Socialist Studies
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Reconstituted Socialist Party of Great Britain (1991) Socialist Education Series - The "Transition Period" Between Capitalism & Socialism
The
question of the "transition period" between "capitalism
and socialism" is not to be confused with the question of
socialism as a social system between capitalism and communism which
was the official doctrine of the Russian Communist Party and its supporters
in the West.
The
latter question was opposed by Socialist Studies
as having no grounds in the theory of Marx and Engels. They used the
terms "socialism" and "communism"
interchangeably. Nowhere did Marx and Engels argue that there was
an intermediate social system between the abolition of the wages system
and the establishment of common ownership and democratic control of
the means of production and distribution by all of society.
What
was described as "socialism" in Russia was no more
than State capitalism. The oppressive machinery of government existed
to be used against the working class who were forced to live on wages
and salaries and who were exploited, in the Marxian sense, at the
point of production by producing more social wealth than they received
in wages and salaries.
However
Marx and Engels did have views on the transition between capitalism
and Socialism. However, there views were largely concentrated on the
question of production and distribution.
Set
out below are a few of the views on the transition period expressed
by Marx, Engels and Reconstituted Socialist Party of Great Britain (1991). It should
be observed that the views of Engels changed between 1875 and 1891.
This is to be expected because the need for a transition period and
its length depended upon several factors, including the development
of society's powers of production and the growing political maturity
of the working class.
In
his CRITIQUE OF THE GOTHA PROGRAMME, Marx divided Communism into a
first phase and a higher phase.
The
first phase would in Marx's view last for a considerable time because
time would be needed to allow for the productive forces of society
to be expanded "proportionally with the multiform development
of the individuals of whom it is made up".
Only
in the higher phases of Communism would "society inscribe
upon its banners: "from everyone according to his capacities,
to everyone according to his needs".
In
his "SOCIALISM-UTOPIAN AND SCIENTIFIC", written in about
1880, Engels made his statement that after the dispossession of the
capitalist class:
"State
interference in social relations becomes in one domain after another,
superfluous, and then dies out of itself: the government of persons
is replaced by an administration of things, and by the conduct of
processes of production. The State is not "abolished". It
dies out (George Allen and Unwin edition, 1892, p. vii).
This
indicates that at that time Engels' view was that the transition period
would take a considerable time, but not as prolonged as Marx had indicated
in 1875.
In
1891, Engels had reached the conclusion that if a transition period
is needed at all it would be short (see 1891 appendix to Marx's WAGE-LABOUR
AND CAPITAL).
Having
described the division of capitalist society into a small, extremely
rich capitalist class and a working class "Hardly, or not
at all protected against extreme want", Engels wrote:
"Such
a state becomes every day more absurd and unnecessary. It should be
removed, it can be removed. A new order of society is possible in
which the present class differences will be a matter of the past and
where -perhaps after a short, not quite satisfactory, but morally
very useful transition period - by means of designed utilication and
further improvement of the existing vast productive power of all members
of society, with equal obligation to work, will be given, in equal
degree and in constantly growing abundance, the means to live and
enjoy life, to develop and exercise all physical and intellectual
capacities".
When
Reconstituted Socialist Party of Great Britain (1991) was established in 1904 it produced
an Object and set of principles binding on all members of the party.
The
sixth principle discussed the question of the machinery of government.
The principle read:
"That
as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the
nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class
of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise
consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government,
national and local, in order that this machinery, including these
forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the
agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic
and plutocratic".
Note,
this passage did not talk of the machinery of government being "immediately
abolished". What the passage said was that the machinery
of government would be "converted" from an instrument
of minority class power protecting private property ownership into
"the agent of emancipation". This process had a time
element but what time it would take from conversion, use as the agent
of emancipation to dismantlement would be based on the conditions
of the time.
In
January 1946 an article by MacClatchie, "The Transition Period",
made the case for the immediate establishment of Socialism after the
capture of political power and the dispossession of the capitalist
class.
The
article contained the following:
"We
have absorbed what Marx and his co-workers gave to the world from
their painstaking studies and we have added a good deal ourselves
from our studies since Marx, seventy years ago, criticised the GOTHA
PROGRAMME. We have profited from the development that has gone on
since his day. One of the most important things we have learnt is
that the mass of the people are essentially reasonable, once they
understand a problem. For example, workers will put up with considerable
hardship and privation during strikes if they are convinced that the
strike is necessary".
The
article rejected the idea that distribution in a socialist society
would need a system of "labour tickets". The article
stated:
"This
the transition period will not be another social form but only the
difficult time of re-organising production and distribution on a socialist
basis, settling down to Socialism".
Finally
it is important to stress the purpose of the working class gaining
political control. This was set out in the pamphlet "OBJECT AND
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES, 1975).
A
passage in the pamphlet argued that:
"It
is necessary for a socialist working class to gain political control,
but only for the purpose of dispossessing the capitalist class and
opening the way for the community as a whole to take over the means
of production and distribution and democratically using them for the
good of all".
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