The Revolution Betrayed

By Leon Trotsky

Translated by Max Eastman

First published in 1937

Current publisher, Pathfinder Press

I first read Leon Trotsky’s The Revolution Betrayed about fifty years ago. At that time, I didn’t know much about politics, but was impressed by Trotsky’s argument. I’ve learned a few things in the past fifty years and the world has changed. Now I have a lot more appreciation for what Trotsky had to say. 

Trotsky and the Bolshevik Revolution

Leon Trotsky was born Leon Bronstein to a Jewish middle class farming family in the Ukraine. In 1905 he became President of the Soviet (worker’s council) during the revolution that erupted in that year. The Czarist government exiled Trotsky to Siberia, but he managed to escape to various European nations and ended up in New York City before the February 1917 Revolution. 

He then managed to return to Russia and joined the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. After the October Revolution the Bolshevik Party headed the Soviet government and organized the defense of an invasion by fourteen nations. Lenin asked Trotsky to head up the Red Army. Then, for two-and-one-half years, Trotsky organized the defense of the new government. This book is, for me, the best explanation of how and why a bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin managed to betray the essence of what the Russian Revolution was about.

Trotsky analyzed how and why the Bolsheviks came to power in his three-volume history of the Russian Revolution. The Czar ordered the armed forces to go to war against Germany but failed to supply the army with sufficient supplies of food, clothing, ammunition, or boots. Millions of Russian soldiers died in that war. In a nation that supplied food for an entire region, there was famine. 

In the February 1917 Revolution, the provisional government refused to end the war, or to provide food for the people. In fact, that government issued arrest warrants for Lenin and Trotsky because they favored an end to the war. The Bolsheviks responded to this situation by demanding “All power to the Soviets” and “Peace, Bread, and Land.” The Russian people became so disgusted by the provisional government that there was very little resistance to the October Revolution.  

The priorities of the Bolsheviks were completely different from the priorities of capitalist governments. In the United States, the government has made it clear, from its inception, that its priority is to support the interests of the most affluent people in the nation. The priority of the Bolsheviks was to support the interests of each and every worker and farmer in what became the Soviet Union. 

The new book 1619 documents the fact that institutionalized racist discrimination has been tolerated in this part of the world since before the revolution of the thirteen colonies. In Czarist Russia there was also institutionalized discrimination against many nationalities including Ukraine. The Bolsheviks had a policy of giving self-determination to all the oppressed nationalities in the former czarist Russia. The new nation became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 

The new revolutionary government also favored the liberation of women. Their goal was to have communal kitchens and day care centers to ease the domestic work of women. The Soviet Union became the first nation in the world to give women the right to vote. Another goal was to teach everyone to read. The Bolsheviks created an atmosphere where all soldiers in the armed forces learned how to read. 

Trotsky wrote about Karl Marx’s vision for a future socialist world. Clearly looking into the future is difficult because there are countless variables that are impossible to anticipate. Saying that, Marx argued that he believed that the first socialist revolutions would erupt in the developed nations like Germany, Britain, or the United States. 

If revolutions erupted in those nations, socialist governments would immediately institute improved standards of living for workers and farmers. The capitalist norm of supporting the drive to maximize profits would be over. The new priority would be to organize the productive forces to benefit everyone. 

Today, in the United States this could mean giving everyone the absolute lifetime right to education, health care, housing, and food. This would be possible because providing for corporate profits, interest to banks, insurance, advertising, rents, and corporate law would no longer be necessary. While providing for human rights are fundamental to socialists, those same rights are unthinkable to capitalist politicians. 

Stalin’s betrayal of the Russian Revolution

The basic problem for the revolutionary government of the Soviet Union was that czarist Russia was not an advanced capitalist nation, but a relatively underdeveloped nation that was ruled by a feudal monarch. While there were highly developed factories, in many ways czarist Russia was not even capitalist. 

Because of the devastation of the First World War, the people experienced famine and the resources didn’t exist to make improvements in the overall standard of living. Emergency measures needed to be implemented just so people would have food.

The other problem was that the Bolsheviks expected for a revolution to erupt in Germany. That nation had also been devastated by the war and there were massive uprisings. However, the German authorities murdered the leaders of the working class and that revolution never materialized. So, the new revolutionary government of the Soviet Union needed to find a way to survive under some of the worst conditions. 

The former middle classes of Russia wanted an immediate relief from those conditions and could care less about the majority of the population. Trotsky gave the following explanation of why Joseph Stalin became the leader of the new bureaucracy. 

“He brought all the necessary guarantees: the prestige of an old Bolshevik, a strong character, narrow vision, and close bonds with the political machine as the sole source of his influence.”

“It was the friendly welcome of the new ruling group, trying to free itself from the old principles and from the control of the masses, and having need of a reliable arbiter in its inner affairs.” 

Here Trotsky makes it clear that the differences between him and Stalin weren’t primarily about ideas. The Bolsheviks wanted a government that would support the interests of everyone in the Soviet Union. The new bureaucracy, headed by Stalin, wanted a new elite that would have material advantages over most of the population. 

The Bolsheviks always understood that they were a part of an international struggle to liberate humanity from the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism. After the revolution the Bolsheviks needed to end the war and signed a peace agreement with Germany. That agreement gave Germany large sections of what used to be czarist Russia. 

Trotsky reported that the German government effectively lost control of those areas in less than a year because of the revolutionary uprisings within Germany. There were several other uprisings in Europe that stayed the hands of the imperialists in their attempt to overthrow the Soviet government. In Seattle, Washington the longshore workers refused to load ships headed to the counter-revolutionary forces attempting to overthrow the Soviet government.

This was just one example of how revolutions have always been supported by international events. The Chinese Revolution was supported by U.S. soldiers who refused be used to turn back that revolution after World War II. The Cuban Revolution was aided by the fact that the U.S. armed forces were tied up in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Revolution was aided by the international anti-war movement. While these are clear examples of how revolutions are related to international struggles, Stalin argued for a strategy of “Socialism in One Country.”

That strategy would prove be disastrous for workers all over the world. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, he murdered thousands of communists. After that horror, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with the Nazis. This enabled the German fascists to advance their war against France and Britain free of any opposition from the Soviet Union. 

Then Stalin ordered the armed forces of the Soviet Union to invade Finland in a winter when temperatures reached 40 degrees below zero. The Soviet defeat in Finland emboldened Hitler to invade the Soviet Union. Initially Stalin was surprised by that invasion because he had the stupid idea that Hitler would honor the so-called non-aggression pact. About 27 million people from the Soviet Union died, in part, because of this horrendous mistake of Stalin.

The Chinese Communist Party was first organized in opposition to the Kuomintang that supported the capitalist interests in China. Stalin used his financial support to demand that the CCP follow the orders of the Kuomintang.  Chiang Kai-shek then ordered his forces to murder thousands of members of the CCP in 1927. When asked if he supported the international revolution, Stalin’s answer was “nonsense.”  

Trotsky was aware of real advances the Soviet Union made after the revolution. He gave evidence of the unparalleled growth of the Soviet industrial economy. While China’s recent industrial growth was largely financed by capitalist interests, the industrial growth of the Soviet Union took place in isolation from capitalist finance.

However, that growth was compromised by the mis-leadership of Stalin. Instead of motivating workers based on solidarity, a new piecework system became the norm. Salaries ranged widely where some productive workers received about twenty times more in salary than the norm. Communist Party supervisors also received huge salaries relative to the norm. 

Under those conditions labor productivity lagged the productivity in capitalist nations. The quality of commodities was poor compared to the quality of commodities in the capitalist nations.

With respect to agriculture, Stalin’s policies were even more disastrous. The kulak was a middle-class peasant who hired laborers. After the revolution, the kulaks worked to consolidate their position and compromise any effort to improve agriculture. A rational way to deal with this problem was to introduce machinery and gradually demonstrate to the kulaks that socialist agriculture would be more productive.

Stalin’s policy dictated that the land of most kulaks would be confiscated and turned into collective farms. Those collective farms would be run by a bureaucracy whose primary interest was to maintain itself. 

The kulaks were appalled at the fact that they were losing everything they had. They murdered their cattle and Russia experienced years of famine. Just as with the workers in factories, farm laborers had little or no incentive to become more productive.

There are supporters of capitalism who argue that the government of Stalin was essentially the same as the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler. Trotsky put this point of view in perspective.

Hitler and Stalin were similar in that both regimes were intolerant to any and all opposition. Thousands of supporters of Trotsky were exiled to Siberia where they were coerced to confess to alleged crimes, and then oftentimes murdered. The intolerance of Hitler is well known.

However, Hitler and Stalin differ in their base of support. Hitler could not have become Chancellor of Germany without massive support from capitalist interests. Hitler remained loyal to those interests. 

The government of the Soviet Union came to power because of a working-class revolution. Stalin betrayed that revolution, but never had the support of capitalist financial interests. However, Stalin’s policies ultimately benefitted capitalism inside and outside of the Soviet Union.

Trotsky argued that capitalism could be reintroduced into the Soviet Union if the policies of Stalin were not reversed. Today Vladimir Putin heads a capitalist government in a nation that used to be called the Soviet Union. Just as Stalin went to war to grab land in Finland, Putin is at war to grab the land in Ukraine. 

While the Soviet Union was ruled by Stalin, the economy was, for the most part, self-sustaining. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea of creating a genuine workers democracy was never a consideration to those who had power. So, they appealed to capitalist financial interests.

The interests of capitalists and workers continue to be antagonistic

Those financiers understood that the former soviet economy couldn’t compete effectively in the capitalist market. The Russian car called the Lada wasn’t going to compete with BNWs or Chevys. As a result, Russian industry was decimated and there was a significant deterioration in the standard of living.

Today, most people are unaware of what the Bolsheviks were attempting to do in the Russian Revolution. Living in the United States it is difficult to even imagine what a worker’s government would look like. 

Employers argue that workers are members of their “team.” Advertisers argue that “the customer is always right.” In this environment it isn’t easy to see that capitalists have interests that are antagonistic to workers on literally every issue. When capitalists get more in profits, this means that workers effectively get less. When workers so-called benefits are compromised capitalists profit. Today, we see prices skyrocketing. This means that capitalists profit, while workers see our real wages being effectively cut. 

In Trotsky’s preface to his History of the Russian Revolution he argued: “For decades the oppositional criticism is nothing more than a safety valve for mass dissatisfaction, a condition of the stability of the social structure.”

“The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime.”                    

Those words explained why revolutions erupted in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. When we look at the capitalist economy of the world today, it appears that we are entering a period where masses will no longer be able to “endure the old regime.”

When we look at the reality in the world today, we see that masses of young people are beginning to see that the capitalist system isn’t offering them much of a future. I’ve taken part in protests about Black Lives Matter, in support of abortion rights, protesting the destruction of the environment, an in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and Puerto Rico. Young people are also beginning to appreciate the socialist government of Cuba. These struggles, as well as the reality we face is creating an atmosphere where we will no longer be able to “endure the old regime.”

What Is Our Real Potential?

By Steve Halpern

Are we destined to attend

schools that we yearn to escape from?

Is it inevitable that we must

hold down jobs that we hate?

Is it necessary for us to tell children

to go through this same cycle over and over again?

Or, 

Is there a better way?

Why not teach young people that history

consists of people who struggled to make this a better world?

Why not teach young people

that we can do the same?

We can build a descent place for everyone to live.

with botanical gardens, aviaries, theaters, museums

and places where we can all relax in comfort.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can make sure everyone has an excellent diet

because there is enough land to feed the world,

so that no one will live in hunger.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can produce commodities in harmony 

with the plants, animals, and minerals of this planet

so natural resources will be here for future generations.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can provide an education for all

where children learn how to think for themselves,

and to provide for the needs of everyone.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can guarantee that human beings

have the right to top quality health care,

where health is a fundamental priority.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can begin to communicate

with working people throughout the world

to gain the perspective of who we are and where we need to go.

And there are millions who want to do the job.

We can create jobs for all

where we elect our leaders

and the work begins to fulfill our potential

And there are millions who want to do these jobs.

But to the millions who want to do these jobs,

today we can only work to insure that the wealthy live in opulence.

Today, they are the ones who have power

and to realize our potential, we must take power. 

They say that this isn’t realistic.

They say that this will never happen.

But we are human beings who can improve our lives,

and we also can develop the will to do the job.

Kabei: Our Mother – Film Review

 

Directed by Yoji Yamada, 2008 

The story of a Japanese family that endured persecution because of the father’s opposition to the second world war.

There have been many books and films about the second world war.  Few of these works available in the United States have looked at the everyday lives of Japanese civilians during the war.  Yoji Yamada’s film, Kabei: Our Mother not only looks at civilian life at this time, but gives us a picture of a Japanese family that endured persecution because of their opposition to the war.

This film is based on Teruyo Nogami’s autobiography and she is one of the two daughters portrayed in the film.  Shigeru Nogami, portrayed by Mitsugoro Bando is the father and former college professor who looses his job and then is arrested for his opposition to the Japanese war drive.   Kayo, portrayed by Sayuri Yoshinaga is the main character and the mother who diligently works to hold her family together after her husband is arrested.

During the film we see how the only crime of Shigeru was the fact that he opposed the war.  A police officer said openly that had Shigeru merely renounced his views he would be released from prison.  Yet Shigeru, as well as many other Japanese civilians, chose to remain in prison rather than support an unjust war.

This film also showed how Shigeru’s wife Kayo was ostracized by members of her family and community because of the fact that she shared her husband’s views against the war.  Kayo endured this ostracism while she held down a job and supported her children on a meager income.

In the United States, there are many people who continue to argue that this country needed to go to war against Japan.  The repression we see in the film Kabei was only one aspect of the repression of those days.  After all, the Japanese military forces murdered tens of millions of people in their occupations of China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines.  On the other hand, the United States is portrayed as a nation with “liberty and justice for all.”

Therefore, it might come as a surprise that people were sent to prison in the United States of America for merely opposing the first and second world wars.  

Eugene V. Debs spent three years in prison for giving a speech in Canton, Ohio against US participation in the first world war.  Debs was a labor leader and ran for President of the United States five times.  The last time he ran for president was while he was in prison on charges of opposing the first world war.

Eighteen members of the Socialist Workers Party spent between 12 and 18 months in prison for their opposition to the second world war.  Among those sentenced were leaders of the Teamsters Union in Minneapolis Minnesota.  This teamsters local won union recognition after a bitter yearlong strike.  The strike happened to be one of the battles that transformed the labor movement in the United States.

We can also point to the facts that the United States government also committed war crimes aimed at civilians during the second world war.  One of the relatives in the film Kabei lived in the city of Hiroshima.  This relative died as a result of the US atomic bombing of that city.  Before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the United States destroyed large parts of the 67 largest cities in Japan with firebombing. 

Most people have a sense of the horrors of war.  These wars are even more horrendous when they in no way benefit the masses of humanity.  These must be some of the reasons why conscious people from the United States and Japan chose to go to prison rather than support horrendous wars that would only lead to more wars.

Since the second world war we have seen demonstrations that supported labor rights, civil rights, immigrant workers, and in opposition to US engineered wars.  I believe we need to understand that these demonstrations were, in part made possible by people in Japan, the United States, and the rest of the world,  who chose to go to prison rather than support unjust wars. 

Today anyone who lives in the United States has a better chance of going to prison than citizens in any other nation in the world.  Since the second world war the US has carried out wars all over the world that cost the lives of millions.  

Understanding these facts we might ask the question of what was accomplished by the slaughter of the second world war?  In other words, the real heroes of World War II were not the generals who caused massive destruction, but those who served time in prison rather than support and unjust war. 

Legacy of Violence – A History of the British Empire

By Caroline Elkins

Published by Alfred A. Knopf – 2022

Reviewed by Steven Halpern

Since the Second World War, the United States has been the world’s super-power. This means that international currencies are dominated by the U.S. dollar. This means that nations throughout the world use much of their surplus capital to purchase United States treasury bonds. Those bonds help to finance the military in this country. The U.S. military exerted its destructive power in wars against Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Nations that do not go along with the dictates of capitalist interests of the United States discover that crippling sanctions are placed on their country. Well, this was not always the case.

Before the Second World War, Britain had colonies all over the world. These included Nigeria, Southern Africa, Kenya, the nations that are now Israel, Cyprus, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, as well as Malaya, Australia, Ireland, and Canada. Indirectly Britain controlled China, as well as nations throughout Latin America. The British pound was the dominant currency of the world.

Caroline Elkins documented the unimaginable horrors of British colonial administrators in her book Legacy of Violence. There was a reason why Britain gave free rein to those administrators. The colonies of the British empire subsidized the British economy, including the enormous wealth of the most affluent, as well as the royal family.

There was another aspect to this ruthless repression. British politicians and the press routinely argued that colonial administrators were selflessly aiding in the development of the colonies. This barrage of misinformation had an effect. Popular opinion in Britain supported this ruthless administration of the colonies.

George Orwell summarized why there was so much support for imperialism inside Britain. “Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation—an evil state of affairs…The alternative is to throw the Empire overboard and reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we would all have to work very hard and live on herrings and potatoes.”   

Then, when those colonies won independence, the British made a concerted effort to hide the fact that these horrors ever happened. 

Jane Muthuni Mara, an older Kikuyu woman who lived in Kenya testified how British soldiers held her down while she endured horrendous torture. This took place in a British court of law. Others who had been tortured by the British also testified in this court. 

After these testimonies, Guy Mansfield, the lawyer representing Britain stated, “The Government does not dispute that each of the claimants suffered torture and other ill treatment at the hands of the Colonial Administration.” With that statement, the century-old support of British Colonial Administrators went out the window. As a result of this long trial, the British government paid out twenty million pounds in compensation. Caroline Elkins reported that there might have been over one million Kenyans who were forced to live in British concentration camps.

The British international legacy of torture

In the United States, there has been a history of institutionalized discrimination based on race. Clearly there was also racist discrimination in the British colonies, but people seen as “white” also endured horrendous conditions. These included French speaking people in Canada, Irish Catholics, whites living in Southern Africa, as well as Jews living in Palestine. In fact, the United States became a nation because of a revolution against British colonialism.

The primary reason for the torture as well as the concentration camps was a response to the resistance of indigenous people to the colonization of their homeland. While this repression lasted for decades, ultimately most of the British colonies became independent and freed themselves from direct British rule. 

Terrorism

Today, governments around the world talk a lot about the word “terrorism.” Reading Caroline Elkins book, we get another perspective to this word. 

In the United States we are used to the idea that everyone has the right to protest policies of the government. This was not allowed in the British colonies. The main reason why Britain dominated nations in the world was to extract wealth. Protesting that relationship ultimately led to demands for independence. In other words, the British economy was totally dependent on the theft of wealth of their subjects. While there was some development in the colonies, that development was not about building an industrial base that would make the colonies independent. 

In her history of the Israeli independence movement in Palestine, Elkins reported on events that give us a completely different view of what happened. Jewish terrorist organizations demanded independence and the establishment of the state of Israel. They carried out a series of terrorist actions against the British. Those actions became so routine, the British became convinced that they could no longer sustain their colony in Palestine. Then, the Israeli armed forces continued their terroristic activities against Palestinians.

Palestinians also carried out strikes in the 1930s demanding improved conditions. The British mobilized to crush that strike. When the British finally left Palestine, they used their influence to create the same kind of divisions they promoted in the rest of the world.

In India they promoted divisions between Muslims and Hindis. In Canada they promoted divisions between people with British and French backgrounds. In Ireland they promoted divisions between Catholics and Protestants. In Malaya they promoted divisions between the indigenous population and people of a Chinese heritage. In Southern Africa they promoted divisions between Blacks and whites. 

Apparently, this is why Rashid Khalidi titled his book on the history of Palestinian resistance, “The One-hundred Year War on Palestine.” That war started with the British and has continued with support from both Britain and the United States. 

During the Second World War, the British argued that they were fighting against the tyranny of Nazi Germany. Today there are memorial columns in London that give thanks to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, throughout the British Empire who fought in that war. 

In her book, Elkins documented how many colonial administrators identified with the ruthless repression of the Nazis. In fact, Britain established their concentration camps all over the world before the Nazis. Clearly no two historical events are exactly the same. However, when we look at the British concentration camps in their colonies, and the Nazi concentration camps, there were clear similarities.

The history of racist discrimination inside Britain

While the British colonial administrators were openly racist, the history of racist discrimination inside Britain is an interesting story.

During the Civil War in the United States, the British ruling powers wanted to support the confederacy that was run by slave owners. Karl Marx was one of the leaders of the British labor movement who argued effectively that the abolition of slavery in the United States would benefit the British working class. As a result, Britain didn’t give military support to the confederacy.

Both Frederick Douglass and Ida Wells traveled to Britain. They received support for the struggle against slavery and lynchings in the United States. George Padmore and C.L.R. James became leaders of the anti-colonial struggle inside Britain.  

In 1946 Britain passed a law allowing for colonial subjects to become British citizens. This was at a time of an upturn in the dominant capitalist economies. As a result, there was a shortage of workers, and several developed nations supported laws favoring immigration.

By the year 1981, that capitalist upturn was over, and citizens of the former British colonies no longer had the right to British citizenship. The British police force increased their harassment of the Black community. The struggle against racist discrimination within Britain continues to this day.     

After the Second World War Britain became a colony of the United States

In the history courses in the United States, there is a universal argument that the allied powers defeated Germany in the Second World War. However, when we look at the facts, another conclusion becomes clear.

John Maynard Keynes was an economist who argued that in order to avoid a depression like the one in the 1930s, there needed to be more government regulation. Then, even before the World War II was over, representatives of 44 nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. They agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. U.S. financial interests dominated those two institutions. As a result, there was agreement that the manufacturing and finance of the world would be dominated by the United States.

John Maynard Keynes had this to say about how Britain was becoming a vassal of capitalist interests in the United States. “A visitor from Mars might be well pardoned for thinking that we were the representatives of a vanquished people discussing the penalties of defeat.”

As a result, the United States demanded that the special economic relationship Britain had with the colonies end. The United States then had the power to exploit those colonies as Britain did in the past. However, instead of running the former colonies with colonial administrators, now there would be neo-colonial governments where indigenous government officials ran those nations.   

Today, we see clearly what the legacy of British violence has been in the world. In Nigeria in the 1800s, the British armed forces used the newly invented machine gun to militarily defeat the indigenous people. In the war against Vietnam, the United States Air Force used B52 bombers to literally saturate that nation with bombs that maimed and murdered everyone in its path.  

Before the 1970s the United States was the manufacturing center of the world. Then, finance capitalists stripped much of the manufacturing in this country and moved it to nations where wages were about two dollars per day. While manufacturing was moved to largely agricultural nations, that manufacturing was dedicated to the market of the developed world. 

Mike Davis wrote his book Late Victorian Holocausts where he reported that millions of people starved to death in China, India, and Brazil during the 1800s. This was primarily because of British indifference. While those famines were taking place, the affected nations were exporting food so British power brokers could maximize their profits. 

Today about seventy percent of the world’s population lives on ten dollars per day or less. About a billion people do not have direct access to food, water, or electricity. As a result of these conditions, the United Nations reports that about 30,000 children die every day due to preventable diseases. 

There is another way

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote his pamphlet Imperialism—The Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1917. In that pamphlet Lenin argued that imperialism doesn’t happen because of mistakes by people who have power. No, imperialist nations dominate other nations because this is the inevitable course of the capitalist system. 

On January 1, 1952, the Cuban people decided that they would make a break from that system. Almost immediately after taking power, the Cuban government set a goal to eliminate illiteracy on the island. Today Cuba has more doctors, per capita than any other nation in the world. While the Cuban people do not have many of the conveniences of the developed nations, the Cuban government makes it their top priority to ensure that every Cuban has what they need. As a result, every year on May 1, about one million Cubans give their enthusiastic support to the government in the May Day demonstration.

The Cuban vision is different from the one people are raised with in Britain and the United States. There, the priority is to ensure that everyone has what they need. Here we are raised to work very hard so we can purchase some of the things we need and want. We don’t have lifetime rights to anything. 

The story of the Legacy of Violence, for me, is about a recognition that an injury to one is an injury to all. Clearly, we can continue to ignore the fact that 30,000 children die unnecessarily every day. However, if humanity will survive, I believe we need create a political movement that ensures that no child dies unnecessarily and an injury to one is an injury to all.

What’s Going On?

 

By Steve Halpern

Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song What’s Going On? raised a question that has never been more relevant. In 1971 the times were clearly changing. The civil rights movement forced the government to do away with Jim Crow segregation. However, the rebellions of the 1960s demonstrated that police brutality, as well as racist discrimination continued to be facts of life. Attitudes towards women were changing, but sexual discrimination also was a fact of life. A mass movement protesting the war against Vietnam was erupting, but military spending continued to increase. 

So, while the attitudes of people were changing, the power brokers in this country were determined to maintain the basic status quo. Perhaps this was the reality that prompted Marvin Gaye to ask his question, “What’s going on?”

Just as in the past, today we see profound changes erupting. There have been a series of mass murders by deranged individuals using the infamous automatic weapon the AR-15. There is a war against the people of Ukraine where the use of atomic weapons is a possibility. Millions of people were not paying rent during the pandemic, and now need to come up with all that money. This is at a time when gas prices are skyrocketing. 

Then, there are the stories the so-called news media is determined not to report. While about 34 million people in this country have at least $1.2 million in assets, 42 million do not have enough food to eat. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives on ten dollars per day or less. The United Nations reports that 30,000 children die every day due to preventable diseases. So, Marvin Gaye’s question has never been more relevant. What’s going on?

The times when capitalism came into the world

Karl Marx wrote his book Capital one-hundred-fifty-five years ago. Marx argued that the essence of the capitalist system is the conflict between capital and labor. Literally every commodity that has ever been sold was produced by human labor. For each of those commodities, the owners of capital profited. So, while workers produce literally all the wealth of the world, capitalists who produce no wealth, control the political economy of the capitalist system. 

Marx understood that in its early years, capitalism was a progressive force. In the feudal world, royal families and religious clerics had power. Those royal families and clerics had absolute power. As feudalism deteriorated, more and more people faced starvation. 

In the thirteen colonies that became the United States, the British required the colonists to pay exorbitant taxes to cover the costs of their war against France. The colonists found it difficult to survive with the British army forcing them to pay taxes they could not afford. 

In his Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson gave the reasons why the colonists took up arms to defeat the most powerful army in the world at that time. 

“Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Seventy-six years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, Frederick Douglass gave a speech where he spoke about what this declaration meant to the millions of enslaved people who happened to be Black.

“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reins without rival.”   

Thomas Jefferson, in fact, was also a slave owner. Jefferson was well aware that the system of chattel slavery could be labelled, in his words, “absolute Despotism.” Jefferson also protested the fact that the British weren’t giving the colonists what he felt was sufficient aid to conduct genocidal war against Native Americans. In fact, Jefferson labelled Native Americans as “savages.” 

After the war many veterans of the revolution did not have sufficient access to food, and they took up arms in Shay’s Rebellion. In one of the first acts of this new revolutionary government, the armed forces organized to militarily defeat Shay’s Rebellion.

So, while Marx understood that capitalism was a significant advance over feudalism, he also felt that capitalism came into the world dripping with blood and dirt oozing from every pore. So, how is this history relevant to the reality we are experiencing today?

Capitalism in the world today

Frederick Engels wrote a book about the horrendous conditions workers faced in Manchester, Britain in the 1800s. Today many critics of Marx and Engels argue that the conditions that workers face today in Manchester, as well as the United States, are better than they were in the past. 

What these people do not see is that capitalism is no longer confined to Britain. Today capitalism dominates the economies of the world. When we see that seventy percent of the world’s population lives on ten dollars per day or less, we see clearly that the overall conditions of the international working class is fundamentally the same as it was in the 1800s. The only significant change has been with technology. However, today there are about one billion people who do not have adequate access to food, water, or electricity.

Karl Marx pointed to another problem with capitalism. This is the fact that the system needs to continually grow. Annually, corporations invest about $200 billion in useless advertising because of their obsession to sell more and more commodities. When the system stops growing, there is an international crisis. This happened in 1929, 2008, and 2020. Today the signs are all there that by 2023 we will see another international capitalist crisis.

Many people argue that we need to find a way of increasing taxes to the wealthy so there would be more equality in this country. While I’m not opposed to this idea, taxing the wealthy, in and of itself, will not resolve the profound problems of the world. For that, we need to recognize that the interests of the working class and the interests of capitalists aren’t just different, they are antagonistic.

Another proposal is to eliminate the debts workers are drowning in. These include debts for education, health care, housing, and automobiles. This would mean that major banks would go bankrupt, and the government would manage the financing of those funds. The problem is that today the government has already bailed out corporations and has continued to allow those corporations to gouge out profits for the super-rich. If the banks closed and the current government remained in power, I don’t see how there would be any fundamental changes.

Capitalists understand that when workers go on strike demanding better wages and working conditions, those demands eat into their profits. One of the things capitalists are learning today is that when prices skyrocket, this can also have devastating effects on their bottom line. 

Today, workers at the Amazon Corporation need to clock out and in during their bathroom breaks. Amazon calls this “Time Off Task” or “TNT time.” If a worker takes too much time for TNT on three occasions, this is grounds for termination. 

Clearly workers do not like being timed for our bathroom breaks and this is one of many issues that explain why Amazon workers are organizing for union representation. On the other hand, Amazon has invested tens of millions of dollars to fight these union organizing drives. This is only one example of how workers and employers have interests that are antagonistic.

In fact, the government, the educational system, and the news media are all dedicated to supporting the corporate drive to maximize profits all over the world. Today, we listen to capitalists like Elon Musk talk about how he sees a downturn in the economy. Musk is concerned about this because a downturn would mean that he would lose some of his money. The idea that there are 42 million people in this country who do not have enough food, while he has about $200 billion in assets is of little concern for Musk. The so-called news media is, for the most part, indifferent to this persistent problem. 

How can we change this?

Karl Marx argued that the way for the working class to escape from this system of wage slavery is to put in place a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” So, if politicians and the news media routinely argue that we live in a “democracy,” why did Marx argue for a dictatorship?

When we go to work, employers demand that we do what we are told for every minute we are on the job. This system doesn’t sound like a “democracy” to me. In fact, Marx called this system a dictatorship of capital. 

Yes, we all have the right to vote. However, the news media will only give publicity to those candidates who make the drive to maximize profits their top priority. Again, this doesn’t sound like a democracy.

Then, there is that thing called “money.” Money is only a means of exchange and has no intrinsic value. Money only has value because it can be used to purchase commodities that have real value.

Employers pay workers an amount of money that only reflects a small percentage of what our labor is worth. Some of the wealth derived from our labor goes to necessary expenditures. These are for the salaries of workers, health care, and education. 

However, a large part of the wealth created by workers goes to enterprises that produce no useful wealth. These include corporate profits, interest to banks, insurance, advertising, corporate law, rents, and let us not forget the thousands of atomic bombs that can eliminate all human life. 

Today workers are demanding no cutbacks in health care or education, better working conditions, no evictions, lower prices, an end to discrimination as well as the destruction of the environment. For the most part, capitalists are indifferent to these demands. However, they are concerned with the fact that stock market prices might be going down.

For a moment, let us imagine that we had a genuine workers government. Instead of making corporate profits their priority, that government would make the needs of everyone its priority. That government would be able to do this by taking control over the means of production. 

Clearly the potential exists to feed everyone on the planet. Yet there might be one billion people who do not have enough food. This is because in the capitalist system, there are profits derived from the sale of all food. 

A worker’s government would establish the absolute right of everyone to have enough quality food to eat. The cost of that food would be the expense of providing for the needs of all the workers who produce food. Profits, interest, insurance, advertising, rent, and corporate law would in no way be included in the cost of producing food. 

Marx understood that a dictatorship of the proletariat would represent the first time in history where the working class would experience genuine democracy. In that system, capitalists would need to justify why they feel their exorbitant wealth would be more important than feeding the population of the world.

Supporters of the capitalist system argue that a socialist system would impoverish everyone. While Russia and China adopted to the capitalist system, Cuba continues to support socialist values. However, while the Cuban people have the right to health care and education, they lack many of the conveniences most people have in this country.

The point here is that Cuba does not have access to the infrastructure of the developed capitalist world. As with the case of food, a worker’s government would organize production in a way that the standard of living would be sustainable for everyone.  

Today we pay outrageous prices for automobiles, gas, insurance, maintenance etc. This is just so we can travel from place to place. Aside from those costs, the government supported the auto industry by paying for roads, highways, bridges, and tunnels. This system allows millions of commuters to sit alone in their cars in traffic jams every day.

First, a worker’s government would organize society so our work, education, health care, and access to goods would be convenient to everyone. Then, a mass transit system would be organized so everyone could have access to an efficient means of travel. Instead of sitting in traffic jams, today the technology exists in rail to transport people at the same speed as jet aircraft.  

Currently few people argue that what we need is a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat. However, we are living at a time when the capitalist system is in a period of extreme crisis. Capitalists only invest in enterprises when they believe that can gouge out a profit. Given the state of the economy of the world, there is a lot less confidence in that belief.

In the capitalist system, when capitalists don’t invest, people don’t have jobs, as well as the means to live. If this happens for a prolonged period of time, people will begin to look for answers that capitalist politicians do not have.  

Political revolutions erupted in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. In those nations, working people faced unimaginably horrendous realities. Sooner or later, I believe that capitalism will expose workers to a similar horrendous reality. When we look at the history of the working class in this country and the world, we see that we have the real potential to transform the conditions of our class. Then humanity will discover for the first time the definition of the word “freedom.”