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The Problem of Bureaucracy

The road to socialism will not be simple. Even after the capitalist political system has been swept aside, some old habits and ideas will remain for some time. This is especially so if the revolutionary state has come into being in conditions of international isolation and economic hardship. Revolutions can degenerate in such circumstances unless there is both sustained mass involvement and a leadership that is highly conscious and able to learn from history.

Bureaucracy Destroyed the USSR

This was the fate of the Soviet Union and many of the socialist revolutions that followed it. It is what laid the basis for the growth of a privileged bureaucracy in those states. When Russia made its revolution, it was a terribly impoverished country. Fourteen capitalist countries sent troops to aid the counter-revolutionaries. Even after they were defeated, the country was devastated, stricken by famine and the nearly total collapse of industry. Moreover, the Russian revolutionaries had not counted on standing alone. They believed that their revolution would set off a wave of revolutions throughout Europe. They counted on technical and material aid from successful revolutions in the industrially advanced countries. A revolutionary wave did indeed sweep Europe. In Bavaria and Hungary, short-lived workers’ republics were established. In Italy workers seized the factories, threatening to destroy the capitalist system of production. In Germany workers fought long street battles with the police and army. But the revolutions in the West failed, violently smashed by the capitalist rulers. This left the Soviet Union isolated and exhausted.

Stalinism Usurped Socialism

Under these conditions, it became possible for a dictatorship of privileged administrators to emerge. Suppose you were an administrator in charge of distributing the bread ration in a Soviet city. Since there wasn’t enough bread to go around, no amount of revolutionary dedication could feed everybody adequately. Rationing was required. As an administrator you might be tempted to use your position to make sure you and your family got as much bread as you could. Soon you might discover you had something in common with the administrator across the hall who controlled the supply of tinned fish. Out of scarcity grew inequality. Out of inequality grew privilege. A common bond developed among the administrators to secure their privileges. Some dedicated revolutionaries were able to resist this temptation. Under the extreme pressure of war and hunger, however, many gave in. Before long they found they were no longer simple administrators, but part of a privileged bureaucracy with a vested interest in controlling scarce resources. Naturally they feared the people of the Soviet Union might not take kindly to such abuse. To control the people, they had to destroy the revolutionary party, the workers’ councils, all the democratic institutions that had made the revolution and that the revolution had made. Strangling the revolution took the bureaucracy many years. They had to execute thousands of their opponents and exile hundreds of thousands more to labour camps. The camps were filled, not with supporters of capitalism, but with socialist revolutionaries. This was the process that took place under Stalin. The rule of the bureaucracy might have been prevented if the Soviet peoples had taken over the administration themselves. Key leaders of the revolution, like Lenin, recognised this. They stressed the need to educate the people to understand and participate in administration. But the most active and politically committed section of the working class had been killed in the civil war. The vast majority of the population was unskilled, unorganised, even illiterate. They were at the mercy of the new bureaucrats, whom they didn’t know how to replace or even check up on. Even though there were many in the Communist Party who struggled against the bureaucracy, the population could not come to their aid. With Stalin at the helm, the bureaucracy strengthened its grip and rolled back the democratic gains of the revolution. Even under bureaucratic dictatorship, however, the Soviet and Eastern European economies provided employment, free education, health care and other services to the bulk of people. Without capitalists, the opportunity existed to develop an economy for people. The bureaucracy gradually destroyed this opportunity. What died in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was not socialism but Stalinism, a system that usurped socialism and treated people like children who never grew up. In these countries, capitalism is now killing everything the bureaucrats couldn’t. Gone is full employment, free education and health care. The only freedom capitalism has added in Russia and Eastern Europe is the freedom to exploit and spread poverty. The old bureaucrats have joined in, by selling the state-owned industries to themselves. Where there was no freedom of the press, now there is, but only for those who own it. Capitalism has not brought democracy to Russia and the Eastern European countries, only the democratic show, and not very much of that. Capitalism’s main concern for these countries is with smashing any idea that freedom might start outside the "free market".