Djilas and Bismarckian Socialism

...But only on the face of it...

...It is, rather, the sine qua non, and its absence means both that the people have been rendered helpless and that a new ruling class has taken power...

...3.95...

...But the issue is not, of course, settled by determining who is the more orthodox or better Marxist...

...It sees the changes since Stalin's death as part of a fundamental process, as opening up the way to democratization of Russian society...

...On the contrary, it was a vision of inefficiency and waste, of anarchy, within the framework of bureaucratic planning and technological advance...

...Even where industrialization is not the form or condition for establishing totalitarian control, as in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Communist bureaucracy is inevitably compelled to establish the same forms of authority in underdeveloped countries as those established in the Soviet Union...

...Deutscher, on the other hand, speaks of the subterranean existence of the "Revolution," even in the period of Stalin's barbarism...

...The nationalized property and the planning is the sub terranean flow of "the Revolution" moving massively toward the good so ciety...

...In giving the reasons for this doubt, the Monthly Review editors come near to the heart of the matter...

...Again it must be emphasized that, in the very nature of this dispute, there is as yet no decisive fact which totally settles the argument...

...When will he find himself overpowered by the reality...

...New Statesman and Nation, October 26, 1957...

...That view, to put it baldly, is one of 'Papa knows best,' and there is apparently no thought that the infant Soviet people will ever grow up enough to decide for itself who knows best and hence who should make and administer the policies which determine its fate...

...Djilas, on the other hand, sees the politics, eco nomics and social reality of Commu nism interpenetrating one other—he refuses to suspend the "Revolution" in a limbo which lasted through over three decades of terror...

...the monolithic power of the state remains basically as it was under Stalin...

...The main question is: no matter how one describes the bureaucracy, is its relation to its privileges and perquisites such that it will oppose any change in the social and political relationships which might endanger them...

...The article appeared several weeks after Mao had unleashed the campaign against the "rightists" and two months before the People's Daily announced its adherence to the classical Stalinist theory that "counter-revolution" becomes more virulent as the power of the "counter-revolutionary" classes diminish...

...and in regard to Poland he can be expected to sympathize not with the "revisionists" who demand democracy but with Gomulka who tries uneasily to balance himself between the oldline Stalinists and those Polish intellectuals and workers who, in effect, have turned to democratic socialism...

...There have been changes, and extremely significant ones...

...Here is Deutscher's view: The techniques of planning which had first been developed awkwardly and with many costly and even tragic mistakes in the 1930's, were now brought up to a relatively high degree of efficiency, even though they were hampered by bureaucratic rigidity...

...There is not a single shred of data which yet confirms Deutscher's theory, or even requires it as an explanation...

...Given this long-standing attitude, the reexamination of the Monthly Review editors is all the more revealing...

...Paul Sweezy's Monthly Review has long defended an opposing point of view: that when the conditions which produced the dictatorship—economic backwardness and international insecurity— had been overcome, the Soviet regime would, in some unspecified manner, democratize itself...

...Amidst all this, one book, Milovan Djilas' The New Class,* has a unique distinction...

...ties...

...In the June 29 issue of the same publication, Deutscher had hailed Mao's speech, "On Contradictions," as "a most radical repudiation of Stalinism...

...These differences of analysis, in the discussion of which Djilas and Deutscher represent convenient labels for opposing tendencies of thought, have far more than an academic interest...

...For Djilas that role will be one of tenacious defense of privilege, of "prin cipled" opposition to democracy...

...It is here, by contrast, that Djilas is so relevant...

...All the evidence is not in...

...Djilas and those who share his general approach set sharp limits upon any process of "liberalization" within Communist society...

...on the other hand, this advance is achieved through dreadful human suffering and a fantastic bureaucratic inefficiency...

...And if we view the recent announcements in the context of Khrushchev's public admissions when he proposed to decentralize the various ministries, if we remember the astonishing picture of economic chaos painted by Gomulka and Nagy, we see that the reality of Communism is far closer to Djilas' view...

...it has wrung concessions from the rulers...

...62 munists of their ownership rights would be to abolish them as a class...

...Such claims may seem strange, especially if one has in mind the relatively rapid development of individual branches of the economy, and of the econ 64 omy as a whole...

...In short, Russia is in a period of changes, but "democratization" from above is not one of them...

...And at almost the same time, Sidney Hook was putting forth an analysis of the Gomulka regime in Partisan Review which was startling in its sympathetic attitude toward and perhaps even its illusions about Polish Communism...

...That, to say the least, seems to us unlikely...

...We can measure the curious intensity of this discussion by noting only two of the recent articles which are a part of it...

...we know, because it has already happened, that "rights" which are granted to artists from on high can be taken away from them in a matter of days...

...it is the Eisenhower Administration's penchant for using official secrecy to conceal the real facts multiplied a thousand times and elevated to a permanent and inherent feature of the system...

...These should lead to the softening of social tensions, the weakening of antagonisms between bureaucracy and workers, and workers and peasants, to the further lessening of terror and to the further growth of civil liberties...

...Yet it is revealing to compare Deutscher and Djilas on the interpretation of evidence which has become dramatic in recent times because of the Russian success with Sputnik: the character of totalitarian planning...

...If we can point to no decisive fact which ends the argument, the main direction of the past four years, that of turns both toward and away from a "thaw" within the unaltered framework of totalitarian rule, is of little comfort to Deutscher...

...And here is Djilas: The Communist planned economy conceals within itself an anarchy of a special kind...

...In fact, at this point the commitment of Sweezy and his friends to the Russian myth, to the view that Communism in some way remains "progressive" leads to both a breakdown of analysis and an intensifying crisis of values...

...Djilas and those who think like him stand with the people of Eastern Europe in their efforts to overthrow the tyranny of both Russian overlords and domestic party bosses...

...nor are they confined to prediction...

...And certainly his analysis is capable of dealing with the facts since Stalin's death...

...Their view of the recent facts is that in all that has happened since Sta• lin's death we can find nothing to indicate that the Communist Party, or any of its competing factions, has changed in the slightest degree its view of the proper relation between the people and their leadership...

...indeed he sees them as repre senting two fundamentally opposed historical tendencies...

...But often that is to obscure the really important political point...

...Here is how Djilas puts it: The method of establishing totalitarian control, or ideological unity, may be less severe than Stalin's, but the essence is always the same...

...III In all this, I think it is possible to locate a final, methodological opposi tion between Djilas and Deutscher...

...The Twentieth Russian Party Congress, the Polish and Hungarian Octobers, Sputnik, two major purges— these constitute a torrent of new facts which challenge every preconception and demand a re-examination of all [For a discussion that supplements thisarticle, readers are referred to "Authoritarians of the Left" by Lewis Coser andIrving Howe, DISSENT, Winter 1955...

...How does this square with the events of the post-Stalin period...

...Those who think like Deutscher tend, to one or another degree, to look for an orderly and "moderate" progress from within the ruling groups of the Communist world...

...61 values...

...II But there is another view before us...

...65 On the other hand, the sharp limits which the Russian bureaucracy has set upon the changes which have taken place (Hungary, the end of the "thaw" for the artists, the reassertion of monolithicism in the Zukhov purge) are for Djilas precisely what one should expect...

...In dealing with this assertion, it is all too easy to plunge into a debate over the definition of a ruling class...

...No principle of de mocracy has been introduced into Russian society...

...On the face of it, Sputnik would seem to bear Deutscher out...

...The reason for such shifts is clear enough...

...And if Djilas is right, as I think he is, then we must say of Deutscher that he is ultimately a Bismarckian socialist of the twentieth century—a talented scholar, a capable writer, but a man who has mistaken the tactical maneuvers of a ruling class for the coming victory of the people...

...It is simulta neously a political event in the East European anti-Communist Revolu tion, a new fact, and an attempt to deal theoretically with that Revolu tion...

...which theory best prepares us to anticipate the direction of the future...

...The Monthly Review suggests a possible explanation—"forty years is too long for a dictatorship to remain temporary"—but clearly this doesn't strike at the basic issue...

...For we know that a unanimous downgrading of Stalin in Stalinist fashion may well be a technique for the seizure of power on the part of a new Stalin...

...But the absence of any type of criticism, even of any type of important suggestion, inevitably leads to waste and stagnation...

...Nontheless, it represents a major statement of a basic view about Communism...

...It is still asserted that the present Russian state represents the near-unanimous will of the Russian people, and Khrushchev has yet to make a proposal which allows the people freely to contest this claim in any way...

...In their November, 1957, issue, the editors of the Monthly Review, long the most sophisticated apologists for the "progressiveness" of Russian totalitarianism, published an editorial filled with a nearanguished doubt about their most fundamental assumptions...

...The planners had at their disposal an amazingly effective 'secret weapon': the famous theorems of 'simple and expanded reproduction' which Karl Marx had developed in the second volume of Das Kapital...

...66...

...His fundamental premise is the one which the editors of the Monthly Review have recently seen as almost totally called into question by the facts of the post-Stalin era: "superior efficiency necessarily translates itself, albeit with a delay, into higher standards of living...

...It is not that Djilas has written a definitive analysis of Communism...

...Instead, it is the very essence of totalitarian planning...

...There has been popular pressure, to be sure, but it has manifested itself in spite of and in opposition to the state...

...We will have to reject Djilas when, and if, the Communist bureaucracy cooperates in the destruction of its own political monopoly and therefore helps to destroy its social and economic power...

...Djilas, of course, feels that this is true...

...For Djilas, this anarchy is not a factor which can be reformed away—by Khrushschev or anyone else...

...In all of this, there is confirmation of Djilas' point...

...Yet the bureaucracy has not given up its fundamental lie for a second, either in theory or practice...

...In a word, then, the difference in analysis is closeIy related to a profound difference in political attitudes and values...

...There have been the zigs and zags of the "thaw," the denunciation of the "personality cult...

...In spite of the fact that it is planned, the Communist economy is perhaps the most wasteful economy in the history of human society...

...Again the decisive point is not whether one designates the bureaucracy as a class...

...But as Djilas realizes, all of these re lationships are changed once there is an attempt to reach toward socialism, once, that is, the economy is stratified, Democracy is not then a squiggle of whipped cream which tops the "Revolution" some decades after the totalitarians have taken over...

...And by democracy, I do not mean a value term but a sociological one...

...Time will tell...

...Djilas understands that democracy in a statified economy is not a matter of "superstructure," of the mere form of the society, but that it is of the very social essence...

...The various changes which have taken place—and they are both undeniable and significant—are explicable in terms of Djilas' model of Russian society and do not support Deutscher's most fundamental point...

...The debate over the character of the changes taking place in Russian society has been carried on, not merely by a few radical intellectuals, but by government officials, newspapermen, indeed by anyone with the faintest interest in politics...

...It is rather an empirical question: which theory best accounts for the evidence we now have...

...In their November, 1957 editorial they write with commendable frankness: The conditions which produced the dictatorship have been overcome .. . Our theory is being put to the crucial test of practice...

...In this, he is at odds with Djilas...

...The image which was developed in Khrushchev's program was not that of a group of planners who had the "secret weapon" from Marx's Kapital...

...Deutscher, then, rejects the notion of a fundamental limit upon any bureaucratic "liberalization...

...But the French Revolution was bourgeois, in which one function was that of raising a minority to the level of a ruling class...

...This does not occur simply because the Soviet Union imposed such forms on these countries as subordinates, but because it is within the very nature of Communist Parties themselves and of their ideologies to do so...

...For where there is nationalization of industries, the only means of establishing control 63 over the surplus product is through politics...

...Deutscher, to use the language of clas sical Marxism, constantly separates the base and superstructure of Russian so ciety...

...they adopt toward totalitarian society a curious version of the attitude that liberals and "reformists" have taken toward capitalist society...

...How one anticipates the role of the bureaucracy is, since, among other things, it affects one's political attitude today...

...Djilas, by contrast, is committed—as, in my opinion, socialists must be—to Iooking forward to a fundamental change of social relations in the Communist world, which means, first and foremost, the destruction of the political monopoly of the Communist par...

...they perversely insist upon calling totalitarian societies "socialist...

...Thus, Deutscher, while not supporting the Russian outrages in Hungary, found himself depreciating the Hungarian revolution...

...His passionate apostasy from Tito was completed in a jail, not in an atmosphere of scholarly quiet...

...The New Class contains some over-large generalizations and not a few illusions about the West and inevitable tendencies toward world unification...

...Deutscher's most persistent historical analogy is to the French Revolution and its continuation despite the Restoration...

...Djilas in his book asserts that the Communist bureaucracy is a new ruling class, and he does so from within the framework of a democratic socialist world-view...

...EDITORS premises...

...In his view The new class obtains its power, privileges, ideology and customs from one specific form of ownership— collective ownership—which the new class administers and distributes in the name of the nation and the society To divest Corn...

...The fundamental basis of Djilas' theory can be more valuably described in empirical terms, as an expectation, a prediction and the expression of deep political * Praeger...

...This is because he does not understand the social role of democracy in a statified economy—it is because he does not realize that the political expropriation of popular power is, at the same time, the economic and social expropriation of that power...

...My emphasis...

...The partisans of this attitude are the Bismarckian socialists of the twentieth century: they confuse the turns and maneuvers of a ruling class with the struggle for popular freedom...

...And so far—let us face it frankly—there is precious little evidence to confirm it...

...The major Bismarckian socialist among us today is, of course, Isaac Deutscher...

...In this, Djilas follows the analytic method of Marx ism more closely than Deutscher...

...And Deutscher...

...Ultimately, the conflict between DjiIas and Deutscher (and I use their names as representative of trends of thought) comes down to the question of democracy...

...And there we must return to a basic point...

...And just to the extent that the nationalization of a railroad by the German Minister was socialism, so is the rehabilitation of a purge victim by the Russian assassin a step toward democracy...

...In such a situation, democracy was not indispensable to the history of the new class...

...the bourgeoisie could consolidate its social power even when it was temporarily deprived of political power...

...But so far, the facts indicate that Djilas' political realism has produced a superior theory...

...They vitally affect, as they also reflect, major differences of political attitude...

...That the editors of the Monthly Review have begun to become conscious of at least part of this is the ex post facto realization of what Djilas' theory predicted, that the fundamental basis of Russian society in the midst of transition remains the Communist monopoly of political power...

...If, as under Communism, the Party has a monopoly of political power, it also has a monopoly of social and economic power, and it is wishful thinking to assume that it will give this up voluntarily...

...Whether one designates the Russian bureaucracy as class or caste, whether one describes the Russian social system as state capitalism or bureaucratic collectivism, is not the immediate political issue...

...On the one hand, there is the basis for a tremendous technological advance...

...For within the year, we have not only learned of the extent of Russian technology, but of its cost as well...

...But then, we still have to consider why this is true...

...And this condition will persist until there is a democratization —something which the bureaucracy cannot "grant" because it would mean a new class relationship and thereby destroy the basis of its power...

...The totalitarianism is a matter of the political "superstructure," an historical detour, perhaps necessary, not desirable, yet transient...