Commentary

New winds blowing
uprooting old ideas,
renewing socialism

By GEORGE HEWISON .

he resignation of the
entire central com-
mittee of the Social-
ist Unity Party of
the German Demo-
cratic Republic, with
several leading mem-
bers facing serious
corruption charges,
follows hard on the heels of the resignation
of the Czechoslovak government and
Communist Party leaders, to be in turn fol-
lowed by yet another announcement that
the Czechoslovak government has reversed

their estimation of the intervention by the |

Warsaw Pact Treaty countries into Cze-
choslovakia on August 20, 1968, terming it
an “infringement to the norms of relations
amongst sovereign states.” Along with the
equally dramatic events as the change in
government in Poland, Bulgaria and Hun-
gary and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall,
the sum of these historic change fully dem-
onstrates we are living through gale force
winds of change.

The big business media and capitalist pol-
iticians have launched an immense ideolog-
ical assault on the people of Canada
(corresponding to their economic and polit-
ical attack) to impose their interpretation of
the changes in the countries of existing
socialism. They speak about the failure or
collapse of socialism and the invincibility of
capitalism. They lecture us about the futility
of seeking a solution out of the wreckage
which neo-conservatism is inflicting upon
us. They talk of winning the “‘cold war.”

Nevertheless, history and the facts have a
way of recoiling on the advocates of a sys-

tem which, despite outward and temporary .

appearances, is, in the final analysis, “ter-
minally ill.” In many respects, it is precisely
in the events that today sweep Eastern
Europe that a new hope emerges for the
people of the world that there is a real and
recognizable alternative to the criminal
conduct of capitalist governments.

Although beset by its problems, social-
ism is still helping set the agenda for world
development and change, and is increas-
ingly occupying the political and moral high
ground. Mikhail Gorbachev is the acknow-
ledged political innovator of our age.

Even Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is
compelled to tell the world that his neo-
conservative attack on the people is really
“perestroika” — albeit without glasnost.
U.S. President George Bush returns from
the Mediterranean Summit committed to
further disarmament, and more favourable
economic treatment for the Soviet Union
(both long-standing Soviet proposals).
Mulroney and Bush have declared the cold
war dead or almost dead.

Whether or not the cold war, officially
launched by Winston Churchill in his fam-
ous 1946 speech at Fulton, Missouri, is a
thing of the past, remains to be seen. But it is
clear that the winners at last week’s summit
were not the cold warriors of the military-
industrial complex, but “new thinking”
which recognizes the realities of two social
systems occupying the same planet for the
foreseeable future. Humanity has taken yet
another giant step away from the nuclear
brink.

To understand why this has come about,
all who are concerned about objectivity will
completely miss the point if we accept that
it’s the result of the collapse of socialism, or
socialism having lost the historical foot race
with capitalism. Socialism is still potent —

18 e Pacific Tribune, December 18, 1989

economically, politically, and philosophi-
cally.

There is no doubt that the changes in
Eastern Europe have contributed to a
changing atmosphere in the international
arena. There is no doubt that capitalism
seeks to undermine socialism, taking advan-
tage of temporary difficulties. But the main
propulsion to a successful outcome of the
Malta Summit is that capitalism, and its
“superior” economy, is strangling on high
military budgets, growing deficits and trade
rivalries.

There has been minus growth in the U.S.
economy in every month since July. The
U.S. is poised on the brink of a serious
economic recession. And it is scrambling to
catch up to the political pace being set by
Gorbachev and the forces of socialism.

However, that is not to minimize the
changes sweeping the world, and the espe-
cially complex difficulties ‘facing existing
socialism. It means some fundamental re-
thinking for Communists in the capitalist
world, especially in countries like Canada.
Some long-held postulates are dead. Many
more need to be looked at in light of the
profound changes underway. But a note of
caution needs to be struck as we guard
against “throwing the baby out with the
bath water.”

The sweeping political changes underway
in Eastern Europe posea great challenge to
all political forces in the world as they seek
to analyze and interpret: to develop a cor-
rect orientation. For Communists in Can-
ada, we welcome those changes which
strengthen socialism. We-do not support
corruption, or socialism based on the denial
of democracy.

Unquestionably, certain Communists in
some socialist countries have peddled their
own versions of fairy tales to themselves,
and to those they led — and more’s the
pity. These tales have now exploded in our
faces, and unquestionably have done
considerable harm to socialism. We cannot
understate the amount of trust and confi-
dence which has been eroded. The search
for solutions, in a socialist context, has been
complicated in many countries, leaving us
with a bitter lesson about the timely correc-
tion of mistakes. But, in a positive sense,
problems, which existed for a long time but
were long denied, are now, at last, on the
table (where for Marxists they belong) and
where they can be addressed.
ecent changes sweep-
ing Eastern Europe
do not, therefore,
mark the death of
socialism, but the
beginning of its re-
birth. They do not
vindicate capitalism,
but set the stage to
challenge it. The basic principles of Com-
munist parties need not be threatened, but
the application of those principles must be
cleansed of anti-socialist, anti-popular, cor-
rupt, dogmatic, unscientific, non-Marxist
content.

True, the problems of the socialist re-
newal are agonizingly complex and are likely
to become more complex in the months
ahead. The economic experiment in Poland
under a Solidarnosc-led administration,
which attempts to emulate Western deve-
loped capitalist economies, will soon come
up against the brutal realities of capitalism,
not its illusions, and put the Polish working
class and people in even greater difficulties.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

in Eastern
Europe posing a challenge ‘‘for all politi-
cal forces.”

HEWISON changes

Then the true test between capitalism and
socialism for Poland will be on the table.
Certain economic theories put forward in

_other socialist countries which lead in a sim-

ilar direction will likewise lead to an even-
tual dead-end. ‘But socialist developmental
problems are transitory. They will be
solved, to be replaced by newer problems as
socialism consolidates and gains in expe
rience and strength.

Those problems, too, will be addressed
and solved. In the final analysis, the power
of the people we have seen in the streets of
Berlin, Leipzig, and Prague over recent
weeks, compelling needed change, is the
very power needed to perfect and consoli-
date socialism. On the other hand, the prob-
lems of capitalism grow deeper and reflect
the historical fate of a morally decadent
anachronistic system.

Thus, for those of us who work for social-
ism in Canada, while recognizing the risks
of boldly acknowledging shortcomings and
mistakes, we can take heart that the changes
under way, including that some short term
detours in the countries of existing socialism
are necessary and will ultimately place
socialism on a solid footing, instead of per-
petuating illusions, errors and corruption.

Thus, more is at stake than merely the
success of socialism in this or that country in
a temporary way. What is at stake is the
long term historical future of the successor
to capitalism on a global scale.

Thus for Communists in Canada, the
new situation is brim full of opportunity. To
seize this opportunity, we must get over any
defensiveness born out of guilt for our past
smugness that we possessed an exclusive pat
formula for attaining revolutionary change
in our own country; or smugness for our
close association with a type of socialism in
other countries now shown in its fuller,
“less-than-perfect” reality. We need to
review those chapters of our own history
and certain estimations and characteriza-
tions which we made (in 1968 for example)
which will continue to stand in the way of
seeing reality as it was and is.

We must also draw from the rich lessons
which have been gratuitously thrown our
way, many the result of now obvious practi-
cal and theoretical errors.

For Communists in Canada, an impor-
tant lesson we must draw is the need to

sharpen our critical eye in evaluating world
events. This is not a new observation. In
1956, we drew a similar conclusion, but
lacked the ability to overcome a serious
weakness in our approach. We can com-
plain bitterly about being misled by others,
but for us to draw the proper conclusion for
the future out of the events of today, we
must agree that while we may not have had
access to all the facts (and we should main-
tain a healthy skepticism about the capital-
ist press), in some cases our methodology
did not lend itself to developing the neces-
sary critical eye.

Yet another lesson, is to intensify our
study of the experience of building social-
ism, not diminish it. This goes to the ques-
tion of being able to distinguish more
accurately between those questions which
are of universal. significance in building
socialism and those which are peculiar to
this or that country. Thus, we should avoid
the temptation to go into a defensive shell,
based on the premise that “once burned,
twice shy.” In so doing, we must speed the
process of offering for the people of Canada
a distinctly Canadian model of socialism.

A third related lesson involving “‘interna-
tionalism,” has to do with criticism. In the
past, we have avoided criticism of other
fraternal parties because we did not want to
aid and abet enemies of socialism. Gener-
ally this is a correct approach, and we
should never knowingly commit this mis-
take.
owever, there have
also been cases when
silence on our part
has added to the
problems of social-
ism. If, in our opin-
ion, certain practices
harm or endanger
socialism, it is ‘our
internationalist responsibility to speak up in
a principled, objective, and comradely way.
Thus our conclusion should not be:to aban-
don working class internationalism, partic-
ularly so in this period of massive growth of
the predatory transnational corporations,
but to strengthen that internationalism giv-
ing it a new, more meaningful, content.

A fourth lesson emerges around the con-
cept of the leading role of the Communist
Party. Our experience in Canada unders-
cores the question: if the CP in countries
constructing socialism truly enjoys the sup-
port of the majority of the people, why is
there-the need to enshrine it in a constitu-
tion?

Here an enormous theoretical defect
emerges around the nature of the class
struggle in the aftermath of achieving work-
ing class political power. This involves the —
concept of socialist pluralism. It involves
acknowledging that a departure from Len-
in’s thesis, on the indissoluble link between
the struggle for democracy being crucial
before, during, and after the revolution, has
taken place.

What is clear in all of the cases in Eastern
Europe is the alienation of the Communist
Parties from the people — in some cases
more so than in others. The working class
state was not based exclusively on the
democratic will of the people participating
in formulating their own destiny. Too often
the Communist Party usurped the role
which Marxists recognize belongs to the
people in making history.

The job of winning the people politically
for the line of the CP over and over, again
and again, was reduced to administrative
fiat in most cases. In others, it sunk into
corrupt practices befitting capitalist politi-
cians. Mass political protests in most social-
ist countries highlight the task before these
parties to re-win confidence and restore
trust in them on a new and principled basis.
In some cases the link between the party
and the people is too badly scarred and new
revolutionary forces and/or parties are
emerging or will be forged.

Communists in Canada, therefore, should —
not negate the role of the state in the strug-
gle for the transition from capitalism to