Zyuganov's Dilemma

One of the things that gets lost in the discussion about the possibility of a return to status quo ante under Communist Party rule in Russia is that the world is a much different place than it was in the WWII period where "socialism in one country" and "peaceful coexistence" seemed feasible. The only way that an anticapitalist government can survive in Russia today is if it carries out both internationalist and revolutionary policies. Zyuganov seems ill-prepared for such a course.

It is important to put the era of peaceful coexistence into some kind of context. When WWII broke out, capitalism began a long period of expansion. The reason for this should be obvious. War is the cure for depression. During WWII, the allies were united in a struggle to defeat fascism. Each had its own motive. The capitalist powers sought to put down the impudent Japanese and German upstarts, while Soviet Russia was fighting for its survival. While western capitalism was getting its feet back on the ground in this period, it fostered an attitude of tolerance toward the Soviet Union. This attitude encouraged people like Earl Browder to theorize a world of permanent peace resting on friendship between the two superpowers, the New Deal USA and the USSR.

But as soon as WWII ended, the more farsighted elements of the ruling class anticipated that the colonial revolution would be a threat to the long-term interests of capital. India, Indonesia and Indochina were boiling with rebellion and the possibility of anticapitalist conclusions to these struggles frightened Wall Street. The poor Soviet Union got caught between imperialism and the colonial revolution and consequently found itself on the opposite sides of the barricades from the imperialists. Most of the imperialists made the shift to anti-Communism without skipping a beat. The only fitful opposition to this course appeared in the guise of Henry Wallace's Progressive Party, which had misplaced nostalgia for the good old days of Soviet-American friendship.

For most of the 50s and 60s, the cold war took its toll both on the Soviet Union and the colonial world. Forced against its will to build up a huge military, the USSR was in a poor position to supply consumer goods to its population. By the same token, Indonesia and Indochina were drenched in blood as imperialism unleashed genocidal anti-Communist crusades.

However, imperialism also held out the possibility of returning to some sort of rapprochement with Communism as long as it could help to contain the unruly peasant guerrillas of the Third World. This was the meaning of Nixon's diplomatic initiatives to China, as well as earlier attempts by Khrushchev to rekindle peaceful coexistence.

While China successfully cemented good relations with the west by essentially throwing the socialist project overboard, tensions only grew in the 1980s between imperialism and the USSR. The reasons for this are not ideological. It has nothing to do with Reagan's life-long obsession with Communism. Rather it has to do with upsurges in the colonial revolution, such as in Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Burkina-Fasso, Grenada, South Africa, Namibia, Jamaica, and a dozen other places. It was necessary to crush the Soviet Union so as to weaken the resistance of the colonial world.

Simultaneously, the capitalist world was entering into a period of deepening competition as the economies of Japan and Western Germany had fully recovered from the devastations of WWII. The "Japanese miracle" of the 1980s was a nightmare to Wall Street. What would happen if its capitalist rivals could not only catch up, but outpace the US. This might mean that the US working class would not be able to enjoy the crumbs from the table that it had gotten used to in the fat and lazy 1950s. Such a state of affairs might raise class consciousness, something to be avoided at all costs.

So Reagan's anti-Communist crusade, which has been continued by subsequent administrations, was an attempt to open up new areas for investment. A "free" Eastern Europe, Soviet Union to join the already "liberated" China would improve the bottom line outlooks for American corporations and help insure class peace.

What nobody counted on, however, is that this state of affairs was of a highly temporary nature. As any student of economics (Marxist, I should add) understands, capitalism can only be built through structural changes in the national economy. An internal market has to be created through radical land reform, which produces a mass of small proprietors who create food for the internal market, while buying manufactured goods from local enterprises. This did not occur in Mexico, East Asia or elsewhere for the obvious reasons. We are living in the age of imperialism.

In order for the Communist Party in Russia to govern, it must confront this changed world. Its only possibility for survival is to join forces with insurgencies such as in Colombia and those that are beginning to surface in the industrialized world, such as South Korea. A revolutionary Communist Party would assist the North Korean government in pressing for reunification of the two Koreas, while providing all the solidarity to the South Korean union movement it could muster.

Is Zyuganov capable of leading such a bold anti-capitalist struggle. The answer is no. But every initiative he takes in that direction should be supported by Marxists. If Zyuganov proves incapable of leading such a struggle, then other forces will have to. It none prove forthcoming, then we face ever more dangerous situations involving war and fascism, just as we did in the 1930s.