As the
earthquake of economic crisis sweeps across the globe, the political
establishment in country after country is being shaken to the core.
“Strong” governments have been exposed as, in fact, being extremely
weak, both at the ballot box and on the streets. The ruling class is
beginning to lose its political grip on society and people are beginning
to question the traditional pillars that society has rested upon for
centuries.
As the
earthquake of economic crisis sweeps across the globe, the political
establishment in country after country is being shaken to the core.
“Strong” governments have been exposed as, in fact, being extremely
weak, both at the ballot box and on the streets. The ruling class is
beginning to lose its political grip on society and people are beginning
to question the traditional pillars that society has rested upon for
centuries.
At its heart, this political crisis is a
reflection of the deep crisis of capitalism, which leaves no rock
unturned as its tremors spread across the world. Marx and Engels
explained in their writings that at the heart of society is the economic
base: the mode of production and distribution; the relationship between
the different classes and the means of production. Upon this base is
built the “superstructure” of forms and ideology within society: the
state, the law, the family, religion, morality, culture, etc. As a
result, changes to the economic base are, in the long run, generally
reflected by changes within the superstructure.
In normal periods,
when the productive forces are developing and living standards are
improving, society’s economic base is generally speaking not questioned
by the majority of people. Up until recently, capitalism was, for many, a
sacred cow. All of that changed with the current economic crisis, which
has thrown society backwards. As people begin to question the
fundamental base of society – capitalism itself – they are led,
inevitably, to question everything else that once seemed unquestionable:
all the old morals and ideas; the various arms of the state; the
political establishment and even our so-called “democracy”. As Marx and
Engels put it in the Communist Manifesto:
“All that is
solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last
compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his
relations with his kind.” (The Communist Manifesto; Chapter One; Marx and Engels)
This
questioning is nothing new, and is a symptom of a social and economic
system that is in decay – that has entered its death agony. A similar
process occurred in the later stages of feudalism, which was reflected
in the art of the time (Hieronymus Bosch and the art of the death agony of Feudalism),
and during the decline of the Roman Empire, when all the traditional
culture, morality, and religion was suddenly thrown into question (Class struggle in the Roman Repulic).
The
current crisis of capitalism has already shaken many pillars of
society. In Britain, the establishment has been rocked on numerous
occasions over the past few years, beginning with the MPs’ expenses scandal. Splits in the ruling class have emerged recently, with members of the church and the army speaking out against the coalition government,
and now all the sordid links between the media, the police, and
politicians have been exposed by the revelations of the phone hacking
scandal (see Phone hacking scandal rocks establishment and News of the World Scandal: the ugly face of Capitalism).
Internationally, people have been stunned and governments have been
rattled by the invention of WikiLeaks, which has helped to play a major
role in exposing the backroom deals and machinations of international “diplomacy” and foreign affairs.
The
ruling class is finding it increasingly difficult to rule. All of the
usual mechanisms of the state – the media, the police, the army, etc. –
are in crisis. Faced with the prospect of having to carry out the most
severe austerity programme in the history of capitalism, the bourgeoisie
can no longer find support through the usual “democratic” channels of
the ballot box. Like the foolish man who built his house upon the sand,
the ruling class is quickly finding that when the rains come down, their
base of support is less reliable than previously assumed. In country
after country, the ruling class is facing a political crisis. That the
crisis of capitalism is reflected most visibly through a political
crisis, should come as no surprise – as Lenin famously remarked,
politics is just concentrated economics.
Weak coalitions
This
political crisis is clear in countries such as Britain and Ireland,
where long standing governments that presided over an economic boom,
found themselves kicked out of office at the first possible opportunity
as boom turned into bust, only to be replaced by weak coalitions. In
Britain, the 2010 general election returned the first hung parliament
since WWII, despite the first-past-the-post electoral system that is
supposed to guarantee “strong” and “stable” governments. The ruling
class were desperate for a strong Tory government to emerge from the
elections, in order to implement a vicious austerity programme. In the
end, however, the Tories failed to achieve a majority, resulting in the
first peacetime coalition government since the National Government that
was formed between the three main parties in the 1930’s under similar
conditions of economic crisis.
The coalition seemed strong, and the Tories and Lib Dems seemed like natural bedfellows. As The Economist
commented, “Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem deputy prime minister, was caught
joking with David Cameron, the Tory prime minister, that the pair would
never find anything to disagree on. It was even suggested that coalition
could lead to an electoral pact or outright merger” (The Economist, 28th
April 2011). But pressure from the masses has exposed the weakness in
the coalition – first with the student movement against tuition fees and
education cuts, then with the outcry against planned changes to the
National Health Service, and now with the strike action of the unions in defence of public sector pensions. Despite a full-on media onslaught and smear campaign against the unions over the recent strikes on the 30th
June, public support for the strikes remained steady, and in fact
increased nearer to the date itself. Now the government – and especially
David Cameron – are on the back foot, as their links to the scandals of
the tabloid press are being brought out into the light.
Despite
its weaknesses, however, the British ruling class must stick with the
coalition, for they have no other option. The government is ploughing on
with its austerity programme, but is facing increased resistance from
the labour movement, and a breakup of the coalition would signal a major
retreat and would be a tremendous spur to the working class in Britain.
The
coalition government formed recently in Ireland after a general
election in February is in no better shape. The new coalition of Fine
Gael and Labour is historic in that it has broken the dominance of
Fianna Fail over Irish politics. Fianna Fail, a right-wing bourgeois
party, has shaped Ireland’s political landscape for the last 80 years.
It has been in power for 75% of the time since 1932 when it was first
elected in, and had been in office continuously since 1997 (with various
coalition partners). As The Economist stated bluntly, “its
utter rejection by voters now is a humiliation. Fianna Fail lost
three-quarters of its seats (dropping from 78 to 20) to become the third
party in parliament. Many ministers, including Brian Cowen, the
outgoing prime minister, wisely did not seek re-election. Most of those
who did stand were defeated.” (The Economist, 3rd March 2011).
Fine
Gael (another right-wing bourgeois party!) will hardly be overjoyed
with being in power. With Ireland at the forefront of the Euro crisis,
Fine Gael – in coalition with Labour – will be forced to carry on going
with the brutal austerity programme that they have already been
implementing for years. This will bring all the contradictions within
the coalition – between the bourgeois representatives of Fine Gael and
the working class that forms the basis of Labour’s support – to the
fore, and can only be a recipe for class struggle. As the Marxists in
Ireland argued at the time of the elections, Labour should not have gone
into coalition, but should have stayed in opposition and led a mass movement to fight for socialism.
A crisis of Social Democracy
The
political crisis is also manifested as a crisis of social democracy; in
other words, as a crisis of reformism. The ideology of the social
democratic parties has, since the turn away from Marxist ideas in the
late 19th– and early 20th centuries, been that of
reformism. But the ideology of reformism – like any ideology – has
always required a material base to support itself. In the case of
reformism, the material base lay in conditions of boom, such as those in
the 1950’s and 60’s or 1990’s and early 2000’s, when the economy was
growing and the class struggle was blunted.
With the onset of the
economic crisis in 2007-08, however, this material basis for reformism
has been cut away from under the feet of the reformist politicians. They
are now reformists with no reforms to offer. The crisis of capitalism
has polarised society, sharpened the class struggle, and posed the
options available to the reformists concretely: either you carry out
cuts on behalf of the ruling class, or you fight for a transformation of
society; that is, you fight for socialism. The right reformists cannot
bear to break with capitalism; in turn, the left reformists cling to the
right reformists and carry out the cuts that Capital dictates.
Nowhere
is this crisis of social democracy clearer than in Greece, where the
supposedly “socialist” government of PASOK is now carrying out the most
vicious attack against the working class since the fall of the military
junta in 1974, with a programme of cuts, tax increases, and mass
privatisation. This is the logical conclusion of the ideology of
reformism, whose adherents preach “pragmatism” and “realism”, but who in
fact behave no differently than the traditional representatives of the
bourgeoisie in times of crisis.
Similar processes can be seen in
Portugal and Spain, where social democratic governments have been
carrying out the cuts in response to the sovereign debt crisis that
threatens nation after nation in Europe. In Spain, the Socialist
Workers’ Party (PSOE), facing the threat of economic contagion and the
current reality of over 40% youth unemployment, is deeply unpopular and
has seen wave after wave of mass protests. Yet Zapatero, the Spanish
Prime Minister clings to capitalism, and is sticking to an austerity
programme that aims to reduce the budget deficit from 11.1% of GDP to
4.4% in the space of three years.
In Portugal, having begun to
carry out cuts and then facing the might of the working class in the
shape of a general strike, José Sócrates and his Socialist Party jumped
ship and called a snap election, where they were beaten by the
(right-wing) Social Democrats (PSD), who promised to be “much more
ambitious” in terms of their austerity programme. The PSD, however,
failed to gain a majority and are now in coalition with the People’s
Party (CDS-PP), another bourgeois party.
In response to the defeat of the Socialist Party in Portugal, The Economist
wrote that, “The PSD’s victory leaves the 27-nation EU with only five
left-wing governments: Spain, Greece, Austria, Slovenia and Cyprus.
Spain, by far the biggest of these, is expected to move into the
centre-right camp in a general election due by next March” (The Economist, 6th June 2011). In addition, The Economist
seemed smug about the Socialists defeat in Spain in recent local and
regional elections, saying that, “Spain’s ruling Socialists reeled from a
ten-percentage-point defeat at the hands of the conservative People’s
Party (PP) in municipal and regional elections on May 22nd—the party’s
worst-ever result.” (The Economist, 26th May 2011)
We
see here, as ever, a display of the superficial analysis that the
mouthpieces of the bourgeoisie have to offer. They simply see the defeat
of “left wing” governments in elections as part of a general shift in
society to the right. This empirical analysis by the representatives of
the ruling class only scratches at the surface of things, and does not
see the contradictions developing underneath. A deeper analysis of the
results of the regional elections in Spain sheds light on the real
processes at play. Whilst PSOE lost 1.5 million votes, the right-wing PP
gained only 560,000 votes. Meanwhile, the communist-led United Left
coalition gained 210,000 votes. And, as these very elections were taking
place, thousands of young people across Spain were camped out in city centres protesting against youth unemployment and demanding jobs.
Polarisation
What
we can see, therefore, is not a shift to the right in society, but a
general polarisation taking place, with weak right-wing, bourgeois
parties coming to power in elections, not because of their popularity,
but because of a deep anger and disillusionment with the traditional
parties of the working class, i.e. the social democracies, which have
carried out cuts and implemented austerity. The reformists, who not only
have no reforms to offer, but are also carrying out counter-reforms,
have discredited the ideas of “socialism” for many, and are in fact now
paving the way for a return of the right wing and an even more vicious
reaction against the working class. The most notable fact in these
elections (whether it be the recent regional elections in Spain or the
general election in Britain), is the large numbers of working people who
don’t turn up to vote at all because they are too disgusted with what
is on offer.
In Spain, Greece, Britain, and elsewhere, this
disillusionment with the traditional mass organisations has partly
manifested itself in the shape of “apolitical” or “anti-political”
protests by the youth, and in some cases a rejection of the political
process altogether. These protests, which have a slight anarchistic
flavour to them, should be seen as a healthy reaction against the
opportunism, bureaucracy, and corruption that has built up over the
years inside the traditional mass organisations of the working class. As
Lenin famously stated in his book Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder,
“Anarchism was not infrequently a kind of penalty for the opportunist
sins of the working class movement. The two monstrosities complemented
each other.” (Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder; Chapter Four; Lenin)
The
task for Marxists, however, is to explain the limits of these
“spontaneous” movements, and to point out the need for a political
struggle; the need for workers and youth to take power and weld it on
behalf of their own class interests – the interests of the vast majority
of society.
However, despite all its flaws and betrayals, social
democracy is unlikely to die an early death, as some on the left
conclude from recent events. One cannot underestimate the huge reserves
of support that the traditional mass organisations of the working class
hold, and the loyalty of workers towards these organisations. For
example, despite their role in helping to bring about the imperialist
war of 1914 by voting for war credits, the Social Democratic Party of
Germany still became the largest party in the Reichstag in 1919.
The
more likely possibility is for the contradictions inside the social
democracies, between those who cling to capitalism and those who stand
up for the working class – which in turn represent the general
antagonism between the classes in society – will be reflected in the
development of revolutionary tendencies within these mass organisations
at some stage. This was the case with the development of the communist
parties in France, Italy, and Germany after the Russian Revolution and
WWI, which formed out of splits from the social democracy under the
hammer blow of events.
The rise of the far right?
The
failure of the traditional mass organisations to lead the working class
and offer an alternative to the torment of capitalism can also be seen
in the rise of the far right in certain instances. This has been the
case recently in northern Europe and Scandinavia. Countries such as
Sweden and Norway have always been strongholds of social democracy as a
result of strong labour movements and their proximity to Russia, which
provided an inspiration to workers with the revolution of 1917. This
dominance of the social democracy, however, is withering in the face of
the economic crisis.
The Social Democrats in Sweden have been in
government for 65 of the past 78 years, but have lost the last two
elections. The most recent election (in September 2010), saw the Swedish
Democrats, a far right party, gain 20 seats in parliament out of a
total of 349, with a minority coalition of four bourgeois parties in power.
In the Finnish general election in April 2011, the True Finns, another
far right party, gained 19% of the vote. Far right parties also hold
sizeable numbers in Denmark and Holland.
Many on the left have
become slightly hysterical in response to this “rise of the far right”,
bleating about the dangers of fascism. This increase in the far right
vote, however, should not been seen with such pessimism and despair.
Firstly, it should come as no surprise that the masses, faced with this
economic crisis for which they are being asked to pay the bill, will
turn sharply both to the left and to the right. The working
class does not choose their political parties based on a thorough
reading of Marx or any other writer, but will turn, in a time of crisis,
towards anyone that offers them a way out – even if that is by
attacking the spectre of immigration.
Secondly, it can be seen
that these far right parties, unlike fascist leaders in the past, are
actually trying to appeal to the working class – albeit on the basis of
nationalism and racism – with rhetoric about jobs, housing, and
services. In this respect, the rise of the far right is again a symptom
of the failure of the leadership of the traditional mass organisations
to provide a serious alternative to austerity. Historically, fascism has
only been able to come about on the back of the failure of the working
class leadership to offer a solution to the problems of the middle
classes, who are deeply affected in times of crisis, but who do not have
an independent class position. They either look to the workers, if
these can offer a way out, or failing that, they can gravitate back
towards the bourgeoisie.
Finally, it should be noted that the
historical mass basis for fascism no longer exists. In the past, fascism
found its support from the petit-bourgeois layers of society – the
peasantry, the shopkeepers, the small businessmen, the white collar
workers, and the students. But these layers can no longer be relied upon
to support the forces of reaction. The peasantry no longer exists in
any significant numbers; the owners of small businesses have been
crushed by big business and are being pushed down into the ranks of the
proletariat; and it is students and “white collar” workers, such as
civil servants and teachers, who are now at the forefront of the
movements against austerity. As a result, the small fascist gangs that
do exist nowadays are mainly recruited from the lumpen, hooligan
elements of society, which are not enough to form a mass movement.
Economic engines stalling
Even
in the powerhouses of the global economy, the political effects of the
economic crisis can be felt. Germany and France, which have been
relatively resilient to the global crisis, are feeling the pressures of
the sovereign debts crisis in Greece and elsewhere, and Sarkozy and
Merkel are stuck between a rock and a hard place with the options of
either helping to bailout Greece once more with their taxpayers’ money
or making German and French banks accept losses.
Despite strong
economic growth in Germany, Angela Merkel – once a firm favourite
amongst the bourgeoisie – is struggling to find support. According to The Economist:
“Her
[Merkel’s] government is unpopular. Germany’s allies are frustrated.
Europeans who look to her for leadership in the euro crisis complain
that she has let them down. Businessmen, once among her firmest
supporters, are losing faith. A recent cover of Der Spiegel magazine
summed up its verdict on her government with a thumb turned resolutely
down… Mrs Merkel faces mounting opposition at home from those who
think she has been too ready to help the likes of Greece and Portugal.
These critics include members of her own coalition, a three-party
alliance of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sister,
the Christian Social Union (CSV) and the liberal Free Democratic Party
(FDP). If enough MPs defected over the euro, her government would fall.”
(The Economist, 7th July 2011)
The
example of Germany shows that the political crisis, like the economic
crisis that it reflects, is not confined simply to the “weak” economies,
but must, sooner or later, rear its head even in the “strong”
economies. This, in turn, reflects that fact that this is a global
crisis of capitalism that is in decay. The productive forces are being
hemmed in by two great contradictions: the private ownership of the
means of production and the nation state. Under capitalism, this can
only lead to the intensification of struggles between the ruling classes
of different countries and between the classes within each country.
In France, Sarkozy is no better off. Having survived (for the time being) a battle over pensions in October 2010, which saw 3.5 million workers and youth take to the streets,
Sarkozy is now one of the most unpopular presidents in French history,
with popularity ratings of around 30% in opinion polls. But again, the
Socialists offer no alternative. Their preferred candidate (until
recently) for the next presidential election was Dominique Strauss Kahn,
the former head of the IMF, who was responsible for austerity
programmes and neo-liberal “reforms” across the world. With friends like
this, who needs enemies! As a result, there has been (unsurprisingly) a
rise in popularity for Marine Le Pen, the young leader of the far right
National Front.
The USA, the true engine of the global economy,
is in a multitude of crises. Not only are US banks heavily exposed to
the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, but the US economy is itself
already heavily in debt. The Democrats and the Republicans, the two
right feet of American politics, are at a stalemate over how to cut the
deficit, and noises are now being made about the possibility of a
default of US government debt. Public services have already begun to be shut down in certain states due to a lack of money, and the whole federal government came close to a shut-down earlier this year.
Attempts to take on the labour movement and break the unions were met with a tremendous response by workers and youth in Wisconsin,
and class struggle in the US is now firmly back on the agenda. What is
lacking in the US, however, is a mass party of Labour to fight on the
side of the trade unions and workers in this struggle.
Political
crises are not, of course, restricted to “democratic” countries. In
China, cracks are emerging in the “strong”, authoritarian government of
the Chinese Communist Party, with mass protests breaking out across the country
on a regular basis now. For the bourgeois empiricists, who only look at
the surface of things, such protests are simply about fighting for
their version of bourgeois democracy. After all, what else can anyone
have to complain about in a country where there is annual GDP growth of
10% or more every year? But again, such a superficial analysis fails to
look beneath the surface at how this newly created wealth is being
distributed; at the growing inequality and disparity between the rich
and the poor.
The same situation could be found in Egypt before
the revolution. The economy was growing at a rate of 5% per year, and
all seemed well on the surface of things. On January 25th, at
the same time as the large protests in Tahrir Square began, the IMF had
just left Cairo saying that the Egyptian economy was in good shape. Two
weeks later, and Mubarak had fled. Now, several months later, and the protests in Egypt have flared up again, this time with explicitly social and economic demands.
The
presence of certain democratic rights in most countries – the right to
vote, organise, protest, and strike – act as a warning sign to the
ruling class in most countries. The ability for the masses to express
their anger through legal channels allows for the ruling class to
respond before things are too late, and in normal times helps to give
people the sense that they are in some way connected to the running of
the country; that they are listened to and that they have a say in what
decisions politicians make. But authoritarian regimes, such as those in
China and the Middle East, do not have these warning signs. As was seen
in Tunisia and Egypt, by the time the regime realises there’s a problem,
things can already be too late for them.
Technocrats and Bonapartism
Over
the centuries, the ruling class has developed and perfected their state
apparatus and the political machinery that they require in order to
oppress, exploit, and subjugate the majority on behalf of a small
minority. Democratic rights, such as suffrage, free speech, and the
right to organise, are not simply “ideological” preferences for the
ruling class, but are rights that have been won through struggle. In
many respects, it is simply preferable for the ruling class to grant
these “rights” and give the impression of “democracy” and political
representation, than to openly oppress the masses through authoritarian
means and risk the possibility of generating a more explosive situation.
In
places where the economic crisis has reached its extremes, the ruling
class is forced to push aside the usual mechanisms of this bourgeois
democracy, and thus nakedly expose the actual political, social, and
economic relations that exist. Nowhere is this more evident than in
Greece, where parliamentary democracy is now openly recognised as being a
sham. How can there be any talk of “democracy” when 80% of the
population is against the austerity measures that have been pushed
through by politicians? How can it be “democratic” for the IMF, the
European Central Bank, and the European Commission – the unelected
Troika – to dictate to the Greek people what economic measures they must
accept? Where is “sovereignty” for the masses in Greece?
Writing in The Guardian,
Aris Chatzistefanou and Katerina Kitidi, a pair of Greek documentary
makers, describe the political regime in Greece as a “debtocracy”; a
regime where “The power of the people (demos) is handed over to foreign
and local lenders, who ask from the Greek government solely one thing:
some more time in order to transfer the Greek debt to the European
Central Bank; that is to European taxpayers” (The Guardian website, 9th
July 2011). They describe the situation in Greece whereby, “officials
of the governing party now cannot show themselves in public in any part
of Greece without being attacked by citizens”, adding that, “The Greek
crisis is no longer financial. It is deeply political and social.”
Drastic
times call for drastic measures. In the case of Greece, the extremity
of the crisis has led to calls for a “national government” in the
“national interest”. George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, has
attempted to reshuffle his cabinet to give the appearance of change, and
at one point he even suggested the idea of a national government to the
New Democracy, Greece’s main bourgeois party. The only problem is that
the New Democracy isn’t too keen on being associated with the
government and its austerity programme. Papandreou even struggled to
find anyone within his own party who was willing or eager to take on the
role of finance minister in his cabinet, and Antonis Samaras, the
leader of the New Democracy, politely told Papandreou what he thought of
the idea of a national government.
The job of carrying out the
Troika’s austerity programme in Greece is a hot potato that politicians
are seeking to avoid. The New Democracy would much rather pose as being
in opposition to the cuts and then ride into power with a “clean” slate
in an election. Of course, the New Democracy is already tarnished for
helping to bring about this economic mess in the first place, and their
“victory” in any future election would be in spite of their policies,
not because of them.
In such conditions, the idea has been posed
of doing away with political parties and parliament altogether, and
instead appointing a government of “technocrats”. The Economist online “Newsbook”, in an article entitled “Greece’s political crisis”, said that:
“Mr
Papandreou discussed with Antonis Samaras, leader of the opposition
conservative New Democrats, the possibility of stepping aside and the
pair jointly appointing a team of technocrats to run the country,
perhaps with Lucas Papademos, a respected former deputy president of the
European Central Bank, as prime minister.”“But within hours
colleagues and advisers had talked Mr Papandreou into dropping the idea.
A disappointed-sounding Mr Samaras said today that a one-off
opportunity had been lost. The result has been to scare off economists
and bankers who had already been thinking about offering their services.
It seems that Greece’s politicians will have to go it alone after all.”
(The Economist “Newsbook” online, 16th June 2011)
Paul
Mason from the BBC reported a similar proposal in Italy, where the
sovereign debt crisis is beginning to loom large over the country (and
Europe as a whole). In a blog post entitled, “Italy: Enter a coalition of technorati?”,
Mason announced that the Democratic Party in Italy (the main opposition
party to Berlusconi), “has agreed to rush through parliament the €40bn
austerity budget that the Berlusconi administration is still quibbling
about… In return they want Silvio Berlusconi to go and a ‘technical
government’ headed by a ‘European big figure’, deputy leader Enrico
Letta tells me tonight.”
The examples of Greece and Italy show the
extents to which the bourgeoisie will go in order to protect their
interests (i.e. their property). When their backs are against the wall,
they will happily give up all pretence of “democracy”, in favour of the
so-called “national interest” (i.e. their interest). Suddenly the will
of the people is irrelevant and wise “technocrats” are needed to run the
country.
This talk of “national governments” and “technocrats”
has led some to worry about the return of “Bonapartist” regimes in
Europe and elsewhere. At the end of May 2011, the internet was awash
with reports that the CIA was warning of a Greek military coup, as a
result of an article by the German newspaper “Bild”.
The term “Bonapartism” is a historical analogy, based on Marx’s work “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”,
used to describe a regime of military police dictatorship. Such a
regime is characterised as “rule by the sword”, and in such situations
one sees a greater independence of the state apparatus from class
society below it. “Strong men” emerge in such situations who appear to
rest above the classes, leaning on one class and then the other,
striking blows against all the classes in order to consolidate their own
power. However, in the final analysis, such regimes always act to
protect the interests of one class. Such was the case with Louis
Bonaparte, who acted to protect the private property of the French
capitalists, despite violently attacking certain individual members of
the bourgeoisie. The term ‘Caesarism’ is also often used to describe
such cases, named after the example of Julius Caesar, who rose above the
classes in the Roman Empire, but nevertheless defended the interests of the Roman slave owners.
These
Bonapartist regimes arise when there is a deadlock between the classes;
when the old economic system is in decay and the current ruling class
is losing its ability to rule, but the new society is not yet ready to
be born due to the weakness of the new progressive class. Such regimes,
by their very nature, are unstable, and must end up in either revolution
or counter-revolution. No political power can remain suspended in
mid-air without a class base on which it can rest. As Talleyrand, the
French foreign minister under Napoleon I, once said, “You can do many
things with a bayonet, but you can’t sit on it”. Trotsky describes
Bonapartism with a particularly lucid metaphor:
“As
soon as the struggle of two social strata – the haves and the have-nots,
the exploiter and the exploited – reaches its highest tension, the
conditions are given for the domination of bureaucracy, police,
soldiery. The government becomes ‘independent’ of society. Let us once
more recall: if two forks are stuck symmetrically into a cork, the
latter can stand even on the head of a pin. That is precisely the scheme
of Bonapartism. To be sure, such a government does not cease being the
clerk of the property-owners. Yet the clerk sits on the back of the
boss, rubs his neck raw and does not hesitate at times to dig his boots
into his face…”“…The Bonapartist regime can attain a
comparatively stable and durable character only in the event that it
brings a revolutionary epoch to a close; when the relationship of forces
has already been tested in battles; when the revolutionary classes are
already spent; while the possessing classes have not yet freed
themselves from the fear; will not the morrow bring new convulsions?
Without this basic condition, that is, without a preceding exhaustion of
the mass energies in battles, a Bonapartist regime is in no position to
develop.” (Germany, The Only Road; Trotsky)
Ted
Grant elaborated on the point that Trotsky makes about the Bonapartist
regimes that arise during the decline of the economic system, this
“senile” Bonapartism, which he differentiates from the “strong”
Bonapartism that arises when an economic system is in its ascendancy:
“The
Bonapartism at the stage of capitalism’s rise, raising itself above
society, suppressing and ‘arbitrating’ the open conflicts within it and
regulating the class antagonisms, is strong and confident. Under the
conditions of a powerful development of the productive forces, it
attains a certain stability. But the Bonapartism of capitalism’s decline
is affected by senility. Rising out of the crisis of capitalist
society, it cannot solve any of the problems with which it is faced. The
main crisis of society, the conflict between the productive forces and
private ownership and the national state, has become so great, the class
antagonisms which it engenders, so tense, that this which alone allows
the rise of senile Bonapartism, at the same time, as a consequence,
makes it so weak and feeble that its whole structure is shaky and likely
to be overthrown in the series of crises which confront it. It is this
weakness of Bonapartism which leads to the bourgeoisie and military
clique surrendering the power to fascism and unleashing the greedy bands
of maddened petty bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat against the
proletariat and its class organisations.” (Democracy or Bonapartism – A Reply to Pierre Frank; Ted Grant)
The
question arises, therefore, of what are the concrete conditions facing
society today? As Marxists, it is not enough simply to make historical
analogies. We must, at all times, analyse things dialectically; that is
to say, we must look at the specific situation that society is in now,
and the processes that have led up to this point.
As has been
outlined above, the entire world is facing a deep crisis of capitalism,
and there is no way out in the long run under capitalism. Every attempt
by the bourgeoisie to overcome this crisis can only either delay the
crisis, leading to it returning at a higher level at a later point in
time, or lead to an intensification and sharpening of the class
struggle. As a result, there is no safe avenue for the bourgeoisie.
Nowhere in the world is there a “strong” political regime any more. In
country after country, the establishment is in crisis and the political
representatives of the ruling class are showing signs of weakness.
The
prospect of a “strong” Bonapartist government is off the cards. Even a
“senile” Bonapartist regime is unlikely. Such a regime relies upon the
support of the state apparatus – the “armed bodies of men” in the army,
the police, etc. But the depth of the economic crisis has forced the
bourgeoisie to eat into its own state. In the past, reactionary
governments such as the Tories under Thatcher were able to bolster the
police force in preparation for taking on the working class. Nowadays,
the army and the police in Britain are seeing their numbers cut as part
of the general cuts to public spending. Lower layers of the police force
have complained that they are being picked on because they cannot
unionise and strike. The Police Federation in Britain has not ruled out
action against the cuts of 20% in their budget.
In addition, as
has been explained above, the possibility of a move towards fascism
(which is a form of Bonapartism) is also ruled out due to the changed
class composition in society. Over 50% of the world’s population is now
urbanised, and the numbers in the peasantry are in decline as more and
more people in developing countries move to the cities in search of
jobs. The student population has expanded and in the process become
“proletarianised” and radicalised. The middle classes are continually
being pushed down into the ranks of the proletariat. The working class
these days is numerically by far the strongest class in society. What it
lacks is a fighting, revolutionary leadership.
A crisis of leadership
On
the one hand we see the weakness of the ruling class and the political
establishment; on the other hand we see the weakness of the working
class due to a lack of revolutionary leadership. The reformists, with no
material basis for reforms, will be polarised – like society in general
– towards two poles: those who push for austerity, and those who fight
for a transformation of society.
In this deadlock between the
classes, one might expect a Bonapartist regime to arise; but such a
regime would be so weak and unstable that it wouldn’t be able to play
any role in overcoming the antagonism between the classes. Instead, the
general perspective is for a protraction of the class struggle, with
weak governments being replaced by other weak governments; none of them
able to overcome the fundamental limits to the development of capitalist
society: the private ownership of the means of production and the
nation state.
We can see a hint of this perspective in Japan,
where a stagnant economy that has been in crisis for two decades now has
seen a quick succession of prime ministers and minority governments,
with 13 different prime ministers in the last 20 years and five PMs in
the last five years.
This protracted class struggle will not be a
linear process, but will contain ebbs and flows, revolutionary and
counter-revolutionary trends. The masses will learn from the defeats and
be spurred on by the victories. Over time, they will look for a
revolutionary way out from the crisis of capitalism. As Trotsky remarked
in “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International”:
“All
talk to the effect that historical conditions have not yet ‘ripened’
for socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception. The
objective prerequisites for the proletarian revolution have not only
‘ripened’; they have begun to get somewhat rotten. Without a socialist
revolution, in the next historical period at that, a catastrophe
threatens the whole culture of mankind. The turn is now to the
proletariat, i.e., chiefly to its revolutionary vanguard. The historical
crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary
leadership.” (The Transitional Program; Trotsky)
