Intervention of Ubaldo Buttafava at the Moscow Conference of the International Centre for the Development of Modern Communist Doctrine
Lenin’s famous definition on social classes underlines, among others, certain aspects: the position in the historically determined system of production, the relationship with the means of production, the method by which and the extent to which they obtain their share of social wealth. Does this definition still hold good nowadays? It is difficult to contradict it, but as we know the modern ideologies of imperialism in their effort to overcome previous ideologies, affirm that the working class no longer exists, or least that its economic function is not determined through growth and profit. Among these “theories” there are several which describe themselves as “leftist” and even “communist”. The political objective of such sophistrists is evident, even though it is impossible for bourgeois and revisionist economists to deny the Marxist-Leninist thesis according to which: “Capital is nothing apart from waged labour, without value, without money and without price.”
The denial of the role and even of the very existence of the proletariat, in particularly in the western world, has enormous implications in every field of social activity. This “theory” was conceived in order to hide exploitation, class struggle, the need for revolution and for the dictatorship of the proletariat; this last being essential in order to raise humanity from pre-history to the new communist civilisation. Nevertheless, Khrushchev himself denied, as his successors still do, the determining role of the working class and made this denial the central pivot of their chauvinist bourgeois and class collaborationist policies.
In the West, the nucleus of this reactionary theory is based on the following concepts: wage labour is no longer the source of value and surplus value (it is the intellect which is the dominant form of the power of labour); in the era of the communication “revolution”, profit is the result of the speed with which technical-scientific changes are incorporated in production; The revolution in the means of production has changed not only the forms of labour, but also the economic substance of the relationship between capital and labour (that is to say labour time is no longer the measure of wealth produced). But the modern alchemists at the service of the old world cannot change reality: In today’s world there exist the biggest army that history has ever known, a thousand million members of the proletariat. World imperialism -which has extended the capitalist mode of production across the whole planet and at the same time ensured the rule of a small oligarchy of monopolistic finance capital- has entered into a general crisis which is permanent and without a solution. Now Stalin’s statement has become even more relevant: “Today we have to speak of the existence of objective conditions for revolution in the entire system of the imperialist world economy, considered as a single front in so far as the system is global, this system is now ripe for revolution”, and the statement of Enver Hoxha “the revolution is now a question which demands a solution.” All the tendencies inherent in imperialism which were indicated by Lenin have developed to their maximum level according to inevitable laws; the so-called globalisation and information revolution of the economy are the ultimate expression of the domination of national financial monopoly capital. The collapse of the Brejnev social imperialism gave way to a new offensive by imperialism, called globalisation, in an attempt to save the position of finance capital and to preserve the rate of profit, by means of liberalism (that is the free circulation of currencies, of capital, of trade, and of labour), the information revolution, the technological revolution, and the interdependence of markets and of production.
Marx and Engels in the Communist Party Manifesto had already described this globalisation, and now history repeats itself on a massively wider and deeper scale, and with new consequences. National and multi-ethnic states are entering crisis; the international division of labour condemns whole continents to hunger, reduces the productive and technical-scientific base to a few capitalist enclaves, concentrates capital and science in a few countries, hindering the development of others which were once making progress; and inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens the contrasts and puts in danger the hegemony of the old powers. Economic liberalism is eliminating the “welfare state” (health, pensions, education); it attacks waged worker with the flexibility of the new market in labour and part-time working, transforming him/her into a dependant on welfare; it eliminates security of employment, causing an enormous amount of unemployment in the industrialised countries and under-employment in the countries of the second and third world with miserable wages. The power of finance capital and the threat of the public debt are destroying all illusions in revisionism and in social democracy.
With ever greater frequency there is talk of an “implosion”, that is to say of a crumbling from inside of the industrialised powers and there is unrealistic discussion about a reduction in working hours, and the employment of the unemployed in “public works”, and other measures. In the US, while Clinton congratulates himself on the increase in real wages and the reduction of unemployment to 5.1 per cent, the real salaries of unskilled workers have fallen by 13 per cent in the last 23 years, and the third of the labour force is unemployed, under-employed or lives from day to day. Social polarisation is assuming planetary dimensions and is impoverishing huge stratas of the middle class in the imperialist centres. The contrast between manual and intellectual labour has taken on dramatic aspect, partly because it imposes technical-scientific underdevelopment in some areas, partly because it condemns whole people and nations to total dependency on cosmopolitan models of life and culture.
The working class in the new productive processes has lost many of its professional abilities forced into new forms of alienation. This phenomenon linked to casual labour and growing material and cultural poverty, is not the only phenomenon which shows how imperialism destroys productive forces, the wealth of the planet and life itself. Imperialism consists of the exporting of capital and of trade while production finance from abroad goes in search of ever lower costs leaving behind it devastated agriculture economies and urban suburbs full of unemployment.
The bourgeoisie and its intellectuals are aware of the weakness of the capitalist system, but they do not believe in any superior civilisation, not dominated by the “eternal” laws of the jungle. Their prevails the theory of “endism”, the end of history, of ideology, of labour, of politics, of the state, of art, of science, of the family, of the human race, and even of the world itself. In reality, what is dying is capitalism, mortally wounded as a result of its own laws. Capitalist imperialism is putting an end to those democratic liberties which in the form historically conceived by the bourgeoisie have shown themselves to be insufficient for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat: Today, freedom and democracy as demands have a diverse content because the class struggle is situated on a higher level.
Faced with the glaring reality which the bourgeois ideologists cannot face, what is the progressive alternative towards radical change? What is the force, what social actor can prevent a new dark age, the break up of society characterised by local and world wars by genocide, poverty, racism, nationalism, and moral and cultural degeneration? The only revolutionary force, which has nothing to lose, which has the determining role in the economy and which aspires to progress is always and continues to be the proletariat! But this class, in order to assume its historical role in the new conditions of globalisation, needs to fulfil the following requirements:
- Reclamation in rigorous and scientific terms of Marxism-Leninism, in particular of the ideas of comrade Stalin and comrade Enver Hoxha, who have made a significant contribution to our understanding of the modern forms of opportunism and of revisionism, especially at the point of taking power.
- The development of Marxist-Leninist theory so that our analysis corresponds with the new forms of imperialist reality, especially in relation to the development and functioning of finance capital and of the international monopolies; also with the regional political and military strategy of the old and the new great powers; with the imperialist political economy and the international division of labour and in relation to waged labour and employment; also to the bourgeois democratic political crisis and the crisis of culture; to the use of science; and to the manipulation of the “leftist” parties and of the trade unions tail-ending the monopolies.
- The deepening of class analysis on an international scale, above all with respect to the metropolitan urban workers, who today have acquired a social weight superior to that of the poor peasants, and who suffer conditions of life similar to those of the proletariat; and the massive phenomenon of the degradation and loss of social position of whole strata of the proletariat.
- The creation on the basis of the policies of the United Proletarian Front and of the United Democratic Front, of mass organisations which will embed themselves in the various social strata and in the various spheres of the ideological super-structure.
-Flexible tactics in order to act among the masses whether or not they are organised, achieving on a daily basis in specific way the development of a strategy without distortions and which adheres to concrete reality.
- The creation with the agreement of the masses of class-based trade unionists, continuing at the same time with the skilful and complex tasks inside the conservative and reformist trade unions in order to discredit their policies to isolate the bureaucracy and to bring the workers closer to anti-capitalist positions.
- However, above all the proletariat needs a Leninist Party, a vanguard which recruits the best of the class. A party of the masses (not overcrowded) with organic class leaders, capable and single minded on the theoretical level, and organised on a cellular basis in the factories and in the area. A party for class struggle, able to adapt itself speedily to every form of struggle and to all the ebbs and tides of the situation. A party which is strongly centralised and democratic, with an iron discipline, finally a Bolshevik party in the sense that Stalin has shown us.
History in these decades, before and after the death of Stalin, has demonstrated with extreme priority how fundamental is the struggle to prevent the petit bourgeois “revolutionary” theories taking hold in the party and gaining strength.
In trying to ascertain the fundamental cause of our defeats, we would say that the proletariat and the party have suffered defeat when the ideology of those stratas and social groups which are alien to the proletariat have taken the leadership of our movement: This happened for example in the USSR with the Ogdanov Jereshenko Khrushchev current; in China with the thoughts of Mao Tsetung; and in Italy with the bukharinist Togliatti.
In conclusion, the globalisation of the economy, the result of the general crisis of finance capital, demands a new internationalism, the unity of the proletariat and of the people.
A global strategy, a re-affirmation without confusion of the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin. A general line which should make out of every party of the working class in every country and of every people, a division of the revolutionary army which will destroy imperialism. Otherwise, the global strategy of the reactionary forces will dominate for a long period. Only a theoretical and political alternative capable of mobilising the masses will be able to prevent catastrophes to end the agony of imperialism and to isolate the opportunists.
The crisis of bourgeois democracy and the development of capitalism on the planetary scale demands of us the setting out of political proposals which are more advanced in the economic and social content.
We must counterpoise to “endism” in concrete, the communist objectives which prefigure the dictatorship of proletariat. Only in this way can we guide again the masses towards struggle. It is through the great ideals of communist liberty, of social equality, of the affirmation of the hopes of the nations and peoples that the Communist Movement can achieve hegemony.
The objective conditions are working in our favour, social conflicts continue to explode across the world; we have to ensure that these are not led by their respective national bourgeoisies or manipulated by imperialism as part of their internal rivalries.
Thus, it is and it will be the working class which will facilitate the birth of new world. From its ideology there will come a new humanism and a moral and cultural rebirth. Let us go forward then towards the barricades of class struggle; the century which is about to begin will be the century of proletarian communist revolution!
Organisation for the Communist Party of the
Proletariat of Italy
November 1996