(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Boris Kagarlitsky is the freshest radical breath of our time from the East. Born in 1958, an activist within the Soviet anti-Stalinist opposition during his study days, in prison under Breshnev.
His "The Thinking Reed" (1988) became a standard work on the relationship between the Soviet state and intellectuals since 1917. During the 1990 years, he became a triple link: First; between the few who remained leftist in neo-capitalist Russia and the rich pre-Stalinist Marxist tradition in Russia (Martov, Lenin, Trotsky and Bukharin to name a few).
Secondly; between left-wing intellectuals and new trade union activists – Kagarlitsky is an adviser to the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions.
Last but not least; a link between the Russian and international left, brought to life within the new globalization resistance.
These links are given a monumental expression in the trilogy "Recasting Marxism" (The overthrow of Marxism).
Three themes are left in all volumes, but with different examples and angles:
1) Empirical criticism of neoliberal capitalism, especially from the "newly-barbarized" outskirts of the east and south.
2) Theoretical and moral critique of a paralyzed left – especially the postmodernist and "neo-realistic" social democracies in the west, and
3) Sketches for a Marxist response to the crises of capitalism and the left-wing.
The main message is that Marxism is relevant. The financial crises first in the outskirts of Mexico, the new tigers in Asia, Russia and now on the stock exchanges in the US, Japan and elsewhere in the west prove it.
"Ironically, it is the success of neoliberal capitalism that makes the traditional socialist project of Marx and Engels both necessary and feasible. It is not Marxism, but the revisions of the one that has been dated in the era of free-market capitalism and globalization ”.
Is Kagarlitsky Steinogmatic?
Absolutely not. He is a strong supporter of innovation (renewal) of Marxism, but distinguishes this sharply from diluting and revising it.
Criticism of neoliberalism
To what I see as the first theme in the trilogy, the concepts of civilization and barbarism are criticized, among other things, with refreshing comparisons of "the barbarization of civilization" at the end of the Roman Empire and now under global capitalism. The ravages of privatization are being condensed with examples from a number of countries in the west, east and south.
He shows how the neoliberal strategists also failed on their own terms and contributed to the destabilization of capitalism. Furthermore, he looks at today's world from Orwell's 1984 and identifies "The New Big Brother" as the international trinity of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO under US control. He argues well that these institutions operate as centralizing and totalitarian as the Soviet Union's planned economic central bureaus, but with greater power.
On the second theme, theoretical and moral critique of a paralyzed left – especially the postmodernist and neo-realist social democracies in the West, Kagarlitsky should provoke debate.
Personally, I think he hits best in the critique of "New Labor" and its intellectual advocate Anthony Giddens. He also criticizes the endless willingness to adapt to "the new realities" whether it is the EU project, New NATO, exposure to competition, privatization and other expressions of the ruling order.
In particular, he attacks what he calls postmodernist radicalism: First, "identity politics" – the struggle for minority rights instead of holistic alternatives to capitalism, led by feminism.
Secondly, movements within limited areas, which with their "voluntary organizations" (NGOs) are easily bureaucratized and absorbed by the establishment. He places green parties and environmental organizations of the Greenpeace type in this blind spot. Kagarlitskyi's bitter, yet optimistic analysis is, in short, that without anti-capitalism and systemic critique, the reformist left becomes powerless. But without left-wing reformism, capitalism will lose its shockers, and the revolutionary socialist alternatives will be strengthened.
The working class back
The third theme, sketches for a Marxist response to the crises of capitalism and the left, provides a lot of food for thought: Easy to grasp, engaging for people without much knowledge of the left, but perhaps worse to digest for those who are stuck in new and old clichés .
The central argument is that the working class has returned – not in the uniforms of Western male industrial workers, but as industrial workers in the south, as women in service occupations and as knowledge workers in globalized market capitalism. Strike struggles in Korea, South Africa and France (1995) show that new, more decentralized and professionally cross-cutting forms of workers' struggle with international solidarity ties can turn the tide and redefine "realities". At the same time, he has a number of interesting considerations, including about the Internet and the IT industry. He rejects the old socialist dogma that all new technology brings humanity forward, and that spontaneous workers' struggles alone can create a better world. New technology creates the basis for new struggles and new alliances, including the attack on institutions such as copyright and "intellectual property". Kagarlitsky envisions that revitalized political parties can help bind together and strengthen the new proletariat, and merge the struggle for labor power with the struggle for real civic power.
Multinational states
He identifies the nation state as the most important arena for struggle: the nation state is the most important framework for reshaping the left, by defending nation states against global capitalism and fighting for the renationalisation of property.
But for this struggle to succeed, the nation states must be democratized in a revolutionary way and liberated from all forms of ethnic nationalism.
States must become multinational and accept cultural autonomy for minorities, and enter into closer regional and global alliances on a political-ideological basis.
Kagarlitsky continues to try to build what he calls "The Third Left". The first left was the bourgeois republican movement after the French Revolution. The other left was the socialist and communist movements built on the industrial working class, with the Russian revolution as the culmination. The third left began with the '68 generation, but has revitalized itself in the last ten years by merging the struggle for radical democracy, universal human rights and socialism.
The Zapatist uprising in Mexico is a particularly important source of inspiration for this "new wave left", at the same time as it provided the starting signal for the global "anti-globalization" movement. The Zapatistas show that the important thing for a revolutionary organization is not to conquer territory and state power, but to promote ideological hegemony and unity within a diversity of parties, organizations and movements.
Kagarlitsky goes further and evaluates new party projects within the Third Left: Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) in Brazil, Rifondazione Comunista in Italy, the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) in Germany and others. The challenges of internal pluralism, parliamentary influence and control over municipalities and entire regions within capitalist states can be met if three conditions are present: a well-established anti-capitalist socialist ideology, a clear classorientering and an advanced internal democracy.
Kagarlitsky may be able to help cut some Gordian knots that entangle the relationship between different leftist groups: the relationship between, for example, "Trotskyists" and "Maoists" in the view of the national question, or between "revolutionaries" and "reformists" – the latter distinction sees Kagarlitsky on as a false and unproductive opposite. Here in Norway, this could be a strong challenge for Marxists in SV and RV to apply together. Today's crucial ideological divide is between anti-capitalist socialists who see the relevance of solidarity and class struggle, and neoliberal financiers who want no one to focus on classes and solidarity welfare schemes anymore.
Every "third way" is an expression of pathetic power-seeking and lack of perspective. In a world historical perspective, we live in a period of transition. Just like the transition from antiquity to feudalism, or from feudalism to capitalism, the era that began in 1917 with the transition from capitalism to socialism will be painful – lost or degenerate revolutions, counter-revolutions, great wars. The choice now is between socialist civilization or barbarism, he believes. In this sense, Kagarlitsky's trilogy can become a foundation for a vital socialist left within the counter-globalization movement locally and internationally.
Unstructured
The trilogy is somewhat unstructured. It is characterized by having been written "along the way" – not delivered for printing in finished three volumes, more as a result of all the debates Kagarlitsky has engaged in – often part-time – from 1995 to 2000. In return, the individual chapters are all the more engagingly written, with clear named addresses for criticism, concrete examples, and a simple and clear language.
These are good debate books because they evoke many critical objections. I have the following:
In the treatment of neoliberalism, Kagarlitsky does not agree that it is strong in the West in both "basic" and "superstructure". In the "basis" understood as the accumulation crisis in capitalism in the 1970s. The Social Democrats, with their Keynesian economic theory, failed to cope with this crisis. Consequently, the theory of neoclassical economics – neoliberalism – took over the hegemony in the administration of capitalism, with the United States and Britain as the aggressive bases.
Furthermore, neoliberalism has received fairly strong popular support in the form of market populism, consumerism and the equating of personal freedom with capitalism. Kagarlitsky has little to say about how this is to be understood and attacked.
At the same time, defending the nation state makes it difficult to fight nationalism. Welfare states grant certain privileges by having citizenship, and Carl I. Hagen's like-minded people are good at defining who has a moral right / not a right to these privileges. Should not a universalist struggle for welfare have wider aims than "democratized" nation-states, and do we not need arrangements for radical international redistribution?
With the introduction of socialism, the management of the economy becomes central. Kagarlitsky rejects market socialism, but does not go into how a planned economy can become democratic and resolve contradictions, for example between growth and protection, between producers and (consumers), between regions or countries. How should hierarchy and bureaucratization be avoided? How to avoid "socialism in one country"?
These three objections do not imply anything other than that Kagarlitsky is characterized by his background in the Soviet Union and Russia. Central aspects of Western left-wing radicalism and contemporary history are not sufficiently taken into account in his considerations.
All in all, this trilogy is a golden discovery for anyone who, at the beginning of the new millennium, values some sharp non-Western eyes on our problems and opportunities. Many of us believe that another world is possible, but we are less likely to agree on what kind of other world and how. Hopefully, Kagarlitsky's participation in the Globalization Conference in Oslo this weekend will increase interest in his writings, as well as start debates that usher in a new era for the left. In Norway as elsewhere in the world.
Volume 1 (1999): New Realism, New Barbarism. Socialist Theory in the Era of Globalization.
Volume 2 (2000): The Twilight of Globalization. Property, State and Capitalism.
Volume 3 (2000): The Return of Radicalism. Reshaping the Left Institutions.
