ÂNGELO NOVO'S PAGE

The Soviet Union was certainly a landmark on socialist history, probably THE landmark so far. It is still fresh on our memories and comrades will want to know first of all where have I stood on its regard when and why. This is only natural, although I think the importance of this issue will decrease with time and I think it is healthy that it does. Purely conceptual differences over past experiences shouldn't stand in between basically like minded and purposed people. Moreover, younger comrades will probably have no patience to go through these discussions all over again and again.

I have entered active political life in 1981, when I joined the youth organization of the PCP (stands for Partido Comunista Português). The portuguese CP was faithful to the SU to the bitter end - in 1991 it was still supporting Rutskoi and Khasbulatov under siege in the parliament building. It is a typical revisionist party, more or less aligned with the french and greek CP's, though closer to the CPSU than any of those. In the Brejnev years, the PCP was very much on the core of Moscow's international line, its leader Álvaro Cunhal being listened and widely trusted by the Politburo. And so this is the party where I have worked (mostly on the cultural front and in the student movement) for four years. I remember vividly the Pershing missiles crisis. I quit the party in 1985 (before Gorbatchov) out of disgust with its routine and corrupted habits of work as well as its oportunistic and "patriotic" politics. However, I have naturally backed all of the socialist camp until the very end, as I still fully support Cuba today in its fierce and proud struggle against imperialism.

I have remained isolated politically since then, but in 1991 I became a permanent collaborator of 'Política Operária', a communist magazine owned and directed by Francisco Martins Rodrigues. Francisco is the grand old man and by far the most qualified theoretician of portuguese maoism (the sound branch of it) and anti-revisionism. 'Política Operária' however can't be considered a maoist organ. It has a much broader range. I've said before that I consider myself a revolutionary and a communist along the lines set by Marx and Lenin, though not a marxist-leninist. Marxism-Leninism however could be said to be the dominant current in 'Política Operária'. But we are open minded. Revisionist, trotskyst, leftist and anarchist materials and iniciatives are regularly reviewed, commented (and critiqued) with no sectarian prejudices. We have a small publisher (called Dinossauro) and very recently we have translated and published a valuable economic work by a french bordiguist, ex-bordiguist or whatever. And, yes, we have comradely relations with the Worker-communist Party of Iran and could be publishing Mansoor Hekmat soon. I think we are all more or less aware that a reconstruction of the communist movement will have to take place by healing some old wounds, not keeping them all and engage in ever new splits over Yugoslavia, Kabila or the spice girls.

Now, the Soviet Union. As I've said before, our analysis (made now, with hindsight and all things counted) is that the revolution was essentially lost while Lenin was still in power. For three main reasons: 1) the near decimation of the russian working-class during the war; 2) the failure of the effort to spread the proletarian revolution throughout Europe and 3) the relative backwardness of russian productive infrastructure. This lead to the emergency adoption of a highly substitutionist strategy where party and state cadre (many recicled from the czarist burocracy) were put in the place of an absent worker control. Lenin was aware of this and was hoping the revolution could stand for the time of being rescued by a broader revolutionary movement, from the West or the East. This never occurred. Now, I think we can safelly say that the cause of the final defeat of the soviet revolution can be safely situated on the political circunstances of the early 20's.

Does that mean that I would refuse to support the Soviet Union thereafter? Absolutely not. I repeat, this is an analysis made with hindsight. Stalin was right to defend and strenghten the soviet power, though we now know that this was hopeless, at least from the point of view of the prospects for building communism. And even when the Soviet Union's move into communism was already flagrantly done with and burried (the 60's and 70's), it remained a progressive force in international politics - namely upholding the right of peoples for self determination - by the pure effect of the ideological foundations upon which its leadership had legitimated its power. For many decades, oppressed and colonized peoples all over the world were able to fight back because of soviet support. Not all of them won brilliant victories like the vietnamese, but they all have had their chance. Which is what they don't have anymore. This is to say that, for one reason or another (and regardless of what we are to make of its social structure) I think the Soviet Union has been worthy of our support for all of its existence.

Am I very found of literature dealing with the social dynamics of the Soviet Union. There are some fine, indeed passionate works on this subject (Carr, Bettelheim, etc.). I think we can have a fairly good grasp of what the social structure of the Soviet Union actually was without having to put a final stamp on it: "state-cap", "socialist", "bureaucratic collectivism", etc., etc. There are a couple of things we can settle: there was wage labour, surplus value created and accumulation. So ultimately, the question of if we had socialism or state capitalism rests on the assumption of who owns the means of production. We know it's the state, but whose state is this? The workers' or the apparatchiks'? Most of the comrades here will probably give one or other of the answers, according to specific dates: 1920, 1936, 1960, 1975, 1987. What do you say? I think this question simply cannot be answered scientifically, at least not until we have some more historical hindsight. For the time being, it is totally dependent on ideological parti-pris and evaluations about the social dynamic of the country that seem to rest ultimately on whether this or that of its successive leaderships could be trusted on for the task of building socialism. That's why I haven't been much interested in this debate. The other reason being that I didn't really need any results from this "query" to choose my camp.

© 1997-2010 angelonovo@sapo.pt