalinist party in Serbia – renamed his party in 1990 and continued to rule the country, now based on capitalist property relations, until his overthrow in 2000. The same with Momir Bulatović in Montenegro who renamed the ruling party into Democratic Party of Socialists and continued to rule as President.

 

In Azerbaijan, long time Stalinist leader Heydar Aliyev – he was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982 and then the First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union from 1982 to 1987 – carried out a military coup in 1993. He ruled the country until his death in 2003, to be succeeded by his son Ilham Aliyev. A similar example is Alexander Lukashenko, a former Soviet bureaucrat who rules Belarus since 1994.

 

In China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea [29] and Cuba [30] the Communist Parties did not even rename themselves but carried out a series of market reforms resulting in the restoration of capitalism.

 

While the capitalist restoration could proceed under the leadership of the same Stalinist parties (sometimes with a different name, sometimes with the same name) and under the same leaders, it is impossible that a political revolution against these Stalinist regimes could have taken place with the same parties and leaders at the head! Because all the workers uprisings took place exactly against these parties and leaders! This is a powerful confirmation of our thesis that the petty-bourgeois Stalinist bureaucracy was much closer to the bourgeoisie than the working class and that the social counterrevolution could take place without the smashing of the Stalinist-Bonapartist state apparatus (in contrast to a successful political revolution).

 

In short, we see that the Stalinist bureaucracy, faced with the impasse of the system of the degenerated workers state on which its power had rested, basically followed three different paths. It either disintegrated as a political force with sections transforming into capitalists; it formally renamed its party and the leading institutions but basically the same forces continued to rule the country; or it continued its rule under the same name and the same leaders. However, in all cases, it implemented the restoration of capitalism and transformed itself into or fused with the new bourgeoisie.

 

In this context, it is worth reminding a warning Trotsky made already in 1930, i.e. at a time when he still considered the bureaucratic degeneration of the USSR as not that advanced so that the state could be purged from the Stalinist rule by the way of reform under the pressure of the masses (and not via a new political revolution – a conclusion he drew only in 1936).

 

“When the Opposition spoke of the danger of Thermidor, it had in mind primarily a very significant and widespread process within the party: the growth of a stratum of Bolsheviks who had separated themselves from the masses, felt secure, connected themselves with nonproletarian circles, and were satisfied with their social status, analogous to the strata of bloated Jacobins who became, in part, the support and prime executive apparatus of the Thermidorean overturn in 1794, thus paving the road for Bonapartism. In this analysis of the processes of Thermidorean degeneration in the party, the Opposition was far from saying that the counterrevolutionary overturn, were it to occur, would necessarily have to assume the form of Thermidor, that is, of a more or less lasting domination by the bourgeoisified Bolsheviks with the formal retention of the Soviet system, similar to the retention of the Convention by the Thermidoreans. History never repeats itself, particularly when there is such a profound difference in the class base. (…)

 

The state form that a counterrevolutionary overthrow in Russia would assume were it to succeed-and that is far from simple depends upon the combination of a number of concrete factors: firstly, on the degree of acuteness of the economic contradictions at the moment, the relation between the capitalist and socialist elements in the economy; secondly, on the relation between the proletarian Bolsheviks and the bourgeois "Bolsheviks" and on the relation of forces in the army; and finally, on the specific gravity and character of foreign intervention. In any event, it would be the height of absurdity to think that a counterrevolutionary regime must necessarily go through the stages of the Directorate, the Consulate, and the Empire in order to be capped by a restoration of czarism. Whatever form the counterrevolutionary regime might take, Thermidorean and Bonapartist elements would find their place in it, a larger or smaller role would be played by the Bolshevik-Soviet bureaucracy, civil and military, and the regime itself would be the dictatorship of the sword over society in the interests of the bourgeoisie and against the people. This is why it is so important today to trace the formation of these elements and tendencies within the official party, which, under all conditions, remains the laboratory of' the future: under the condition of uninterrupted socialist development or under the condition of a counterrevolutionary break.” ^[31]

 

We see that Trotsky recognized the process of bourgeoisification of the Stalinist bureaucrats already as early as in 1930. Obviously, this process became much more advanced in the next 20, 40, and 60 years! It is hardly surprising that in the late 1980s the bureaucracy did not show any resistance against the capitalist restoration but rather pushed for it by itself.

 

 

 

Excurse: On the role of the state in socio-economic transformations

 

 

 

We have explained in this essay that the very same Stalinist bureaucracy did first – in the period of the degenerated workers states – administer and defend proletarian property relations and then, in 1989-92, it implemented the restoration of capitalism by itself. This might appear contradictory to people who think in a mechanic, undialectical way. However, history has shown a number of examples where one and the same regime, one and the same state apparatus can first, administer and defend one set of relations of production and later introduce another one. In other words, the form of the regimes remains the same while the character of the economy on which it is based has changed.

 

The Byzantine Empire which lasted from the fourth century until 1453 was initially based on the slave-holder economy as it initially formed the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. However, between the 6^th and 9^th century the ruling imperial dynasties oversaw the development of feudal property relations.

 

Likewise did imperial dynasties like the Hohenzollern in Prussia/Germany, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary or the Romanovs in Russia rule their empires for centuries. Their state apparatus, based on the nobility and linked with large landowners, ruled and administered these territories first in the period of feudalism. However, in the course of the 19^th century, they - in varying degrees – encouraged the creation of a bourgeoisie and capitalist property relations, opened the country for foreign investors, etc. In short, the old regime – initially based on feudalism – introduced new capitalist relations of production. They first served the class of the feudal landowner and, later, they served the bourgeoise.

 

The Chinese Qing dynasty and the sultanate of the Ottoman Empire are additional examples. These regimes also lasted for centuries and where initially based on specific property relations which Marx called the Asiatic Mode of Production (with varying elements of feudalism). However, because of the economic decline and domestic turmoil, these regimes were forced to open their territories to foreign powers which, in turn, resulted in the expansion of capitalist relations of production. Here too, we can see one and the same regime which, first, serves the despotic bureaucracy and nobility and, later, also serves the class of foreign capitalists.

 

 

V. Conclusions

 

 

 

Let us finally summarise the main findings of our study and draw some conclusions relevant for the RCIT’s analysis of capitalist restoration and the role of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

 

1.           The oppression of the working class in the USSR and the annihilation of its vanguard resulted in a political counterrevolution. While the bureaucracy could not and did not abolish the post-capitalist, planned property relations at that time, it destroyed the organs of working-class power like democratic Soviets and armed forces under popular control. By this, it recreated a bureaucratic-military state machine – similar in its form to those of capitalist states. While the bureaucracy, for a certain period, administered and defended with this machine the social foundations of the workers state, it had built a state machine which would become a huge (and in the end insurmountable) obstacle for the liberation struggle of the masses.

 

2.           The Stalinist caste and its bureaucratic-military state machine had an anti-proletarian character from the very beginning. The bureaucracy was a petty-bourgeois force whose political power and privileges rested on the resources of the state machinery which it had imposed on the socio-economic foundation of the workers state. As a social base for its rule, it had created a social layer of labour aristocracy. Hence, the Stalinist bureaucracy and its state machine were alien class forces which usurped and utilised the workers state for their own social interests.

 

3.           As long and insofar as the workers state – whose socio-economic basis the Stalinists distorted and misused – could provide sufficient privileges for the bureaucracy, it was prepared to defend this state by its own non-revolutionary methods. At the same time, the bureaucratic caste permanently oppressed the working class because only an atomised state of the masses allowed the Stalinists to utilise the state resources for their own advantage.

 

4.           In its form, the Stalinist state machine had a bourgeois character, i.e. it was similar to the key institutions of the capitalist state (police, standing army, justice and the bureaucracy) which were separated from and without any control by the masses. This machine, first and foremost, was an instrument to control and suppress the working class and the popular masses.

 

5.           Hence, the task of the proletarian revolution in the Stalinists states was to smash this bureaucratic-military state machine. This is why a peaceful transformation was not possible as could be seen in the brutal oppressions of workers uprisings against the Stalinists (1953 in Eastern Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1980/81 in Poland, 1981 in Kosova, or 1989 in China).

 

6.           Revolutionaries could advocate a temporary united front tactic with the Stalinist bureaucracy only when and insofar as it was defending the degenerated workers state against imperialist counterrevolution (e.g. in the Korea War, in campaigns for disarmament in imperialist countries, in Anti-NATO mobilisations in the 1980s). However, the strategic and ever-present task of revolutionaries was to defend the working class and the oppressed peoples against the totalitarian rule of the bureaucratic caste.

 

7.           In contrast, a capitalist restoration was possible in a peaceful way because the Stalinist bureaucracy was already much closer to capitalism and could transform itself into a new capitalist bureaucracy respectively into new entrepreneurs. The similarity of the Stalinist and bourgeois state institutions allowed such a process of capitalist restoration without major upheavals in the state apparatus. The capitalist counterrevolution did not require the smashing of the Stalinist bureaucratic-military state machine. In a number of cases, the ruling Stalinist party and its leaders carried out the capitalist restoration themselves (in some cases they did rename their parties and their positions, in other cases this was done under the same banner of “socialism”).

 

8.           Hence, the restoration of capitalism in China by the “Communist” Party is not a unique case. There have been very similar developments in Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Cuba and, albeit in a different form, in several countries in Central Asia, Caucasus, Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notas sobre la transformación de las relaciones sociales de propiedad bajo el régimen de un solo partido

 

Un ensayo de Michael Pröbsting, Corriente Comunista Revolucionaria Internacional (CCRI), 15 de septiembre de 2024, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Contenido

 

Introducción

 

I. El PCCh en el proceso de revolución y contrarrevolución en el siglo XX

 

II. Carácter y papel del Estado en la teoría marxista

 

El Estado en general, la forma del Estado y la “máquina estatal burocrático-militar”

 

¿Identidad de la superestructura política y la base económica?

 

Sobre la autonomía relativa del Estado

 

III. El estalinismo y el carácter del aparato estatal en el Estado obrero degenerado

 

La naturaleza contradictoria de la burocracia estalinista en un Estado obrero degenerado

 

La máquina estatal burguesa-burocrática y bonapartista del estalinismo

 

La burocracia estalinista frente a la revolución y la contrarrevolución

 

IV. El papel del régimen estalinista en el proceso de restauración capitalista

 

Discusión: Sobre el papel del Estado en las transformaciones socioeconómicas

 

V. Conclusiones

 

 

 

 

Introducción

 

 

 

En la primera parte de nuestra serie de artículos analizamos la relación entre el Partido Comunista de China (PCCh) y la burguesía china desde principios de los años 1990 y sus consecuencias para el carácter de clase de la burocracia gobernante. Mostramos cómo la burocracia estalinista se fusionó cada vez más con sectores de la nueva clase capitalista. ^[1]

 

En la segunda parte, abordaremos esta cuestión desde un punto de vista teórico. Mostraremos cómo la transformación de China de un estado obrero estalinista degenerado a un estado capitalista –que tuvo lugar bajo las condiciones de un gobierno continuo del mismo partido “comunista”– puede explicarse en el marco de la teoría marxista del estado.

 

Esto es tanto más importante cuanto que muchos marxistas están confundidos por el hecho de que un mismo régimen político pueda supervisar primero un modo de producción y luego facilitar la transformación a otro. Mostraremos que esto no sólo es posible, sino también que China no es de ninguna manera un caso único en este sentido.

 

 

 

I. El PCCh en el proceso de revolución y contrarrevolución en el siglo XX

 

 

 

Comenzaremos con un breve resumen de la historia del PCCh. Fue fundado como organización revolucionaria en 1921. Aunque pequeño al principio, creció masivamente en el período de la Segunda Revolución China (1925-27) y desarrolló vínculos importantes entre la clase obrera y el campesinado pobre.

 

Sin embargo, el Kremlin impuso la subordinación del partido al partido burgués Kuomintang, lo que dejó al PCCh desprevenido e indefenso cuando Chiang Kai-shek libró una sangrienta contrarrevolución contra el partido y la vanguardia de la clase obrera en 1927.

 

Con la derrota de 1927, el ahora estalinista PCCh se burocratizó totalmente, perdió la mayoría de sus vínculos con el proletariado urbano y se retiró al campo. Se transformó en un partido compuesto principalmente por campesinos. Según Peng Shu-Tse, un dirigente del PCCh que fue expulsado por su apoyo al trotskismo, a principios de los años 30 los trabajadores representaban menos del 1% de la militancia del partido. Sin embargo, el partido organizó una lucha guerrillera rural contra el Kuomintang y desempeñó un papel destacado en la resistencia contra la invasión japonesa. Durante todos esos años, se mantuvo estrechamente alineado con la burocracia estalinista de la Unión Soviética. ^[2]

 

Después de la derrota del imperialismo japonés al final de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el PCCh derrocó con éxito al corrupto régimen del Kuomintang en 1949 (que se vio obligado a retirarse a Taiwán). Inicialmente, la dirección de Mao intentó construir la utopía estalinista de una “Nueva Democracia” junto con los capitalistas. Sin embargo, este proyecto se vino abajo debido a a) la presión de las masas que querían ir más allá, b) el sabotaje de los terratenientes y capitalistas, y c) la Guerra Fría con los EE.UU. Por lo tanto, la dirección de Mao se vio obligada –en contra de sus intenciones originales– a llevar a cabo una revolución social, es decir, abolió las relaciones capitalistas de producción y estableció un estado obrero basado en una economía nacionalizada y planificada.

 

Sin embargo, la dirección del PCCh llevó a cabo esta transformación con métodos burocráticos y una opresión brutal contra los trabajadores y campesinos rebeldes (incluidos los partidarios del Partido Comunista Revolucionario, la sección china de la Cuarta Internacional). Por lo tanto, desde el principio, el nuevo estado obrero estaba burocráticamente degenerado y la clase obrera había sido políticamente expropiada. ^[3]

 

Las décadas siguientes vieron tanto progreso social y económico como luchas feroces entre facciones dentro de la burocracia. El país quedó destrozado por devastadoras campañas como el “Gran Salto Hacia Adelante” de 1958 a 1962 (que causó una terrible hambruna con millones de muertos) o la “Gran Revolución Cultural Proletaria” de 1966 a 1976.

 

A partir de 1978, el PCCh, ahora dirigido por un grupo en torno a Deng Xiaoping, introdujo una serie de reformas de mercado que permitieron el crecimiento económico, pero, al mismo tiempo, también dieron lugar a una aceleración de las contradicciones políticas y sociales. Finalmente, estas tensiones provocaron un levantamiento obrero y estudiantil en abril-junio de 1989 que fue brutalmente aplastado por la burocracia del PCCh.

 

En los años siguientes, la dirección del partido hizo un balance de estos acontecimientos y tuvo en cuenta también las lecciones del derrumbe del régimen estalinista en la URSS y en Europa del Este. El resultado fue que la burocracia optó, por un lado, por acelerar las reformas de mercado y restaurar el capitalismo y, por otro, por mantener su monopolio político absoluto, es decir, la dictadura de partido único. El punto de partida de este nuevo rumbo fue la famosa gira de Deng por el Sur en 1992. Como ha demostrado la CCRI en varios trabajos, estos acontecimientos dieron lugar al surgimiento de una nueva clase capitalista y a la transformación de China en una nueva potencia imperialista. ^[4]

 

Todos estos acontecimientos fueron llevados a cabo, formalmente, por un mismo partido y su dictadura. ¿Cómo se puede explicar esto desde el punto de vista de la teoría marxista?

 

 

 

II. Carácter y papel del Estado en la teoría marxista

 

 

 

Para comprender el papel contradictorio del régimen estalinista en China, es necesario recapitular las enseñanzas marxistas sobre el carácter y el papel del Estado. Básicamente, el Estado es un producto de las contradicciones sociales dentro de una sociedad. Surge con la división de la sociedad en propietarios y no propietarios de los medios de producción. A partir de las divisiones de clase en la sociedad, el Estado se coloca necesariamente por encima de la sociedad y se convierte en una institución que está a la vez orgánicamente vinculada con la sociedad y, al mismo tiempo, se opone antagónicamente a ella.

 

Como señaló Friedrich Engels: "El Estado no es de ningún modo un poder impuesto desde fuera de la sociedad; tampoco es «la realidad de la idea moral», «ni la imagen y la realidad de la razón», como afirma Hegel. Es más bien un producto de la sociedad cuando llega a un grado de desarrollo determinado; es la confesión de que esa sociedad se ha enredado en una irremediable contradicción consigo misma y está dividida por antagonismos irreconciliables, que es impotente para conjurar. Pero a fin de que estos antagonismos, estas clases con intereses económicos en pugna no se devoren a sí mismas y no consuman a la sociedad en una lucha estéril, se hace necesario un poder situado aparentemente por encima de la sociedad y llamado a amortiguar el choque, a mantenerlo en los límites del «orden». Y ese poder, nacido de la sociedad, pero que se pone por encima de ella y se divorcia de ella más y más, es el Estado”. ^[5]

 

Lenin, en el mismo espíritu, dijo en su conferencia de 1919 sobre el Estado: “La historia demuestra que el Estado, como aparato especial para la coerción de los hombres, surge solamente donde y cuando aparece la división de la sociedad en clases, o sea, la división en grupos de personas, algunas de las cuales se apropian permanentemente del trabajo ajeno, donde unos explotan a otros”. ^[6]

 

Además, el Estado no es un instrumento de la sociedad, sino un instrumento de la clase dominante para reprimir a las clases bajas y controlar y administrar la sociedad en su interés. Por lo tanto, el Estado debe poseer necesariamente varios medios de coerción. En su famoso Manifiesto Comunista, Marx y Engels afirmaron: "El gobierno del Estado moderno no es más que una junta que administra los negocios comunes de toda la clase burguesa". ^[7] Y Lenin señaló en su libro El Estado y la revolución: "El Estado es una organización especial de la fuerza, una organización de la violencia para reprimir a una clase cualquiera". ^[8]

 

Dijimos anteriormente que el Estado está orgánicamente vinculado con la sociedad de clases por encima de la cual reside. ¿Qué significa esto? Significa que el carácter del Estado generalmente refleja el carácter de la base económica de la sociedad. Si bien puede haber períodos, aunque solo sea de naturaleza temporal, en los que el carácter de la economía y el del Estado no sean idénticos, en general son de la misma naturaleza. La razón de esto es obvia. La clase de los propietarios es la clase dominante. Por lo tanto, también suele dominar la esfera política de la sociedad, es decir, el aparato estatal.

 

De este modo llegamos a la siguiente conclusión importante para determinar la naturaleza del Estado explotador: el carácter de clase del Estado (esclavista, despótico oriental, feudal, capitalista, etc.) se deriva del carácter de clase específico de la economía. El Imperio chino (ya fuera bajo la dinastía Tang, la dinastía Yuan o la dinastía Ming) no estaba dominado por una clase de propietarios de esclavos, ya que la esclavitud no desempeñaba un papel importante en el proceso económico de producción y reproducción. Era más bien una clase que dominaba una máquina estatal despótica basada en los ingresos que se extraían del trabajo excedente del campesinado que trabajaba en tierras privadas o estatales. Del mismo modo, los estados europeos de la Edad Media estaban dominados por la clase que poseía la tierra: la aristocracia feudal.

 

Marx subrayó este punto en numerosas ocasiones. Por ejemplo, en El Capital, volumen III, escribió: “La forma económica específica en que se arranca al productor directo el trabajo sobrante no retribuido determina la relación de señorío y servidumbre tal como brota directamente de la producción y repercute, a su vez, de un modo determinante sobre ella. Y esto sirve luego de base a toda la estructura de la comunidad económica, derivada a su vez de las relaciones de producción y con ello, al mismo tiempo, su forma política específica. La relación directa existente entre los propietarios de las condiciones de producción y los productores directos –relación cuya forma corresponde siempre de un modo natural a una determinada fase de desarrollo del tipo de trabajo y, por tanto, a su capacidad productiva social– es la que nos revela el secreto más recóndito, la base oculta de toda la construcción social y también, por consiguiente, de la forma política de la relación de soberanía y dependencia, en una palabra, de cada forma específica de Estado”. ^[9]

 

 

 

Estado en general, forma estatal y “máquina estatal burocrático-militar”

 

 

 

En este punto, es decisivo aclarar la categoría “Estado” y, respectivamente, ser conscientes de sus diferentes significados. ^[10] Los marxistas (y los no marxistas) suelen utilizar esta categoría para designar la formación social en su conjunto, es decir, la superestructura política, así como los medios de producción y las clases sociales que viven en un territorio determinado. Así, por ejemplo, cuando hablamos del Imperio Romano como un Estado esclavista, de Francia como un “Estado capitalista” o de la URSS como un “Estado obrero degenerado”, tenemos en mente esa totalidad de la formación socioeconómica. Aquí, hablamos del carácter de clase del Estado en general (o del tipo de Estado).

 

Cuando utilizamos el término Estado de esta manera y tratamos de definir su carácter de clase fundamental, lo hacemos de acuerdo con las relaciones de propiedad que predominan y que están realmente protegidas por la superestructura política, sin importar el carácter de clase que esta superestructura específica pueda tener si se analiza aisladamente de esta base económica. Por lo tanto, la URSS bajo Stalin siguió siendo un Estado obrero a pesar del monstruoso carácter totalitario de su aparato de represión.

 

Sin embargo, cuando hablamos del Estado como institución separada de la economía y de la “sociedad civil”, nos referimos a la superestructura política específica, es decir, al aparato estatal. Esta superestructura política puede tener diversas formas: desde la dictadura hasta la democracia, desde la monarquía hasta la república. Aquí, hablamos del carácter de clase de la forma estatal. Por lo tanto, un mismo tipo de Estado puede tener diferentes formas estatales. El Estado esclavista en Grecia o Roma, por ejemplo, tuvo diferentes formas de régimen: democracia, república o monarquía. Del mismo modo, un Estado capitalista puede ser democrático-burgués, bonapartista, fascista, dictadura militar, etc.

 

Estas diferentes formas del aparato estatal, por importantes que sean, no son “la esencia” del Estado. Por lo tanto, incluso las más representativas de estas instituciones, sujetas a elecciones periódicas bajo un sistema de sufragio universal, aparecen y desaparecen, surgen y caen, sin que nada fundamental cambie en la esencia del “Estado”. Esto se debe a que el núcleo de este aparato estatal son sus medios de coerción para oprimir a las clases bajas. En la historia moderna, esto significa el aparato de represión (policía, ejército permanente, justicia) y la burocracia estatal. Esto constituye la esencia de lo que Marx y Lenin llamaron la “máquina estatal burocrático-militar”, una máquina que toda revolución de la clase obrera debe destruir. “Si te fijas en el último capítulo de mi Dieciocho Brumario, verás que expongo como próxima tentativa de la revolución francesa no hacer pasar de unas manos a otras la máquina burocrático-militar, como venía sucediendo hasta ahora, sino demolerla, y ésta es justamente la condición previa de toda verdadera revolución popular en el continente”. ^[11]

 

En el curso del proceso histórico del desarrollo social, el papel del Estado se vuelve cada vez más importante. Esto ha sido así porque las sociedades se han vuelto más grandes, la división del trabajo más compleja, las relaciones entre las clases cada vez más enredadas y, como resultado, las contradicciones se han vuelto más agudas y explosivas. Por lo tanto, el núcleo de la máquina estatal burocrático-militar se vuelve más hipertrofiado y poderoso frente a otros componentes del Estado.

 

 

 

¿Identidad entre la superestructura política y la base económica?

 

 

 

Sin embargo, sería un error pensar que el carácter de la superestructura política y el de la base económica son siempre y completamente idénticos. Una de las leyes más importantes de la historia es el desarrollo desigual y combinado, como explicó Trotsky, lo que básicamente significa que los diferentes desarrollos históricos en sociedades con diferentes características sociales se influyen y configuran mutuamente. ^[12] Un factor particularmente importante para tal desigualdad es la lucha entre clases, ya que, como Marx y Engels enfatizaron en el Manifiesto Comunista, la historia de todas las sociedades de clases es una historia de lucha de clases.

 

Por lo tanto, es importante reconocer que pueden existir contradicciones temporales entre el carácter de la superestructura política y la base económica y que esto ha sucedido repetidamente en la historia (más sobre esto a continuación). Asimismo, la historia también ha visto varios casos en los que la economía se caracterizaba no solo por una sino por dos o más relaciones de producción diferentes. En el Imperio Romano tardío, entre los siglos III y V, o en el Imperio bizantino, entre los siglos VI y IX, se dieron formas de propiedad feudales antiguas y tempranas en paralelo. En Europa, entre los siglos XVI y XIX, y más tarde en numerosos países de América Latina, Asia y África, se dieron formas de propiedad feudales, semifeudales y capitalistas en paralelo y a menudo combinadas. Por eso, la clase dominante podía tener un carácter contradictorio y combinado.

 

Asimismo, puede darse el caso de que la superestructura política tenga un carácter mixto, combinando, por ejemplo, elementos semifeudales y burgueses. Esto es especialmente posible en períodos de transición entre dos formaciones socioeconómicas diferentes.

 

En resumen, la relación entre la base económica y la superestructura política conoce todas las formas de contradicción dialéctica, formas de transición y matices.

 

 

 

Sobre la autonomía relativa del Estado

 

 

 

Los críticos burgueses han acusado al marxismo de predicar un esquema simplista de determinismo unilateral según el cual la base económica lo determina todo y la superestructura es meramente un reflejo pasivo de la primera. Si bien es cierto que algunos revisionistas “marxistas” han apoyado tales ideas, ni Marx y Engels ni Lenin, Luxemburg y Trotsky compartieron nunca tales concepciones. Más bien enfatizaron que la superestructura, incluido el Estado, está determinada por la base económica, pero solo en última instancia. Al mismo tiempo, explicaron que las diferentes partes poseen una autonomía relativa dentro de la totalidad de una formación social dada.

 

Así escribió Engels en una carta a Joseph Bloch en 1890: “Según la concepción materialista de la historia, el factor que en última instancia determina la historia es la producción y la reproducción de la vida real. Ni Marx ni yo hemos afirmado nunca más que esto. Si alguien lo tergiversa diciendo que el factor económico es el único determinante, convertirá aquella tesis en una frase vacua, abstracta, absurda. La situación económica es la base, pero los diversos factores de la superestructura que sobre ella se levanta --las formas políticas de la lucha de clases y sus resultados, las Constituciones que, después de ganada una batalla, redacta la clase triunfante, etc., las formas jurídicas, e incluso los reflejos de todas estas luchas reales en el cerebro de los participantes, las teorías políticas, jurídicas, filosóficas, las ideas religiosas y el desarrollo ulterior de éstas hasta convertirlas en un sistema de dogmas-- ejercen también su influencia sobre el curso de las luchas históricas y determinan, predominantemente en muchos casos, su forma. Es un juego mutuo de acciones y reacciones entre todos estos factores, en el que, a través de toda la muchedumbre infinita de casualidades (es decir, de cosas y acaecimientos cuya trabazón interna es tan remota o tan difícil de probar, que podemos considerarla como inexistente, no hacer caso de ella), acaba siempre imponiéndose como necesidad el movimiento económico. De otro modo, aplicar la teoría a una época histórica cualquiera sería más fácil que resolver una simple ecuación de primer grado. Somos nosotros mismos quienes hacemos nuestra historia, pero la hacemos, en primer lugar, con arreglo a premisas y condiciones muy concretas. Entre ellas, son las económicas las que deciden en última instancia. Pero también desempeñan su papel, aunque no sea decisivo, las condiciones políticas, y hasta la tradición, que merodea como un duende en las cabezas de los hombres.” ^[13]

 

Esta autonomía relativa se basa en el hecho de que a) la clase dominante suele estar dividida en diferentes facciones, b) está bajo la presión de otras clases dominantes de estados rivales, y c) está bajo la presión de las clases oprimidas, es decir, la lucha de clases desde abajo.

 

En resumen, podemos afirmar que el Estado explotador es una maquinaria que se desarrolló históricamente en una determinada etapa del desarrollo de la sociedad humana en relación con el surgimiento de las clases. Es un instrumento centralizado de la clase dominante -una maquinaria de coerción, administración burocrática y manipulación- que garantiza la explotación del plustrabajo de las clases oprimidas. El tipo de Estado cambia con la naturaleza del modo de producción dominante o el tipo de relaciones de propiedad que defiende un estado determinado. Dentro de un mismo tipo de Estado pueden existir diversas formas de Estado, pero la relación entre la superestructura política y la base económica no es necesariamente idéntica, sino que puede ser contradictoria y desigual, al menos durante ciertos períodos.

 

 

 

III. El estalinismo y el carácter del aparato estatal en el estado obrero degenerado

 

 

 

Cuando las masas en Rusia tomaron el poder en octubre de 1917, crearon el primer estado obrero de la historia. Dirigido por el partido bolchevique, este nuevo estado se basaba en consejos de obreros, campesinos y soldados. Estas instituciones se reunían regularmente y elegían delegados que eran revocables. Este sistema piramidal de abajo a arriba aseguraba la participación democrática de las masas.

 

Fue este tipo de estado soviético el que rompió la vieja máquina estatal burocrático-militar del estado explotador y aplastó a la policía, el ejército permanente y la burocracia. En su lugar, los funcionarios eran elegidos desde abajo y podían ser revocados en cualquier momento. Ningún funcionario recibía un salario más alto que un trabajador calificado. La policía y el ejército permanente fueron reemplazados por guardias rojos armados (y, más tarde, un nuevo Ejército Rojo)

 

Comparando este tipo de Estado con la Comuna de París –el primer intento de la clase obrera de crear su propio poder estatal– Lenin escribió en 1917:

 

“Los rasgos fundamentales de este tipo de poder son: 1) la fuente del poder no está en una ley, previamente discutida y aprobada por el Parlamento, sino en la iniciativa directa de las masas populares desde abajo y en cada lugar, en la "conquista" directa del poder, para emplear un término en boga; 2) sustitución de la policía y del ejército, como instituciones desvinculadas del pueblo y contrapuestas a él, por el armamento directo de todo el pueblo; con este poder guardan el orden público los propios obreros y campesinos armados, el propio pueblo en armas; 3) los funcionarios y la burocracia son sustituidos también por el poder directo del pueblo o, al menos, sometidos a un control especial, se transforman en simples mandatarios no sólo elegibles, sino amovibles en todo momento, en cuanto el pueblo lo exija; se transforman de casta privilegiada, con una elevada retribución, con una retribución burguesa, de sus "puestecitos", en obreros de un "arma" especial, cuya remuneración no excede del salario corriente de un obrero cualificado. En esto, sólo en esto, radica. la esencia de la Comuna de París como tipo especial de Estado.” ^[14]

 

El nuevo Estado obrero, basado en el apoyo de las masas, logró vencer a las viciosas fuerzas contrarrevolucionarias en 1917-21, incluidas tanto la coalición de monárquicos, “demócratas” burgueses y reformistas como las fuerzas invasoras de 16 ejércitos extranjeros. Sin embargo, el primer Estado obrero permaneció aislado, principalmente debido a los esfuerzos combinados de todas las potencias imperialistas para contener la ola revolucionaria, pero también debido a la falta de experiencia de los nuevos partidos comunistas en Europa.

 

Como resultado, la URSS, donde debía construirse una nueva economía socialista y un nuevo orden social sobre la base de una sociedad semifeudal y burguesa atrasada, enfrentó dificultades crecientes y comenzó un proceso de burocratización. Para contrarrestar este desarrollo, Trotsky y la Oposición de Izquierda propusieron concentrarse en la internacionalización de la revolución, la revitalización de la democracia partidaria y soviética, así como la creación de una economía planificada con una base industrial en expansión. Sin embargo, la mayoría de la dirección del partido rechazó esta estrategia y se fusionó cada vez más con la nueva burocracia. En 1927, la Oposición de Izquierda fue expulsada del partido y miles de comunistas auténticos fueron encarcelados y luego asesinados. ^[15]

 

Trotsky y sus partidarios llamaron a este proceso el “Termidor” de la Revolución de Octubre, donde la democracia soviética había sido destruida y la clase obrera expropiada políticamente. La burocracia estalinista creó una dictadura absolutista y bonapartista que reprimió brutalmente a las masas. Al mismo tiempo, no pudo abolir la base socioeconómica del estado obrero (nacionalización de los sectores clave de la economía, monopolio del comercio exterior, planificación) sobre la que se basaba su poder –y, por lo tanto, sus privilegios.

 

 

 

La naturaleza contradictoria de la burocracia estalinista en un estado obrero degenerado

 

 

 

Es evidente que un estado de estas características era un fenómeno sumamente contradictorio. No era ni un estado obrero sano ni un estado capitalista. Trotsky lo llamó estado obrero degenerado, es decir, un estado dominado por una burocracia pequeñoburguesa cuyo poder se basaba económicamente en relaciones de propiedad proletarias poscapitalistas y políticamente en una maquinaria estatal burguesa-burocrática. ^[16]

 

¿Era la burocracia estalinista una nueva clase? No, insistió Trotsky. La burocracia no era una clase sino una casta. No poseía, como una clase, los medios de producción, ya que la burocracia gobernaba sobre la base de relaciones de producción proletarias, y no capitalistas. Bajo tales relaciones de producción proletarias, la ley del valor –que es la base del capitalismo– no domina la economía. Por lo tanto, a diferencia de la clase capitalista, la burocracia estalinista no es una clase explotadora que se apropia de plusvalía. Más bien, constituye una casta que no desempeña ningún papel necesario en el funcionamiento de la economía y de la sociedad en su conjunto. Por lo tanto, se apropia parasitariamente de numerosos privilegios debido a su posición dominante en el estado.

 

“El desfalco y el robo, principales fuentes de ingreso de la burocracia, no constituyen un sistema de explota­ción en el sentido científico de la palabra. Pero, desde el punto de vista de los intereses y de la posición de las masas populares, es infinitamente peor que cual­quier explotación “orgánica”. En el sentido científico del término, la burocracia no es una clase poseedora, pero encierra en sí decuplicados todos sus vicios. La ausencia de relaciones de clase cristalizadas y su misma imposibilidad sobre las bases sociales de la Revolución de Octubre son precisamente lo que dan un carácter tan compulsivo al funcionamiento de la maquinaria estatal. Para perpetuar el sistemático latrocinio de la burocra­cia, su aparato está obligado a recurrir a sistemáticos actos de bandidaje. La suma total de ellos constituye el sistema del gangsterismo bonapartista.” ^[17]

 

De ahí se sigue que la burocracia gobernante en un estado obrero degenerado no forma parte del proletariado (al que oprime y roba) ni constituye una clase capitalista, sino que posee más bien un carácter pequeñoburgués. Debido a su parasitismo y a su papel conservador y antirrevolucionario, tanto en el ámbito de la política internacional como en el interior, sirve a la burguesía mundial. Sin embargo, mientras se encuentra en la cima de un estado obrero y administra y defiende las relaciones de propiedad proletarias, la burocracia no constituye una clase dominante capitalista, sino una casta pequeñoburguesa y contrarrevolucionaria que defiende el estado obrero para salvaguardar sus privilegios.

 

Por eso, estos países estalinistas siguieron siendo estados obreros (degenerados) a pesar de estar dominados por una casta burocrática antiproletaria. La base económica que un determinado régimen político administra y defiende es lo que define el carácter de clase de un Estado. “La naturaleza de clase del estado es determinada no por sus formas políticas, sino por su contenido social, es decir, por el carácter de las formas de propiedad y las relaciones productivas que dicho estado guarda y defiende”. ^[18]

 

Al hacer analogías, Trotsky comparó la burocracia gobernante en un estado obrero estalinista con la burocracia de un sindicato:

 

“El carácter de clase del estado está determinado por su relación con las formas de propiedad de los medios de producción. El carácter de una organización obrera, como un sindicato, está determinado por su relación con la distribución de la renta nacional. El hecho de que Green y Compañía defienden la propiedad privada de los medios de producción los caracteriza como burgueses. Si además estos caballeros defendieran los ingresos de los burgueses de los ataques de los trabajadores, dirigieran una lucha contra las huelgas, contra el alza de salarios, contra la ayuda a los desempleados; entonces tendríamos una organización de esquiroles y no un sindicato. Sin embargo, Green y Cía., con el fin de no perder su base, deben, dentro de ciertos límites, dirigir la lucha de los trabajadores por un aumento - o por lo menos contra una disminución - de su parte en la renta nacional. (...)

 

La función de Stalin como la de Green tiene un doble carácter, Stalin sirve a la burocracia y por lo tanto a la burguesía mundial; pero él no puede servir a la burocracia sin defender la base social que la burocracia explota en su propio interés. Hasta ese punto, Stalin defiende la propiedad nacionalizada contra los ataques imperialistas y contra las capas demasiado impacientes y avaras de la burocracia misma. Sin embargo, él lleva a cabo esta defensa con métodos que preparan la destrucción general de la sociedad soviética. Es exactamente por esto que la camarilla stalinista debe ser derrocada, pero es el proletariado revolucionario quien debe hacerlo. El proletariado no puede subcontratar este trabajo a los imperialistas. A pesar de Stalin, el proletariado defiende a la Unión Soviética de los ataques imperialistas. (...)

 

La afirmación de que la burocracia de un estado obrero tiene un carácter burgués debe aparecer no solamente ininteligible, sino completamente sin sentido para personas de una estructura mental formal. Sin embargo, tipos de estado químicamente puros nunca existieron ni existen en general. La monarquía semifeudal prusiana ejecutó las tareas más importantes de la burguesía, pero las llevó a cabo a su manera, es decir, en un estilo feudal, no jacobino. En el Japón observamos aún hoy una correlación análoga entre el carácter burgués del estado y el carácter semifeudal de la casta dirigente. Pero todo esto no nos impide diferenciar claramente entre una sociedad feudal y una burguesa. Se puede objetar, es cierto, que la colaboración de fuerzas feudales y burguesas se realiza más fácilmente que la colaboración de fuerzas proletarias y burguesas, por cuanto en el primer caso se trata de clases explotadoras. Esto es absolutamente correcto. Pero un estado obrero no crea una nueva sociedad en un día. Marx escribió que, en el primer período de un estado obrero, se preservan las normas burguesas de distribución. (...). Hay que reflexionar muy bien sobre este pensamiento y meditarlo hasta el fin. El estado de los trabajadores como estado, es necesario precisamente porque las normas burguesas de distribución todavía subsisten.

 

Esto significa que aun la burocracia más revolucionaria es hasta cierto punto un órgano burgués en el estado obrero. Por supuesto, el grado de este aburguesamiento y la tendencia general de desarrollo tienen una importancia decisiva. Si el estado obrero pierde su burocratización y ésta se extingue gradualmente, ello significa que su desarrollo marcha por el camino del socialismo. Por el contrario, si la burocracia se vuelve más poderosa, autoritaria, privilegiada y conservadora, esto significa que en el estado de los trabajadores las tendencias burguesas crecen a expensas de las socialistas; en otras palabras, esa contradicción interior que hasta cierto punto se alberga en el estado de los trabajadores desde los primeros días de su aparición no disminuye como lo exige la “norma”, sino que aumenta. Sin embargo, mientras esta contradicción no pase de la esfera de la distribución a la de la producción y no destruya la propiedad nacionalizada y la economía planificada, el estado continúa siendo un estado obrero.” ^[19]

 

Por lo tanto, los estados obreros degenerados se caracterizaban por una contradicción que ha confundido a muchos marxistas. La clase obrera era social y económicamente la clase dominante, pero, al mismo tiempo, estaba políticamente oprimida por la burocracia. Si bien esto puede parecer extraño para quienes no van más allá del pensamiento mecanicista, de hecho, no es algo único en la historia. En el último período de la Rusia zarista, la clase capitalista ya dominaba la economía del país. Sin embargo, no podía participar en la dirección política del país, ya que todavía estaba dirigido por la dinastía imperial y la nobleza. (Esta cuestión, por cierto, también fue debatida polémicamente entre Trotsky y el historiador marxista M. N. Pokrovsky en la década de 1920 ^[20]). Vimos desarrollos similares en otros imperios feudales de larga data.

 

 

 

La máquina estatal burguesa-burocrática y bonapartista del estalinismo

 

 

 

Es evidente que existe un antagonismo fundamental entre la base económica del estado obrero –las relaciones proletarias de producción– y su burocracia antiproletaria, pequeñoburguesa, que gobierna la superestructura política de este estado. Esto demostró que las conquistas políticas de la Revolución de Octubre –la democracia obrera basada en los Soviets, un aparato estatal que estaba bajo el control de las masas y con funcionarios que no poseían grandes privilegios, ningún ejército permanente sino fuerzas armadas bajo el control de la clase obrera– habían sido aplastadas por la burocracia estalinista.

 

Para mantener su dominio, la burocracia estalinista necesita un aparato estatal que sea inmune al control de la clase obrera y las masas populares, y que pueda ser utilizado contra las masas para defender los privilegios de la burocracia. Un aparato estatal de este tipo, que está totalmente alienado de la clase obrera, tiene, por lo tanto, un carácter burgués. En otras palabras, el estalinismo implementó una contrarrevolución política en los años 1920 y 1930 que reemplazó al “semiestado proletario” (Lenin) por una máquina estatal antiproletaria y aburguesada. Trotsky llamó a este proceso una guerra civil preventiva de los estalinistas contra la vanguardia obrera.

 

Cuando Le Temps, el periódico líder de la burguesía francesa, comentó sobre la restitución de los símbolos de los rangos en el Ejército Rojo, que esta medida refleja un proceso más amplio en la Unión Soviética y concluyó que “los Soviets se están volviendo cada vez más burgueses”, Trotsky escribió:

 

“Encontramos miles de declaraciones de este tipo. Demuestran incontrovertiblemente que el proceso de degeneración burguesa entre los líderes de la sociedad soviética ha avanzado mucho. Al mismo tiempo, demuestran que el desarrollo ulterior de la sociedad soviética es impensable sin liberar la base socialista de esa sociedad de su superestructura burguesa-burocrática y bonapartista”. ^[21]

 

Trotsky explicó que tales contradicciones de clase entre la economía y el Estado no sólo son posibles, sino que de hecho ya han existido varias veces en la historia. En un debate con Burnham y Carter, dos líderes del Socialist Workers Party (US), en 1937 Trotsky escribió:

 

“¿Pero no conoce realmente la historia casos de conflicto de clases entre la economía y el estado? ¡Por supuesto que sí! Después de que el “tercer estado” se tomó el poder, la sociedad continuó siendo feudal por un período de varios años. En los primeros años del gobierno soviético, el proletariado reinó en base a la economía burguesa. En el campo de la agricultura la dictadura del proletariado operó por un número de años en base a la economía pequeñoburguesa (aún hoy opera así en grado considerable)”. ^[22]

 

Se podrían tomar varios otros ejemplos. En muchos países europeos, en la época del capitalismo temprano, una burguesía que estableció relaciones de propiedad capitalistas en amplios sectores de la economía coexistió con una monarquía feudal y absolutista y su aparato estatal. Del mismo modo, el Imperio romano, que se basaba en la economía esclavista, no intentó imponer sus relaciones de producción en varias provincias nuevas que había conquistado en Asia occidental, sino que se contentó con cobrar tributos. O, para dar otro ejemplo, el Estado de la dinastía Yuan en China (1271-1368) era una combinación altamente contradictoria de la sociedad tradicional china Han, con sus elementos del modo de producción asiático y del feudalismo, por un lado, y la superestructura político-militar de los conquistadores mongoles, con su forma primitiva de organización estatal militarizada como pueblo estepario, por otro lado.

 

 

 

La burocracia estalinista frente a la revolución y la contrarrevolución

 

 

 

El debate sobre las categorías adecuadas para el Estado estalinista no fue una discusión abstracta ni un juego teórico de palabras. Tuvo profundas consecuencias para las perspectivas y las tareas de la lucha de liberación proletaria. Si los estalinistas habían destruido el “semiestado proletario” y lo habían reemplazado por una máquina estatal antiproletaria y aburguesada, la tarea de la clase obrera no era esperar una reforma pacífica de esta máquina, sino orientarse hacia una insurrección armada contra la burocracia: una revolución política.

 

En el Programa de Transición –el documento fundador de la Cuarta Internacional– Trotsky escribió que “la tarea política principal en la URSS sigue siendo el derrocamiento de esta misma burocracia thermidoriana”. ^[23] Tal derrocamiento era la única manera de abrir el camino al socialismo: “Sólo el levantamiento revolucionario victorioso de las masas oprimidas puede revivir el régimen soviético y garantizar su desarrollo ulterior hacia el socialismo”. Para prepararse para esta tarea, los marxistas tuvieron que construir un nuevo partido revolucionario en condiciones ilegales.

 

Trotsky elaboró las tareas de la revolución política en su obra principal sobre el estalinismo: La revolución traicionada:

 

“Para comprender mejor el carácter social de la URSS de hoy, formulemos dos hipótesis para el futuro. Supongamos que la burocracia soviética es arrojada del poder por un partido revoluciona rio que tenga todas las cualidades del viejo partido bolchevique; y que, además, esté enriquecido con la experiencia mundial de los últimos tiempos. Este partido comenzaría por restablecer la democracia en los sindicatos y en los soviets. Podría y debería restablecer la libertad de los partidos soviéticos. Con las masas, a la cabeza de las masas, procedería a una limpieza implacable de los servicios del Estado; aboliría los grados, las condecoraciones, los privilegios, y restringiría la desigualdad