b ) The Content of Socialism
 The Russian revolution died because it had to develop capitalism in Russia. To create an efficient body of managers became its motto. The ultra-left quickly concluded that bureaucratic management could not be socialism and they advocated workers' management. A coherent ultra-left theory was created, with workers' councils at its centre : the councils act as the fighting organs of the workers under capitalism and as the instruments of workers' management under socialism. Thus the councils play the same central role in the ultra-left theory as the party in the Leninist theory. The theory of workers' management analyses capitalism in terms of its management. But is capitalism first of all a mode of management ? The revolutionary analysis of capitalism started by Marx does not lay the stress on the question : who manages capital ? On the contrary : Marx describes both capitalists and workers as mere functions of capital : "the capitalist as such is only a function of capital, the labourer a function of labour power." [1] The Russian leaders do not "lead" the economy; they are led by it, and the entire development of the Russian economy obeys the objective laws of capitalist accumulation. In other words, the manager is at the service of definite and compelling production relations. Capitalism is not a mode of MANAGEMENT but a mode of PRODUCTION based on given PRODUCTION RELATIONS. Revolution must aim at these relations; we will try to analyse them briefly. The revolutionary analysis of capitalism emphasises the role of capital, whose objective laws are obeyed by the "managers" of the economy, both in Russia and in America. Notes [1] Theories of Surplus-Value, Part I ( London : Lawrence and Wishart, 1969 ), p. 409. |