Neoprene

During the heyday of the New Left a generation of Western radicals came to politically embrace Stalinism in its „Third World“ variants in large part because Cuba and China ap-peared to these impressionistic petty-bourgeois idealists to be egalitarian societies in struggle, unlike the seemingly complacent, stodgy, bureaucratized Soviet Union. For the last decade in the U.S. political identifica-tion with what could be called „Third World“ Stalinist egalitarianism has been a dominant tendency in main-stream petty-bourgeois radicalism.
New Leftism first coalesced with „Third World“ Stalinism over the Cuban revolution during the mid-1960’s. In marked contrast to their Russian patrons the Cuban leader-ship appeared to be genuinely committed to humanistic and populist ideals, seemingly determined not to give up their old spartan guerrilla values or their vision of spreading the revolution throughout Latin America by fomenting „armed struggle.“ Contrary to the New Left illusions, the Cuban leaders were at bottom Khrushchevs in khaki. After their budding „détente“ with Yankee imperialism was abruptly terminated by Washington and their cordial relations with the Kremlin estranged follow-ing what was regarded as a Soviet retreat over the 1962 missile crisis, the Cuban lead-ers had nothing to lose by adopting a militant posture.
What especially captivated the New Left was how Ernesto „Che“ Guevara eloquently preached the need to combine „building socialism“ with creating „socialist man.“ To New Leftists Guevara seemed to be speaking their language when he advocated a struggle to end alienated labor in Cuba that would start by replacing all material incentives with moral incentives. Guevara seemed to integrate two distinct New Left currents: regarding the „wretched of the earth“ in the „Third World“ as the sole revolutionary van-guard (Frantz Fanon), and viewing the question of „per-sonal liberation“ as a necessary but neglected goal of Marxist socialism (Herbert Marcuse).
Although the much-touted „radical“ policies adopted by Castro produced a series of economic disasters instead of „socialist man“ and were later scrapped in favor of a return to more orthodox Soviet-model methods, the New Left in the meantime had its attention diverted to China, then in the throes of the so-called „Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu-tion.“ Starry-eyed radicals in the West took as good coin the Maoist demagogy about struggling to eliminate bu-reaucratism and privilege and to create in China a society modeled after the Paris Commune. In reality an intra-bureaucratic power struggle launched by Mao only to oust his principle rivals in the regime and to whip the apparatus into line, the Cultural Revolution was idealized by many Leftists as a titanic campaign to institute „participatory democracy“ for one fourth of the human race.
Whereas Guevara’s specific economic (as opposed to his high-falutin‘ social) ideas advocated during the Cuban „Great Debate“ had relatively little impact on the New Left, the Chinese Cultural Revolution made questions of eco-nomic policy, such as moral versus material incentives, a real issue among vicarious „radical“ Stalinists. While Guevara had regarded material incentives as perhaps le-gitimate for „building socialism“ Soviet-style but a fetter on creating „socialist man,“ Mao claimed that material incen-tives and wage differentials were a mortal threat to the very existence of „socialism“ in China. Not only those who joined Maoist cadre organizations after the demise of the New Left but also those soft „Third World“ enthusiasts who remained organizationally unaffiliated accepted the in-credibly idealist Maoist dogma that „revisionists“ (defined as anyone in the Chinese bureaucracy who opposed Mao) could restore capitalism in China simply through gradually expanding „bourgeois right“ (material incentives and the like), i.e., a peaceful and possibly even surreptitious coun-terrevolution.
But history hasn’t been kind to those who seek to glorify „Third World“ Stalinist egalitarianism. If the economic policies of the Castro regime haven’t caused significant disillusionment in the New Left radical milieu, the seem-ingly kaleidoscopic policy shifts associated with the re-volving-door purges in People’s China since the death of Mao certainly have. In October of 1976 the most prominent representatives of „radical“ Maoism (Chiang Ching, Yao Wen-yuan, Wang Hung-wen, Chang Chun-chiao) were suddenly purged and henceforth vilified as a high-living, double-dealing „Gang of Four“ who spouted rhetoric about „restricting bourgeois right“ only to conceal their allegedly nefarious schemes to restore a new bourgeoisie to power in China. Claiming’the mantle of Maoism, the new regime headed by Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping has prom-ised to rectify the voluntarist idiocies attributed to the „Gang of Four“ and to adopt more „pragmatic“ economic policies, which include replacing moral incentives with material incentives and raising wages for the first time in 16 years. Thus, a recent issue of Peking Review (17 February) prominently featured on its front page a slogan which for years had been denounced by the „radical“ Maoists as the epitome of Brezhnevite „revisionism“: „To Each According to His Work: Socialist Principle of Distribution.“
While Castro’s abandonment of Guevarist-inspired eco-nomic policies produced no ripples among New Left cir-cles, the purge of the most prominent self-proclaimed Maoist „egalitarians“ proved to be a political bombshell in the camp of Maoists and pro-Peking „progressives“ abroad. It was soon followed by an official campaign repudiating those policies and rhetoric that for a decade had been asso-ciated with „radical“ Maoism. In the U.S. the question of material incentives versus „restricting bour-geois right“ entered into the clique fight which recently ripped apart the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), once the largest pro-Peking organization in this country. To the extent that the RCP clique fight had a programmat-ic expression, the rival „headquarters“—the inveterate New Leftists around the „Chairman“ Bob Avakian and the more orthodox Sta-linists following Mickey Jarvis— clashed over the question of whether or not the new leadership in Peking was leading China down the „capitalist road.“ In his main „summing-up“ of the fight Avakian directed his „main blow“ at Teng’s „Twenty Points,“ an economic policy platform that pro-posed granting wage increases and reinstituting material incentives.
Apart from those few dogged spirits who continue the search for „socialist man“ among the peasantry of tiny Al-bania, New Left radicals have been left without any Stalin-ist-ruled state to idealize as an egalitarian society. Even Vietnam, that „socialist fatherland“ for „Third World“ en-thusiasts who wanted to wish away the Sino-Soviet split, has been a „God That Failed“ for many New Left leftovers. While Ho once was glorified as a gentle philosopher-poet concerned with instilling humanistic values in his people even under conditions of war and destruction, his heirs in Hanoi are today locked in a sordid nationalist war with their „comrades“ in Phnom Penh, who are denounced as ma-rauding rapists and cannibals. But „poor little Cambodia“ isn’t likely to become a New Left favorite. If wage differ-entials have been eliminated in „Democratic Kampuchea,“ it is only because the rabidly xenophobic and primitivist Cambodian Stalinist regime has actually abolished wages and even currency itself— which under conditions of mate-rial scarcity can only result in militarization of labor and enormous economic hardships for the toiling masses.
Thus, as a significant New Left-derived political tendency identification with „radical“ Stalinist egalitarian-ism has had its day. But the issues which nurtured this tendency are very much alive. Especially now, considerable attention has been generated by the new so-called „pragmatic“ policies of the Hua/Teng regime. But in denouncing how the „radical“ Maoists misused moral incentives and in „rehabilitating“ material incentives the present Peking regime by no means has repudiated moral incentives as such. Regardless of which clique rules in the Forbidden City, the Chinese Sta-linist bureaucracy, as long as it remains saddled by the enormous contradiction between its material backwardness and its Great Power aspirations, must continue to resort to utopian-voluntarist methods — and to rationalize their eco-nomic policies with phony egalitarian rhetoric. It is thus timely to consider how the questions of material incentives and wage differentials have been obfuscated and distorted by Stalinist ideologues, both of the orthodox Moscow school and the sundry self-styled „radical egalitarians,“ ranging from Guevara to Mao.
Den ganzen Artikel (eingescannt aus „Spartacist“ Nr. 25, Sommer 1978,
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