ADOLFO OLAECHEA

THE

VALUABLE ADMISSIONS OF

PROFESSOR MILIBAND

(Part One)

NOTE: The first part of this document was written in 1986 when, as members of the London Supporters Committee for the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, a Maoist grouping from which Committee Sol Peru later arose, we first ventured out to garner solidarity for the Peruvian revolution in Britain. The second part, was written in 1994, shortly after the death of Professor Miliband:

INTRODUCING A FAMOUS WHITE RABBIT

Professor Ralph Miliband has been billed in Britain as 'our foremost Marxist political theorist'. His works, such as 'The State in Capitalist Society', 'Parliamentary Socialism', 'Capitalist Democracy in Britain', 'Class Power and State Power', 'Marxism and Politics', etc., run into thousands of pages. According to his editors, these 'are standard reference points in all debates on the nature of the state', and 'confirm his status as one of the most important contemporary Marxist thinkers'.

Miliband's editors also inform us that: 'He taught for many years at the London School of Economics and was professor of politics at Leads University from 1972 to 1978.......He now lives in London and spends part of the year at Brandeis University, Massachussetts, as professor of Sociology'. Quite an impressive curriculum we must say.

GANDALF SUMMONS THE HOBBIES TO BATTLE

Professor Miliband had come to our attention on Monday the 5th of August, 1985, when we read a very interesting article of his in the British paper The Guardian. The title was: 'A Road To Take The Left Inside Labour'.

Given the evident crisis affecting the left, with dogmatism tearing it asunder, sectarianism and splits, lack of genuine new ideas, and a pervading doctrinaire malaise divorcing particularly the 'Marxist Left' from the working and democratic people, Miliband's article seemed fresh and most interesting.

In his article, Miliband proposed that '....a separate organisation from the Labour party is needed in the labour movement, namely a socialist party'. A position that he claimed 'I have thought (of) and said so, for a long time'.

Professor Miliband went on: 'What is needed, and has been needed for many years, is a socialist party that would bring together a lot of different people, with many different concerns and passions, men and women, young and old, black and white, blue collar workers, white collar workers, and many others, who would be working in an organisation that was open, democratic and no doubt disputatious, totally committed to the struggle against capitalism, sexism, and racism, and to the struggle against the global counter- revolutionary crusade conducted by the US and its allies'.

Such a political movement would be sensitive to 'the immense technological, economic and social changes which occur in the world'.....'without surrendering any of its fundamental principles, and would state these principles and its application in a language that was fresh and accessible'.

Such a party would not be 'absorbed into electoralism and parliamentarianism and it would, of course, be deeply involved in the class struggle on the shop floor and also beyond it'..... 'It would have respect for the demands of women, blacks, peace activists, ecologists and others in progressive movements'. It would 'work with them ......without ever trying to colonise or use them'.

Such an organisation must be, proffers Miliband, 'very conscious of one paramount fact: Whereas there are millions and millions of people who want a better deal under capitalism, there are not enough of us who want to go beyond capitalism.....' and that the task of socialists is 'to increase their number by word and by struggle'.

He concluded with these profound words: 'What must sustain socialists, apart from the justness of their cause, is not that socialist change is imminent, but that it is possible and that it is inscribed in the actual, concrete circumstances of late capitalism'.

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

We regard ourselves as just one of the many schools of thought, one of the many strands of opinion within this human sea that is the proletariat. Our aim is to uphold, defend and apply the essential ideas that summarise the three great stages of development of the ideology that has guided the concrete revolutionary experiences of the proletariat in the past 150 years - in our own understanding: Marxism, today Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Therefore, could we ignore such a timely call?. Would not Miliband's proposal if implemented, and given the concrete conditions, be of service to the people?

Could we also be dogmatic and sectarian and fail to recognise that in the necessary undertaking of the proletariat to emancipate itself, a revolutionary's duty lies in contributing the utmost to the forwarding of developments that can provide a framework for the class in which to forge the tools for its own liberation?.

Certainly not. No one can claim the Philosophal Stone, or any divine right to lead the whole of this process. After all, what Miliband proposed was a common undertaking, and leadership in a common undertaking can be only won by actual service to the class and the revolution.

Therefore we wrote to Professor Miliband requesting a meeting to exchange ideas. We expressed our belief that his call was most timely and necessary.

We also included for his consideration information and documents relating to the revolutionary situation in Peru, where Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is currently leading the revolutionary struggle in armed conflict against the power of capital, imperialism and reaction: a People's War aimed at the seizure of power for the proletariat and the people, for the completion of the democratic stage of the revolution and its transition to the socialist revolution and for marching forward to the classless society.

A QUEST BEGAN WITH HIGH HOPES

We took this step after acquainting ourselves with Miliband's vast theoretical works and finding in them grounds to believe that he understood the particular conditions of semi- feudalism and semi-colonialism that compel the revolutionaries of similar countries of the Third World to follow a specific strategy for the achievement of their aims.

In his work 'Marxism and Politics' Miliband had written: 'The position is in many ways rather better in regards to the politics of the different countries which are arbitrarily subsumed under the label 'Third World'. But here too, it would appear to the non-specialist that, as far as political analysis is concerned, no more than some paths have been cleared, and that the main work of theorising the known practice remains to be undertaken, and it is only in the undertaking of it that it will be possible to discover which theoretical categories of Marxism are relevant to the experience in question, which need to be modified, and which should be discarded'.

Also, in page 29 of the same book we read: 'The development of these countries has been exceedingly distorted by colonialism and external capitalist domination, direct and indirect; and this has naturally reflected in their economic, social and political structures. But this also means that Marxism, primarily fashioned in and for a bourgeois/capitalist context has, to say the least, to be adapted to the very different circumstances subsumed under the notion of "underdevelopment"'.

Moreover, Miliband also appear to understand that: 'One of these different circumstances is that in a large number of these countries, there has existed no strong indigenous class of large-scale capitalists, since the major industrial, extractive, financial and commercial enterprises are likely to be mainly owned and controlled by foreign interests. The indigenous capitalist class has often tended to be economically rooted in medium and small-scale enterprise, and partially dependent upon the foreign interests implanted in the country. Correspondingly, the working class is relatively small, compared with the population of the countryside, and concentrated on the one hand in a number of large enterprises and dispersed on the other in a multitude of small ones'.........'In effect, the mass of the working population is of peasant character, and the main 'relations of production' in these countries tend to be between landlord and peasant in a multitude of different patterns and connections. But this also means that class conflicts in these economies occur on a very different basis and assume a very different form from those encountered in advanced capitalist countries. This does not mean that Marxist 'guidelines' are inoperative in the analysis of these conflicts. But it does very strongly emphasise the danger of a simple transposition of the Marxist mode of analysis of advanced capitalist societies to countries whose capitalism is of a very different nature'.

SOME AWKWARD RIDDLES

In his work 'The State in Capitalist Society', Miliband had written: 'Whether existing communist parties can ever turn themselves into agencies appropriate to a new socialist politics is a matter of conjecture'.

In Peru there is today an undeniable revolutionary situation; there is also a Communist Party (dubbed 'The Shining Path' by the bourgeois press) leading this revolutionary transformation of society precisely because it has analyzed concretely the specific problems of the country.

This Communist Party has grasped well the facts described by Miliband's previous quotations and it is advancing in its liberating tasks. Surely this could be regarded as a clear example of a Communist Party turning itself into an appropriate agency for a 'new socialist politics', thus providing the answer to Miliband's 'conjecture'. In any case, even from an 'non-specialist' point of view such as Miliband's, the Peruvian situation certainly merits attention.

We note that Professor Miliband has rightly upheld Lenin's teaching that: 'Without revolutionary theory there cannot be revolution'. Surely such a theory must of necessity nourish itself from all concrete new elements arising in the world. Otherwise, such a theory would not be universal or consistent, revolutionary or even truthful. It would fall short of - and therefore lack - the very virtue with which Lenin characterised Marxism: 'The teaching of Marx is all powerful because it is true. It is complete and harmonious, providing men with a consistent view of the universe, which cannot be reconciled with any superstition, any reaction, any defence of bourgeois oppression'. (The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, V.I. Lenin 1913 V.19)

THREE IMPOSSIBLE THINGS BEFORE BREAKFAST

Today, the facts about the events unfolding in Peru are being distorted, suppressed, minimised and hidden away by the imperialist bourgeoisie and by the opportunist left in equal measure.

However, people have heard news about massacres, battles, black-outs, mass graves, prison massacres, waves of strikes, riots, rampant corruption and state sponsored drug dealing on a gigantic scale. They have read about counter-insurgency operations, strategic hamlets, states of emergency and also of elections and armed electoral boycotts.

Moreover, they have been told that a 'left wing socialist' government has come into office; that 'communists' enjoy large parliamentary representation, control many municipal councils, etc. They have also heard that all this 'progressive advance' is endangered, frustrated and overshadowed by an 'obscure' organisation with a fancy name, 'The Shining Path'. An organisation described as ruthless, murderous terrorists, a freak phenomenon of 'Indigenous ideologists' with Pol-pot like ideas, dogmatic, sectarian, and intractable.

Curiously, this image comes from such different sources as the U.S. magazines Time and Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Herald Tribune and others. It also comes from French sources such as Le Nouvel Observateur, Le Monde, Liberation, L'Humanite - the organ of the French CP - as well as British, German, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, etc.

Here in Britain, a consensus exists on this issue ranging from The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph to 'socialist' sources such as The Morning Star, The New Statesman, City Limits, the Trotskyist Press, etc.

Anyone would have thought that such unanimity, from Murdoch to Tariq Ali and beyond, should have set alarm bells ringing among our 'Marxist specialists'. After all, the 'Shining Path', although people from 'darkest Peru', were a part of the known universe and hardly non-human invaders from outer space against whom all classes could unite in defence of humanity's home.

Therefore, either 'absolute truth above class' had been arrived at - uniting all schools of thought and bringing the historical and political process to its ultimate end and thus dispensing with the need for Marxist theoreticians of all sorts - or the facts (stubborn facts) would be a little different indeed. In any case, a bit of class analysis should of necessity be undertaken by our 'non-specialist', our generalist Marxists.

A WORD ON VACANT POSSESSIONS ONCE BEYOND THE BORDERLANDS

Peru is a country of 23 million people and the cradle of a very old indigenous civilization. The country was colonised by Spain since 1524 and became the administrative, intellectual and economic hub of Spain's South American empire. Peru achieved its independence in 1824 after the capitulation of the Viceroy's Armies at Ayacucho before the coalition of independence armies of Argentina and Colombia led by Simon Bolivar and with the participation of detachments of Peruvian and other South American rebels.

British imperialism also played a part in the defeat of Spain with the aim of stepping up their own imperialist penetration. This they managed to do. In Peru, for example, British monopoly capital dominated the country until displaced by US imperialism in the first decades of the XX Century. (Referring to the battle of Ayacucho, George Canning, the British Prime Minister at the time, wrote: 'The deed has been done, Spanish America is now free and if we play our cards right it will be ours'. Obviously, 'a free Latin America' meant simply 'vacant possession' for British imperialism).

Therefore, this independence was more formal than real since, in the era of imperialism, no true modern nation in the bourgeois sense did arise, despite the introduction of bourgeois democratic institutions. Feudalism remained intact or basically unchanged in the 'relations of production'. The weakness of the 'indigenous capitalist class' coupled with British, French and American imperialist political, military and economic action in support of the old feudal structures.

Backing different factions of the land owning and mercantile classes (feudalists and comprador bourgeois) in their struggles for supremacy following and even preceding independence, the imperialists positioned themselves into even more domination of the political and economic life of such countries. They accumulated mineral, oil and commercial concessions, forced un-equal treaties, peddled shyster loans, milked the weakling former colonial state with usurious bond and share issues, etc., tried and tested methods of imperialism in the Third World and elsewhere. This imperialist process made the survival of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition under which Peruvian history continues to develop completely inevitable.

Miliband himself notes: 'There has existed no strong indigenous class of large-scale capitalists, since the major industrial, extractive, financial and commercial enterprises are likely to be mainly controlled by foreign interests'.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS, SAID THE QUEEN OF HEARTS

In relation to the semi-feudal condition, Miliband also notes: 'The mass of the working population is of peasant character and the main 'relations of production' in these countries tend to be between landlord and peasant in a multitude of different patterns and connections'. That is, that although such countries may be bourgeois democracies in theory, and in juridical and political form, in essence, in reality, they are semi-feudal in character.

In Miliband's own words: 'The development of these countries has been exceedingly distorted by colonialism and external capitalist domination, direct and indirect, and this has naturally reflected in their economic, social and political, structures'. That is, Peru, like all similar countries, remains in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal condition. Formally independent and democratic bourgeois, but in reality, fettered by 'external capitalist domination', i.e. imperialism. A country ruled by a joint dictatorship of landowners, comprador and bureaucratic bourgeois relying on the economic, military and ideological backing of imperialism to maintain their rule over the mass of the people.

In Marxist terms, therefore, and in order to become effectively independent and true nations in the 'bourgeois sense of the word', the necessary precondition for any meaningful socialist advance, such countries need an anti-feudal and anti-colonial revolution, i.e., a national democratic revolution. In today's world, that means a peasant war led by the proletariat, a national and social war of liberation against semi-feudalism and imperialist oppression.

BOLDLY INTO THE IMPERIALIST MAZE

However, Professor Miliband does indeed go further. In his work 'The State in Capitalist Society' - page 15 - in describing the growing process of capitalist internationalisation, he says: 'But advanced capitalism is also international in another more traditional sense, namely in that large-scale capitalist enterprise is deeply implanted in the under- industrialised areas of the world. The achievement of formal political independence by these vast zones of exploitation, together with the revolutionary stirrings in many of them, have made the preservation and the extension of these capitalist interests more expensive and more precarious than in the past. But for the present, this Western stake in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, remains very large indeed, weighs very deeply upon the foreign policies of capitalist states, and is in fact one of the dominant elements, if not the dominant element, of present-day international relations'. (The underlining of the word extension is ours).

Here we have an indication that Miliband grasps well an important element in understanding the Peruvian situation. That in these countries, we have a process of capitalist development, of 'capitalist extension'. However, this is a process of development and extension of a kind of capitalism that, far from being 'indigenous', is in fact indentured by a feudal and tributary relationship with international finance capitalism, with imperialism, in Peru's specific case US imperialism. The Peruvian big bourgeoisie, as do all Third World ruling classes, directly depends upon finance capital for its capitalist development and expansion. It is a bourgeoisie with a symbiotic relationship and a parasitic dependence on imperialist capital - in other words, a big bourgeoisie with bureaucratic-comprador features exists in Peru.

Miliband gives us a farther element of fundamental importance to grasp the essence of the social process in Peru. In his work 'Marxism and Politics', he says: 'The first and most obvious feature of the state in both "Third World" and communist societies is a very pronounced inflation of the state and executive power'.

A STRICTLY SCIENTIFIC FORMULA

Here we must query Professor Miliband's characterisation as communist societies of countries that have undergone some degree or another of socialist transformation in the past. Professor Miliband, as a Marxist, would surely agree that in strict scientific terms there are not, and there cannot be within the era of class society, within the era of monopoly capital, 'communist societies'. That these are merely societies undergoing different stages in the building of socialism undertaken under specific and transitional forms of the 'state' in which the proletarian dictatorship is exercised, or can be exercised.

That only when socialism is completely or sufficiently built-up for the necessity for states and class dictatorships of any kind to be dispensed with, when class society has actually disappeared from the earth, it would be possible to speak of a 'communist society'.

OUR RABBIT MAKES A USEFUL OBSERVATION

However, Miliband's observation is useful in describing the common feature of the forms of dictatorship exercised in Third World societies and in those that have undergone socialist transformation. These dictatorships are authoritarian in character, they concentrate power in the executive functions and substitute, dispense with, or subordinate to practical expediency, the 'bourgeois democratic' niceties, parliaments, constitutions, bills of rights, etc. These are substituted either by real and tangible freedoms for the working and oppressed people as in socialist societies, or alternatively, open terrorist dictatorship of the ruling classes, as in the case of the Third World ones.

At this stage, and since it is not the purpose of this article, we shall not enter into the argument of whether or not, after the evident restoration of capitalist relations in the 'socialist world' culminating with the overturning of Maoist leadership in China, such societies should today be deemed as 'socialist' or even more unlikely 'communist'. However, from a Marxist theoretical point of view and in the case of societies undergoing socialist transformation, it should hardly be necessary to justify this 'authoritarianism'. As Marx once underlined in reference to the 'state form' that arose from the Paris Commune: "....there is nothing more authoritarian than an authentic people's revolution".

But leaving aside the question of the actual class nature and content that one or the other type of dictatorship may have, what Miliband observes is true. These are authoritarian societies with 'a very pronounced inflation (or strengthening) of the state and of executive power'.

(Moreover, Professor Miliband should also surely admit that this authoritarian feature is also apparent in another form of capitalist dictatorship that has certainly held sway in some of the big imperialists countries during certain historical periods: Fascist dictatorship. This concentration of power in the executive functions - and 'inflation' of the state - also features in varying degrees in Bonaparte style regimes (De Gaulle's for example), and during times of national emergencies in typically bourgeois parliamentary democracies, Britain's War Cabinets, for example. In fact, this authoritarianism is a growing historical tendency in all kinds of societies and constitutes a specific feature of the imperialist era. This only goes to prove Marxism's contention that as the contradictions in society develop in time, they become more acute, necessitating a greater and more efficient use of the instruments of the class struggle, namely, the state, its bureaucratic, military and repressive organs. This is a general law that applies for the bourgeoisie as well as for the proletariat, although in very distinct and specific manners, and of course, state forms.).

INTO THE DARK REALMS OF BUREAUCRATIC CAPITALISM

However, Miliband continues: 'In the case of "Third World" societies, this inflation (of the state) occurs because social groups which would have an interest in limiting and controlling the power of the state do not have the power or the will to do so; while dominant classes and groups, where they do exist, find it to their advantage to have a strong and repressive state to act on their behalf'. In other words, Miliband exposes the sham character of bourgeois democracy in the Third World.

Moreover, Miliband also perceives the following facts about the state in countries like Peru: 'The answer is that, in such societies, the state must be taken to "represent" itself, in the sense that those people who occupy the leading positions in the state system will use their power inter alia, to advance their own economic interests and the economic interests of their families, friends and followers or clients. A process of enrichment occurs which assumes a great number of forms and leads to a proliferation of diverse economic ventures and activities'. Here we may only add that this characterises a bureaucratic wing of the big bourgeoisie - the bureaucratic bourgeoisie - whose interests are umbilically linked to 'representing themselves' in the control of the state as a lever for their class enrichment.

Miliband also points out that: 'In this process a genuine local bourgeoisie may come into existence and grow strong'.

MASTERS OF THE DARK KINGDOM OF MORDOR

We can certainly agree that a bureaucratic-capitalist wing of the big bourgeoisie does indeed arise as part of a 'local bourgeoisie' and does indeed grow strong - i.e., becomes a genuinely big bourgeoisie. But equally local and big, is the comprador wing of the bourgeoisie residing in these countries. However, both wings, or sections, of the big bourgeoisie of Third World countries can only be 'genuinely local' only in a geographical residential sense. Never can these classes be regarded as a national bourgeoisie in any real or Marxist sense.

Their whole condition for existence is, and remains, dependent on, and subservient to, the imperialist interests that control, in Miliband's own words: 'the major industrial, extractive, financial and commercial enterprises' of such countries.

Yes, such bureaucratic bourgeoisie may grow 'strong'. Strong enough to exploit the people in a more merciless and direct manner than the old colonial elites or even the comprador bourgeois do. In fact, it is precisely its character as a bureaucratic bourgeoisie, its use of the state apparatus as a means of enrichment, that makes them politically even closer to the feudal landowners than the mercantile or comprador wing of the big bourgeoisie of Third World countries actually is: economically, their manner of appropriation rather resembles tithes and other feudal taxes and exactions. They regard the whole country as one big flock of sheep to be mercilessly fleeced.

UNDER A FLAG OF CONVENIENCE

The bureaucratic bourgeoisie is less cosmopolitan in outlook than the comprador or mercantile wing. But this merely in the sense that, being umbilically linked to the 'national state' they do a bit of chauvinistic flag waving and make superficially 'patriotic' noises. That is nothing but a form of 'corporate loyalty' to the 'milch-cow' that sustains their own parasitic existence.

This bureaucratic bourgeoisie enters the fullness of its class development precisely by bringing under the control of the state a good number of foreign enterprises, particularly the old 'concessions' which, as survivals of old colonial un-equal and humiliating practices, from the point of view of sound profits, needlessly offend in various ways the national pride of the people of such countries. This, however, they do by means of 'nationalisation' with payment in cash or in kind, negotiating the financing of such deals behind a curtain of demagogic 'patriotism', directly with finance capitalism, with imperialism.

The end result of all this 'national revolution' is an exponential increase in the foreign indebtedness of the state, forcing the concession of ever growing prerogatives for foreign investment and increasing the 'feudal' relationship of the new 'nationalised' enterprises directly upon finance capital. In this manner, the relationship with the imperialist masters assumes a directly tributary character unthinkable even under the old semi-colonial conditions.

Simultaneously, among the acts of 'patriotism' and 'nationalisations' that such a bureaucratic bourgeoisie undertakes is, of course, at one stage, the purchase in exchange for capital of the landed states by state corporations or 'state cooperatives'. This they achieve by means of so called 'agrarian reforms'. This is an essential step in the accumulation of bureaucratic capital, as we shall see: At another stage, and having 'ruined agriculture' by milking the land several times by means of state spoliation and administrative pilfering, this is followed by the introduction of 'capitalist' market mechanisms in agriculture in order to 'improve agriculture and economic conditions'. New 'reforms' are introduced, allowing the private sale of state land assets ('cooperatives' included) to themselves and to their partners, the former landowners already turned into 'industrial capitalists' on the proceeds of the capital paid in compensation for the land formerly 'nationalised'.

All this, having driven agriculture to ruin, they achieve at advantageous prices, re- monopolising the land in private hands -privatising it - and infusing their 'kulak' economy with even more pronounced feudal relationships in the countryside. This strengthens its symbiotic relationship with semi-feudalism at the political, military and economic level and ties this class ever more closely to the land owners.

THE JOLLY ROGER OF BUREAUCRATIC 'SOCIALISM'

Therefore, this bureaucratic bourgeoisie, and bureaucratic-capitalism itself, is in fact a more reactionary and fascist development of the big bourgeoisie of the Third World. (Such was in fact the path of development followed by bureaucratic capitalism in Peru - there the 'left wing military regime' of Velasco and Morales Bermudez (1968-80) - in fact a fascist regime hailed as progressive by 'Leftist' quarters in Britain and other countries - did precisely that. The 'Left-wing' president Alan García, another representative of the same bureaucratic capitalist regime, is carrying out stage two of this policy, thus further developing the semi- feudal condition, strengthening imperialist domination and sinking the people in growing misery. Other Third World countries, both under the label of 'socialists' and the general description of 'capitalist regimes', are following a similar path).

A TWAIN THAT NEVER SHALL MEET

We are sure Professor Miliband will also now admit that such bureaucratic bourgeoisie can never grow strong in relation to imperialism, and even less in opposition to it. In fact, their dependency upon imperialism is even more marked and sustained by myriad links, principally financial backing for the bureaucratic apparatus and for the equipment, training and pay of the armed forces, the backbone of the bureaucratic capitalist state.

A true National bourgeoisie could never arise from bureaucratic capitalist greed, their out and out sale of the nation's assets - the state's assets which 'they represent themselves' in appropriating; in other words, it is the peoples' assets that this section of the big bourgeoisie particularly specialises in directly plundering!.

Moreover, imperialist domination of countries such as Peru, when coupled with the 'process of enrichment' of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, can only deepen due to two important factors:

Firstly, that the enrichment of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie is accomplished directly out of the people's livelihood and in a most parasitic manner, increasing exponentially the impoverishment of the masses. And secondly, that such a process leads directly to a substantial increase in 'revolutionary stirrings' which in turn contribute to compel even more urgently the big bourgeoisie to follow the path of short term robber baron spoliation of those countries resources and implement fascist dictatorship to protect their landed investments.

Both, comprador and bureaucratic big bourgeois usually take, as a matter of course and in varying degrees, the bulk of their ill gotten gains to safe havens in foreign monopoly capitalist banks - in fact, they even do a large portion of their consumer shopping abroad and in a regular basis - thus increasing the power and wealth of international finance while further depleting the national capital of Third World countries such as Peru.

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

Miliband continues (confirming our above comments): 'In such cases the relation between economic and political power has been inverted: it is not economic power which results in the wielding of political power and influence and which shapes political decision making. It is rather political power (which also means here administrative and military power) which creates the possibilities of enrichment and which provides the basis for the formation of an economically powerful class, which may in due course become an economically dominant one. The state is here the source of economic power as well as an instrument of it: state power is a 'major means of production'.

In our opinion, this formulation suffers from over elaboration and a penchant for fascinating the reader with an egg and hen description of a process that arises in collusion and contention. A process that is a direct consequence of the interaction of political power and wealth in the framework of the definite capitalist relations of production existing is such societies - which, as we have seen above, are semi-feudal and semi-colonial in character.

However, Miliband's sociological observations are indeed very valuable, and from the whole picture painted by him, flows our theoretical definition of the state in countries like Peru as: The joint dictatorship of the reactionary classes: big bourgeoisie - comprador (or mercantile) and bureaucratic - and feudal landowners under the wing of foreign imperialist - monopoly capital (finance capital) - domination, in the specific case of Peru, principally US imperialist capital.

Professor Miliband also points out: 'These societies are poorly articulated in economic and social terms, and therefore in political terms as well. They are in fact depoliticized...... with the state itself, often under military rule, assuming a monopoly of political, activities through parties and other groupings which are seldom more than bureaucratic shells with very little substance'.

This perfectly sums-up the politics of the Peruvian state: its much trumpeted democracy, its spurious left wing and socialist government and its counterfeit massive communist parliamentary representations.

We are talking here of a 'democracy' under military-bureaucratic and imperialist control, based upon political parties that bear different labels in accordance with whoever sponsors them, agencies of foreign interests - East and West - and different local nabobs. Parties that are nothing but 'bureaucratic shells with very little substance' beyond an electoral machinery geared to grabbing the bureaucratic levers of self-enrichment plus the capacity to invest in a succulent advertising budget come election time.

This applies to all 'bureaucratic shells' whether from the 'Left' or the Right. All are eager servants and defenders of the sacrosanct order of the Third World-style state, of the Peruvian state: the joint dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, comprador and bureaucratic, in alliance with the feudal landowners and under imperialist domination.

IT'S ONLY THE TRUTH, SAID ALICE

The case of the phoney communist parties with parliamentary representation and due participation in the running of the state's organs, is no exception. At most, their sole aim is to further develop bureaucratic capitalism in its most extreme corporate variety, switching allegiance from one imperialist exploiter to another. A case of selling the country to Brezhnev rather than to Reagan.

We see this clearly in the very words of the Peruvian Military High Command, the bulwark of the state, of the class dictatorship of bureaucrats, comprador bourgeois and feudalists: 'The Communism that is a danger, not only to the armed forces but to the state institutions is not the United Left.....' said General Julián Juliá, the Chief of the General Staff in an interview published in 1985 by the Peruvian 'United Leftist' Magazine 'Qué Hacer' (What Is To Be Done!) (Nº 34). Juliá went on: '.....the danger is represented by the Shining Path and those who support them. The communism of the United Left - which the press has rightly dubbed the Pink Conglomerate - is a Marxism that adheres to the constitutional scheme. I don't see any danger in an electoral triumph of the United Left'. We rest our case!.

A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THIRD WORLD POLITICS

Therefore, Miliband has certainly a point in saying that these are 'depoliticized societies', and almost right in saying that their politics are based in parties that are mere 'bureaucratic shells'.

This observation must be seen, however, in connection with Miliband's admission that a proletariat exists in such countries, albeit relatively small and 'concentrated on the one hand in a number of large enterprises and dispersed on the other in a multitude of small ones'.

Moreover, in Peru's case, such a proletariat achieved as far back as 1928 a sufficient degree of maturity for, having received Marxism from the 'outside', that is from intellectuals both foreign and domestic, was able to set up its own General Confederation of Labour and its own class political party - a class party with the clear goal of national and class emancipation: The Communist Party of Peru, today dubbed The Shining Path by its detractors and enemies, the 'lackeys of the moneybags', both domestic and foreign.

Would not such Marxist revolutionaries - leading a Party of class conscious proletarians - be in a condition to develop a revolutionary theory and a revolutionary movement that, in Miliband's own words, 'remains identifiably "Marxist".....' '....squarely and adequately derived from a Marxist problematic'?.

In a country like Peru - a country needing to complete its national-democratic (or bourgeois- democratic) revolution, stunted by surviving feudal relations of production and foreign imperialist domination in order to transform itself into a nation in the modern (bourgeois) sense of the word before any talk of socialism can make the slightest Marxist sense - in a country such as this, is it possible to conceive of any other avenue for the socialist proletariat than to lead an agrarian revolution against such 'feudal relations of production'?.

And, moreover, can this feudalism be ever broken without smashing imperialist domination which sustains itself upon this very ground, as well as serving as its prop and ultimate bastion of resistance?. How can the proletariat ever achieve its socialist and communist aims within the framework of a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society?

Is this not the fundamental reason behind Lenin's dictum: 'Marxist politics raises the proletariat to the role of leader of the peasantry'?. Can the proletariat of any country, however small, remain a class conscious proletariat while abjuring its revolutionary role?. Did not Lenin also pointed out: 'The transfer of the land to the peasantry is impossible without an armed insurrection'?

Is it not now clear what the correct revolutionary road is in countries such as Peru?. Where, in all the vast works of the Marxist Classics, is it written that the 'revolutionary stirrings' of such countries should always remain just 'stirrings', the empty erotic dreams of eunuchs, never to be fulfilled by victory?. Perchance, was Lenin wrong in saying: 'The duty of revolutionaries is to make the revolution'?.

INTO THE WHITE RABBIT'S PARLOUR

Moreover, Miliband himself expresses the very reason why the proletariat, and therefore the Marxists, must pay special attention to a process such as the revolution in Peru. Miliband admits that the imperialist 'stake' in such countries 'is in fact one of the dominant elements, if not the dominant element of present day international relations'. (Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society - the underlining here is Miliband's own).

Therefore, and bearing in mind Professor Miliband's reputation as a 'foremost Marxist', that we were in broad agreement on such points as the political and social conditions in the Third World, his avowedly open minded attitude and his expressed desired for unity, we thought right to approach him for an exchange of ideas, also on this important subject.

He replied to our letter promising to arrange a meeting after the Xmas season. At the beginning of 1986 a meeting was agreed for January 7th.

At this meeting our first topic was of course to enquire about Miliband's own project for a socialist party, independent from Labour party politics. The party that should be free from 'witch-hunts' and avoid 'colonizing' the people's organisations and struggles.

Miliband had only disappointing news: His call, he said had been sceptically received by his own socialist friends, he mentioned Ken Coates, among others. Therefore, currently he felt that the idea was not realistic for the near future. In any case, there was nothing concrete yet in the offing.

We reiterated our sympathy for such an endeavour and our willingness to unite on the basis of independent organisation, mutual respect, freedom to put our own points of view across and criticise others. We expressed our view that such a platform to unite 'different peoples with different concerns and passions', and 'totally committed to the struggle against capitalism, racism, sexism and the global counter-revolutionary crusade of imperialism', a platform to advance the class struggle 'in the shop floor and beyond', and to challenge politically the imperialist bourgeoisie 'without falling into parliamentarianism', certainly seemed to us to be necessary for the advancement of the people's interests in this country. We then requested to be kept informed if any further developments indicated any possibility of advance in the direction of carrying out such idea.

AND OUT AGAIN IN FIVE MINUTES

Next, Professor Miliband enquired about Peru. Then our open minded Professor underwent a visible transformation and began in an accusatory tone: 'You are Maoists!. Why?'.

We started to answer the question and were immediately cut off. 'What about the crimes of the Cultural Revolution', Miliband went on, laying it on thick with abuse. Two minutes later, and in total puzzlement, we found ourselves bundled out into the flurry of a snowy January wind blowing at the foregate of our Professor's ivory tower. Needless to say that we did not have the barest chance to explain the reasons for our own 'different concerns and passions'. Alas!.

TEN YEARS AFTER

At this point our manuscript of 1986 ends. Other more pressing subjects and issues demanded our attention. Since then, profuse obituary notices in the local media informed us of Ralph Miliband having peacefully passed away (this year) and with him went his socialist pet project - presumably, and since in the last eight years we did not hear another peep from the Professor - still un-advanced, and certainly unrealized.

The Peruvian revolution has now won a good deal of world wide recognition, and Maoism, is today the only Marxism that can give a coherent view of up-to-date historical development, as even the reactionary bourgeois intellectuals are forced to concede.

Moreover, far from merely giving an understanding of the world, Maoism is in the very forefront of the revolutionary process of changing it in a number of other Third World countries. Despite the current ostrich policy of the reactionary and bourgeois media, news of these developments always filter and are beginning to reignite an optimistic attitude on the part of the advanced elements of the world proletariat.

A QUESTION OF DRAGONS

So, you may rightly ask, why do we bother continuing with what we then left unfinished?.

Is any one out there really interested in a tale of the woeful frustration of some innocents abroad wandering into the parlour of a Marxist White Rabbit, foolishly seeking revolutionary understanding in his looking glass world?

Our readers would certainly be right in chiding us: 'And you call yourselves disciples of Chairman Mao!. Are you not aware of his story about the great Chinese Lord who so much loved dragons that his palace was crammed with statues, pictures and books about dragons?. Did you forget that when a real dragon heard of his intense passion and decided to pay him a visit, the Lord froze with terror at the first sight of the beast?.

Is that not the case also with Marxist Professors who draw princely salaries from bourgeois Universities?. Does not their love for Marxism and revolution only extend to dead statues, lifeless portraits and dusty books?. How did you fail to realize they fear live Marxism and real revolutions like they fear the very sight of pestilence?

And we would certainly have to plead guilty on all counts. However, in our discharge, we may also plead the teachings of the Chairman about not 'looking at flowers from horseback' and having to dismount to 'smell' them in order to know if they are fragrant or not.

POSITIVE OUT OF NEGATIVE

Besides, 'failure is the mother of success', and so it is also in this case. What we would want now is to attempt to use this negative experience to positive ends. Much of our written report of this visit to Professor Miliband serves to argue the case for a Marxist interpretation of the revolutionary events of Third World societies, concretely in the case of the Peruvian revolution, in a language familiar to many progressive people in countries such as Britain.

In arguing with Miliband's own 'learned' presentations, we succeed in 'translating' such concepts as 'bureaucratic bourgeoisie', 'imperialist development', 'semi-feudal and semi- colonial' condition, and some others.

THE TWAIN MEETS IN AN UNEXPECTED MANNER

The economic developments in Third World countries have continued the deepening of the process of bureaucratic capitalism, and the 'reforms' now being undertaken by the bureaucratic bourgeoisie under the signboard of 'privatisations' have gone beyond the landed states. They have now, like the Fujimori regime is doing in Peru, undertaken to close the circle with the very industrial and service state monopolies they formerly had nationalised. They are now selling it back to finance monopoly capital, to imperialism, at knock down prices, milking the state cow once again on that account, while further developing imperialist monopolies.

Far from having turned themselves into a genuine national bourgeoisie, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie of Third World countries, such as Peru, is increasingly merging with the world monopolist bourgeoisie and becoming part of a cosmopolitan world bourgeoisie. In fact, the corrupting spirit of bureaucratic capitalism Third World style, is now firmly entrenched in the very Metropolitan countries and is developing the same kind of fascist robber baron capitalism inside economies that were once relatively free from such practices. In this way imperialism is harvesting a crop of corruption and gangsterism formerly associated with the concept of the 'banana republic'. There is no doubt that Miliband's contribution to the elucidation and exposure of this process of bureaucratic capitalism is very valuable. We are certain that in the future it could be even more so.

We feel it is no exaggeration to say that this is a scientific concept of paramount importance in grasping the concrete situation that exists in Third World countries, and therefore in correctly understanding their revolutionary politics. Besides, this is a concept that no Marxist we know in this country, including us, has ever being sufficiently apt and skilled in putting across in such a vivid fashion as to be easily understandable to people who have no direct experience to go by in grasping these phenomena.

This alone is worth all the embarrassment we underwent in that occasion. Thus, unwittingly perhaps, Professor Miliband handed over to us a powerful weapon that strikes at the heart of the hypocritical condemnations of the Peruvian revolution bandied about by a large section of the self-proclaimed 'Marxist Left'.

WITH A RING TO BIND THEM ALL, WITH A SWORD TO SMITE THEM ALL

Particularly, a mortal weapon against the bogus 'left', liberals, revisionists, and Trotskyists, who infest the intellectual milieus and the fringes of the working class movement of countries such as Britain and other imperialist states. Miliband demonstrates in the most direct fashion how their Marxism, their love of the proletariat, of the revolution, of the oppressed, is nothing more than an infatuation with cardboard dragons.

It shows that the 'revolutionary parties', 'socialist countries', 'trade unionists', 'revolutionary leaders' and 'comrades from oppressed countries'- the gentry and organizations whom they publicise in their press and uphold before the working class of this country as 'true and real Marxist revolutionaries' - that those 'parliamentary socialists', 'communists', and 'Trotskyists' with whom they practice what they call 'proletarian internationalism', are nothing but 'empty bureaucratic shells', political 'eunuchs', swindlers and robbers of the people of the worst kind.

Miliband himself exposes the 'left wing' bureaucratic shells such as they exist in Britain, as the very mirror image of those bogus politicians in countries like Peru whom they acknowledge as their true soul-mates and counter-parts: the 'Peruvian left-wing government', the Peruvian 'trade-unionists', the Peruvian 'communist parliamentary representatives', the Peruvian 'communists' and 'workers parties', etc.

All of them, Third World and British 'Leftist' shams alike, are shown to be solid pillars of the establishment, defenders of the sacrosanct imperialist order and guardian angels of the wealthy in their own respective countries.

In any case, Miliband's own unintended contributions to understanding the Peruvian revolution serves as a posthumous endorsement from someone who, when alive, did not have the time of day for real revolutions. Moreover, his condition as the 'foremost Marxist' in Britain, also goes to prove, better than any thing we could possibly say, that those 'lesser socialist theoreticians' who concoct the kind of 'Marxism' that even today bad mouths the Peruvian revolution and Maoism, are drones laboriously eking a meagre shilling from the class enemy. Far less prestigious, and therefore, far less well rewarded by their masters than a first rate act such as Miliband's own.

THIS GLASS IS ONLY HALF FULL

Moreover, there is another important weapon that Miliband himself handed over that we may use in turning this sorry affair to good account: The question of the road forward for the working class and the people in imperialist countries, particularly here in Britain.

Also, Miliband hands over the key that reveals the secret of what, or who, is the main stumbling block on that road.

We are of course referring to the question of the United Front, the question that first brought him to our attention.

The question of: '.....a separate organisation from the Labour party' that 'is needed in the labour movement'. The organization that may 'bring together a lot of different people, with many different concerns and passions, men and women, young and old, black and white, blue collar workers, white collar workers, and many others, who would be working in an organisation that was open, democratic and no doubt disputatious, totally committed to the struggle against capitalism, sexism, and racism, and to the struggle against the global counter-revolutionary crusade conducted by the US and its allies'.

The political movement that would be sensitive to 'the immense technological, economic and social changes which occur in the world'.....'without surrendering any of its fundamental principles, and would state these principles and its application in a language that was fresh and accessible'. That would not be 'absorbed into electoralism and parliamentarianism and it would, of course, be deeply involved in the class struggle on the shop floor and also beyond it'..... That '....would have respect for the demands of women, blacks, peace activists, ecologists and others in progressive movements'. That would '.... work with them ......without ever trying to colonise or use them'.

The organisation that must be 'very conscious of one paramount fact: Whereas there are millions and millions of people who want a better deal under capitalism, there are not enough of us who want to go beyond capitalism.....', and that the task of socialists is 'to increase their number by word and by struggle'.

OR IS IT JUST HALF EMPTY?

Of course, this is a fundamental issue. It was a fundamental issue when Miliband broached it in 1985, and remains even more so, and more urgent today. It is, and remains, absolutely true what Professor Miliband said then: 'What must sustain socialists, apart from the justness of their cause, is not that socialist change is imminent, but that it is possible and that it is inscribed in the actual, concrete circumstances of late capitalism'.

Nevertheless, it is also true that the problems of 'late capitalism' are now mounting up with every passing day. In other words, we are living through a deep crisis. The question of putting an end to the imperialist system, is no longer urgent for Third World countries alone. It is now becoming an urgent issue of class survival in the very Metropolitan countries. An ever growing number of people can see the impending dichotomy on the horizon: Fascism or Communism. Either the most terrorist imperialist and fascist reaction triumphs or proletarian government does. There is no middle way. Therefore, we must increase the tempo. We must seize the day, we must seize the hour.

A QUEST TO BE CONTINUED

To study what all this means, and why it has never come to fruition in Britain, it would be important to spare another thought for Professor Ralph Miliband and his ideas. That should be the task of a further article. We have indeed managed to exhume from his written remains an involuntary, but valuable and living concrete contribution. For now, we shall therefore, let him truly rest in peace!.

London 13/10/94