But while the international capitalist economy staggers deeper and deeper into crisis the ruling classes of the Western states maintain ever more strongly that theirs is the only 'real' Europe. In fact Europe as a continent stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals in the Soviet Union. But you would never guess that to judge by the names which the nine bourgeoisies of the 'European' Economic Community give to their institutions. Excluded in particular from the club of true Europeans' are the countries of Eastern Europe that lack the basic qualifications for the EEC a capitalist economy and a state power to defend it against the working class.
This attempt to eliminate the idea that Poland, Hungary and so on are part of "Europe' is not at all accidental. In that capitalist wish to appropriate the name of the continent is expressed the basic class antagonism between the capitalist and the planned economies. Far from getting weaker this conflict grows all the more production agreements have played an enormous to international working class unity, and it will activity.
It will get still more bitter as capitalism staggers from inflation to mass unemployment to falling living standards, and while the planned economies of Eastern Europe-despite all the deformations imposed by their bureaucratic governments-are free from unemployment, continue to expand production while capitalism sinks deeper into slump, and finally carry out a political revolution to remove the Brezhnevs and Husaks of this world. The EEC cannot afford to take note of the countries of Eastern Europe because they are a permanent reminder that an alternative and superior economic system to capitalism is not just a pipe dream but actually exists in the world. This fact is going to weigh more heavily in the scales as capitalism's crisis intensifies.
CAPITALIST CRISIS These basic facts about the economies of the East European countries do not mean of course that they remain unaffected by world inflation and the recession of the capitalist economies.
Any workers' state, bureaucratised or not, would remain, in Lenin's words, 'subordinated to the world capitalist market' in the period before the final overthrow of the decisive centres of capitalist power. This subordination springs from the fact that if the workers states are to hold their own in the global struggle between the two class systems, then they must attempt to utilise the gigantic cooperative productivity of the workers of the capitalist world for the benefit of their own economy.
In other words, they must engage in international trade on the world market or fall behind in utopian attempts to build socialism in an isolated economy-a fantasy of the Stalin period that cost the workers of Eastern Europe dear. And participation in the international division of labour brings with it the inevitable impact of capitalist crisis within the East European countries.
At the same time, the struggle between the two world systems calls for the greatest possible development of the international division of labour within the camp of post-capitalist societies. The obstacle posed by capitalist property relations to sweeping away nation-state boundaries should disappear with the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the ending of national oppression when the working class seizes power.
INTEGRATION Before the Stalinist degeneration of the Communist International, it was regarded as a matter of course that the victorious working classes of the world would freely unite in an international socialist republic. To the revolutionary delegates at the first Congresses of the Comintern, a prolonged period of existence of 'national workers' states' would have seemed an incomprehensible abdndonment of proletarian internationalism.
But the East European organisation of of these delegates. The founder-members of Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Aid)
were the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. Yugoslavia's application was turned down, presumably because it had recently been re-baptised a fascist country after the political break between MosThe first striking feature of this list is the gigantic omission of China. Something is rotten in an international regime which cannot find room for some "mutual economic aid' between the workers of Eastern Europe and China. And more evidence of this gulf between Lenin's found at every gathering of this wretched caricature of proletarian internationalism, the proceedings of which are suffused with the sacredness of the nation, now hailed as a cornerstone of 'communișt' policy.
The bureaucrats of Eastern Europe in session Of course, events of the past thirty years show clearly enough that behind the facade of the family of nations lies the reality of the power of the Kremlin as the decisive force in Eastern Europe. At the very moment that Comecon was ceremonially launched in 194g large resources were being extracted from the Hungarian and Rumanian workers' states in the guise of "war compensation'. In Poland a long-term agreement was imposed that assured Moscow of the delivery of coal at a tenth of world market prices. Of perhaps graver conse quence. was the rigid application of Stalle's law of prioritising heavy industry within each natio-aal economy a poliey that rapidly led to the tantly of the working class ibeff) against bureadcratic recklessness INTERNATIONALISATION Today economic relations between the Com econ countries have changed considerably Workers' revolts in East Germany, Poland and Hungary convinced the Kremlin that in order to preserve the basis of its own power if was necessary to assist the bureaucracles of Eastern Comecon is a far cry from what was in the minds Europe to stabilise theit regimes by Exfending credits and encouraging a certain division of labour within Comecon The Rumanian bureaucracy responded to this tugh by setting out to build its own independent economic and political base, characterised by an extreme nationalism; but in every East European capital the national bureaucracy gained a certain freedom to assert its own national interests within During the 1960s the East European economies were marked by an almost universal decline in growth rates. The remedy required was an intensified division of labour and trade both within Comecon and in relation to the world economy. Far from providing the framework for a solution, however, the principles of Comecon enshrined the bureaucratic vision of a loose association of national economies extending 'mutual aid' to one another. It had been explicitly stated time and again that the aim of Comecon was not to encroach on the national planning prerogatives of each bureaucracy But the productive forces have "laws' of their own that assert themselves relatively independently even of the wishes of 'socialist patriots'. Thus in 1962, when Krushchev suddenly pulled out of a hat the scheme for a supra- necessary than ever the overcoming of the national plan, he was merely giving voice in the stumbling manner characteristic of the bureauthat had been growing in urgency since the Second World War. Although the scheme was quietly dropped, the following years have seen a growing trend towards coordination of national plans principally through the mechanism of agreements between individual member countries. At the same time, faltering steps have been taken in the direction of international specialisation in research and production.
AGREEMENT
Perhaps the most striking example of this is rebellion of the productive forces freost Impon the widely publicised agreement between all the European members of Comecen on spécialisafion in machine tools with numemeal control.
If the optimistic official forecasts are realised, Cas will redace research the by three to five years and save seven million man-hours! Even taking the optimism with a pinch of salt, this Still shows the endless possibilities for a real Internationa planned economy. Nevertheless SUCh a asteemen! 1 still striking in its rareness and the International flow of technology has recently been considerabiy hindered by the national commercialisation of 'know-how'.
For more than a decade now, East-West rate than infra-Comecon trade. The shares of the ever, that unification will never be brought two types of trade are now almost even in the Polish, Hungarian and Rumanian economies. In relation to their size Western Imports and joint role in industrial development.
At the same time, it is precisely in this crucial sphere of relations with the capitalist country makes its own decisions on the struc ture and volume of Western imports, often as an empirical response to shortages that have developed in the past period. Fluctuations on the world market have an extremely uneven impact on the different economies-for example, the 1973/74 boom in raw material prices greatly strengthened the position of the Soviet Union, whilst exerting a considerable inflationary pressure on the Hungarian and Polish economies.
BUREAUCRACY
At every step the further development of Comecon runs up against the barriers of bureaucratic power. The western capitalist crisis makes more national obstacles to a federated socialist republic embracing all the post-capitalist societies cracy to the objective necessities of development However the repressive role of the Soviet bureaucracy means that any measure of political inte gration is viewed by the masses of Hungary, Rumania or the other East European countries with understandable suspicion. It is seen as a reinforcement of the power of the Kremlin bureaucrats who want 'internationalism' of the type already demonstrated by the crushing of the developing political revolution in Hungary and Czechoslovakia with the tanks of the Soviet The hatred of the East European workers is perfectly understood in Moscow, and it is highly unlikely that Brezhnev or his successor will every try to overcome the contradictions by a forcible integration. For their part, the bureaucratic leaders of Eastern Europe know that their own power rests on their ability to balance, between Moscow and the masses they rule. The nation state, with its petty-bourgeois mystique of the national leader', is as important to the stability of the East European bureaucratic regimes as is the 'friendship' with the Soviet Union UNIFICATION The unification of the workers states of Europe and Asia would be a gigantic step for trade has been expanding at a considerably faster ward in the struggle for world socialism. How about by bureaucratic combinations or annexations. On the contrary, it is the Kremlin bureaucracy that represents the greatest single obstacle only be with the revolutionary overthrow of that bureaucracy that the path will be opened towards political integration.
red weekly 15 may 1975