State Capitalism and World Revolution

by C.L.R. James, Grace Lee Boggs, Raya Dunayevskaya

Written in collaboration with Raya Dunayevskaya & Grace Lee, this is another pioneering critique of Lenin and Trotsky, and reclamation of Marx, from the West Indian scholar and activist. This edition includes the original introduction from Martin Glaberman, a new introduction from Paul Buhle, and one from the author himself. Two generations ago, CLR James and a small circle of collaborators set forth a revolutionary critique of industrial civilization. Their vision possessed a striking originality. So insular was the political context of their theoretical breakthroughs, however, and so thoroughly did their optimistic expectations for working class activity defy trends away from class and social issues to the so-called 'End Of Ideology', that the documents of the signal effort never reached public view. Happily, times have changed. Readers have discovered much, even after all these years, to challenge Marxist (or any other) orthodoxy. They will never find a more succinct version of James' general conclusions that State Capitalism and World Revolution. In this slim volume, James and his comrades successfully predict the future course of Marxism. [Paul Buhle, from his Introduction] When one looks back over the last 20 years to those men who were most far-sighted, who first began to tease out the muddle of ideology in our times, who were at the same time Marxists with a hard theoretical basis, and close students of society, humanists with a tremendous response to and understanding of human culture, Comrade James is one of the first one thinks of. [E P Thompson]

Genres: Politics, History, Theory, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Economics, Political Science

135 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

C. L. R. James (1901–1989), a Trinidadian historian, political activist, and writer, is the author of The Black Jacobins, an influential study of the Haitian Revolution and the classic book on sport and culture, Beyond a Boundary. His play Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History was recently discovered in the archives and published Duke University Press.

Reviews

[Redpoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I am a big fan of James, I was not a big fan of this book. James can't seem to find it in himself to ever, in this book, criticize Lenin. He lays the blame always with Stalin. Stalin was a bad man, but everything didn't just start with him. The seeds, and more, for the development of state capitalism, for one party rule by a vanguard party, for the continued oppression of the working class in the so called workers state, for the development of a strong centralized "Soviet" state and more while certainly endorsed, continued, and further developed in a most odious and horrid way by Stalin were laid far before Stalin seized power. Lenin, himself has to bear more than a little responsibility here. James refuses to acknowledge that and he refuses to acknowledge that many of these problems go back beyond Lenin as well, and thus his whole analysis suffers. However, one has to take account of the times in which James authored this piece and give him some leeway and recognize that even his "weakened" analysis was ahead of most everyone else at the time. One has to acknowledge that his works helped lay a groundwork for more advanced analysis, practice and struggle to come.

[LaMarx · Rating 5 out of 5]

James offers the most substantive critique of the various Trotskyist groups, as well as a biting criticism of the USSR. His criticism of bourgeois humanism is important, especially seeing as he himself was among the Marxist Humanists.
Any and all shortcomings found within these pages is corrected 8 years after the original publication of this volume with Facing Reality. James understood the ways in which organizational principles are in constant metamorphosis alongside the composition of capital and, equally (if not more) importantly, the composition of the working class. One of the most important Marxists of the 20th century; one of the most important Marxists, period.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and intense. An extremely theoretical book that gives no quarter, expecting that the reader is well-versed in an array of subjects, not limited to Marxism, Russian History, economics, Stalin, Trotsky, and the Communist Internationals. I loved this book immensely. It has a powerful undercurrent of revolution and resistance, but threaded continuously with a sprawling intellectualism and an fervent hope for change and improvement. An essential book for understanding what Marxism is and is not.

[Radia]

“In this mentality can be seen the germs which in maturity make the complete Stalinist - absolute hostility to capitalism as we have known it but a resigned acceptance that Marx’s and Lenin’s ideas of proletarian power are Utopian. No more deadly deviation has ever appeared in our movement.”

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but the pages are packed with theory and insight into the situation of Marxism in the 1950s. James and his comrades, Dunayevskaya and Boggs, writing as the 'Johnson-Forest' tendency, expose Stalinism, Trotskyism and defenders of 'degenerated workers' states' as monstrous, misguided or just plain foolish (take your pick). They argue that the USSR is a new form of development 'State Capitalism' and it should be seen as such; additionally, ripping to shreds the arguments laid out by the CPSU of adhering to Marxism. Johnson-Forest (correctly, in my eyes) label Stalinists as counter-revolutionary - as far as possible from proletarian power, mingling with capitalism and breathing life into a new form of capitalist development.

It's troubling to have to admit that a people's revolution was betrayed and grew into a Frankenstein's monster of state-capital domination, but Johnson-Forest do. In the 1950s, with the Cold War underway, I think it must've been a temptation (as it is now) to view capitalism as a force of destruction, and those claiming to be its opposite (ie, USSR, Yugoslavia) as fighting the good fight. What James and J-F do well in this text is to follow Marx, to develop. By doing so, they're able to analyze with clear sight the exploitation of Soviet and Eastern European workers and the crystallization of a new form of capitalism defined by ownership/nationalization of state property. You also can't decipher who Johnson-Forest tend to despise more: Stalinists or Trotskyists.

I don't claim to be an expert in Marxism or Marxist theory by any means. I appreciated this text because it does a good job of simplifying some difficult theory regarding property, dialectics and philosophy. But, I did find - as other commenters have noted - that Johnson-Forest are consistently reverting back to Lenin. Most suggestions or appraisals of the world situation refer to Lenin's texts, thoughts and documents. While helpful, this is one of the main criticisms Johnson-Forest lay at the feet of Trotskyists: a failure to appreciate developments between the Third and Fourth Internationals (1930s-1950s). However, Johnson-Forest consistently do the same, quoting Lenin from the 1910s in all his revolutionary splendor. I need more theory and a broader view of events to make a sound judgement and I cannot criticize Johnson-Forest as they obviously know much more than I. To boil this text down to its core, to find the solution in its pages, possibly to follow precisely the line of Marx and Lenin, you'd have to understand one thesis: proletarian revolution is necessary to overcome the bureaucracy and structures of both bourgeois, private capitalism and state capitalism. According to Johnson-Forest, Lenin knew it, and they hammer this point home again and again.

Overall, really excellent and I learned a lot from this.

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic example of a book whose central argument is wrong, but which is important regardless. So, as an argument about the character of the Soviet Union, this book fails: I am no more convinced now than before that the USSR was capitalist (even in a modified, state-ified form). Nor do I buy James's arrogant dismissal of the Orthodox Trotskyist tradition, or his effort to revise and update Leninism along lines that remain vague here, and seem reducible to old spontaneist cliches. To make the claim - in the teeth of colonial wars and the Cold War - that Stalinism was the prime enemy of the working class was both wrongheaded and dangerous.

But... The book is nevertheless powerful and effective in some other regards. By taking the actual process and circumstances of labour in the age of Fordism as a central political consideration, James came to a profounder appreciation of general civilizational problems: namely, the universal tendency - across Cold War divides - toward stifling bureaucratism, and the salience in this context of questions about liberty, self-determination, and self-realisation (even above economic complaints).

This understanding permitted him to anticipate political moods of the era, ultimately expressed in the massive political movements of the 50s-70s, and made him attentive to the huge significance of the colonial wars (even as his theorisation of them here is sketchy). Perhaps, with a little more space and attention, it might also have permitted a greater appreciation of the impending feminist explosions. Point being, it's a good example of a Marxism that really isn't economistic in its view either of class struggle or historical development.

For these reasons, I found the book useful and insightful even as its prose was hardly polished and its central arguments were also disagreeable to me.

[Jordan Ecker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found much that is 'basically correct' in this book. There is a cool resonance between James' & co.'s description of the USSR as state capitalist and Moishe Postone's work. The big difference is that Postone's Marxism also basically holds that capital, not the worker, is the subject of history. James here tries to hold onto a 'productionist' understanding of the centrality of the worker -- democratizing the work place and decentering consumption. So, class struggle remains the focus, but putting the working class in power, for James and Pstone alike, is not sufficient to do socialism, especially if the focus after putting the working class in power remains on increasing consumption, which implies that the production of wealth remains subordinate to the value form. For Postone, this means that we have to understand the value form itself as the subject of history to be destroyed; for James, class struggle itself implies a horizon of democratic control over the work place, and not merely more goodies for workers qua consumers. The latter displaces the authentic working class politics only under conditions of bureaucratism.

I care less about the midcentury intra-Trotskyite debates because I basically think James was obviously right, the USSR was state capitalist. I'm not even sure that's bad per se!

[Joe Xtarr · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll echo the other reviews. Not enough emphasis and accuracy regarding Lenin (to be fair, we have the present benefit of access to more literature and sources). James didn't spend any/enough time explaining why state-capitalism is undesirable. Because of that, a novice student may come away from this book with an undeveloped criticism that will lead to more perversions of Marx. Overall, this book lacked more than it offered, and it's real value is in capturing an historical moment. It's short enough that you can read it while being aware of its failures, and not feel like you've wasted your time.

[Sugarpunksattack Mick · Rating 3 out of 5]

CLR James wonderful critique and (perhaps) departure from more orthodox Trotskyism. This book is steeped in the sometimes esoteric splits among the Trotskyist, but is still worth while as a peak into the discourse between those who follow Trotsky's opposition to Stalinism, but also See Trotsky as failing to really overcome Stalinism in the end. The more important aspect from my perspectives were the almost anarchist leanings presented throughout the book--the trouble is that he attributes these to Lenin despite the historical record.

[Xavier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short yet packed with critique, James offers a comprehensive polemic of Trotskyism and Stalinism while valorizing Lenin's approach to the modern troubles of imperialism, bureaucracy, and the emergence of "state-capitalism."

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can only read one turgid, over-cooked, Leninising, intra-Trotskyist, polemic, let it be this one.

[Juan Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a short book, at just over 100 pages, but a very solid critique of Stalinism & the State Capitalism of his government in Russia that was "Socialist" in name only. James breaks down quickly different parts of what the government in Russia actually was under Stalin. He takes critics to task who did not see it as State Capitalism & thus missed important things in their critiques. State Capitalism is but the other side of the coin in regards to how Capitalism functions I'm the U.S. Focused on production & not in the hands of the people but in the hands of the same bureaucrats from the previous government that was to be overthrown, what else could it be? An island of socialism, especially one socialist in name only, is hard pressed thrive in an ocean of capitalism. The last chapter brings it all together to show State Capitalism for what it is & also as a warning to a possible future which the rest of the world is slowly marching towards if it isn't careful as capitalism must extract every little thing from us.

Not hard to see why it is considered among his best works, even if not his most popular. Definitely a must read.

[Spicy T AKA Mr. Tea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in a few days and every bit of Marxist theory helps prepare me for actually reading more of Marx. Well, I also read Grace Lee Boggs autobiography and so I know more the context of this left tendency. And I've heard CLR lays down some solid writing elsewhere--all reasons to read it. Ok OK. basically, I'm reading Marcus Rediker's The Slave Ship and needed something to break it up a little to process what I was reading. That's why I read this book.

So, now that you know the why, how was it. It was ok. Nothing, generally speaking, new here. It's a critique of Stalinism, Russia, Yugoslavia, and generally the party bureaucracy with its fully planned state capitalist economic agenda. Totalitarianism. James and his comrades offer critique and analysis against this but I'm not learned enough in the ways of Marxist-Leninism to have it mean much to me. I'm hoping down the line that it will take on more meaning for me.

For the time being, I don't have much else to say about it.