Socialism and the
less developed countries
'DO
WE HAVE TO WAIT for the last Hottentot?' used to be a question asked of
socialists. Behind it was the suggestion that the lack of industrial
and social development in parts of the world might delay the
establishment of Socialism. This is sometimes called the problem of the
'backward' countries but is more properly the problem of uneven
development
The short answer is, No. There is no need for the
whole world to be industrialised nor for the whole world population to
be turned into propertyless wage-workers before Socialism can be
established. We might add that perhaps the few remaining Hottentots in
South Africa are wondering if they will have to wait for the last white
man.
Let us get rid of one mistaken view straightaway. The less
developed countries are not lagging behind because the people who live
there are inherently inferior to those who live in the industrial
countries. Racialism has no scientific basis. All human beings are
members of the same animal species, homo sapians, and all are quite
capable of absorbing modern culture in a short period of time. Such
cultural differences as at present exist between the peoples of the
world are not the result of different natures, but of different
environments. It so happened that the peoples of Europe were the first
to go through the industrial revolution and, as subsequent development
of the other countries has shown, the people of other countries, given
the opportunity, are just as capable of acquiring modern industrial
skills. Indeed, they contributed in many diverse ways to the later
development themselves. In Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin
America, centres of highly-advanced industry are developing manned from
top to bottom by local workers. It follows from this, if anyone ever
doubted it, that all human beings are capable of understanding and
operating Socialism.
The initial material basis for Socialism is
the world-wide industrial organisation that capitalism has built up.
The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the
co-operative labour of the millions of people who are employed to
operate this organisation. Capitalism has brought into being the
working class in whose economic interest it is to establish Socialism.
This is why the strength of the socialist movement will come from the
workers in the advanced capitalist parts of the world.
However,
industrial development is by no means evenly spread over the world. In
Europe, North America, Australasia, Japan, Russia, the great majority
of the population live and work under capitalist conditions of
production for profit and the wages system, while in some parts of the
world capitalist industry is only an oasis in the midst of a desert of
backward agriculture. In between are countries in varying stages of
industrial development. As yet not all of mankind are propertyless
wage-workers, many of the remainder being peasants exploited by
landlords and moneylenders.
To say that a major part of mankind
are not living under capitalist conditions as wage-earners is not to
say that their lives are not affected by that system. Price
fluctuations in the world market directly touch on their standard of
living and they cannot escape the consequences of wars between
capitalist powers. In view of this and in view of the fact that the
bulk of the world's wealth is produced in the capitalist parts, we can
say that capitalism is the predominant social system in the world today.
The
Socialist Party of Great Britain rejects the suggestion that the
workers must wait for capitalist production to predominate everywhere
before trying to establish Socialism. A socialist society has been
possible for many years now, for as many in fact as its industrial
basis has existed. As soon as the workers of the world want to, they
can establish the common ownership of the means of production and
distribution and bring planned production to meet human needs.
Capitalism
on a world scale has long been outdated so that its coming to the
industrially undeveloped countries is not now a necessary stage in
economic progress. Socialism involves the emancipation of all mankind
and is the solution to the problems of the people of those countries as
much as it is to the problems of the workers of the long-standing
capitalist countries. When Socialism has been established there is no
reason why these parts should not be developed under altogether
different circumstances from those imposed by capitalism.
Whatever
may be the long-term results, the immediate impact of capitalism on
pre-industrial societies has everywhere been disastrous. Beginning with
the slave trade in capitalism's early days it has now brought the world
almost to the brink of famine. Capitalism breaks up existing societies
in order to get the workers to labour on the plantations, down the
mines and in the factories it sets up. The overall result has been
terrible human suffering.
The Socialist Party does not accept
that all this suffering is necessary and that people must still undergo
it for the sake of a better future.
Because capitalism has
everywhere outplayed its progressive role in developing the means of
production, distribution and communication, the Socialist Party does
not support the capitalist movements styling themselves 'national
liberation' and 'anti-imperialist' which aim to gain political power in
the less developed countries and by means of a ruthless policy of State
capitalism (miscalled Socialism) to modernise and industrialise the
areas they govern. Many of these movements, and the regimes they set
up, are modelled on the Bolsheviks who as a determined minority seized
power in Russia in 1917 and by a policy of dictatorship built up a
modern capitalist economy with themselves as the new privileged and
exploiting dass. As far as the people they aim to lead and govern are
concerned, their coming to power represents merely a change of rulers
and the prospect of being turned from peasants into exploited wage
workers. Once again this has nothing to do with Socialism, and is quite
unnecessary since the common ownership and democratic control of the
means of wealth production and distribation on a world-wide scale has
long been possible.
In many of the less developed countries
political democracy does not yet exist. The governments there, whether
representing the old landowning or the emerging capitalist class,
stifle criticism and threaten the organisation of opposition parties
and even of trade unions as plots to overthrow them. In such
circumstances socialist activity is very difficult and the workers
(being only a minority of the population), besides trying to organise
into a socialist party ought also to struggle to get the freedom to
organise into trade unions and win elementary political rights. As in
the advanced capitalist countries, however, this should still involve
opposition to all other parties in order that the socialist issue shall
be kept free from confusion.
Socialists are sometimes asked
about another aspect of uneven development. This relates to the
possibility that the socialist movement could be larger in one country
than in another and at the stage of being able to gain control of the
machinery of government before the socialist movements elsewhere were
as far advanced.
Leaving aside for the moment the question as to
whether such a situation is likely to arise, we can say that it
presents no problems when viewed against the world-wide character of
the socialist movement. Because capitalist governments are organised on
a territorial basis each socialist organisation has the task of seeking
democratically to gain political control in the country where it
operates. This however is merely an organisational convenience; there
is only one socialist movement, of which the separate socialist
organisations are constituent parts. When the socialist movement grows
larger its activities will be fully co-ordinated through its world-wide
organisation. Given a situation in which the organised socialists of
only a part of the world were in a position to gain control of the
machinery of government, the decision about the action to be taken
would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of
all the circumstances at the time.
There remains the question
whether in fact there will be material differences in the rate of
growth of the sections of the world socialist movement. At present,
throughout the advanced capitalist countries, the vast majority,
because they are not yet socialist, share certain basic ideas about how
society can and should be run. They accept that goods must be produced
for sale with a view to profit; some men must work for wages while
others must be employers; there must be armed forces and frontiers; and
it is impossible to do without money and buying and selling. These
ideas are held by people all over the world and it is this which
accounts for the basic stability of capitalism at the present time.
It
was Engels who remarked that a revolutionary period exists when people
begin to realise that what they once thought was impossible can in fact
be done. When people realise that it is possible to have a world
without frontiers, without wages and profits, without employers and
armed forces, then the socialist revolution will not be far away. But
this advance in political understanding will be achieved by the same
people who now think that capitalism is the only possible system.
Because workers all over the world live under basically similar
conditions and because of modern systems of communication, when they
begin to see through capitalism this will apply everywhere. There is no
reason at all why workers in one country should see this while those in
others do not.
The very idea of Socialism, a new world society,
is clearly and unequivocally a rejection of all nationalism. Those who
become socialists will realise this and also the importance of uniting
with workers in all countries. The socialist idea is not one that could
spread unevenly.
Thus the socialist parties will be in a
position to gain political control in the industrially advanced
countries within a short period of each other. It is conceivable that
in some less developed countries, where the working class is weak in
numbers, the privileged rulers may be able to retain their class
position for a little longer. But as soon as the workers had won in the
advanced countries they would give all the help needed to their
brothers elsewhere.
To sum up, we can say that the less
developed countries might present Socialism with a problems, but they
do not constitute a barrier to the immediate establishment of Socialism
as a world system. Nationalism and colonial independence are not
matters that ought to concern workers. Everywhere, in the less advanced
as well as the more advanced countries, the workers should be striving
for Socialism. |
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