Nasser Paydar
Communism Abolition of Wage Labor and Leninist Militant Reformism
In the early years of the 20th century, the world was filled with the fame of imperialism. The existence of capitalism was relegated to the forgotten part of memory. The suffering of being a seller of labour power, being worn out under the pressure of capital exploitation, and the deadly pain of the shackles and chains of the increasing rightlessness of wage slavery, although it was repeated more than ever in the text of manifestos and literature of the “left”, but the discussion of the struggle against these real roots, the struggle against the basis of capitalism, was completely closed. The place of the discussion of the anti-wage labour campaign was occupied by “predatory discount imperialism”, “usurious monopoly capital”, “parasitic finance capital”, “a handful of oppressive financiers” and the like. The Marxian anatomy of capitalism retreated to the dark depths of the archives, and “imperialism as the highest stage of capitalist development” or similar articles on imperialism assumed the role of the book of revelation of the day. All talk revolved around the imperialization of capitalism, and any amount of discussion about the same capitalism that had become imperialistic became scarce in the exchange market of the left forces! Referring to Marx’s critique of political economy to understand the diversity of capitalism yesterday and today and what has happened was considered futile and unnecessary, because familiarity with “the emergence of cartels, the supremacy of finance capital, or the exclusive concentration of technologies and expertise in the hands of a few powerful, discount-seeking speculators” became the guiding light for the caravan of struggle. Why did this happen here and there? The answer must be sought in the specific conditions of this historical period. The emergence of a new stage in the history of capitalist development was an indisputable fact. There was no room for debate about the occurrence of the event and the importance of recognizing it, the problem was related to the nature of this recognition or the type of anatomy. The anatomy and recognition of which Lenin played the leading role.
The continuous and unbridled growth of concentration is the inherent dynamic of capitalist production. Capital is the relation of production of surplus value, and what guarantees the dynamic of this relation is the relative form of surplus value. This dynamic requires a continuous improvement in the productivity of social labour, as well as the continuous competition of individual capitalists or different sectors of capital for a greater share in the surplus values produced. All these are mechanisms that accompany capital and are part of the periphery of the surplus production relation. The direction and direction of this process was definitely the formation of cartels and monopolies, the development of banks, the emergence and dominance of finance capital, the export of capital, the economic and territorial division of the world among different sectors of international capital. As long as the capitalist mode of production remained, this process and the occurrence of all these interactions or events seemed inevitable. Just as the world of subsequent events and developments or what has occurred over the last hundred years in the organization of work, the structure of planning, and the mechanism of the institutions of this system have been inevitable.
The main point is that all of this must be dissected from a Marx and anti-capitalist perspective, and it certainly should have been so at the beginning of the 20th century. The reality is that the discussions, theorizing, and what emerged from the analyses and presented to the workers of the world were not false images of the conditions and developments of the day, and were, therefore, a dig at the misguided ones in the footsteps of the current movement and their class struggle. Let us pay attention to Lenin’s words: “Capitalism has become a global system of colonial oppression in which a handful of advanced countries, with the clutches of their financial capital, strangle the vast majority of the world’s people, and this plunder is divided between 2-3 fully armed predators with global power (America, England, Japan), and it is they who drag the entire world into the whirlpool of their war over the division of their plunder” (Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism). For those who are familiar with Marx’s method in criticizing the political economy of the bourgeoisie and how this method was applied in writing texts such as the Grundrisse or the various volumes of “Capital”, it is quite clear that describing the imperialist conditions of capitalist production in the above manner is not a continuation of that method. In explaining any part of the process of capital valorisation and organization, the capitalist division of labour, the various forms of capital, the rate of profit and the laws of distribution of surplus values, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the occurrence of crises, or any other issue related to capitalism, Marx does not separate any part of the relationship of surplus value production, or what is the real essence of this mode of production. In the anatomy of each section, each function or transformation that takes place in the realms and functions revolves precisely on this axis. Everywhere he deals with the twists and turns and ups and downs of capital in its general sense, or the relation of production of surplus value. Marx does not pursue this work solely in relation to the process of reproduction and valorisation of capital. He also considers it in describing the internal relationship between the mode of production and the entire social infrastructure. He refers to the form of production as an ethereal element within which the entire skeleton of the system and the economic and social formations of the era float. When he analyses “virtual capital”, he explains this phenomenon by referring to the general theme of capital and its role in the process of valorisation of capitals. When he dissects commercial capital, he examines the various aspects of its existence and its place in organic relation to the relation of production of surplus value. He follows the same method in all areas and cases. The worker who reads Marx’s Anatomy of Capitalism, in every part of this dissection, is confronted with the fierce pressure of the savage or even more savage claws and teeth of the octopus of capital on the shackles of his existence, finds himself everywhere captured by this octopus’s clutches and finds every attempt to reduce his misery to any extent a matter of relentless struggle against this system. Any degree of familiarity of any worker with Marx’s critique of political economy is his clear consciousness and clear class awareness of capitalism and, accordingly, a weapon in his hand for the struggle against this system. Lenin’s method of examining and explaining the imperialist conditions of capitalism is fundamentally different from what was said about Marx. He writes:
“Finance capital is concentrated in a few hands and is practically monopolistic. It earns huge and ever-increasing profits for the right to establish and issue government securities and bonds, etc., and in this way, it consolidates the dominance of the financial oligarchy and makes the whole of society a tributary to the monopolists.” These are not phrases that I have cut out from the real skeleton of statements and analyses with the aim of proving a claim and justifying a critique or criticism from a social and class perspective. The entire analysis and specific methodology that Lenin put forward to introduce the era of imperialism in his various writings are of this type. All the talk revolves around the fact that a number of cartels, banks, and large financial institutions have dominated the entire world with their monopoly position and have brought everything under their control everywhere. “The world is divided into a handful of usurious countries and a vast majority of borrowing countries.” Exactly the opposite of Marx’s way of working. What is highlighted everywhere and at all levels of discussion is plunder, aggression, usurpation, parasitism, monopolization, huge financial giants, intrigue, and the like. Things that are certainly real and their real dimensions are certainly more than what is cited or mentioned, but the problem is that none of these phenomena are explored in their real organic place with the general theme of capital and the process of capitalist reproduction. It is not the relationship of surplus value production that has entered this phase in its comprehensive self-expansion process. Capital, according to Marx’s true explanation, is not that which, by virtue of its internal approaches, under the pressure of its inherent contradictions and the application of self-acting mechanisms to confront these contradictions, has assumed the function of finance capital, has crystallized in giant financial and industrial enterprises, has taken the path of export to the ends of the world, or has undergone any other change or transformation. Let us not forget that we are not only referring to the analyses and formulations themselves. The main discussion is about the conclusions that are drawn from these analyses in the arena of social and class campaigns. The result of this kind of view of the conditions of capitalist development was the replacement of the anti-wage struggle with one form or another of popular anti-imperialistic. This marked a disastrous turning point in the history of the world labour movement, and I will discuss it a little later.
A fundamental reason for resorting to this method of analysis and adopting these orientations is the type of understanding of capital that differs from Marx’s. Capitalist production is not analysed here in terms of the relationship of buying and selling labour power or “wage labour.” The source of Lenin’s account of capital is not Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy, but the theorizing of Kautsky and Rudolf Hilferding and the Second International. In this account, capitalist production is characterized by competition and anarchy of production. Competition and the extent and breadth of its existence or how it is realized determine everything about capitalism, even the existence and non-existence of this system. “Imperialism emerged in general with the development and direct continuation of the fundamental properties of capitalism, but capitalism became capitalist imperialism only at a certain and very advanced stage of its development, and this was when the process of transforming some of the fundamental properties of capitalism into their opposites began and the characteristic signs of the transition period from capitalism to a higher socio-economic formation took shape and became fully apparent. “The fundamental point in this process is that capitalist free competition is giving way to capitalist monopolies. Free competition is a fundamental feature of capitalism and commodity production in general. Monopoly is the direct opposite of free competition, but free competition has turned into monopoly before our eyes.” In this paragraph from Lenin’s book, several important propositions can be seen, none of which are in accordance with Marx’s understanding of the capitalist mode of production. Free competition is emphasized as a fundamental property of the capital relation. This is not what Marx is saying. He says about the role of competition: “What competition creates in a sphere of production is the creation of a market value and an equal market price, which are derived from the specific and different values of commodities. But the competition of capital in different spheres of production first creates a price of production, which equalizes the rate of profit in different spheres.” The foundation of capitalism is the relationship of buying and selling labour power. Competition is one of the consequences, necessities, and complications of the commodity economy and, as far as capitalist production is concerned, determines the mechanism in the formation of the general rate of profit and the distribution of surplus values among different capitals. The obvious explanation is that the more the process of concentration in global capital and the social capital of each country advances, the more capital is concentrated in cartels and industrial and financial trusts, and competition also changes under the pressure of these developments. Competition between small and scattered capitals is replaced by competition between huge, gigantic monopolies. A view that considers competition as a characteristic of capital necessarily considers its disappearance to be an indicator of the disappearance of capitalism. A fact that later manifested itself in Lenin’s account of socialism. He declared the dominance of the state over society over every sector of the Russian economy in the years after the revolution as sufficient proof that that sector was socialist, while the relationship of buying and selling labour power continued to dominate everywhere with all its strength and power. In the above points, Lenin speaks of the transformation of some fundamental properties of the capitalist system into the opposite of these properties during the era of imperialism and considers the replacement of free competition by large monopolies as an example of this transformation. There is no need to say that the way competition changed during this period, but the important question is: firstly, why was this replacement considered synonymous with “turning into its own opposite” and secondly, what impact did it have on the existence of production and wage labour relations or the fundamental issues related to this system?! The earthly translation of Lenin’s words was that history has witnessed two types of capitalist systems. The first form was characterized by free competition, and the second form, on the ruins of this type of competition, announced its emergence with the indicator of monopoly. These two forms of capitalism are distinguished in the fundamental components of their existence!! Even their basic properties are opposite to each other!! The third sentence that Lenin issues in these few lines is the assessment of the special position of these developments as necessary conditions for the transition from capitalism to socialism. Here, too, the simple translation of the words is that capitalism was not pregnant with the occurrence of workers’ and socialist revolutions until that day and was only looking for the emergence of the monopoly period in which the grounds for the transition to a higher socio-economic formation appear!! Each of the above statements is a foundation for some deviations. It is not that Lenin consciously, knowing the practical and social consequences of his analyses, attempted to make these points. There is no discussion of his agreement with what was later associated with these words. Perhaps the intentions were good everywhere and in all these cases. But the problem is not in the intentions but in the fate of the movements. The fundamental problem is the wide capacity of these theories to be used by this or that section of the bourgeoisie, this or that reformist approach, in the field of campaigning to derail the world labour movement from the class struggle and anti-wage labour. A work that was initiated and pursued from the very days of Lenin’s field work by Bolshevism, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Comintern, the National Left of the countries and the parties of the spectrum of bourgeois communism everywhere in the world. The direct results of these theories and statements can be summarized in the most concise statement as follows.
1. The international working class must direct the sharp edge of its struggle against “imperialism”. The same imperialism that is defined by the exploitation, aggression, parasitism, usury, plunder and monopoly of a handful of financiers or a few discounting states!! The working masses must fight all over the world against finance and monopoly capital, whose basic properties are the opposite of capitalism and free competition!! Capitalism has entered an era with high characteristics and contradictory to the previous era, and the class struggle of the proletariat must also focus on the front of the struggle with what is characteristic of this era!! It is clear that the formulations or charters do not directly draw a line on the struggle of the working class against capitalism. This is very natural. All those who were engaged in the work of devising, promoting, interpreting or completing these theories imagined themselves to be two-faced communists, iron standard-bearers of the determination of the proletariat to liberate themselves and loyal to the teachings of Marx on class struggle. Such people are not only unwilling to suspect the slightest lack of credibility or solidity in the Marxian or anti-capitalist nature of their statements, but they also find no more appropriate names for their critics than “revisionists,” anti-Marx, and the like. In any case, as far as the appearance of theories and formulas is concerned, there is no talk of an official announcement of abandoning the anti-capitalist struggle, but the message of all analyses, manifestos and theorizing is that the daily struggle of the working class is no longer a war based on wage slavery, nor a war against the relationship of buying and selling labour, nor a fight against the existence of capitalism, but only a rallied and fought against a number of monopolistic institutions and aggressive imperialist states!! The reality is that from this date onward, Marxian communism of the abolition of wage labour will be severely isolated and the labour movement throughout the world will be captured by one of these two states. The social democratic parties have the upper hand in this movement, in which case they will block any orientation of the working masses towards the anti-wage labour struggle. Otherwise, there is the spectrum of Pro-Russian, Leninist and Comintern-affiliated parties that will still do the same thing in a different form and under a different name and with a different name. The twisted version of these currents for the working masses would be summarized in a gangbang. They should concentrate all their forces around the war against “predatory imperialism” and at the same time strive for a peaceful trade union struggle against the employers to improve their daily livelihood. The uproar did not end there, the recent struggle was not known to be allowed everywhere, in all cases. Many capitalists, or in fact most of them, were considered allied friends with reference to new theories!! And it is clear that the pressure of exploitation should not have been allowed to break the friendship!!!
2. Lenin’s theory of imperialism gave a part of the world capital, although “de facto” and not so official, but in practice the baptism of the nation, the people and the like. This part of the international capital was not only involved in the sins of discounting, parasitism and imperialist aggression, but it was also considered to be the inheritor of the period of free competition, and for this reason, it received a medal of sanctity and oppression. In this regard, a part of the bourgeois class of the countries who owned this part of the capital became the beloved emir of Umm al-Qaaria of the revolution. The reputation of “national capitals” and “national capitalists” or “revolutionary bourgeoisie” and the like were everywhere mentioned in leftist and labour circles. This broad spectrum of the bourgeoisie, which, especially in the developing capitalist countries of the day, including all the societies of the three continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America, even part of Europe, constituted the vast majority of owners of medium or even large workshops, most of the market traders and finally capitalist landowners and, in a word, the vast population of ruthless exploiting capitalists, all were placed in the camp of the proletariat’s allies and the line against imperialism. A kind of line-up that in principle left no room for the anti-capitalist struggle of the masses of the working class.
3. Phenomena such as the occupation of countries and colonialism, which were previously analysed in Marx’s discussions as forced conflicts of the crisis-ridden theme of capital and the inevitable continuation of the self-expansion of this mode of production, were now directly dependent on the excesses of a few discounting countries!! and a few financial or industrial monopoly giants. Everywhere and in all areas, including in this realm, the name, fame, and role of discount financial institutions filled the ears and enchanted the eyes so much that there was no opening left to see capital itself and the relations of wage labour. It was no longer capital that, in the process of its development, forcibly created a world market and resorted to every crime, including occupation and colonization, to find a market for its accumulation and organization. Instead, all these activities were referred to the conspiracy and insatiability of a few financial octopuses and a number of usurious states. In this regard, the policy of the labour movement against all this part of the expansionism and crime of international capital also lost its former theme. Marx and the communists of the First International pursued the adoption of every policy and approach in this transition from the perspective of the class struggle of the world proletariat against capitalism, but the new theories silenced the last glimmer of this anti-capitalist class war in the darkness of the conflict between the national interests of the peoples and imperialism. During the years of its existence and field, the First Workers’ International was confronted, if not to the same extent as in later periods, on a large scale with the warmongering and aggression of the European bourgeoisie, both within the continent and outside it. The war of the British capitalist state against Ireland, the occupation of Poland by the Tsar, the war of Italy against the Austrian hegemony, the extremely brutal and criminal encroachment of Britain throughout the world, including China, India or other countries of the East, Middle and West Asia, the colonialism of the French, Spanish and Dutch governments in Africa and other continents, all constituted the important events of the day. In all these cases, every statement made by Marx and the communists of that day was precisely aimed at strengthening the anti-capitalist movement of the working class of the countries. Even in cases where there was still no strong workers’ movement in some of these societies, the basis of policies and strategies was still to provide as much possibility as possible for international solidarity of workers against the basis of capitalism and to effectively contribute to the growth and rise of the independent ranks of the working masses to the extent possible. In the case of Ireland, Marx did not for a long time defend the people’s independence movement, and he did not see its broad mass support as a reason for the world workers’ movement to support the demands of such a movement. There is no doubt that he strongly condemned and opposed any kind of oppression, occupation and encroachment of the British government on the life of every person in Ireland, but he saw the way to combat these encroachments and brutalities not in defending a nationalist movement and the demand for national self-determination, but precisely in consolidating and strengthening the basis of the power of working class struggles in Ireland, Britain and around the world. He studied the issue from the perspective of the struggle between the two basic classes of the existing society and the struggle of the proletariat against capitalism and pursued the interests of forming a stronger and more stable front of the former against the latter. The basis of his intervention during this period, in relation to the Irish question, was an active and emphatic warning to the British working class to confront the occupation of the bourgeoisie and a simultaneous attempt to form a crushing front of the national workers’ struggle against the capitalist aggression of the British government. Marx later changed his mind, and this happened when he was faced with the disaster of the alignment between the British working class and the bourgeoisie of this country against the Irish movement. Something that was contrary to his expectations. Instead of beating the drum of the anti-capitalist struggle and forming a strong workers’ front against the occupation of the bourgeoisie, the British working masses practically fell into the abyss of compromise with their own capitalists. It was only upon seeing this deplorable situation that Marx turned to support the demand for Irish independence. Marx’s approach to the issue of the occupation of Poland by the Tzar government also carried the same theme. Here too, he allowed the separation of Poland from Russia as long as the former society was in a higher and more advanced position than the latter in terms of the level of capitalist development and the way the proletariat’s forces were organized against the bourgeoisie. Adopting any policy and adopting any approach must pursue this goal. It is as clear as day that communists have the highest level of opposition to any kind of aggression or any form of deprivation of the rights of any human being or any section of human beings in any part of the world, but the way in which this opposition is pursued is very closely and organically related to the clear anti-capitalist orientation of the working masses. The reason for this is simple. To the extent that our protest is deeper, more intense and more extensive against wage labour, to the same extent our campaign against the phenomenon of occupation and aggression is more effective, more real, more purposeful and more fruitful.
Lenin’s theory of imperialism and the ideas based on it in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Comintern were in serious conflict with what was said above and with the foundation of Marx’s orientations regarding the issue of occupation and the anti-occupation campaign. Here, the source of occupation was not in the nature of the capitalist mode of production but in the nature of parasitic, degrading imperialism. It was not the relationship of surplus value production that made the inevitability of the campaign, but the flow of thought, decision, and practice of the owners or rulers of the most concentrated sector of global capital. A financial oligarch emerged from the heart of the contradictory nature and transformation of the basic properties of capitalism, occupying the world as a battlefield and countries!! A few powerful usurious countries were launching campaigns and aggression against weak countries!! Lenin’s political economy observed the issue in this way, and from this observation the only thing that did not emerge was the subject of the anti-capitalist struggle of the working class. If Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy played the role of the brightest beacon of the workers’ anti-wage labour movement, Lenin’s version of this critique, on the contrary, provided the most mechanisms at the disposal of nationalism, the war against national oppression, and nationalist anti-imperialistic. In the light of these theories, anti-national occupation and the fight against imperialism replaced the communism of the abolition of wage labour, and the world working class was asked to bend its path of class struggle towards the endless rocks of such a campaign. At the Second Congress of the Comintern, in his famous theses on the “national and colonial question,” Lenin, while insisting in a general and ideological manner on the “independence” of the proletariat, in practice and as the agenda of the day for the communists, devoted all importance to the anti-colonial movement of the peoples. “The world political situation now places the dictatorship of the proletariat on the agenda and all the events of world politics inevitably revolve around one central point, namely, the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Russian Soviet Republic, which inevitably unites around itself, on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers of all countries, and on the other, all the national liberation movements of the colonies and oppressed peoples, who are convinced by their bitter experience that they have no other way of salvation than the victory of the Soviet government over world imperialism.”
The anti-colonial national movements and the alliance of the “communism” of the day, which Lenin emphasizes here, are actually uprisings composed of the bourgeoisie, peasants and workers of the countries of the three continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Comintern and even Lenin himself insist on the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie of these societies under the name of “national bourgeoisie”, and their twisted version for the nascent labour movement of the countries is that they form a united front in the struggle against imperialism and feudalism together with the peasant masses and this section of the bourgeoisie. The principle of planning and preparation for the anti-wage labour organization of the workers of the world gives way to a new agenda. The institution that introduced itself as an alternative to the reformist communist Second International and the heir of the First International, archives the hostile alignment between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between working-class communism and the system of wage slavery, and sets out on earth and in the sky to determine the line of revolution and counter-revolution. The trumpet announces the formation of the first front against the second. It introduces new definitions for the bases of alignments and the dismissal and installation of forces in the table of reaction, revolution, non-revolutionary, counter-revolutionary, consistent and inconsistent. “Opposition to imperialism” becomes the criterion for being revolutionary and whoever claims this is placed in the ranks of the revolution!!! One of the hot topics of the Second Congress of the Comintern was the debate between communists of the “ Manabendra Nath Roy ” and “ Avetis Sultan-Zade ” type with Lenin over these same issues or theses known as “national and colonial questions”. The vast majority of those present at the meeting insisted on the revolutionary nature of elements like Sun Yat-sen in China or even Gandhi in India and talked about the movement called the Indian National Congress and Gandhism and anti-imperialist nationalism within that society or all similar societies!! In this regard, they obliged the Indian communists to join and unite with the aforementioned forces in the struggle against British imperialism. A proposal that faced serious opposition from Roy. From another perspective, which was still not beyond reproach in terms of conformity with the Marxist perspective of class struggle, he pointed to the lack of revolutionary capacity in the forces within the Indian Congress and the Gandhian movement and ruled out the relevance of an alliance with them. In this way, the debate between the two aforementioned spectrums revolved around the issue of whether the bourgeoisie was revolutionary or not, and what did not find much place in the formulation of either side of the debate, even the critical minority of the left, was addressing the practical preconditions and, what should be, the practical steps for organizing an anti-capitalist movement of the working class.
The above issues were not static phenomena in the labour and left movements of that day. Lenin’s narrative of imperialism had a more or less familiar background. It was said a little higher that Bolshevism in general and Lenin in particular had long recognized capitalism as “anarchy of production” and competition. In this regard, their socialism could not go beyond the boundaries of centrally planned capitalism under the control of a party state claiming to represent the working class. The victory of the October Revolution had provided the conditions for the realization of this type of socialism in Russian society, and inevitably, for Bolshevism and all its companions defending this revolution and striving for the victory of this socialism, it determined the beginning and end of the communism of the era. History was experiencing one of its most sensitive turning points. The world labour movement was in the circle of friction between two opposing approaches and was enduring the very grave dangers of this erosion. The imperialist conditions of capitalist production and the defeat of the October Revolution sufficiently provided and reproduced the necessary elements of this friction. Marxian communism and the abolition of working-class wage labour, or a coalition of bourgeois socialism and nationalist anti-imperialists’, one of these two should have determined the fate of today’s social and class struggles around the world. If the former had taken the field, it would have led all the wars and struggles of the world today, from the peasant and anti-feudal movements to the women’s struggles against oppression and sexual barbarism, to the struggle of nationalities against ethnic oppression, to the black movement against racial discrimination or any other right-seeking movement, on the basis of the struggle against capital. The path that the conscious proletariat took was the path of the true liberation of mankind. Otherwise, the reins of all affairs would have fallen into the hands of people’s anti-imperialist and bourgeois socialism. History was on these two paths, and the outcome awaited the role of the approaches. The first approach was significantly inferior. Broad sections of the bourgeoisie, together with the vast masses of the peasantry in the largest part of the world, formed a very broad social base for people’s anti-imperialist and nationalist decolonization. This was what the “socialism” of the Soviet society desperately needed and welcomed with open arms. Lenin’s theory of imperialism had already provided the machinery for this integration and interdependence in sufficient quantities and had distributed it everywhere. The majority of the bourgeoisie in Asian, African, Latin American and even European societies saw these theories as a thoughtful expression of their problems and expectations. Most importantly and fundamentally, the Communist International of the working class, instead of blowing the trumpets of war against capital, was sending a message from virtually all its platforms to the working masses of the world to join and accompany this bourgeoisie in the path of anti-imperialist struggle!!!