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Programme of the RDG - Part I |
A. WORLD CAPITALISM AND WORLD REVOLUTION 1. Capitalism 1. The world economy is based on capitalist relations of production, distribution and exchange. It is divided into nation-states, each ruled by a relatively small class of people. These are the top industrialists, bankers, financiers, state officials and military chiefs who collectively form the capitalist class. This class has overall control of the national economy through the state, the banking and financial system and capitalist enterprises, which may be private or state owned. 2. These enterprises hire workers on a labour contract. This contract between the employers and workers conceals a relationship of class exploitation. The working class, comprising of manual, white collar, scientific and technical workers, collectively produce society’s wealth. But this wealth belongs to the employers. Part of it is used to pay wages, the remainder is a surplus which adds to the accumulated stock of wealth and provides luxury incomes for the rich. 3. The employers and workers are the major social classes in capitalist society. Between them is an intermediate or middle class whose exact nature varies from country to country. The middle classes may include the small business owners, the small farmers, intellectuals and the management bureaucrats. They have a privileged position relative to the mass of workers, and play a vital role in maintaining the stability of the social order. However the position of the middle class is dependent on the capitalists who rob and oppress them. In times of crisis, sections of the middle class may be driven into bankruptcy and unemployment, and may ally themselves with the working class. 4. The employing class is driven to extract more and more surplus value from the workers. This drive is fuelled by rivalry, both national and international, between capitalist enterprises in search of profits. As a consequence wealth and power tends to concentrate in the hands of the largest enterprises, banks and nation-states, whilst poverty is produced amongst the working class. The production of poverty in the midst of vast wealth is the inevitable result of capitalist exploitation. This tendency is only modified by the working class through the strength of its economic, ideological and political struggle. 5. The extraction of surplus value in the workplace depends on the relationship between employers and workers. But the accumulation of surplus value requires the use and circulation of money and credit. The capitalist financial system is prone to crisis. Inflation, debt crises, bankruptcies, financial scandals and frauds disrupt the process of production. Whatever the immediate cause of financial crises, their real roots lie in the system of production for profit itself. Under capitalism, a never ending drive for economic growth and higher productivity leads periodically to declining rates of profit, financial crises and economic recession. 6. Instead of planned social development to meet the needs of working people, capitalism produces massive waste of productive resources. Mass unemployment is the inevitable result of the anarchy of the capitalism with its booms and slumps. The unemployed, forming a reserve army of labour, forced to live in poverty, enable the employers to keep down wage levels, and reinforce their control in the workplace. The capitalist state 7. The state is the means through which a ruling class exercises control over the population and the resources of a given territory. Whilst the means of control varies, it is always and ultimately dependent on armed force. Every state is an instrument for the dictatorship of a ruling class over the oppressed class or classes. 8. The capitalist state serves the common interests of the capitalist class, both at home and abroad. It sets the legal, administrative and monetary framework for the national market. It maintains and regulates the economic, social and cultural conditions under which the exploitation of the working class and the accumulation of capital takes place. 9. The essence of the capitalist state are the institutions of bureaucratic, judicial, military and police power. However the particular form of state and methods of government vary from country to country. In some states capitalist governments are appointed by military dictatorship or absolute monarchy. In others they are elected and derive their legitimacy from the system of parliamentary or bourgeois democracy. In either case, the government depends upon the support of the capitalist state to enforce its policies. 10. Amongst parliamentary or bourgeois democracies, there are considerable differences over the extent to which the people can influence the government and the state. This will depend in part on the nature of the constitution, the system of election, the extent of democratic rights and civil liberties, and on class organisation and class struggle. 11. In general, a constitutional monarchy, in which state power is exercised on behalf of the crown, is the least democratic form of parliamentary democracy. A federal republic is more democratic and may enable national unity to be maintained in states where different nationalities co-exist. But a democratically centralised republic can provide greater freedom and democracy than a federal structure. 12. The Dual Power Republic, emerging out of a democratic revolution, is the most democratic form of bourgeois democracy. It is the result of the co-existence and rivalry between two national centres of political power. The bourgeoisie is represented by the government and the state and in the parliament or constituent assembly. The working class is represented in elected workers councils, with delegates to local and national assemblies. 13. The Dual Power Republic provides the greatest freedom for the working class under capitalism. But far from solving the fundamental problems of capitalism, this leads inevitably to an intensification of class struggle. Consequently the Dual Power Republic remains highly unstable until one or other centre of political power emerges victorious. It is the transitional form between the capitalist state and the democratic workers state. Imperialism and the Russian revolution 14. At the end of the l9th century the most powerful capitalist economies were becoming dominated by a few large monopoly enterprises and banks. In conjunction with their own nation-states they began to export capital, seize colonies and raw materials and open up new markets. Colonial imperialism was a new stage in the development of capitalism as an international system. It drew together the most powerful capitalist states and their colonies in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America into a world market. Colonial imperialism established a network of colonies and satellite states from whom monopoly profits were extracted. 15. Under imperialism, the drive to accumulate capital produces imperialist wars, national democratic revolutions and revolutionary wars. Imperialist wars arise out of the struggle between capitalist states over spheres of influence and profits, on a global, regional or local scale. At the same time imperialist exploitation and national oppression generates mass popular resistance, which may produce democratic revolutions and revolutionary wars. 16. The first imperialist world war (1914-1918) was fought to redivide world markets and colonies. Millions were killed or reduced to poverty and near starvation. Out of the horror of this war, the people of the Russian Empire rose in revolt, producing the single most important revolution of the 20th century, the Russian Democratic Revolution (Feb 1917-March 1921) 17. In February 1917, the Tsarist system of government was overthrown by a popular uprising. This created a Dual Power Republic, based on the provisional government and the Soviets of workers deputies. In October 1917 an armed insurrection transferred power to the working class and the peasantry. Under the leadership of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party, they established the world’s first democratic workers republic based on Soviets or workers councils. 18. In mid-1918 the revolutionary Bolshevik government was faced with a counter-revolutionary uprising and intervention by both German and Allied imperialist forces. They took steps to nationalise the major industries, radically extending the state capitalist sector. As the country was plunged into civil war, the Workers republic was reorganised as a military dictatorship under the Communist Party and Red Army (War Communism). By the end of 1920 the counter-revolutionary uprising had been suppressed. 19. Despite this victory, the destruction caused by the civil war, and the international isolation of the Republic, had greatly weakened the working class. In March 1921 a popular democratic uprising in Krondstadt was defeated. Workers democracy was never rebuilt, and control over state capitalism was secured by the state bureaucracy. This was later consolidated by the victory of Stalin’s faction in the Communist Party. 20. Events in Russia cannot be seen in isolation from the international situation. The working class suffered serious defeats in Hungary (1919) and Italy (1920). But the key to international socialism was the German Democratic Revolution (1918-1923). The defeat of the revolutionary movement of the German working class in 1923 ended the possibilities for international socialism. Workers suffered further defeats in Bulgaria (1924), China (1925-26) and the UK (1926). By the mid-1920s international capitalism had restabilised. 21. In 1928 international capitalism plunged into further crisis. With the onset of the world recession and the growth of mass unemployment in the 1930s, working class democracy suffered massive defeats in Germany and Spain at the hands of fascism. Fascism represented the most barbaric form of state capitalism, reinforced by police terror, slave labour and extermination camps. 22. With the victory of fascism in Italy, Germany and Japan, and growing rivalry amongst the imperialist states, preparations began for a new world war (1939-1945). The United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR and France formed an alliance to defeat Germany, Italy and Japan and redivide the world market. 2. International state capitalism 23. The war brought about a restructuring of the imperialist system. A new world order was established by the USA and the USSR, the two most powerful imperialist states. The USSR took control of the East European market and began to extend its influence into other parts of the world, for example China and North Korea. US imperialism became the dominant world power, establishing a new international monetary system based on the dollar. In the post war period US multinational corporations began to spread around the world. 24. The old system of colonial imperialism, which served neither the interests of Soviet or US state capitalism, began to break up. A series of anti-colonial democratic revolutions established independent states in India, China, Egypt, Algeria and elsewhere across Africa. By the 1960s the French and British Empires were largely dismantled. As a result colonial imperialism was transformed into a higher form of imperialism, namely international state capitalism. 25. The period 1948-1973 was period of economic expansion fuelled by the arms race between the major imperialist powers. Japan and West Germany began to build up their industrial strength. France, West Germany, and Italy formed the European Economic Community. In the industrial centres of America, Europe and Japan it was a period of economic growth and full employment. Workers were able to win improved wages, conditions and social provisions. A new layer of capitalist states began to industrialise. Some of these states such as Israel, South Africa, Brazil, India, Iran, Argentina and Iraq, began to emerge as sub-imperialist powers with significant armed forces. 26. Nevertheless for the majority of the world’s people, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the development of capitalism produced unemployment, poverty and famine for the peasant farmers and urban poor. Popular opposition to imperialism led to national democratic revolutions in Africa (e.g. Algeria), in the Middle East, (e.g. Palestine) in Asia (e.g. China, Vietnam,) in Latin America (e.g. Cuba) and in Eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary and Czechoslovakia). But the most significant was the revolutionary democratic war fought by the Vietnamese people. 27. In 1968 the imperialist system was shaken by a wave of mass democratic struggles which swept Europe and America for democratic and civil rights and against the Vietnam war. By the early 1970s with the impact of these struggles and the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam, the international system of state capitalism began to break down. 28. In 1973 the world price of oil quadrupled, creating a major economic crisis. As inflation rose, the major capitalist governments began to cut back on spending. By 1975 a world recession had begun, as production, trade and investment fell. Mass unemployment reappeared in the industrial centres of capitalism. The crisis of world imperialism 29. The world recession has produced a deep and ongoing crisis within international state capitalism. The intensification of competition is driving the least profitable parts of the world economy into bankruptcy. This is forcing the restructuring of the world market. It is producing major conflicts both within and between nation states as the capitalists seek to raise the level of productivity and profit. 30. The crisis marks a new epoch in the development of world capitalism. It is characterised by growing economic, social and political instability. This epoch is transitional between the break up of the old system of imperialism and the creation of a new world order. The nature of the new world order is not predetermined, it depends on the class struggle. 31. The situation that has developed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is one major example of the impact of this crisis. In the 1980s, the world recession and the defeat suffered by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, forced the Stalinist ruling class in the Soviet Union to begin restructuring the economy. 32. Under Gorbachev, the policy known as “perestroika” sought to raise productivity so that the USSR could compete more effectively on the world market. This process opened up divisions within the ruling class between conservatives and reformers. This enabled and encouraged popular democratic movements to emerge across Eastern Europe and within the Soviet Union. 33. Between 1989-92 popular democratic movements arose in Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Bulgaria and re-emerged in Poland. In Romania, an armed insurrection overthrew the Causcescu regime. As a result of mass struggle, the Stalinist regimes were ended and the apparatus of repression partially dismantled. Yet none of these democratic revolutions led to the transfer of power to the working class. On the contrary, they opened up the national economies to new forms of capitalist domination, especially by multi-nationals corporations. 34. The reunification of Germany symbolised the ending of Stalinist control over Eastern Europe. It gave further encouragement to the democratic revolution in the Soviet Union. The main impetus for this came from the mass strike movements of the working class, particularly the miners in the Donbas, and the national movements in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia, etc. In 1991 the democratic revolution gained fresh impetus following the defeat of an attempted military coup. On January 1st 1992, the Soviet Union was formally ended and replaced by the Confederation of Independent States. 35. In 1991 the crisis of imperialism led to war in the Middle East between US capitalism and its allies and the Iraqi capitalists, over the control of oil supplies. The Gulf war exposed the reality of the new world order. Thousands of Iraqi people, victims of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, were slaughtered by US and allied forces. This showed again that imperialism cannot provide democratic and peaceful solutions to the use of the world’s resources. In the new epoch, wars of mass destruction are the inevitable product of imperialist rivalry, for regional and world domination. 36. The crisis within the old system does not bring imperialism to an end. On the contrary, it opens the way for the emergence of new world powers and new rivalries. Japanese, European and especially German capitalism, now challenges the dominant position of the United States. Trade wars between the US, the European Community and Japan are the first step on the road to new and wider global political and military confrontations. 37. It is a matter of time before some incident sparks off new imperialist wars. Such wars are the inevitable product of imperialist rivalry, an essential means to resolve the issue of world domination. There are no peaceful solutions to the problems of world imperialism. Because of the destructive power of modern technology, including nuclear weapons, wars are now an even greater disaster which threaten the very survival of the human race. The crisis of democracy 38. The crisis of world imperialism is uneven. Each nation-state will be affected to a different extent as a result of its own history and specific circumstances. Whilst in general the crisis will begin to take political form, in some cases this will produce constitutional crises and even political revolutions. 39. A common feature of the crisis is the growing dissatisfaction and alienation of the working class from the state. This particularly affects the most oppressed sections of the working class, that is the youth, the unemployed and the poor, or those oppressed because of their race, sex or nationality, or as gays, or disabled or religious minorities. 40. The crisis of imperialism shows the inability of the capitalist state to solve the fundamental problems of society. The alienation of the masses from the state may produce apathy and demoralisation. But it will also produce periodic outbursts of mass action, riots, demonstrations, strikes and other forms of protest. These mass struggles bring the crisis of democracy to the fore. 41. This crisis also gives rise to new political movements and parties opposed to the state and the constitution. Such movements may be democratic or anti-democratic. For example in China, South Africa, Ireland, Ukraine and Kurdistan pro-democracy or national democratic movements have emerged. In France, Algeria, and India, there are significant fascist or religious fundamentalist movements. 42. However in some states, the political crisis becomes particularly acute. Where the old regime has become a barrier to the accumulation of capital, it becomes a weak link in the chain of imperialism. Whilst the reform of the state becomes an urgent necessity, conservative forces within the old regime retain the power to resist change. 43. The fight within the old regime between conservatives and reformers cannot be settled without the intervention of mass struggle. This creates the circumstances for political and constitutional crisis. In the face of this, the system of government begins to lose its legitimacy, becomes paralysed, incapable of effective action. Only the overthrow of the constitution can break the deadlock and begin the national democratic revolution. 44. Democratic revolution is by no means the automatic result of the crisis. On the contrary the crisis breeds counter-revolutionary movements such as fascism and religious fundamentalism. These are aimed at destroying the leadership of the working class, repressing parliamentary democracy and the trade unions, and halting the democratic revolution. 45. Revolutionary workers, as the most class conscious representative of working class, are not in the least indifferent to the crisis of the capitalist state, to bourgeois democracy, constitutional crises or democratic revolutions. On the contrary, as the vanguard of the democratic revolution, the working class must seize every opportunity to act independently with its own democratic slogans and demands, and lead the broader strata of the oppressed in the struggle for democracy and international socialism. 3. World revolution 46. The world revolution is the uneven, combined, and ongoing revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples of the world for freedom and democracy. The seeds of the world revolution can be found in the democratic struggles and movements against women’s oppression and racism, for gay liberation, against national oppression, for workers rights and civil liberties. 47. National democratic revolutions, for example in South Africa, Palestine, El Salvador, and Ireland, are an integral part of the world revolution. The destruction of the old constitution opens up a revolutionary period in which the oppressed classes may succeed in overthrowing the state. The impact of this can spread far beyond the borders of the particular state. 48. The bourgeoisie is a counter-revolutionary force, opposed to the national democratic revolution. The “progressive” liberal or left wing of the bourgeoisie may pose as an ally of the revolution in order to subvert it, hold back the mass struggle and preserve as much of the old state as possible. Bourgeois liberalism is particularly dangerous for the working class. 49. The political leadership of the national democratic revolution can only be provided by parties of the petty bourgeoisie or the working class. The petty bourgeois parties represent the interests of the urban middle classes and peasantry. But they are capable of winning support from the working class. Such parties cannot lead the revolution beyond bourgeois democracy, state capitalism or dependence on world imperialism. 50. Of all sections of the people who may rebel, only the working class can provide consistent revolutionary democratic leadership. The working class must form its own party and set its own independent aims, seeking to win political power. To achieve this the advanced sections of the working class must lead the oppressed to overthrow the existing constitution and establish a Dual Power Republic. 51. In a Dual Power Republic, the capitalist state will still exist and the bourgeoisie will still hold political power. The working class must continue the democratic revolution until power is transferred from the capitalist state to Workers councils supported by the armed working class. 52. The working class must build its own democratic state, the democratic dictatorship of the working class. The major industries and banks must be nationalised, that is converted into state capital and brought under workers control. Such measures do not amount to abolishing capitalism or introducing socialism, but are necessary for the defence of workers democracy. 53. No national democratic revolution or workers state can introduce international socialism. Only through the internationalisation of the democratic revolution will it be possible to move towards socialism. The democratic revolution must spread to a series of countries and especially the centres of imperialist power, the USA, Japan and the EEC. In passing through these stages, the revolution becomes permanent. The world revolution is transformed into the international socialist revolution. International socialist revolution 54. World capitalism or imperialism cannot bring peace, prosperity or social justice for the majority of the world’s people. This system, riven with crisis, threatens the survival of the human race and the destruction of the world’s environment through its never ending drive for profits. It is an urgent necessity that imperialism is replaced by a new world system of international socialism. 55. International socialism can only be established through an international revolution, which brings multi-national capital under social control. The multi-national corporations, banks, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, must be taken over. The United Nations organisation must be replaced with a World Congress of working peoples representatives. This cannot be done within the confines of one or a few countries. It can only be achieved on a world scale. 56. By taking control of the commanding heights of the imperialist economy, the international working class will begin replacing the world market by international planning, and co-operation. It will mobilise the productive power of working people, not for profit and greed, but for social and environmental needs. 57. Central to the aim of international socialism is the eradication of world poverty and unemployment, the abolition of the class system, and the elimination of all forms of national, racial, and sexual oppression. 58. International socialism will significantly extend the productive power of the world economy, freeing the working class from capitalist monopoly, greed, exploitation, and waste. It will remove all artificial barriers to the free use of the world’s technology, to the free movement of people, and to maximising socially useful output and trade. It will begin to overcome the distinction between intellectual and manual labour. 59. International socialism does not mean the end of the class struggle between capital and labour. It represents a higher stage in world history, when the working class have gained the upper hand in the struggle against the exploiters. This struggle will continue until the nation state eventually withers away and a classless society is achieved. Our aim is a communist society, that is a world community based on real human freedom. The world party 60. The international working class is the only class capable of establishing international socialism. Advanced sections of the working class in each country must unite in an International or World Party, based on the best traditions and experience of the first four Internationals. The task of this party is not only to support and link struggles of workers in different countries. It is to enable the working class to lead the national democratic revolution on to workers power and international socialism. REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC GROUP 1996 |
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