All things international?
Stefan Engel’s book ends with the appeal:
“Forward with the international socialist revolution!
Forward to the united socialist states of the world!” (p. 570)He concludes: “With the strategy and tactics of the international evolution they are in the position to unite the struggles for social and national liberation aking place worldwide into a mighty flood which tears down all the barriers of the old society.” (p. 569)
Apart from his above-mentioned “advice,” however, he does not tell us what he means by this. Once more let us remember Lenin’s comment that we already quoted above:
“As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.” (“On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 342)
Stefan Engel already invoked the internationalization of production, of the ruling class but also of the proletariat. He writes:
“In the process of the international division of labor and at the level of the international systems of production, in the past few decades an international industrial proletariat has developed. Today it is the force which can and must go into the lead of the international struggle against imperialism and for social- ism.” (p. 18)
“The internationalization of the productive forces must inevi- tably result in the internationalization of the class struggle and spur it on. Unmistakable signs that this process already is in full swing can be observed everywhere in the world…” (p. 12)
“But the line of development at the beginning of the twenty- first century is clear: the main tendency in the world is the preparation of the international socialist revolution.” (p. 13)
“The general crisis proneness of imperialism has developed in a universal way. (…) They constitute the general material fun- dament for the emergence of a revolutionary world crisis, the objective and subjective condition for the maturing of the inter- national socialist revolution.” (p. 18)
It is a fact that the conditions for the working class in differ- ent countries have developed differently. For example: the situa- tion of the working class in Greece cannot at all be compared with the one in Germany. And when we look at the Indian or Ar- gentine working class we see that the differences are even more drastic. We can take any country at all to see that the differences are growing. From the materialist point of view, this in reality leads to sharper competition within the working class. Of course,international solidarity works against this! But this has existed since the time of Marx and
Engels. What is new here?
We must even notice that the differences have become even bigger. Already in 1915, Lenin wrote:
“Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.” (Lenin, On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 342.)
Let us take as an example the so-called “Arab Spring.” In Tunisia, where this process had its beginning, there existed a strong Communist Party, a militant working class and progressive forces within the people. They were able both to chase away the dictator Ben Ali and to prevent an Islamist dictatorship. In Egypt, this process was different. While there was a strong progressive movement, it lacked a strong revolutionary force. Although the people could bring down the dictator Mubarak, imperialism could initially establish an Islamist government under President Mursi, which, shortly thereafter, when the Islamists were no longer needed, was overthrown by a military coup and a military dictatorship was again established. In Libya and Syria, imperialism took advantage of the initial protests in order to fight against governments unacceptable to them with the aid of reactionary Islamic forces and terrorist gangs. The conditions, the course and the results are therefore extremely different. Lenin always explained these difficulties in detail, while Stefan Engel avoids this.
But he took precautions to be on the safe side. On the one hand he broadcasts great slogans, while on the other hand he also states the contrary, thus covering himself against any change. He also says:
“The concrete conditions for the proletarian class struggle differ greatly from country to country, because the internationalization of capitalist production has also resulted in the intensification of the uneven development of capitalism. Never before has the weight of the different imperialist powers or power blocs shifted so rapidly, have great powers and alliances fallen behind or gained new predominance so dramatically. In the ebb and flow of these changing relative strengths, the social contradictions within the countries and sometimes even these countries’ character change.” (p. 304) (The German word “Gewoge” has been translated here as “ebb and flow”; it means “stormy waves.” that is, “rapid changes.”)
“The reorganization of international capitalist production further intensified the uneven
development of the neocolonial countries.” (p. 490)
As has already been said: it is easier to nail a pancake to the wall than to tie Stefan Engel to
anything concrete in the “stormy waves” of his thinking.
And once more, we must recall Trotsky, whom we already quoted above:
“The entire formulation of the questions as outlined above flows from the dynamics of the revolutionary process taken as a whole. The international revolution is regarded as an interconnected process which cannot be predicted in all its concreteness, and, so to speak, its order of occurrence, but which is absolutely clear-cut in its general historical outline. Unless the latter is un- derstood, a correct political orientation is entirely out of the question.” (Quoted at https://www.marxists.org/ archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm#p1-01)
Instead of “stormy waves” we here find “dynamism” – in both cases the meaning is vague. We cannot see any difference in their positions.
It is similar with a trend to the left, discovered by Stefan Engel. With reference to Germany in
the years 2004-2005, he writes:
“A trend to the left among the masses developed which increasingly opposed not only the profit- and power-hungry managers of the monopolies, but also the profit system and capitalism as a whole.
The trend to the left is an international phenomenon occur- ring in different forms and having different characteristics. It means the transition to a qualitatively new stage in the develop-ment of class consciousness, a definite development towards the transition to socialist consciousness.” (p. 214)
On page 155 he speaks of a “worldwide trend to the left.”
“Despite all the differences existing in the individual countries, class consciousness has awakened on a broad scale and a universal trend to the left has emerged among the masses.”
(p. 304)
Again, this has been very simply put together. In reality, we see very different developments in the individual countries. Whereas in France workers and young people are fighting in the streets against the new labor law, the precarious work conditions and low wages, the racist, reactionary Front National obtained very high election results from backward strata. In Germany, the racist, reactionary Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party with many fascist members, obtained big election results, unfortunately, above all from parts of the working class. In some states of Eastern Europe such as the Baltic countries, Hungary, Poland etc., the most reactionary forces form the governments. And such tendencies were already known five years ago. Instead of a concrete study, there is nothing but phrases in Stefan Engel’s book! Trotsky already fought with such phrases against the building of socialism in the USSR.
“Linking up countries and continents that stand on different levels of development into a system of mutual dependence and antagonism, leveling out the various stages of their development and at the same time immediately enhancing the differences between them, and ruthlessly counterposing one country to another, world economy has become a mighty reality which holds sway over the economic life of individual countries and continents. This basic fact alone invests the idea of a world communist party with a supreme reality.” (The Third International After Lenin, at https://www.marxists.org/ archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm#p1-01
These phrases are similarly vague, as are those of Stefan Engel. The consistency of the book “Dawn
of the International Socialist Revolution” is confusion, escape into pretty spiritual utopias instead of dealing with the realities of the class struggle. Such idealist phrases have nothing to do with Marxism.
Lenin’s judgment about Kautsky’s fantasies and the damage that they caused apply here too:
But in practice this means becoming an opportunist, turning away from the acute problems of the day to dream of the unacute problems of the future. In theory this means refusing to be guided by actual developments, forsaking them arbitrarily for such dreams.” (“Preface to N. Bukharin’s Pamphlet, Imperialism and the World Economy,” Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 107)
Concluding Remarks
For many years, we have co-operated in the class struggle in many places with comrades of the LPD, for example in com- panies and trade unions, in the struggle against fascism and war and against cial cutbacks. Despite of our criticism, we will con- tinue such co-operation. We think that it is necessary to create a common front against capital. Our criticism is not limited to Stefan Engel and his ollective of authors. For a long time, we have observed that forces who see themselves as communists or Marxist-Leninists, frequently use the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as a box of spare parts from which they take what is convenient for them. Everyone has an already-formed opinion, hypothesis, analysis” and then looks for quotations in order to use them as a shield against any criticism or as evidence.” That is not Marxism but is extremely superficial and a sign of intellec- tual bankruptcy. Marxism-Leninism is a science. Quotations, irrespective of from whom, are not evidence. Evidence must be taken from reality. That was the method of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. And that must be the method of all Marxist-Leninists. When we study the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, we do that not to adorn ourselves with them but to understand them, to assimilate them and to use them for a dialectical, materialist and historical analysis of our situation and to progress towards the socialist revolution.
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