Class struggle is possible in human society, but not in the realm of shadows

(From the editorial correspondence of Left.ru)

I’ve read our material about Voronin.  An intelligent fellow.  He accurately noted that first of all it’s necessary to “restore society”.  The class struggle may take place  always and everywhere  on a kind of molecular level (let me mention this not to offend our Marxist classics completely), but in the form and scale it is of  interest to us class struggle demands a definite development and scale of social organization.   It’s not without reason that it is only after the formation of national states that revolutions and politics with a clearly expressed class content could begin.  But modern imperialism erodes this social organization at the periphery and at the center bribes the workers to itself.

It does so first of all by eroding the ruling classes of the periphery.  From this comes a certainly new phenomenon of “compradors”, involving broad economic professional and cultural strata, and at a minimum, the partial integration of the national political class in the political superstructure of the “world community”, i.e., the international institutions of imperialism.  And finally, the old vassalage relationships remain quite broadly maintained.

Therefore, to “restore society” will hardly succeed in Moldavia, and not merely there.  Deformed society is the unavoidable fate of the peripheries of contemporary capitalism, be it Peru, Moldavia, or even Russia.  Without (self-) isolation from imperialism, it is hardly possible for them to restore society.  Thus by opposite means the class struggle is blocked, both at the center, and at the peripheries.  Does this make sense, or am I speaking nonsense?
A.

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The highest ranks of the dependent countries have always been compradors.  For instance, to my view, there is nothing more antinational then the Ukrainian nationalism with a polish-german-galician tinge.

Voronin seems to be a clever fellow, who became president of a ruin, president of a country where a fourth of the population, one supposes the most young and active, find themselves in foreign servitude.  Literally in servitude: in Moscow, in Turkey, in Europe.  Just imagine this scale.  Of what are those who remain capable?  Everything is broken, and the entire nation, to speak in prison slang, ‘sissified’.  With these conditions among the people, do what you will they are not capable of any form of resistance.  The most they can do is to vote for Voronin.

There is a similar situation in Ukraine and in a number of Russian regions.  A couple of years ago I was in mining cities of the Lugansk region.  The picture was terrifying.  Houses were broken down, communications annihilated.  A two-room apartment cost 100 dollars and there were no buyers.  On the streets there were tons of mud, amidst which people with apathetic faces were sitting.  Men became drunks, women were ready to go into any brothel, in any country, under any conditions just to run away somewhere.  There are similar places in Russia.

Back in the Soviet time, people certainly did not imagine what capitalism was like.  The masses were certainly convinced that capitalism meant sausages without the lines.  Thanks to Zhvanetsky types (tr: Soviet comedian who extolled Western life.)

As a result, the people are completely disoriented, they do not understand what has been going on, what they are to do, and whether it is possible to do anything at all.  Their will is paralysed.  I consider that anyone over 40 is completely lost for struggle (of course there are individual exceptions).  There is some hope for the youth, but they are extremely ill, having been infected by their parents.

Therefore a genuine “restoration of society” is indeed necessary.  The class struggle is possible in human society, but not in a realm of shadows, into which a significant part of the post-Soviet territory has fallen.

The process of “restoration of society” goes forward and cannot do otherwise.  In my view, it will go forward even without the self-isolation from imperialism, which is practically impossible.  However, at the same time the process of the most extreme degradation of each and all proceeds.  Whether it will be victorious is difficult to say at this time.  Our time under the best of circumstances, will come in 15 years.  And only if the process of social construction gets the better of the process of degradation and decay.

What occurred to the post-Soviet territory is a gigantic crime of late capitalism.  Some day the scale of this tragedy will yet be investigated in detail.
D.
 
 
 

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