Prometeo (III) 1947/I/7

Il lettore quotidiano della stampa di oggi vede passare sotto i suoi occhi stanchi cifre allucinanti. Non negli scritti che volgarizzano astronomia o fisica corpuscolare, ma proprio in quelli che lo cibano di politica, sempre più, a fine politico, gli parlano di economia, e gli propinano numeri.

Miliardi di dollari. Un miliardo è mille milioni, e si scrive con uno seguito da nove zeri. Tra poco un dollaro corrisponderà a mille delle nostre lire, e giù per su finiranno col fermare la lira lì (ciò vuol dire che la lira comprerà duecento volte meno che all’inizio del secolo). Dunque il miliardo di dollari varrebbe mille miliardi di lire, un trilione (miliardo e bilione è lo stesso) e ciò si scrive con uno e dodici zeri. 

Vediamo la cosa più palpabilmente. Mettiamo che il lavoratore medio guadagni 1600 lire al giorno. In trecento giorni lavorativi saranno 480 mila lire annue, su per giù 500 dollari. Forte ottimismo, come vedete. 

Con un miliardollaro, bazzecola per gli odierni vincitori, si compra il lavoro di due milioni di persone produttive (le nostre cifre sono arbitrarie per arrotondare, ma gli arbitrii finiscono per compensarsi); il miliardollaro acquista il lavoro per un anno di una popolazione di dieci milioni di anime (S.O.S. – salvate le nostre anime). 

Ora non si sente discutere che della ricostruzione della distrutta Europa e del danaro che l’America deve prestarle a tal uopo.  I miliardollari roteano nella polemica. Truman fa votare, per soccorrere Grecia e Turchia, per ora appena tre decimi di miliardollaro, ma già si sono accorti che il soccorso è insufficiente a distruggere i guerriglieri. Comunque a qualche timida obiezione parlamentare Truman ha risposto con tutta chiarezza che la guerra è costata agli Stati Uniti 341 miliardollari, e per la garanzia di questo “investimento”, o, come dicono i Francesi, “placement”, sarebbe da veri pitocchi esitare a spendere quei pochi soldi in Grecia e Turchia, l’uno per mille appena del capitale messo a rischio per salvare la Libertà. 

La Francia ha per ora avuto un quarto appena di miliardollaro, ma è bastato a mettere fuori dal governo Thorez e i suoi. Per l’Italia si fa balenare un miliardollaro intiero, di cui uno o due decimi sarebbero già liquidi. Ma di ciò tra un momento. 

Questi sono prestiti che naturalmente saranno restituiti con gli interessi, ma vi è poi la beneficenza pura, la erogazione a fondo perduto, l’ultima e sopraffina forma di piazzamento del capitale. Anche qui le direttive dell’UNRRA secondo la dottrina Truman sono chiare: paese per paese gli stanziamenti dipendono dal colore del governo locale o dalla sua soggezione alla politica d’oltreatlantico; nei casi dubbi si manda lo stanziamento a zero. Non è guerra, ma è sempre far leva sulla morte.

Ma vi è di più.  La dottrina Truman, piuttosto grossolana, consiste nel maneggiare il dollaro per distruggere zona per zona l’influenza russa ed è applicata con una delicatezza da bisonte. Per fortuna nella libera America vi è il democratico urto delle opposte opinioni, e contro la dottrina Truman vi è quella di Wallace, un amicone questo della Russia, che invece adotta una raffinatissima diplomazia, e spinge il disinteresse fino ai limiti dell’inverosimile.  Donare prestare anticipare dollari, ecco il sacro dovere dell’America, e soprattutto alla Russia bisogna subito offrirli. Le cifre qui naturalmente salgono. Occorre porre a disposizione dell’Europa 50 di quelle nostre unità, cinquanta miliardollari, e di questi alla Russia bisogna, secondo il signor Wallace, non esitare a darne da un quinto ad un terzo, da 10 a 17 miliardollari. 

Le devastazioni della guerra, secondo un calcolo, raggiungono 150 miliardollari ed egli suppone che nei capitali locali si possa ancora trovarne 50 da investire, mentre gli altri cento miliardollari sarà l’America a prestarli al resto del mondo. 

Tornando ai cinquanta che toccano a noi Europei essi valgono secondo il nostro calcoletto a comprare la forza-lavoro di 500 milioni di abitanti per un anno, ossia appunto della popolazione europea. 

La ricostruzione non si può fare certo in un anno, poiché tutti i prodotti dei lavoratori Europei, divenuti di proprietà americana almeno per i due terzi giusta la teoria di Wallace, non possono andare a rifare impianti e opere distrutte, in quanto i lavoratori stessi devono mangiare e consumare. 

A consumo ridotto, come è nella quasi totalità dell’Europa, supponiamo che essi assorbano metà del loro prodotto. In tal caso, se tutti i 50 miliardi di dollari potessero, il che è certo impossibile, essere di un colpo anticipati ed investiti, in due anni l’Europa avrebbe rinnovata la sua attrezzatura, ma tutto l’utile del capitale che questa produrrebbe “per sempre” sarebbe di diritto americano per i due terzi. 

Le cifre sono molto discutibili, ma è chiaro che il signor Wallace, vero pacifista, progetta un investimento di primissimo ordine. 

Naturalmente egli ha bisogno di garanzie per il ritiro dei formidabili utili, pur essendo sempre in credito della somma anticipata. Quali garanzie? Truman, un poco volgaruccio, le vede nel disarmo altrui e nell’armamento formidabile del creditore, atto per massa e per qualità a tenere in soggezione il mondo, e ad evitare le eventuali bizze di chi non volesse pagare le rate. 

Wallace invece ci spiega e spiega a quelli del Kremlino – che potranno subire, ma sarà un poco difficile che credano – come quella generosa anticipazione sarà il fondamento della pace. Le garanzie saranno puramente legali.  In via di costruire il Superstato che abbia a scala mondiale le stesse funzioni che ha lo Stato, sovrano nel suo territorio, per cittadini ed enti privati, si farà funzionare in campo internazionale il sistema delle ipoteche. Strutture ed impianti nei paesi debitori garantiranno col loro valore e con la loro attività i versamenti a saldo del credito. 

In questa seconda civile versione della supremazia americana vediamo avanzare sulla scena un nuovo personaggio, l’ufficiale giudiziario internazionale. Sappiamo bene come agisce nel campo nazionale. Egli è molto più potente del gendarme, se pure non rechi altre armi che una vecchia borsa di cuoio piena di carte e sia fisicamente misero ed umilmente vestito: infatti i suoi stipendi sono assai più bassi di quelli dei militari, reclutati tra giovani aitanti e rivestiti di lucenti divise.  Ma la sua potenza legale e civile è tanto tremenda che molte volte la vittima, quando ha tutto esaurito negli espedienti della tragica guerra cartacea, al vederlo giungere tremolante ed inerme sbigottisce al punto che, lungi dal tentare di offenderlo e ributtarlo, si fa da sé stessa saltare le cervella. Egli guadagna la battaglia senza sporcarsi di sangue le mani, e senza imbrattarsi il certificato penale o compromettere l’assoluzione da parte del confessore. 

In tal modo il dollaro, con la sua organizzazione mondiale di anticipazione ai poveri, muove alla conquista d’Europa fino ed oltre gli Urali, e ne pianifica il successo senza ricorrere alle traiettorie di siluri atomici e di aerei di invasione per la via polare. 

Per quanto riguarda l’Italia le cose sono già avviate a chiarirsi magnificamente, in quanto il processo più difficile si avrà in quei paesi che per ragioni geografiche sono a diretto contatto con la forza russa e sono presidiate dall’esercito sovietico. Nei paesi intermedi assistiamo a sviluppi originali. Per l’Ungheria pare che sia la stessa Russia ad offrire duecento milioni di dollari (non già di rubli) per evitare la concorrenza. Il male è che alla fine quei dollari si prenderebbero dai miliardi di Wallace, e su essi il banchiere farà un affare duplicato. 

Ma per noi tra poco tutto sarà a posto. L’inflazione si potrà frenare quando sia stabilito il prestito del miliardollaro (in verità siamo la decima parte della popolazione di Europa e siamo tra i più disastrati, ma sui 50 miliardollari di Wallace ce ne viene per ora la cinquantesima parte soltanto; è la sorte di chi non fa più paura). Tra poco i grandi affari in Italia si cifreranno in dollari e non in lire, anzi lo si fa già. La lira sarà ancorata al dollaro (ma che bel termine… non resistiamo alla tentazione di dire che vi sarà ancorata più saldamente di quanto le catene di Vulcano ancorassero Prometeo alla sua roccia…). La formula della vita italiana potrà essere semplice: nulla è perduto; solo l’onore. 

Naturalmente non versiamo lacrime sull’onore della patria borghesia.  Il concetto di onore vige nelle società divise in caste o in classi, ha un senso fin quando gli uomini sono divisi tra gentiluomini e meccanici, non interessa il proletariato rivoluzionario che non ha onori da perdere, ma solo le… ancore che lo legano alla onorata società del capitale. 

L’operazione del prestito all’estero fino ad ora non viene contestata neppure dagli oppositori di oggi, ieri alleati del governo. Essi – in replica al programma De Gasperi – scrivono disinvoltamente: “Occorrono i dollari, che bella scoperta!“. Sono d’accordo per i dollari e per l’UNRRA, altrimenti, dopo anni ed anni di propaganda idiota che presentava la struttura sociale del capitalismo d’America come la più altamente civile, sarebbe la bancarotta elettorale.

Questi sicofanti sostengono che si potrebbero prendere i dollari ed evitare le influenze sulla nostra “politica interna”.  Ma da quando sono saltati i confini tra le economie dei vari paesi e le loro aree commerciali e monetarie, è finita la differenza tra politica estera ed interna.

I socialcomunisti dicono che bisogna dare per i dollari garanzia sulle industrie, non sullo Stato, garanzie economiche e non politiche. Secondo tali marxisti si può dare una garanzia economica senza che questa si rifletta in influenza politica…  Ma poi quelle industrie, nel programma di quei signori, e in ispecie le grandi industrie monopolistiche (brrr… e leggi le sole che hanno tra noi la potenzialità atta a garantire un po’ di dollari e si stanno già per loro conto coprendo di ipoteche oltremarine), non dovevano essere nazionalizzate, coi soldi dello Stato (presi dal prestito), e non avremmo quindi la vendita e l’affitto dello Stato? 

Siano nello stesso Ministero o meno, sono d’accordo tutti nella politica economica dei prestiti. Erano tutti d’accordo nel prestito interno, ed abbiamo assistito al nauseante spettacolo della pubblicità al prestito su quelli che pretendono di essere i giornali “delle classi lavoratrici”. Il prestito allo Stato, la costituzione del sempre più elefantesco debito pubblico, è uno dei cardini della accumulazione capitalistica.  Marx nel Primo Libro del Capitale, cap. XXVI 8, sulla genesi del capitalista industriale, dice testualmente:  “Il debito pubblico o, in altri termini, l’alienazione dello Stato – sia questo dispotico, costituzionale o repubblicano – segna della sua impronta l’era capitalistica. La sola parte della cosiddetta ricchezza nazionale, che entra realmente nel possesso collettivo dei popoli moderni, è il loro debito pubblico. Perciò è assai conseguente la teoria contemporanea secondo la quale un popolo diventa tanto più ricco quanto più fa debiti. Il debito pubblico diventa il credo del capitale. Ed è così che la mancanza di fede nel debito pubblico, non appena questo si è formato, viene a prendere il posto del peccato contro lo Spirito Santo pel quale non v’è perdono”. 

Una delle tesi essenziali del marxismo è che quanta più ricchezza si concentra nelle mani della borghesia nazionale, tanta più miseria vi è nella massa lavoratrice. Lo Stato-sbirro, semplice difensore del privilegio della prima, si trasforma oggi sempre più in Stato-cassa. L’attivo di questa cassa va ad incrementare l’accumulata ricchezza dei borghesi, il suo passivo pesa sulla generalità, ossia sui lavoratori. Coi prestiti nazionali si ribadisce la servitù economica del proletariato. Secondo poi l’insensata pretesa che questo addirittura sottoscriva qualche cartella dell’accredito ai suoi sfruttatori, la sua servitù viene ribadita una terza volta. 

In Italia non è certo De Gasperi che rischia di peccare contro lo Spirito Santo!

Ma i suoi avversari attuali in Parlamento, soci fino a ieri nella politica dei prestiti, soci oggi ancora nella politica della servitù dei sindacati operai, restano suoi soci nella politica del prestito dall’America con cui lo Stato italiano si aliena al capitale straniero. 

Abbiamo già detto che per il proletariato essere venduto al capitale straniero o a quello indigeno è una pari sventura. 

Nel caso della attuale classe politica dirigente italiana va però detto che essa, attraverso le indegne metamorfosi del suo schieramento, nella vendita dell’onore del suo Stato saprà scendere ancora qualche altro scalino. 

L’alienazione del proprio onore non è il peggiore affare che si possa concludere. Anche qui, e siamo sempre nella piena meccanica nel mondo borghese, che avversiamo ed odiamo, vi è una questione di prezzo. Si può vendere l’onore sottocosto. Ed è a questo che arriveranno gli odierni gerarchi della politica italiana, negoziando con lo straniero vincitore le condizioni del suo intervento finanziario, preoccupati solo di contendersi tra loro, filoamericani o filorussi che siano, le percentuali di commissione sull’affare. 

The question relating to the tactics of the party is of fundamental importance and will be clarified in relation to the history of the disagreements in tendency and direction which occurred in the II and III Internationals.

We must not regard the question as being secondary or derivative in nature, in the sense that groups who are in agreement on the doctrine and the program may, without affecting those basics, support and apply different directions in action, albeit with respect to transient episodes.

To pose problems relating to the nature and action of the party signifies moving from the field of critical interpretation of social processes to that of the influence that these processes may exert on a force that is actively engaged. The transition is the most important and delicate point of the whole Marxist system and was framed in the youthful sentences of Marx: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it” and “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons”.

This passage from pure knowledge to active intervention should be understood according to the dialectical materialist method in a manner totally different from that of followers of traditional ideologies. All too often it has been useful to the opponents of communism to exploit the Marxist theoretical background in order to sabotage and disavow the consequences of action and battle, that is, from the opposite perspective, to appear to adhere to the practice of the proletarian party while challenging and rejecting its fundamental principles. In all these cases the deviation was the consequence of anti-classist and counter-revolutionary influences, and expressed itself in crises as what we shall call, for the sake of brevity, opportunism.

Principles and doctrines do not exist in themselves as a foundation arisen and established before action; both the former and the latter are formed in a parallel process. It is their opposing material interests that in practice impel social groups to fight, and it is out of the action instigated by material interests that the theory which becomes the party’s characteristic inheritance is born. If the balance of interests, the incentives to act and the practical directives for action are changed, then the doctrine of the party is likewise modified and distorted.

To think that this doctrine might have become sacred and inviolable due to its codification in a programmatic text and through a strict organizational and disciplinary arrangement of the party organism, and that therefore one may adopt various policies and have recourse to multiple maneuvers in the area of tactical activity, means having failed to identify, using Marxist criteria, the real problem that needs to be resolved in order to decide how the methods of tactical action may be selected.

We return to the determinist analysis. Do social events unfold through uncontrollable forces, giving rise to diverse ideologies, theories and opinions among men, or can they be modified according to the more or less conscious wish of men themselves? This question is dealt with by the proletarian party’s own method, with which it radically brushes aside traditional thinking, which always refers to the isolated individual, claiming to resolve the question for the individual and then to deduce from this the solution for society as a whole; whereas on the contrary, you must move the question from the individual to the collectivity. The “collectivity” is always understood by the other metaphysical abstraction to mean the society of all men, whereas in the Marxist sense we must understand collectivity as the concretely defined group of individuals who, in a given historical situation have, through their social relations, that is to say in relation to their position in production and in the economy, parallel interests; groupings that are in fact called classes.

For the many social classes that human history presents, the problem of their ability to understand exactly the process in which they live, and to exercise a certain degree of influence over it, is not resolved in one and the same generic way. Each historical class has had its own party, its own system of opinions and of propaganda; each one has claimed with the same insistence to interpret the meaning of events precisely, and to be able to direct them towards a more or less vaguely conceived objective. Marxism provides the critique and the explanation for all of these approaches and points of view, showing that the various ideological generalizations were the reflection of the conditions and the interests of classes in conflict, expressed through opinions.

In this continuous change, whose engines are material interests, whose protagonists are groupings in class parties and governmental organisms, and whose outward appearances are political and philosophical schools, the modern proletarian class, once the social conditions for its formation have matured, presents itself with new and superior capabilities, both in terms of its possession of a non-superficial interpretation of historical movement in its entirety, and in terms of the concrete efficacy of its action in social and political struggle in influencing the general unfolding of this movement.

This other fundamental concept was set out by Marxists with the classic and notable phrases: “With the proletarian revolution human society emerges from its prehistory” and “The socialist revolution constitutes the passage from the world of necessity to the world of freedom”.

It is not, therefore, a matter of asking, in banal traditional terms, the question of whether man is free in his will or determined by the external environment, if a class and its party are conscious of their historic mission, and derived from this theoretical consciousness the power to implement it with a view to bringing about a general improvement, or are drawn into the struggle, into success or disaster, by higher or unknown forces. You must first ask what classes and what parties they are, what are their relations in the field of productive forces and state powers, what is the historical path already taken, and what is the path that, according to the results of critical analysis, remains to be taken.

According to the doctrine of religious schools, the cause of events lies outside of man, in God the creator, who has decided everything and who has also decided to concede a degree of liberty of action to the individual, for which he must therefore answer in the afterlife. It is well known that Marxist social analysis has completely abandoned such a resolution of the problem of the will and determinism.

But also the solution offered by bourgeois philosophy, with its claims to enlightenment critique and its illusion of having eliminated all arbitrary and revealed premises, remains equally misleading, because the problem of action is always reduced to the relationship between subject and object, and in the ancient and recent versions of the various idealistic systems the point of departure is sought in the individual subject, in the “I”, precisely in which resides the mechanism of his thought and which then translates successively in the interventions of this “I” upon the natural and social environment. From this comes the political and legal lie of the bourgeois system, according to which man is free and, as a citizen, has the right to govern the commonweal according to the opinion born inside his head and therefore also his own interests.

If it has thus thrown out all transcendent influence and every divine revelation, the Marxist interpretation of history and of human action has with no less decisiveness capsized the bourgeois schema of liberty and individual will, showing that it is the individual’s needs and interests that explain his movement and action, and that his opinions and beliefs and what is called his conscience are only determined as the final effect of the most complicated influences.

Indeed, it is when we pass from the metaphysical concept of conscience and the will of the “I” to the real and scientific concept of theoretical conscience and the historical and political action of the class party, that the problem is posed clearly, and we can address the solution.

This solution has an original repercussion for the movement and the party of the modern proletariat, in that for the first time a social class appears which is not only driven to break up old systems and the old political and legal forms that impede the development of productive forces (a revolutionary task which preceding classes also had), but for the first time carries out its struggle not in order to set up a new dominant class, but to establish productive relations which allow the elimination of economic pressure and the exploitation of one class by another.

Therefore the proletariat has at its disposal superior historical clarity, and in directing society, exercises more direct influence over events than the classes that preceded it could exercise.

This historical attitude and new faculty of the class party of the proletariat should be followed through the complex process of its manifestation in the sequence of historical events that the proletarian movement has encountered to date.

The revisionism of the Second International, which gave room for opportunism through the collaboration with bourgeois governments in both war and peace, was the manifestation of the influence that the peaceful and apparently progressive phase of the bourgeois world had on the proletariat towards the end of the 19th Century. At the time it seemed that the expansion of capitalism was not leading, as had been set out in Marx’s classic schema, to the inexorable aggravation of class antagonisms and of exploitation and proletarian immiseration. It seemed, when the limits of the capitalist world could still be extended without arousing violent crises, that the standard of living of the working classes could gradually improve within the bourgeois system itself. Theoretically, reformism elaborated a scheme of evolution without clashes from a capitalist to a proletarian economy without conflict; practically, and consistently with the theory, it stated that the proletarian party could exert a positive influence, winning partial advances through the day-to-day trade union, cooperative, administrative and legislative activity, which would in addition expand the number of nuclei of the future socialist system within the body of the current one, which would gradually transform it in its entirety.

The idea of the task of the party was no longer that of a movement that would make everything dependent on the preparation of a final effort to attain the final goals, but was transformed into a substantially voluntarist and pragmatic idea, in the sense that day-to-day work was presented as a solid and definitive fulfillment, and counterposed against the emptiness of the passive expectation of a great future success that should arise from revolutionary struggle.

No less voluntaristic, also for its declared adherence to more recent bourgeois philosophies, was the syndicalist school of thought. Even if it spoke of open class conflict and the removal and abolition of the very bourgeois state mechanism that the reformists wanted to permeate with socialism, in reality, by localizing the struggle and social transformation to individual manufacturing companies, syndicalism also believed that proletarians would be able to successively establish lots of victorious positions within islands of the capitalist world. The theory of factory councils put forward by the Italian movement of Ordine Nuovo, in which the international and historical unity of the class movement and of social transformation is fragmented in a series of positional gains within elements of the productive economy, in the name of a concrete and analytical preparation for action, was really a derivation of the syndicalist concept.

Returning to gradualist revisionism, it is clear that, as the maximum programmatic realization of the party’s action was relegated to a secondary role, while partial and daily conquests were accorded the primary role, so the well-known tactic came to be publicly advocated of alliances and coalitions with groups and political parties that would from time to time consent to supporting the partial demands and reforms put forward by the proletarian party.

Even then, there was the substantial objection to this approach: that the alliance of the party with others, in a front which the political world divided into two on specific issues arising in the actuality of the moment, consequently distorted the party, clouding its theoretical clarity, weakening its organization and impairing its ability to frame the struggle of the proletarian masses in the revolutionary phase of the conquest of power.

The nature of the political struggle is such that the alliance of forces in two camps separated by opposing solutions to a unique contingent problem, polarizing all the actions of groups around this passing interest and this immediate purpose, and overwhelming any programmatic propaganda and any coherence with traditional principles, will determine orientations within militant groups that directly reflect and translate the demand for which they are fighting in an unrefined manner.

The task of the party, which was apparently a peaceful one to the socialists of the classical epoch, should have been to reconcile its intervention on specific issues and contingent victories with the conservation of its programmatic physiognomy and its ability to move on the terrain of its own struggle towards the general and final goal of the proletarian class. In effect, reformist practice not only made proletarians forget their class and revolutionary preparation, but led the very leaders and theoreticians of the movement to get rid of it, proclaiming that there was now no longer the need to worry about maximum objectives, that the final revolutionary crisis predicted by Marxism was also itself reducing to utopia, and that what mattered was daily conquests. The common currency of reformists and syndicalists was: “the goal is nothing, the movement is everything”.

The crisis in this method presented itself powerfully with the war. This destroyed the historical assumption of an increasing tolerability of capitalist rule, since the accumulated collective resources of the bourgeoisie, in small part handed over to the apparent improvement of the standard of economic life of the masses, were thrown into the furnace of war, so that not only all of the end-effects of reformist improvements vanished in the economic crisis, but the very lives of millions of proletarians were sacrificed. At the same time, while the still healthy section of the socialist movement deceived itself into thinking that such a violent representation of capitalist barbarism would have elicited the return of proletarian groups from a position of collaboration to one of open general struggle on the central question of the destruction of the bourgeois system, on the contrary, it was the crisis and failure of all, or nearly all, international proletarian organization.

The deferment of the agitational front and of immediate action that occurred in the years of reformist practice revealed itself as a fatal weakness, seeing as the class’s maximum objectives ended up being forgotten and incomprehensible for proletarians. The tactical method of accepting the array of parties in two opposing coalitions according to country and contingency employing the most diverse variety of slogans (for a greater freedom of organization, for the extension of the right to vote, for the nationalization of some economic sectors, etc. etc.) was amply exploited by the dominant class to ill-fated effect, encouraging those political formations within the leadership of the proletariat, which represented social-patriotic degeneration.

Cleverly using the popularity accorded to the non-classist propaganda postulates of the Second International’s large parties with their powerful mass organizations, it proved easy to throw their political preparation off course, demonstrating that it was in the interest of the proletariat, and even its road to socialism, to defend other outcomes at the same time, such as German civilization against feudal and theocratic Tsarism, or Western democracy against Teutonic militarism.

The labor movement’s riposte to the betrayal of the Second International was the formation of the Third International, through the Russian Revolution. It must be said, however, that if the new International’s restoration of revolutionary values as regards doctrinal principles, theoretical approach and the central question of State power was magnificent and all-encompassing, its organizational arrangements and its approach to its own tactics and to those of its member parties were not so comprehensive.

Its critique of the Second International opportunists was however comprehensive and unambiguous, not only as regards the latter’s complete abandonment of Marxist principles, but also their tactic of coalition and collaboration with bourgeois governments and parties.

It was made very clear that the particularistic and contingent line adopted by the old socialist parties had not led to workers being guaranteed minor benefits and material improvements in exchange for them having renounced their preparations for a wholesale attack on bourgeois institutions and power, but had led, by compromising both the minimum as well as the maximum outcomes, to a situation which was even worse, namely, one in which proletarian organizations, energy and combativeness, and proletarian individuals and lives, were being used not to achieve the political and social aims of their own class, but to reinforce capitalist imperialism. By means of the war the latter thus managed to overcome, for an entire historical period at least, the innate menace of the contradictions within its productive mechanism, and overcome the political crisis caused by the war and its repercussions by bending the political and trade union formations of its class adversary to its own will by embarking on a policy of national coalitions.

This, according to the Leninist critique, was tantamount to having completely perverted the role and the function of the proletarian class party, which isn’t to protect the bourgeois fatherland or institutions of so-called bourgeois liberty from danger, but to keep the workers’ forces drawn up on the movement’s general historical line, the inevitable culminating point of which is the complete conquest of political power by overthrowing the bourgeois state.

It was a matter, in the immediate post-war period, when the so-called subjective conditions for revolution seemed unfavorable (i.e., the efficiency of the proletariat’s organizations and political parties) but the objective conditions appeared favorable, due to the manifestation of a full-blown crisis in the bourgeois world, of redressing the main shortcoming with a speedy reorganization of the revolutionary international.

The process was dominated, and it could not have been otherwise, by the magnificent historical accomplishment of the first workers’ revolutionary victory in Russia, which had allowed the great communist directives to re-emerge back into the light once more. But they wanted the tactics of the communist parties, which in other countries were a fusion of the socialist groups opposed to war opportunism, to be shaped in direct imitation of the tactics victoriously applied in Russia by the Bolshevik party, during its seizure of power in the historic struggle of February to November 1917.

Implementing this policy immediately prompted important debates about the International’s tactical methods, and especially about the one known as the United Front, which consisted of frequently issued invitations to other proletarian and socialist parties for joint agitation and action with the aim of demonstrating the inadequacy of those parties’ methods, in order to shift their traditional influence among the masses to the advantage of the communists.

Yet, despite the frank warnings of the Italian Left and other opposition groups, the leaders of the International didn’t take account of the fact that this tactic of the United Front, by forcing revolutionary organizations alongside the very social-democratic, social-patriotic and opportunistic ones from which they had just separated in implacable opposition, would not only disorientate the masses by making impossible the advantages this tactic was supposed to confer, but also – more seriously still – it would contaminate the revolutionary parties themselves. It is true that the revolutionary party is history’s best and least restricted factor, but equally it never ceases to be its product, being subjected to transformation and change every time there is any modification of the social forces. The question of tactics shouldn’t be thought of as being like the deliberate wielding of a weapon, which, wherever you aim it, stays the same; the party’s tactics influence and modify the party itself. If it is true that no tactic should be condemned in the name of a priori dogmas, equally every tactic should be analyzed and discussed in the light of a question something like this: in possibly gaining for the party greater influence over the masses, might it not risk compromising the party’s character and its capacity to lead these masses toward the final objective?

The adoption of the tactic of the United Front by the Third International showed, in fact, that the Communist International was also on the same road to opportunism that had led the Second International to liquidation and defeat. Characteristic of the tactics of opportunism had been the sacrifice of the final, total victory to partial and contingent successes; the United Front tactic revealed itself to be opportunist too, precisely insofar as it also sacrificed the primary, indispensable guarantee of final, total victory (the revolutionary capacity of the class party) in favor of contingent actions which would supposedly ensure the proletariat certain momentary and partial advantages (growth of the party’s influence over the masses and greater proletarian cohesion in the struggle to gradually improve its material conditions and to maintain any advantages won).

In the circumstances of the post-First World War period, which seemed objectively revolutionary, the International’s leadership was prompted by their concern – not entirely groundless – that they might be caught unawares and with scant support among the masses when a general European movement, with the potential to take power in some of the great capitalist countries, broke out. So important was the possibility of a rapid breakdown of the capitalist world to the Leninist International that today we can understand how, in the hope of leading ever greater masses into the struggle for the European revolution, they relaxed the admission criteria to admit movements which weren’t genuine communist parties; and how they tried, with the flexible tactics of the United Front, to retain contact with the masses who were behind the hierarchies of parties which were oscillating between revolution and conservatism.

If the favorable eventuality had actually occurred, its impact on the politics and economy of the first proletarian power in Russia would have been so great it would have allowed an extremely rapid recovery of the communist movement’s national and international organizations.

But as it was the less favorable outcome which came about instead, that of capitalism’s relative recovery, the revolutionary proletariat had to take up the struggle again and go forward with a movement that had sacrificed its clear political approach and structural and organizational homogeneity, and was now exposed to new opportunistic degenerations.

Yet the error that opened the doors of the Third International to the new, more deadly opportunist wave wasn’t just a miscalculation about the likelihood of the proletariat becoming revolutionary; it was an error of historical approach and interpretation consistent with wanting to generalize the experiences and methods of Russian Bolshevism, by applying them in countries where bourgeois, capitalist civilization had progressed much, much further. Russia before February 1917 was still a feudal country in which capitalist productive forces were fettered by antiquated relations of production. In this situation, analogous to France in 1789 and Germany in 1848, it was obvious that the proletarian party needed to fight against Tsarism, even if the establishment of a bourgeois capitalist regime, once Tsarism had been overthrown, seemed impossible to avoid; and it was consequently just as obvious that the Bolshevik party needed to enter into contact with other political groupings, contacts rendered necessary by the struggle against Tsarism. Between February and October 1917 the Bolshevik party encountered objective conditions which favored a much more ambitious scheme: that of grafting onto the overthrow of Tsarism a subsequent proletarian revolutionary victory. As a consequence, its tactical positions became more rigid, and it adopted a stance of open and ruthless struggle against all the other political formations, ranging from the reactionary supporters of a Tsarist feudal restoration to the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks. And yet the fact that a real possibility of a restoration of absolutist and theocratic absolutism was still to be feared, and the fact that in an extremely fluid and unstable situation the political and state formations controlled or influenced by the bourgeoisie still lacked any solidity or capacity to attract and absorb the autonomous proletarian forces; this put the Bolshevik party in a position where it could accept the need for provisional contacts and agreements with other organizations which had a proletarian following, as happened during the Kornilov episode.

By realizing the united front against Kornilov, the Bolshevik party was actually struggling against a feudal reactionary restoration; what is more, the Bolsheviks didn’t have to worry about the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary organizations being better organized, which might have enabled them to exert influence on the party, nor was it worried that the level of solidity and consistency of the state power was such as to have allowed the latter to derive any advantage from the contingent alliance with the Bolsheviks, by turning it against them later on.

The circumstances and relations of forces in countries where bourgeois civilization was more advanced were, however, completely different. In these countries there was no longer any prospect of a reactionary restoration of feudalism (and even more so today!), and therefore the raison d’être for possible joint actions with other parties was entirely lacking. What is more, in these countries state power and bourgeois groupings were so entrenched in power and so used to wielding it that one could reasonably predict that the proletariat’s autonomous organizations, if pushed into frequent and close contact with them via the tactic of the United Front, would almost inevitably be influenced and progressively absorbed by them.

Once it had ignored this profound difference of circumstances, and chosen to apply the Bolsheviks’ tactical methods to the advanced countries, tactics which were adapted to the situation of the nascent bourgeois regime in Russia, the Communist International would lurch from one disaster to another, leading eventually to its inglorious liquidation.

The tactic of the United Front was extended to the point of launching slogans which diverged from the party’s programmatic ones on the question of the State by supporting the installation of workers’ governments, that is: governments composed of a mixture of communist and social-democrat representatives, able to attain power by the normal parliamentary means, without having to violently destroy the bourgeois state machine. This “Workers’ Government” slogan would be presented at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International as the natural and logical corollary of the United Front tactic; and it would go on to be applied in Germany, resulting in a grave defeat for the German proletariat and its communist party.

With the open and progressive degeneration of the International after the Fourth Congress, the watchword of the United Front served to introduce the perverse tactic of forming electoral blocs with parties that were not only non-communist, but even non-proletarian, creating popular fronts, supporting bourgeois governments, in other words – and this is where the most recent issue arises – of proclaiming that in situations where the bourgeois fascist counter-offensive had obtained the monopoly of power, the workers’ party, suppressing the struggle for its own specific ends, had to form the left wing of an anti-fascist coalition no longer embracing proletarian parties alone, but also bourgeois and liberal parties with the objective of combating bourgeois totalitarian regimes and putting in place coalition governments of all the bourgeois and proletarian parties opposed to fascism. Starting with the United Front of the proletarian class, we thus arrive at national unity of all the classes, bourgeois and proletarian, dominant and dominated, exploiting and exploited. That is to say, starting from a debatable and contingent tactical movement, having the absolute autonomy of the communist and revolutionary organizations as its declared precondition, we arrive at the effective liquidation of this autonomy and the negation not just of Bolshevik revolutionary intransigence, but also of Marxist class concept itself.

This progressive development on the one hand results in a gratuitous contrast with the tactical theses of the first congresses of the International themselves and the classical solutions supported by Lenin in Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, and on the other hand, after the experience of 20-plus years of life of the International, authorizes the assertion that the enormous deviation from the first aim resulted, in parallel with the adverse sequence of events of the anti-capitalist revolutionary struggle, from the initially inadequate formulation of the tactical tasks of the party.

Today it is possible to conclude, without recalling the totality of the key arguments from the texts of the contemporary discussions, that the balance-sheet of over-elastic and over-manipulated tactics not only had negative results; it was absolutely ruinous.

The communist parties under the leadership of the Comintern tried repeatedly and in all countries to use the situations in a revolutionary way with United Front maneuvers, and then oppose the so-called triumph of the bourgeois right with the tactic of left-wing blocs. This tactic only provoked resounding defeats. From Germany to France, to China and Spain, the attempted coalitions not only failed to move the masses away from opportunist parties and from bourgeois or petty-bourgeois influence to revolutionary and communist influence, they favored the success of the inverse game, in the interest of anti-communists. The communist parties either became the object, when the coalitions broke down, of ruthless reactionary attacks by their former allies, bringing them the heaviest defeats in their attempt to struggle alone, or, absorbed into coalitions, degenerated totally, to the extent that they became practically indistinguishable from the opportunist parties.

It is true that, between 1928 and 1934 a phase took place in which the Comintern went back to the slogan of autonomous positions and independent struggle, returning all of a sudden to the polemical and oppositional front against bourgeois leftist and social-democratic currents. But this brusque tactical volte face only produced the most absolute disorientation in the communist parties, and did not offer a single historical success in the annihilation of either the fascist counter-offensive or the joint actions of bourgeois coalitions against the proletariat.

The cause of these failures must be traced back to the fact that successive tactical slogans have rained down on the parties and their structures appearing as unexpected surprises, with the communist organization caught totally unprepared for the various eventualities. The tactical plans of the party, on the contrary, even if they do predict a variety of situations and conduct, cannot and must not become the esoteric monopoly of leadership circles; they must be strictly coordinated with and consistent with theory, with the political consciousness of the militants, with the movement’s traditions, and they must permeate the organization such that it is always prepared in advance and able to predict how the party’s unitary structure will respond towards favorable and unfavorable events in the course of the struggle. To expect more, and different, things from the party, and to believe that it won’t be wrecked by unforeseen blows to its tactical rudder, does not amount to having a fuller and more revolutionary concept of the party, but clearly constitutes, as proven by historical facts, the classical process defined by the term opportunism, which either leads the revolutionary party to dissolution and ruin under the defeatist influence of bourgeois politics, or to find itself more vulnerable and disarmed in the face of repression.

When the level of development in society and the course of events lead the proletariat to serve ends that are not its own, consisting of the false revolutions which the bourgeoisie now and again apparently needs, it is opportunism that wins; the class party falls into crisis, its direction passes over to bourgeois influences, and the recovery of the proletarian path cannot happen except with the split away from the old parties, the formation of new nuclei and the national and international reconstruction of the proletarian political organization.

In conclusion, the tactic that the international proletarian party will apply, attaining its reconstruction in all countries, will have to be based on the following directives.

The practical experience of opportunist crises and of the struggles led by left-wing Marxists against the revisionists of the Second International and against the progressive deviations of the Third International has shown that you cannot keep the party’s program, political tradition and solidity of organization intact if the party applies a tactic which, even if only formally, entails attitudes and slogans that are acceptable to opportunist political movements.

Similarly, every uncertainty and ideological indulgence has its reflection in an opportunist tactic and action.

The party, therefore, differentiates itself from all the others, whether declared enemies or alleged kindred spirits, and even from those who claim to recruit their followers from the ranks of the working class, because its political praxis rejects the maneuvers, alliances and blocs that are traditionally formed on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties.

This party position has an essentially historical value, which distinguishes it in the tactical domain from all the others, exactly as does its original vision of the period that capitalist society is currently going through.

The revolutionary class party is the only one to understand that the economic, social and political postulates of liberalism and democracy are today anti-historical, illusory and reactionary, and that the world is now in the phase in which, in the large countries, liberal organization is disappearing and giving way to a more modern, fascist system.

By contrast, in the period in which the capitalist class had not yet initiated its liberal cycle, had still to overthrow the old feudal power, or even in some important countries had to go through notable stages and phases of expansion, still laissez-faire as regards economic processes and democratic as regards the State; in these cases a transitory alliance of the communists with these parties was comprehensible and acceptable: in the first case, with parties that were openly revolutionary, anti-legalist and organized for the armed struggle, and in the second, with parties that still played a role assuring useful and genuinely “progressive” conditions, allowing the capitalist regime to speed up the cycle which must lead to its downfall.

This change in communist tactics, which corresponds with the passage from one historical period to another, cannot be reduced to a local and national case study, nor become dissipated in the analysis of the complex uncertainties which the historic evolution of capitalism undoubtedly presents, without resulting in the practice deplored by Lenin in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

The politics of the proletarian party has, above all, been international (and this distinguishes it from all others) ever since its program was formulated for the first time and since the historic need for its effective organization first arose. As the Manifesto states, the communists, who support every revolutionary movement everywhere against the existing social and political order, put forward and assert, alongside the question of property, the common interests of the entire proletariat, who are independent of any nationality.

And the revolutionary strategy of the communists, until it was corrupted by Stalinism, has inspired an international tactic looking to achieve the breakthrough in the bourgeois front in the country where the best opportunities appear, mobilizing all of the resources of the movement to this end.

Consequently the tactic of insurrectionary alliances against the old regimes ends historically with the great event of the Russian revolution, which eliminated the last great state and military apparatus of a non-capitalist character.

After this phase, the possibility, even theoretical, of tactical blocs must be formally and centrally denounced by the international revolutionary movement.

The excessive importance given, during the first years in the life of the Third International, to the application of the Russian tactic in countries with a stable bourgeois regime, as well as to extra-European and colonial countries, was the first manifestation of the re-emergence of the revisionist peril.

The second imperialist war, and its already evident consequences, are characterized by the preponderant influence, extended to all regions of the world, even those where the most backward forms of indigenous society survive, not so much of powerful capitalist economic forms as the inexorable political and military control exercised by the great imperial center of capitalism, for now brought together in a gigantic coalition, which includes the Russian State.

Consequently local tactics can only be aspects of the general revolutionary strategy, which above all must be to restore the programmatic clarity of the global proletarian party, and then to rebuild the network of its organization in each country.

This struggle unfolds within a framework in which the illusions and the seductions of opportunism hold sway to the maximum extent: propaganda in favor of the crusade for liberty against fascism in the ideological domain, and in the practical politics of coalitions, blocs, fusions and illusory demands presented in concert by the leaderships of innumerable parties, groups and movements.

In only one way will it be possible for the proletarian masses to understand the need for the reconstruction of the revolutionary party, substantially different from all others: that is, by proclaiming the historically irrevocable repudiation of the practice of agreements between parties not as a contingent reaction to the opportunistic saturnalia and the acrobatic combinations of politicians, but rather as a fundamental and central directive.

Even in transitory phases, none of the movements that the party participates alongside must be directed by a super-party or by a higher movement standing above a group of affiliated parties.

In the modern historical phase of global politics, the proletarian masses will only be able to mobilize for revolutionary goals by achieving their class unity around a single party that is solid in its theory, in its action, in the preparation for the insurrectionary assault, and in the management of power.

This historical solution must, in any manifestation of the party, even limited, appear to the masses as the only possible alternative to oppose the consolidation of the international economic and political domination of the bourgeoisie and its formidable capacity – not definitive, but today growing ever stronger – to control the contradictions and the convulsions that threaten the existence of its regime.

We have seen in the first parts of this chapter, in what the essence of the Comintern’s new curve-ball from “social-fascism” to “anti-fascism” consisted. The economic crisis which first appeared in New York in 1929 and then spread to all countries had found no other solution after 1934 than the preparation of the second imperialist war. In correspondence with the economic reality that imposed on capitalism the need for the radical solution of war, the communist parties had also to become extreme, having become instruments of counterrevolution and accomplices of the other bourgeois forces, whether they be fascist, socialist or democratic. If previously the communist parties oriented their moves towards an inevitable defeat, now they channel their energies into the outlet of their respective capitalist States.

Just as the theory of social-fascism had no direct bearing on countries not threatened by a fascist attack, and its international character resulted from the fact that Germany – where this tactic was of decisive importance – was at that time the pivot of world capitalist evolution, so did the new anti-fascist tactic have no direct impact on the countries where fascism was firmly established (Germany, Italy), but it was of great importance in France at first, and then in Spain, i.e. in the two countries where not only where the classes there engaged in furious struggle, but where an apparatus for keeping international order was being developed, which was to work to its full capacity during the 1939-45 war.

In the course of this period (1934-38) the particular character of the political evolution in which we are still immersed in becomes apparent for the first time. Contrary to what generally happened in all countries and particularly in 1898-1905 in Russia, when the impetuous strikes generated the affirmation of the class party, the powerful Austrian, French, Belgian and Spanish movements not only did not determine the affirmation of a proletarian and Marxist vanguard, but leave the Italian communist left, which remained faithful to the revolutionary postulates of internationalism against the anti-fascist war and of the destruction of the capitalist State and of the founding of the proletarian dictatorship against the participation or the influence of the State in an anti-fascist direction, in fatal isolation.

Parallel to the success of the maneuver that was supposed to lead the capitalist State to tighten its tentacles on the masses and its movements, we witness the detachment between these movements and the vanguard, if not the total non-existence of the latter. The events confirm in an unequivocal way the thesis masterfully developed by Lenin in “What Is To Be Done?”, that the socialist consciousness cannot be the spontaneous result of the masses and their movements, but is rather the result of the importation in their very core of the class consciousness elaborated by the Marxist vanguard. The fact that this vanguard is unable to influence situations of great social tension, in which huge masses take part in an armed struggle, as was the case in Spain, does not alter in any way the Marxist doctrine, which does not consider that the proletarian class exists because a social and political bloc passes to the armed struggle against the one in power, but it only directs the proletarian class if its objectives and postulates are those of the developing social agitation. In the case where the masses go into struggle for objectives which, not being theirs, can only be those of the capitalist enemy, this social convulsion is but a moment in the confused and antagonistic development of the capitalist historical cycle which – to use an expression of Marx – has not yet matured the material conditions of its negation.

Marxist analysis allows us to understand that if social-fascism was a tactic that was inevitably meant to facilitate and accompany Hitler’s victory in January 1933, the tactic of anti-fascism was even more critically the case, because its objective went far beyond and from falsely siding with the masses in their struggle, still nonetheless explicitly against the capitalist State, it passed, with the tactic of anti-fascism, to advocate the integration of the masses in the core of the anti-fascist capitalist State.

It is not strange that, in the face of such a powerful and formidable capitalist organization comprising democrats, social-democrats, fascists and communist parties, the resistance of the Austrian proletariat in February 1934, which at times took on heroic aspects, was not capable of even putting a dent to the evolution of world events that had been definitively consecrated by the violent degeneration of the Soviet State, which had become, under the leadership of Stalin, an effective instrument of world counterrevolution.

On February 12, when the proletarians of Vienna rebelled, it was the very Christian Dolfuss who had the cannons aimed at the workers’ city of Vienna, the “Karl Marx” district, but behind these cannons stood the Second and Third International. The former had constantly restrained the proletarian reactions against Dolfuss’ plan of corporatist organization, the latter, which had previously excelled in mounting international demonstrations set up on purely artificial bases, let the proletarians be slaughtered and took care not to launch an appeal to the proletarians of all countries to show their solidarity in favor of the Austrian proletariat.

In the first days the organs of the Belgian and French socialist parties try to appropriate the heroism of the Vienna insurgents, but a few days later the synchronization is perfect.

Bauer and Deutsch, the leaders of the Schutzbund (the paramilitary organization of Austrian social-democracy) in a February 18 interview with the organ of Belgian social democracy, “Le Peuple”, stated:

«For many months our comrades had endured provocations of all sorts, always hoping that the government would not push things to the brink so that a final collision could be avoided. But the last provocation, that of Linz, brought the exasperation of our comrades to a boiling point. It is known, in fact, that the Heimwehren had threatened the governorship of Linz with resignation from their functions and with the decapitation of all municipalities with a socialist majority. It is understood that on Monday morning, when the Heimwehren attacked the Linz People’s House at gunpoint, our comrades refused to allow themselves to be disarmed and defended themselves energetically. In consequence, the Central Directorate of the Party could only obey this signal of struggle. That is why it launched the order for the general strike and the mobilization of the “Schutzbund”. This purely proletarian explosion was not at all in the political line of Austrian and international social democracy. They were perfectly aligned on the front of a diplomatic action of the left-wing French government, whose foreign minister Paul Boncour wanted to make the Austrian workers’ movement serve the interests of the French State: this was meant to hinder Hitler’s expansionism and was supported – at that time – even by Mussolini who, in July 1934, when Dolfuss was assassinated by the Nazi Pianezza, made the inconsequential (for Hitler) blunder of sending Italian divisions to the Brenner Pass.

«A few days before the insurrection in Vienna, on February 6, 1934, Paris was the scene of important events. The political scene had for some time been soiled by all the scandalous pornography about collusion between financial adventurers, high State officials and government personnel, particularly those of the left-wing parties. There is no need to point it out: the so-called proletarian parties – the socialist and communist parties – are thrown into this scandalistic fray and the proletarians will be uprooted from the revolutionary struggle against the capitalist regime, to be dragged into the struggle against some financial adventurers and mainly against Stavisky. The right wing of Maurras and Action Française takes the lead in a struggle against the government presided over by the radical Chautemps who, on January 27, gives way to a more pronounced left-wing government headed by Daladier and where Frot, who had until recently been a militant in the SFIO (French Socialist Party, French Section of the Workers’ International), occupied the post of Minister of the Interior. The Prefect of Police Chiappe, also compromised in the Stavisky scandal, was chosen by socialists and communists as a scapegoat, and was dismissed from the Police Prefecture and transferred to the “Comédie Française”. This was the occasion chosen by the Right for a demonstration in front of Parliament where they demanded the resignation of the Daladier government.

«Daladier yields, resigns, in spite of Leon Blum’s advice to resist, and on February 9 two counter-protest demonstrations take place: one called by the Communist Party in the center of Paris where the arrest of Chiappe and the dissolution of the Fascist Leagues are demanded, the other called by the Socialist Party and held in Vincennes where the flag of “defense of the republic threatened by the Fascist uprising” is raised. The memory of the struggle against “social-fascism” was not yet definitively extinguished, but if there are two distinct demonstrations, there is nevertheless a single uniformity: it is no longer a question of affirming the autonomous class positions of the masses, but of directing them towards that modification of the form of the bourgeois State which will be realized only two years later when, following the elections of 1936, we will have the government of the Popular Front under the direction of the head of the SFIO, Leon Blum.

«But immediately after these two separate demonstrations, another united demonstration takes place, that of the CGT with similar slogans to those of the two parades that had preceded it. In effect, through the general strike, it will be demanded that “the sectarian, riot provoking people” be repressed because “the offensive that has been projected for some months against political freedom and democracy has broken out».

The Communist Party, which still held a dominant position in the industrial center of Paris, did not use it to direct operations and allowed the socialists and the CGT to lead the initiative. As for the CGTU, which had long ceased to be a trade union organization capable of organizing the masses for the defense of their partial demands and had become an appendage of the Communist Party, it did not come into the open even when preparing the general strike, which was a complete success.

In the meantime, the socialist-communist grouping and a governmental evolution that became more and more pronounced to the left became more precise.

On July 27, 1934 a pact of unity is signed between the Communist Party and the Socialist Party, on the basis of the following points: a) defense of democratic institutions; b) abandonment of the strike movements in the struggle against the full powers of the government; c) workers’ self-defense on a front that will also include the socialist radicals.

And in the international field the new orientation of the foreign policy of the Russian State is accentuated, which triumphantly enters the League of Nations.

Here is what Ossinsky’s theses of the First Congress of the Communist International in March 1919 say: The revolutionary proletarians of all the countries of the world must wage an implacable war against the idea of Wilson’s League of Nations and protest against the entry of their countries into this League of plunderers, exploiters and counter-revolution.

Here is what fifteen years later, on 2-6-1934, the organ of the Russian Party, Pravda, wrote: «The dialectic of the development of imperialist contradictions has led to the result that the old League of Nations, which was to serve as an instrument for the imperialist subordination of the small independent States and colonial countries, and for the preparation of anti-Soviet intervention, has appeared, in the process of the struggle of the imperialist groups, as the arena where – Litvinov explained this at the recent session of the Executive Central Committee of the Soviet Union – the current interested in the maintenance of peace seems to triumph. Which perhaps explains the profound changes which have taken place in the composition of the League of Nations».

Lenin, when he spoke of the League of Nations as a “society of plunderers”, had already taught us that this institution should serve to maintain “in peace” the predominance of the victorious States sanctioned at Versailles.

But Pravda’s articleswere nothing but rhetoric. In fact Litvinov immediately and radically changed his position. From supporting the German and Italian theses for progressive disarmament, he passed to the open declaration that it was not possible to find a guarantee of security, and he supported the French thesis which, by making the realization of disarmament depend on the proclaimed impossible security, sanctioned the policy of arms development.

At the same time another radical change of course occurred with the Sarre question. The Communist Party, which had previously struggled with the word of the “Red Sarre at the core of a Soviet Germany”, advocates, on the occasion of the plebiscite, the status quo and that is, the maintenance of French control over this region.

Laval, the foreign minister of the Flandin Cabinet, comes up with the plan of isolating Germany. He couldn’t claim this nationalist achievement for himself at the trial where he was condemned to death: but it’s certain that he, a thousand times more and better than his nationalist and chauvinist cronies in the French Resistance, attempted the realization of the defense of the “French homeland” against Hitler. If France has been definitively degraded to the role of a vassal and second-rate power, this is due to the characteristics of the current international evolution, while all the hubbub around the defense of the “land of liberty and revolution” could only have one objective, however, which was fully achieved: the massacre of the French and international proletariat. The Third French Democratic Republic, born under the baptism of the alliance with Bismarck and the extermination of 25,000 communards at Père la Chaise, finds its worthy and macabre epilogue in the Popular Front, solidly based on the radical republican-socialist-communist trinity.

The essential points of Laval’s maneuver to isolate Germany are: 1) The meeting with Mussolini in Rome on January 7, 1935. 2) The meeting with Stalin in Moscow on May 1, 1935.

In the first one, there was an attempt to solve the Italian demands in Ethiopia through compromise, which had to be accepted by the English minister Hoare.

In the second, Poincaré’s move, which was to lead to the Franco-Russian alliance in the war of l9l4-17, will be renewed, and on the occasion of the new Franco-Russian pact Stalin declares that he fully realizes the necessity of the policy of armaments for the defense of France.

On July 14, 1935, at the demonstration of the Bastille to honor the birth of the bourgeois republic, the communist leaders, next to Daladier and the socialist leaders, wear a tricolor scarf; the red flag is united to the tricolor, while against the “fascist danger” Joan of Arc and Victor Hugo, Jules Guesde and Vaillant are evoked, and we go so far as to speak of the “Austerlitz sun” of the Napoleonic victims. We have already said why all this chauvinism was inconclusive and ineffective since France, like Italy, Spain and all the other former powers outside the current Big Three, had to play the role of giving away concessions while being occupied by this or that great power; let us now add that when war broke out in September 1939 between France and Germany, the pact of May 1935 was not applied by Russia.

But all these are secondary questions in the face of the essential which is the class struggle on a national and international scale. And on this class front, the Bastille Manifestation, its precedents and the events that resulted from it were of capital importance not only for the French proletariat but also for the Spanish and international proletariat.

When, in March 1935, Mussolini went on the offensive against the Negus of Ethiopia, everything was ready to unleash an international campaign based on the application of sanctions against “fascist Italy”. A simultaneous action against Mussolini and the Negus was not even to be considered by the socialist and communist parties. Both of them are fighting in defense of the Negus’ feudal regime, which is, at the same time, a magnificent defense of Mussolini’s fascist regime. In fact, Mussolini could not have found better justification for the formation of that atmosphere of national unity favorable to his Ethiopian campaign than in the application of deliberately harmless sanctions.

Leon Blum proposed to the League of Nations, the supreme bulwark of “peace and socialism”, the arbitration of the conflict and wanted to entrust Litvinov, who, at that time, was President in office; after the Laval-Hoare compromise failed, the League of Nations sided, in its overwhelming majority, against Mussolini. Needless to say, the Italian “emigrés” aligned themselves with this action in defense of the Negus and British imperialism: at the Brussels Congress of September 1935, a motion was voted whose sloppy and servile terms show how far – one year after would come the Spanish War and four years after another World War – the masses had already arrived in joining the bourgeois bandwagon. Here is the text: “To Mr. Benes, President of the SdN” [League of Nations]

The Congress of Italians which, in the present circumstances, has had to meet abroad to proclaim its attachment to peace and freedom, bringing together hundreds of delegates of the popular masses of Italy and of Italian emigrés in a single will to fight against the war, from Catholics to liberals, from Republicans to socialists and communists, notes with the greatest satisfaction that the Council of the SdN has clearly separated, in condemning the aggressor, the responsibilities of the fascist government from those of the Italian people; affirms that the war in Africa is the war of Fascism and not that of Italy, that it was unleashed against Europe and Ethiopia without any consultation with the country and in violation not only of the solemn commitments made to the SdN and Ethiopia, but in violation also of the sentiments and true interests of the Italian people; confident of interpreting the authentic thought of the Italian people the Congress declares that it is in the duty of SdN, in the interest of both Italy and Europe, to erect an unbreakable dam to the war and undertakes to support the measures that will be taken by the SdN and the workers’ organizations to impose the immediate cessation of hostilities”.

The Comintern disciplined to the decisions of the SdN. Here was a result from which Mussolini could only be victorious.

In the meantime, the atmosphere was being prepared that would lead to the dispersion of the formidable strikes in France and Belgium and to the crushing of the powerful insurrection of the Spanish proletariat in July 1936, in the imperialist and anti-fascist war.

At the end of 1935, the French Parliament, in a session qualified as “historic” by Blum, was unanimous in its acknowledgment of the defeat of Fascism and of the “reconciliation” of the French people. At the same time, the strikes of Brest and Toulon are attributed, by the same united front of all the “reconciled”, to the action of “provocateurs”; and in January 1936 Sarraut – the same one who in 1927 had stated “communism, here is the enemy” – will benefit from the fact that, for the first time, the communist parliamentary group abstains from voting on the ministerial declaration. The attack against Blum in March 1936 pushes the Communist Party to launch the formula of the fight “against the Hitlerites of France”, a formula that will later be held against it, after the signing of the Russian-German treaty in August 1939.

On March 7, 1936, Hitler denounced the Treaty of Locarno and remilitarized the Rhineland. In the backlash that ensues in the French Chamber, the chauvinist fury displayed is as sensational as it is inconsequential in its international repercussions.

The events forced French capitalism to use the reaction to Hitler’s fait accompli only in the field of domestic politics and the Communist Party excelled in this action: recalling the time when the French legitimists fled France during the revolution, it speaks of the “emigrants of Coblentz, of Valmy”, evokes again “Napoleon’s Austerlitz sun”, and went as far as to make use of the words of Göthe and Nietzsche about “Germany still submerged in the state of barbarism” without hesitating to falsify Marx himself whose phrase “the German resurrection will be announced by the crowing of the French rooster” whose meaning changes in its social and class context of the French proletariat to the national and nationalist camp of France and its bourgeoisie.

Russian diplomacy strengthened the patriotic position of the French Communist Party at the same time that it remained very cautious – as did England – about the response to Hitler’s coup. Litvinov limits himself to declaring that «the USSR would associate itself with the most effective measures against the violation of international commitments” and to explaining that «this attitude of the Soviet Union is determined by the general policy of struggle for peace, for the collective organization of security and the maintenance of one of the instruments of peace: the League of Nations». Molotov is even more cautious, and, in an interview with the “Temps”, says: «We are aware of France’s desire to maintain peace. If the German government were also to testify to its desire for peace and respect for treaties, particularly those concerning the League of Nations, we would consider that, on this basis of the defense of the interests of peace, a Franco-German rapprochement would be desirable».

The leaders of the French Communist Party reasoned in this way: Russia is in danger; to save her we’ll use our capitalism as a shield.

And with the usual shameless demagogic spirit they did not hesitate to support this theory by referring to Lenin’s action; Lenin himself who in 1918, in order to save Russia from the attack of all the capitalist powers, called for the proletarians of every country against the capitalism of their own country in a revolutionary attack aimed at its destruction. The contrast between the two positions is as fundamental as the contrast between revolution and counter-revolution.

It is in this atmosphere of national unity, of reconciliation of all French people, of struggle against the “Hitlerites of France” that the wave of strikes matures, beginning on May 11 at the port of Le Havre and in the aviation workshops of Toulouse. The victories of these two first movements is then combined by the immediate extension of the strike to the Paris region, to Courbevoie and Renault (32,000 workers), on May 14, to the whole Parisian metallurgy on the 29th and 30th. The demands are: the increase of wages, payment for the days of strike, workers’ vacations, collective agreement. The strikes lasted for a long time, extended first to the mining North and then to the whole country, and took on a new aspect: the workers occupied the workshops despite the appeal of the Confederation of Labor, the Socialist and Communist Parties. One appeal reads that they were

resolved to keep the movement within the framework of discipline and tranquility, the trade union organizations declare themselves ready to put an end to the conflict wherever the just working-class demands are met.

But how different were these from the Italian factory occupations, in September 1920! In Paris the red flag and the tricolor wave together, and in the workshops there was only dancing: the atmosphere had nothing of a revolutionary movement. Between the spirit of national unity that animated the strikers and the radical weapon of the occupation of the workshops there was a stark contrast. However, the facts leave no possibility for misunderstanding: both the Confederation of Labor, which had already reabsorbed the CGTU back into it, and the Socialist and Communist Parties had no initiative in these huge strikes. They would have opposed them if this had been possible, and it is only the fact that they have spread to the whole country that imposes on them declarations of hypocritical sympathy for the strikers.

The fact that the bosses are archly disposed to accept the demands of the workers does not determine the end of the movements. A decisive blow is needed. The May elections had given a majority to the left-wing parties and among them to the Socialist Party.

So here we are at the Popular Front: well before the deadline set by parliamentary procedure, Blum’s government was formed on June 4. The Delegation of the Left, the parliamentary body of the Popular Front, in an order of the day, «notes that the workers defend their bread in order and discipline and want to keep to their movement a claiming character from which the Croix-de-Feu (Colonel La Roque’s paramilitary movement) and the other agents of reaction will not succeed in detaching them». Humanité for its part publishes in its headlines that «order will ensure success» and that «those who go outside the law are the bosses, those Hitler’s agents that do not want the reconciliation of the French and push the workers to go on strike».

On the night of June 7 to 8, what will later be called the “Matignon agreements” (the residence of Prime Minister Blum) is signed and it consecrates:
     a) the collective agreement;
     b) the recognition of the right to join a trade union;
     c) the establishment of union delegates in the workshops;
     d) the increase in wages from 7 to 15% (which is then 35% since the work week has been reduced from 48 to 40 hours);
     e) paid vacations. This agreement would have been signed even earlier if in some factories those who were called “reactionaries” had not proceeded to the arrest of some directors.

On June 14, Thorez, the head of the French Communist Party, launched the formula that would make him famous: «We must know how to end a strike as soon as the essential demands have been achieved. It is also necessary to reach a compromise in order not to lose any strength and above all not to facilitate the panic campaign of the reaction».

After two weeks French capitalism succeeds in extinguishing this powerful movement, powerful not because of its class significance, but because of how extensive it was, the importance of the occupational demands, and the extent and degree of the means employed by the workers to achieve success.

The pseudo-proletarian organizations which had had no responsibility in the unleashing of the movement were the very ones who would take it upon themselves to put an end to it. The French Communist Party had to play a role of the first order in stifling any revolutionary possibility which might have had arisen, and it succeeded in doing so to astonishing effect by contemptuously defaming the few workers who tried to make the occupation of the factories converge with a revolutionary approach to the struggle as “Hitlerites”. And in this alone consisted the tactical problem that the French Party had to solve.

Almost simultaneously, strikes broke out in Belgium. They began at the Port of Antwerp and then spread throughout the country. The manifesto immediately launched by the Belgian Workers’ Party is significant: «Port workers, don’t commit suicide. There are people inciting you to stop work. Why? They are demanding a wage increase. We are not saying anything different in this regard at a time when the Belgian Transport Workers Union is discussing its policy of wage increases. And we will not be thrown a curve-ball by irresponsible people. We don’t want to see the same disastrous consequences in Antwerp that occurred after the Dunkirk strike. We have a regulation that must be respected. Those who incite you to strike do not care about the consequences. Port workers, listen to your managers. We know what your wishes are. Onwards with our union! Don’t strike unreasonably. We’ll still discuss things with the bosses today».

Despite a similar appeal from the Trade Union Commission (the equivalent of the Confederation of Labor), on June 14 the Miners’ Congress was forced to accept the situation and gave the order to strike. The day before, the organ of the Socialist Party communicated its agreement with the government decisions to avoid the occupation of the workshops.

On June 22, in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Van Zeeland, who presided over a coalition with the participation of the Socialists, an agreement was signed where the following was established: a) a 10% wage increase; b) 40-hour week for unhealthy industries; c) 6 days of annual vacation.

The Belgian Communist Party uses what little influence it has among the masses to profit from a tactic similar to that followed by the French Party: it blocks the strike along the Workers Party and the Trade Union Commission which monopolize the leadership of the movement. It had no initiative in starting the strikes and all its activity consisted in demanding that the government intervene in favor of the strikes.

As for the results, these were far inferior to those obtained by the French workers. But, in both countries, these union successes, moreover ephemeral, far from signifying a resumption of the autonomous and class struggle of the proletariat, favor the development of the maneuver of the capitalist State which, thanks to the arbitration of conflicts, succeeds in gaining the confidence of the masses and it will use this confidence to tighten the net of its hegemonic control over them.

The sanctioning of State authority in the labor contract represents not a victory but the defeat of the workers. In reality this contract is but an armistice in the class struggle and its application depends on the relations of force between the two classes. The mere fact that State intervention is accepted radically reverses the terms of the problem since the workers thus entrust their defense to the fundamental institution of capitalist rule: the class unions are now replaced class collaborationist unions intertwined with the officials of the Ministry of Labor who control the application of the law.

The French and Belgian strikes precede by just one month the outbreak of social unrest in Spain and the opening of the imperialist war in that country. We will explain the course of these events in the next chapter.

Capitale costante e capitale variabile

Come abbiamo veduto, il denaro anticipato dal capitalista per acquistare i mezzi di produzione (materie prime e strumenti di lavoro: la materie prime sono di doppia specie: alcune ricompaiono nel prodotto, altre spariscono all’atto dell’impiego, come i combustibili, e si dicono ausiliarie; gli strumenti di lavoro, come macchine, impianti, edifizi, sono da considerare per la frazione di logorio che risulta dal loro valore totale e dalla loro durata) ricompare integralmente nel prezzo del prodotto. È perciò che a tale parte del capitale il nome di capitale costante.

Il denaro anticipato invece per salario degli operai, ossia per l’acquisto della forza-lavoro, ricompare nella vendita dei prodotti aumentato del plusvalore e lo chiameremo capitale variabile.

Avevamo riassunto il bilancio dell’operazione capitalistica nelle due formule:

spese: M + S + F (materie prime + logorio strumenti + salari)
entrate: M + S + F + Plusvalore = P (valore dei prodotti)

Avremo: M + S = capitale costante, che indichiamo con c, e v = capitale variabile.

Chiamando K il capitale totale anticipato, p il plusvalore, K’ il capitale ricavato alla fine, avremo:

K = c + v
K’ = c + v + p = K + p

Saggio del plusvalore

Più che conoscere caso per caso la quantità assoluta del plusvalore realizzato dal capitalista, interessa conoscere il rapporto in cui il plusvalore sta col capitale che lo ha prodotto.

È importantissimo rilevare che il capitale che effettivamente è suscettibile di produrre plusvalore è quello anticipato per la forza lavoro, ossia il capitale variabile v. Quanto al capitale costante c esso ricompare integralmente nel prodotto e di per sé stesso non dà luogo a nessun incremento.

È per ciò che volendo definire una quantità la cui misura ci dia l’idea della intensità di produzione di plusvalore, Marx assume come saggio del plusvalore non il rapporto di questo a tutto il capitale, ma il rapporto al solo capitale variabile.

Dunque, indicato con s il saggio del plusvalore,

s = P/v

Nell’esempio quantitativo da noi dato V era F ossia 6 x 3 = 18 Lire. Il plusvalore era 10 x 3 – 6 x 3 = 12 Lire. Il saggio del plusvalore è s = 12:18 = 66%.

Passando ora ad esaminare il tempo di lavoro, e riferendoci per fissare le idee ad una sola giornata di un solo operaio e al numero di ore di cui si compone, che chiameremo t (nell’esempio 10 ore) si definisce una nuova quantità: il lavoro necessario ed il relativo tempo di lavoro necessario. Si intende per tale il tempo o numero d’ore che l’operaio dovrebbe lavorare per trasmettere al prodotto un valore esattamente uguale a quello che gli è stato pagato per la sua forza lavoro. Nel nostro caso l’operaio è stato pagato in ragione di £. 18 ossia 6 ore di lavoro. Se egli lavorasse 6 ore riprodurrebbe esattamente il valore a lui pagato come salario ossia quello equivalente alle sue sussistenze: in tal caso scomparirebbe il plusvalore e con esso la ragione di essere dell’impresa capitalistica.

Ma l’operaio lavora 10 ore in luogo di 6, e noi distinguiamo le 10 ore in 6 di lavoro necessario e 4 che chiameremo di pluslavoro, chiamando questo tempo anche tempo di sopralavoro.

Ripetiamo: tempo di lavoro necessario è quello che basterebbe a riprodurre il valore del salario; tempo di sopralavoro o pluslavoro quello in più che l’operaio lavora e che produce la differenza di valore o plusvalore a beneficio del capitalista.

Se i valori sono proporzionali ai tempi di lavoro in cui vengono prodotti, identificandosi per una giornata il salario al capitale variabile si ha:

tempo di sopra lavoro / tempo di lavoro necessario = plusvalore / capitale variabile o salario

Questi due rapporti si riducono a quello già noto come saggio del plusvalore, da cui il teorema: il pluslavoro diviso per il lavoro necessario dà il saggio del plusvalore.

Nel nostro esempio la proporzione scritta sarà:

4 : 6 = 12 : 18 = saggio del plusvalore 66%.

Legge generale del plusvalore

Tuttavia sarà bene mostrare la cosa in modo più generale. Riepiloghiamo le notazioni; ricordando che ci riferiamo ad un solo operaio e ad una sola giornata di lavoro:

V = capitale variabile o salario giornaliero
P = plusvalore
s = saggio del plusvalore, ossia P diviso V
t = numero delle ore di lavoro
n = ore di lavoro necessarie
e = ore di pluslavoro.

L’operaio trasmette al prodotto il valore totale (fatta astrazione del capitale costante) V + P, lavorando t ore. Adunque in un’ora l’operaio produce il valore:

(V+P)/t = Produzione di valore oraria

Ora vogliamo calcolare il tempo di lavoro necessario n in cui l’operaio produce il valore V. Per definizione in n ore l’operaio produce il valore V: V = n x Produzione di valore oraria. Quindi, sapendo la produzione di valore oraria, basta una divisione:

n = t V / (V+P)

Abbiamo così trovato n. Semplicissimo è il calcolo di e (pluslavoro):

e = t – n = t – t V/(V+P) = (t V +t P – t V)/(V+P) = t P /(V+P)

Il problema era trovare il rapporto tre e (pluslavoro) ed n (lavoro necessario); dividendo l’una per l’altra le rispettive formule, si ha:

e/n = t P /(V+P) ÷ t V /(V+P) = P ÷V = s

resta quindi dimostrata la proporzione fondamentale che qui ripetiamo per chiarezza: il pluslavoro sta al lavoro necessario come il plusvalore sta al capitale salario; questo rapporto comune è il saggio del plusvalore.

Dimostrazione della legge fondamentale

Per dimostrare che il riferire il plusvalore al solo salario e non a tutto il capitale non è una convinzione arbitraria, facciamo l’esempio di una impresa nella quale venga a cambiare la proporzionale del capitale costante col capitale variabile, rimanendo inalterato il valore di scambio o prezzo dei prodotti, quello delle materie prime e strumenti di lavoro, singolarmente, nonché il salario e la giornata di lavoro. Se il prezzo del lavoro finito deve restare lo stesso, rappresentando esso un tempo di lavoro, non dobbiamo immaginare un mutamento nei procedimenti tecnici di produzione: ma noi possiamo scegliere un esempio (probante del resto anche per chi non parte dalla nostra teoria del valore) in cui la impresa venga ad incorporare anche uno stadio precedente della lavorazione, producendo direttamente quanto prima acquistava sul mercato.

Così un’acciaieria che prima acquistava la ghisa per convertirla in acciaio, prenda a lavorate direttamente il minerale di ferro, da cui proviene la ghisa.

È chiaro che il capitalista spenderà meno in materie prime, costando il minerale assai meno della ghisa, e, sebbene ci sia un relativo aumento degli strumenti di lavoro, diminuirà la quota di capitale costante rispetto al totale.

Anche volgarmente si riconosce che il capitalista realizzerà un profitto maggiore, in quanto cumulerà il profitto di due aziende preesistenti. E realizzerà un profitto maggiore anche a parità di capitale totale anticipato poiché, sebbene per ogni chilo di acciaio egli avrà anche l’onere del nuovo impianto producente ghisa, tale onere egli lo pagava anche prima nel prezzo di mercato della ghisa, anzi aumentato del profitto del produttore di ghisa.

In altri termini il capitale anticipato per una operazione lavorativa è sempre compreso nel prezzo di vendita del relativo stock di prodotto, quindi a parità di potenzialità finanziaria il capitalista potrà produrre lo stesso numero se non più di Kg. di acciaio. Ma su tale cifra il suo guadagno è aumentato; e ciò perché il capitale investito per ottenere il Kg. di acciaio contiene ora meno spese per materie prime e più spesa per acquisto di forza lavoro. Dunque è la quantità di capitale salario che, a parità di trattamento dei lavoratori, a parità di condizioni del mercato, varia proporzionalmente al guadagno del capitalista. Se deve quindi riferire il plusvalore alla massa del solo capitale salario e non a quella di tutto il capitale.

E ciò è valido anche socialmente parlando, poiché sulle varie quote di capitale costante vertono altre quote di plusvalore delle lavorazioni precedenti, ammesso che si siano effettuate col meccanismo capitalistico. Il capitale ghisa era, per la parte non rappresentata da minerale di ferro e logorio impianti del venditore di ghisa, già affetto da plusvalore incassato da costui; il capitale minerale di ferro per il capitalista della miniera era affetto da plusvalore tratto dal pluslavoro dei minatori; e analogamente può dirsi per gli impianti meccanici dell’industria dell’acciaio, della ghisa, nella miniera, riuscendo finalmente soddisfacente – al di fuori delle piacevolezze sui pescatori di perle e simili – la nostra spiegazione che, sia qualitativamente che quantitativamente, scopre in ogni valore di scambio un tempo di lavoro, e in ogni profitto un pluslavoro.

Marx avverte di non cadere nel grossolano errore di confondere il saggio del plusvalore col saggio del profitto. L’economia volgare intende per saggio del profitto il rapporto tra i guadagno netto del capitalista (differenza tra le entrate e le spese di un certo periodo, per es., un anno, a condizione che resti inalterato il valore (patrimoniale) di tutti gli impianti e compensata ogni passività) e il valore totale del capitale investito negli impianti aumentato della somma di denaro che deve essere tenuto disponibile per far fronte agli acquisti di materie prime, al pagamento dei salari, ecc.

L’economia volgare distingue anche nel profitto un interesse puramente commerciale da pagare per i capitali investiti, e la ulteriore differenza o profitto vero e proprio dell’imprenditore.

Non è ora il caso di spingere più innanzi il confronto fra tale computo e le calcolazioni da noi seguite. Basti considerare che la considerazione del tempo è assorbita dall’aver noi tenuto presente un intero ciclo lavorativo, ad es.: quello per cui si perviene al Kg. di acciaio. Più aumenta l’intensità nel tempo e l’estensione di tale atto produttivo, più aumenta il guadagno dell’imprenditore e in generale anche il saggio del profitto.

Il saggio del plusvalore dipende invece dal grado di sfruttamento della forza lavoro ed è sempre molto più alto; i facili esempi di Marx mostrano che a saggi di profitto, ad es. del 10-15%, può corrispondere un saggio del plusvalore anche del 100%.

Tuttavia come esercizio di applicazione di quanto precede si potrebbe istituire il calcolo sul profitto in una azienda che si trasformasse nella maniera indicata nell’esempio dell’acciaieria, supponendo cifre concrete per i prezzi e quantità di minerali, ghisa, acciaio, per i salari, le ore di lavoro, le giornate annue di lavoro ecc. (Vedi appendice).

Ripartizione del valore del prodotto in parti proporzionali delle quantità di prodotto o della giornata di lavoro

Abbiamo dato inizialmente l’esempio del prodotto di valore F il quale si componeva del valore di materie prime e strumenti logorati (M + A = C, capitale costante) e del valore generato nella giornata di 10 ore di lavoro. Facevamo corrispondere il valore di scambio di £. 3 ad ogni ora di lavoro; supponiamo ora che il valore C sia di £. 60. Avremmo allora:

F = C + 10 x 3 = 60 + 30 = 90 Lire

Inoltre, delle 30 Lire di valore aggiunte dall’operaio, 18 = 6 x 3 rappresentavano il salario o il capitale variabile, 12 = 4 x 3 rappresentavano il plusvalore.

Supponiamo ora che il prodotto del prezzo di £. 90 pesi Kg. 1.800.

Come abbiamo: 90 = 60 + 18 + 12 Lire possiamo porre: 1.800 = 1.200 + 360 + 240 Kg.

Allora avremmo rappresentato in parti proporzionali del prodotto gli elementi che ne costituiscono il valore.

Kg. 1.200 = £. 60 rappresentano il capitale costante, Kg. 360 = £. 18 rappresentano il capitale salario (o capitale variabile), Kg. 240 = £. 12 rappresentano il plusvalore. Sommando queste ultime due parti, Kg. 600 = Lire 30 = 10 ore di lavoro rappresenterebbero il valore totale prodotto dal lavoro (tanto del lavoro necessario quanto del pluslavoro).

Questa suddivisione è legittima, ma affatto convenzionale, essa non interpreta il processo produttivo in quanto, se è vero che le £. 60 preesistono all’applicazione del lavoro in quanto erano materia prima e macchina, in quanto parte del prodotto, né una Lira, né un grammo se ne può avere senza lavoro.

Abbiamo qui una pura esercitazione convenzionale; bisogna convincersi che di natura ben diversa è la nostra conclusione sulla ripartizione delle Lire 30 di valore in salario e plusvalore; ripartizione data da una legge che si attaglia esattamente ai caratteri tecnici, economici, storici e sociali del fenomeno studiato.

Con esercitazione analoga divideremo non più i chilogrammi 1.800 ma le 10 ore impiegate a produrli in parti proporzionali agli elementi del valore. Come infatti sussiste, a parità d’altre condizioni, la proporzionalità tra quantità di prodotti e loro valori, sussiste quella tra valore del prodotto (quantità) e tempo di lavorazione. In un’ora uscirebbero dalle mani dell’operaio grammi 180 di peso e Lire 9 di valore ossia il decimo di 1.800 e di 90.

Adunque alla ripartizione: 90 = 60 + 18 + 12 Lire, corrisponde l’altra: 10 = 6,66 + 2 + 1.33 ore e decimali di ora (10 h. = 6 h. 40′ + 2 h. + 1 h. 20′). Adunque 6 h. 40′ rappresenterebbero il capitale costante, 2 h. il capitale variabile e 1 h. 20′ il plusvalore.

Questa rappresentazione può venire interpretata in modo capzioso (vedi in Marx “L’ultima ora di Senior”) dicendo che delle 10 ore l’operaio lavora per il capitalista soltanto 1 h. 20′.

Con tale argomentazione si voleva dimostrare che la giornata di 8 ore avrebbe rovinato il capitalista. Tale argomento sarebbe stato uno di più a favore delle 8 ore, ma l’esperienza ha dimostrato che le 8 ore sono perfettamente compatibili con la produzione del plusvalore.

Quell’argomentazione equivale a supporre che l’operaio produca anche le materie prime e gli strumenti, il cui valore rappresenta invece tempi di lavoro preesistenti.

La ripartizione esatta, giusta la nostra teoria, è la seguente:

90 = 60 + 18 + 12 Lire = valore del prodotto.
30 = 20 + 6 + 4 ore di lavoro = valore espresso in tempi di lavoro.
20 ore sono il lavoro contenuto come valore nel capitale costante acquistato dal capitalista,
6 ore di lavoro necessario (pagato),
4 ore il pluslavoro (non pagato).

La riduzione della giornata ad 8 ore non toglierebbe che 2 delle 4 ore di pluslavoro, ammesso che fenomeni concomitanti (aumenti di produttività del lavoro) non riducano parallelamente il tempo di lavoro assorbito dai mezzi di sussistenza ossia il lavoro necessario.

Appendice – Calcolo dell’azienda di cui al prg. 19

Trattazione generale del caso di una azienda che assorba una lavorazione precedente, a dimostrazione della legittimità del riferimento del plusvalore al solo capitale variabile. Si suppone che un’azienda data, ad es. una acciaieria, assorba un’azienda che le vendeva precedentemente le materie prime di cui essa abbisognava (ad es. una miniera di minerale di ferro), dando così origine ad una terza azienda unificata. Per quanto concerne la rappresentazione simbolica, si conviene di utilizzare gli stessi simboli per designare le categorie proprie a ciscuna delle tre imprese, distinguendole tuttavia a mezzo di un apice per l’azienda assorbita e per due apici per l’azienda unificata.

Elenco dei simboli:

A = quota annua degli ammortamenti degli impianti fissi
H = spese annue accessorie
M = costo delle materie prime in un anno
V = spesa annua salari
C = capitale costante
P = plusvalore
F = entrate annue dell’azienda, fatturato

Le spese annue sono: C = A + H + M + V.

Il profitto risulta: P = F – C = F – (A + H + M + V).

Adesso l’attuale azienda ingloba tutta una azienda per una lavorazione precedente delle sue materie prime. Tale azienda produce in un anno esattamente la quantità M occorrente alla prima azienda.

È chiaro che il valore del suo prodotto F’ è lo stesso di M

Il bilancio di questa azienda isolata sarà:

P’ = F’ – C’ = M – C’ = M – (A’ + H’ + M’ + V’)

Poiché il prodotto dell’azienda unificata è uguale a quello della prima azienda, F” = F, il suo bilancio sarà:

P” = F” – C” = F – (A” + H” + M” + V”) = F – (A + H + V + A’ + H’ + M’ + V’) = F – (A + H + M + V – M + A’ + H’ + M’ + V’) = F – (A + H + M + V) + [M – (A’ + H’ + M’ + V’)] = (F – C) + (F’ – C’) = P + P’

Distinguiamo, nei vari casi, per il capitale totale:

K = C + V = F – P
K’ = C’ + V’ = F’ – P’ = M – P’
K” = C” + V” = F” – P” = F – (P + P’) = (F – P) + P’ = K – P’

e per il capitale costante:

C = A + H + M
C’ = A’ + H’ + M’
C” = A” + H” + M” = A + H + A’ + H’ + M’ = C + C’ – M

Ma poiché M = F’ = C’ + V’ + P’, allora

C” = C + C’ – M = C + C’ – (C’ + V’ + P’) = C – (V’ + P’)

Adunque si è verificato, nel passaggio dalla prima alla azienda unificata:
    il capitale costante C è diminuito (di V’ + P’)
    il capitale totale C + V è diminuito (di P’)
    il capitale variabile V è aumentato (di V’).

L’aumento del guadagno o plusvalore, che è passato da P a P” = P + P’, non può dunque che essere effetto del solo capitale che sia aumentato, ossia del capitale variabile. Quindi giustamente prendiamo come saggio del plusvalore il rapporto di esso al solo capitale variabile che lo ha determinato. Se lo mettessimo in rapporto al capitale costante o al capitale totale avremmo l’assurdo di verificare tra i due termini del rapporto una proporzionalità non diretta ma inversa¹.

1. Non si trovi troppo arida questa successione di formulette. Essa vuole essere una dimostrazione della validità della legge generale del plusvalore data da Marx, nella rappresentazione dell’azienda economica di tipo capitalistico. Siamo qui alla fine della Sezione III che stabilisce la definizione di plusvalore. In fine della V e prima di passare alla trattazione dell’accumulazione del capitale, in un capitoletto riassuntivo sulle varie formule del plusvalore, Marx contrappone i due gruppi di formule che caratterizzano la economia classica borghese e la economia marxista (cap. XVI del testo originale).
   Entrambe si fondano sull’ammissione che il valore sia dato dal lavoro. Ma presentato la cosa assai differentemente quando si tratta di rispondere alla domanda: quanta parte della giornata di lavoro l’operaio fa per sé, e quanta per il padrone dell’azienda?
   In entrambi i casi possiamo parlare di lavoro necessario per la prima parte, che è quella retribuita in pieno, e di pluslavoro per la seconda parte (del tempo di lavoro) che è quella il cui equivalente fa a formare il profitto del possessore dell’azienda.
   Secondo l’economista borghese e le formule sono:
   Pluslavoro / Lavoro necessario = Plusvalore / Costo del prodotto
   In altri termini quel rapporto riproduce ciò che la contabilità capitalistica chiama saggio del profitto, utile, dividendo e così via. La stessa frazione la troviamo scrivendo al numeratore il margine di guadagno su una data produzione, ossia l’eccedenza del prezzo realizzato sul costo totale, e al denominatore questo stesso costo.
   Se un’automobile, poniamo, costa tra materie salarii usura macchine etc. etc. centomila, e si vende per 110.000, l’azienda guadagna il 10%. Si pretende allora che l’operaio sia stato sfruttato solo per il 10% del suo tempo di lavoro. Se ha lavorato 11 ore, per dieci ha riavuto l’intero ricavo, e per una sola ora ha lavorato per il capitalista.
   La economia ufficiale moderna colle sue pretese di positiva esattezza ricalca sempre questa tesi e quindi nega la teoria del plusvalore di Marx trattandola come una brillante esercitazione polemica e non come scienza.
   In questa, invece, le formule prendono ben altro andamento e sono (partendo dallo stesso rapporto iniziale):
   Pluslavoro / lavoro necessario = Plusvalore / capitale variabile = Plusvalore / Spesa salari
   Il grado di sfruttamento, ossia la quantità di lavoro non pagato, viene messo in rapporto all’intera spesa, ossia all’intero capitale anticipato, ma alla sola spesa per salari, detta da noi parte variabile del capitale totale.
   La differenza tra le due accezioni è enorme. Quantitativamente, come Marx qui e altrove mostra, comporta che il saggio del plusvalore è molto più alto. Se in quell’automobile si sono spese per salarii, sulle centomila, solo ventimila, il saggio sale dal 10% al 50% essendo dato dal rapporto del profitto di 10.000 al capitale variabile di 20.000. Un terzo della giornata non è pagato. Vi sono esempi, come uno tratto dall’agricoltura inglese dell’epoca, di saggi del 300%.
   Qualitativamente poi la formula dell’economia corrente si presta a mostrare il rapporto tra salariato e capitalista come forma di libera associazione, mentre la legge marxista ne dimostra il fondamentale carattere antagonistico.
   Abbiamo voluto col nostro calcoletto sulla riunione di due aziende dimostrare come la istituzione del rapporto quantitativo tra plusvalore e capitale salario non è un arbitrio di scuola, ma è la sola che può rendere ragione del fenomeno studiato, in quanto quello, che nel singolo ciclo appare come capitale costante nelle mani del proprietario di azienda, non è che il prodotto accumulato di precedenti capitali salarii che hanno dato luogo ad altre precedenti plusvalenze da lavoro non retribuito.
   Il trucco e la tendenziosità sono dunque proprio nella normale presentazione dei bilanci delle aziende produttive (anche non private) accettati come evidenti e fedeli dalla economia accademica e dalla legalità borghese.
   ↩︎

 Camarades, votre chien est-il enragé   ou   non? Peralta 

Non da oggi il trotzkismo è agitato dal­lo sforzo di rivedere alcune delle posi­zioni fondamentali assunte nel corso del suo sviluppo e cristallizzatesi, specie do­po la scomparsa del suo cervello pen­sante, Leone Trotzky, in una specie di or­dinaria amministrazione del patrimonio ideologico e tattico lasciato dal Maestro. Evidentemente, la lezione dei fatti si con­cilia sempre meno con l’armamentario di teorie e di parole d’ordine conservate nell’Arca Santa del Segretariato Internazio­nale; ma la revisione critica che parte dal­la periferia e non dal centro, invece di af­frontare i problemi nel loro complesso e nelle loro necessarie connessioni, investe i problemi ad uno ad uno e, mentre tradi­sce un’inquietudine intellettuale che po­trebbe essere feconda, dimostra anche l’in­capacità ad uscire dal vicolo cieco di una impostazione generale, che fa di quest’ala del movimento proletario un rivoluziona­rismo… evoluzionista.

Accade così che si delineino posizioni an­titetiche, per esempio sul problema russo — attuale pomo della discordia in seno alla IV Internazionale — senza che queste comportino modificazioni nei problemi ge­nerali della tattica; e la fedeltà dei se­guaci di Cannon alla tesi ortodossa del Se­gretariato non esclude la possibilità di una prossima riconciliazione con l’infedele ete­rodossia di Shachtman, così come l’abban­dono da parte dei seguaci di quest’ultimo della tesi secondo la quale l’URSS è uno stato tuttora proletario con l’incidentale disgrazia di essere governato da una bu­rocrazia traditrice (e, come tale, conserva caratteri progressivi ed anticapitalistici, e va difeso dal proletariato internazionale anche con la guerra) non importa affatto l’abbandono delle classiche teorie sul fron­te unico, sul programma transitorio, sull’appoggio ai « governi di sinistra », sulle guerre coloniali ecc, che costituiscono la ca­ratteristica fondamentale del trotzkismo (1).Abbiamo detto che l’epicentro dell’inquie­tudine della periferia trotzkista è il pro­blema russo. Recentemente, la rivista « The New International», che fa capo alla cor­rente Shachtman, ha pubblicato uno stu­dio di F. Forest sulla natura dello Stato russo che è, per quel che ci consta, il pri­mo serio tentativo trotzkista di affrontare il problema sulla base di un’analisi scien­tifica dei rapporti economici e di classe (2). Non   lasciandosi abbagliare    dagli    aspetti formali della gestione economica, non ri­cercando le leggi di sviluppo di una so­cietà nei titoli legali di proprietà ma nei modi di produzione o di realizzazione del plusvalore, l’autore conclude che la legge del valore domina l’economia capitalistica, e che il funzionamento di questa legge « ha portato   alla   polarizzazione   della   ricchez­za, all’alta composizione organica del ca­pitale, all’accumulazione   della   miseria da una parte e del capitale dall’altra. Si ha così una società capitalistica unica,   un’e­conomia   governata   dalle   leggi   del   capi­talismo   mondiale».   Queste   leggi   regola­no   prezzi   e   salari , e   si   esprimono   so­prattutto nel   « dominio del lavoro morto sul lavoro vivo », nella prevalenza del ca­pitale costante sul capitale variabile e per­ciò della produzione dei beni strumentali su quella dei beni di consumo, insomma nel fenomeno   generale   dell’accumulazione crescente   a   spese   della   retribuzione   del lavoro   (3),   coi fenomeni   correlativi   dello stakhanovismo,   dei   bassi   salari   e   dell’e­spansione imperialistica. « Finché la piani­ficazione   è   governata   dalla   necessità   di pagare   il   lavoratore il minimo   necessario per la sua sussistenza e di estrarne il mas­simo di plusvalore allo scopo di mantenere il sistema   produttivo   il più possibile   nei limiti delle leggi del mercato mondiale, dominato a sua volta dalla legge del valore, finché tutto questo avviene i rapporti di produzione capitalistici esistono, qualun­que sia il nome attribuito al regime sociale in questione ». Per chi non si lasci illudere dal « feticismo della proprietà statale », ma guardi alla realtà dei rapporti di produzio­ne e perciò di classe, la società sovietica segue dunque il destino di tutte le società capitalistiche e ne ripete le contraddizioni, le crisi, gli squilibrii; e, poiché — secondo la classica formula di Engels sul capitalismo di stato — li esaspera, riproduce an­che necessariamente, i metodi e le espe­rienze per dominarli.Ne segue che è assurdo parlare di ca­ratteri progressivi di quest’economia, se non nel senso che essa è la realizzazione compiuta del moto generale del regime ca­pitalistico verso la statizzazione: « l’espe­rienza russa ci ha reso concreta la verità fondamentale del marxismo, che in nessuna società contemporanea può esistere un’e­conomia progressiva in nessun significato del termine, e che solo può esserlo un’eco­nomia fondata sulla emancipazione del la­voro». Ne segue anche che va definitiva­mente abbandonata la tattica della « difesa dell’URSS » e tutto ciò ch’essa ha com­portato su scala internazionale nel ritar­dare la ripresa del movimento proletario su basi di classe.E sia, ma, se questo è vero, come giustifica Farrel l’insieme della tattica trotz­kista, che si fonda sulla determinazione de­gli eventuali aspetti progressivi dell’econo­mia e della società borghese, e in funzione di essi orienta le lotte del proletariato nel ginepraio delle diverse fasi « transitorie »? La tattica dell’appoggio ai governi « di si­nistra » o quella del fronte unico non han­no forse radice in una concezione generale del moto di sviluppo della società capita­listica e perciò nell’ammissione che per il proletariato si pongano problemi di « scel­ta » fra l’una e l’altra espressione politica del dominio borghese? Se la pianificazione non è per se stessa progressiva, come si giustifica la campagna trotzkista per le na­zionalizzazioni? In definitiva, se l’esperien­za russa autorizza conclusioni generali non limitate ad essa non è soltanto il « difensi­smo » che crolla, ma crolla l’intermedismo, il transitorismo, l’ideologia che porta il pro­letariato ad accettare posizioni borghesi in vista di realizzazioni transitorie; crolla, in­somma, tutto l’edificio tattico che, agli occhi di militanti della stessa TV Interna­zionale, fa passare quest’ultima per una « ala sinistra dello stalinismo ». O si ha il coraggio di andare fino in fondo ed accet­tare queste conclusioni, o lo sforzo di ri­pensamento è stato vano e cento ragioni ha l’ortodossia di rivendicare la sua supe­riorità sugli eretici. E’ questo « ma » che toglie valore agli  aggiornamenti   critici   di   alcune   ali   trotzkiste (4).Un passo avanti è stato compiuto, e bi­sogna renderne atto, dalla sezione spagnola al Messico della IV Internazionale: e al­ludiamo sopratutto ai due recenti opuscoli di Munis e di Peralta (5) nei quali si esprime, più che una revisione scientifica e storica dell’impostazione del problema russo, la reazione battagliera e la polemica appassionata del militante.Munis ha perfettamente capito l’insoste­nibilità della tesi antimarxista di un regime sociale economicamente progressivo e po­liticamente reazionario, e l’inconsistenza di un’analisi che vede nello stalinismo una specie di bubbone transitorio nato sul tron­co di una base produttiva «socialista »: la sua critica tagliente della pianificazione so­vietica esclude senza possibilità di appello che possa considerarsi « socialista » un’ac­cumulazione allargata fondata sull’appro­priazione di plusvalore da parte di una classe, sulla separazione fra produttore e mezzi di produzione, sulla legge del sala­rio, sulla compressione anziché sullo svi­luppo della coscienza e della cultura dell’operaio: « parlare oggi di pianificazione in Russia è un’ironia sanguinosa per le masse ed una concessione alle tendenze deca­denti del capitalismo mondiale… Quanto alla burocrazia, non si ha il diritto di at­tribuirle i caratteri particolari di una bu­rocrazia operaia, ma quelli di una classe la cui struttura definitiva è in via di cristal­lizzazione e che, per cristallizzarsi comple­tamente, deve soffocare la rivoluzione pro­letaria dovunque essa appare, e integrarsi alle forme decadenti che il capitalismo mon­diale adotterà». L’autore ha anche per­fettamente compreso il ruolo dei partiti operai nel quadro della ricostruzione capi­talistica: « Attraverso le nazionalizzazioni, si intravede già una fase in cui i leaders proletari dirigeranno essi la società, più sfruttata e asservita che mai, per il labirin­to abissale della decadenza… I leaders ope­rai sono sempre più indispensabili per evi­tare la rivoluzione proletaria, lo sfrutta­mento delle masse e la dittatura dei pri­vilegiati non possono sostenersi alla lun­ga che grazie ed essi. La loro vittoria, che necessita almeno di alcune misure di na­zionalizzazione dei mezzi di produzione, rappresenta il punto cruciale nella corsa alla decadenza, con tutta le regressione cul­turale e la decomposizione del proletaria­to, che questo comporta. La forza di punta di questo processo è lo stalinismo ».Quanto a Peralta, la sua polemica con­tro le ambiguità della posizione ufficiale del trotzkismo raggiunge i limiti di una violenza passionale. Non è più ammissi­bile una tattica che, mentre afferma il ca­rattere progressivo dell’economia sovietica, assiste pavida alle spoliazioni, alle anghe­rie, all’evidente contenuto imperialistico dell’espansione russa; non è più tollerabile la tesi che attribuisce allo stalinismo la colpa di aver « intralciato » con una serie di errori lo sviluppo rivoluzionario, quando si assiste al passaggio aperto e perfino vio­lento del nazionalcomunismo alla contro­rivoluzione: è assurdo predicare « la difesa delle misure economiche progressive rea­lizzate nei territori occupati dall’Armata rossa » e nello stesso tempo constatare « la spoliazione delle industrie e dei focolari in Germania, in Austria e in tutti i territori della Europa orientale occupata »; è ri­dicolo patrocinare l’appoggio ai partiti di « sinistra » quando è ormai chiaro che il capitalismo si salva solo a condizione di mandare alla direzione dell’economia e dello stato proprio queste giovani forza a tradizione proletaria; è antistorico pro­porre il fronte unico a partiti ormai « inte­grati nello Stato »: è contraddittorio lanciare nello stesso tempo le parole d’ordine de « la convocazione immediata della Costi­tuente » e dell’istituzione dei Consigli ope­rai e contadini. « Occorre abbandonare senza residui la difesa dell’URSS, a pro­fitto di una politica di lotta senza pietà contro il capitalismo e contro lo stalini­smo suo complice. Per condurre vittorio­samente questa lotta, bisogna svelare ad ogni passo e concretamente il carattere controrivoluzionario della burocrazia russa smascherare la menzogna delle nazionaliz­zazioni e delle riforme agrarie, sviluppare la fraternizzazione fra occupanti e occu­pati, dichiarando apertamente che né gli uni né gli altri hanno più nulla da difen­dere in Russia, ma al contrario hanno tutto da distruggervi allo stesso titolo che in non importa quale stato capitalista, sia che al governo di questo partecipino o no gli agenti del Cremlino ». E infine, basta con una concezione evolutiva della lotta ope­raia, per cui il proletariato deve essere ob­bligatoriamente condotto attraverso una se­rie di esperienze rovinose, per sbarazzarsi di presunte illusioni democratico-borghesi che siamo noi i primi a intrattenere in lui! La revisione del difensismo ha qui por­tato all’abbandono di alcune fra le posi­zioni fondamentali dell’ideologia trotzkista. Ma tanto Munis quanto Peralta puntano ancora sulla carta di un raddrizzamento della IV Internazionale, di un suo cambia­mento di rotta. E sono presi essi stessi nel­la rete dei residuati della loro origine trotz­kista: lo sono quando continuano a parlare di un « fronte unico » nella fabbrica, nella località, nella regione, che ha ormai per­duto i suoi caratteri di fronte unico per diventare agitazione di parole d’ordine immediate; lo sono quando credono di con­trapporre al peso soffocante dei partiti con­trorivoluzionari i consigli « democratica­mente eletti » degli operai e dei contadini, come se, negli attuali rapporti di forza, non fossero destinati ad essere lo specchio fe­dele delle forze politiche dominanti in se­no alla massa operaia; lo sono quando agi­tano come parole d’ordine transitorie la difesa delle « libertà fondamentali », la sca­la mobile, la confisca dei beni capitalistici, dei profitti di guerra, delle fabbriche…E allora? Allora non v’è che augurarsi che questo sforzo di rivedere le proprie posizioni politiche vada oltre i suoi termini attuali e porti i militanti migliori a rico­noscere che, come la socialdemocrazia, co­me lo stalinismo, anche il trotzkismo ha ormai una sua specifica ed inalterabile fun­zione storica, è la retroguardia non di un esercito in ritirata, ma di un esercito scon­fitto. I compagni messicani che hanno avu­to il coraggio di sbarazzarsi di una parte del bagaglio intermedista avranno, speria­mo, la forza e l’« audacia » — per usare un termine a loro caro — di sbarazzarsi anche dell’altro. (1) Da Cannon a Shachtman prendono nome le due ali in cui si è diviso il trotz­kismo americano (Socialist Workers Party e Workers Party) e delle quali si annuncia ora prossima la rifusione.(2)   F. Forest: The Nature of the Rus­sian Economy, nei numeri di dic. 1946 e genn. 1947. Lo stesso A. aveva pubblica­to nel 1942-3 una Analysis of Russian Eco­nomy.(3) Il Piano del 1941 prevede un aumen­to del 6,5 % sui salari per ogni 12 % di aumento nella produttività del lavoro; nel 1940, la produzione di beni strumentali ha assorbito il 61 % della produzione Comples­siva, quello di beni di consumo il 39 %.(4)   Il caso inverso è rappresentato dal gruppo   americano che fa capo   a   Marlen e   che   continua   a   sostenere   la   tesi   del­la Russia « stato operaio degenerato » men­tre   ha   liquidato   tutte   le   posizioni   tatti­che   del   trotzkismo,   ed   è contro l’appog­gio   ai partiti   opportunisti, contro la for­mula del « governo operaio e contadino », contro    la    Costituente    borghese,    contro « l’appoggio alla borghesia coloniale e ogni concessione all’idea che le borghesie colo­niali   possano   combattere   l’imperialismo », contro la teoria del controllo della produ­zione, contro la vecchia impostazione della questione   nazionale,   contro   il   programma transitorio ecc. (cfr. soprattutto il n. 3 di Political   Correspondance   of   the   Workers League for a Revolutionary Party, p. 13 e 14). La fedeltà della teoria dello « Stato ope­raio degenerato » ha condotto Marlen alla stupefacente tesi della « Sham War », per cui il secondo conflitto  mondiale sarebbe stato condotto in realtà non fra i paesi dell’Asse e il blocco democratico, ma fra tutti i paesi capitalistici e l’URSS socialista!(5) G. Munis, Les révolutionnaires devant la Russie et le Stalinisme mondial; Peralta, Le « Manifeste » des Exégètes, entrambi del 1946,   Mexico,   Editorial « Revolucion »