‘Anti-Capitalism’ That Falls Short

“Scratch an extremist and you will find an opportunist” — V.I. Lenin

Pedro Campos

HAVANA TIMES — The little expression “anti-capitalist” is very much in vogue today “We’re anti-capitalists.” Our position is “anti-capitalist.” Our revolutionary program is “anti-capitalist.” “Down with the capitalist enemy.” “Death to the capitalists.” This is how many people express themselves. Yet reading and listening to some of these “anti-capitalists,” I’m amazed to find that they defend state capitalism.

Don’t ask for names. More than once I have explained: the ideas must be fought, not individuals.

What falls short in this “anti-capitalism” — which doesn’t extend to the operation of the Cuban government — are the people who dare to accuse those of us who criticize state capitalism as being in league with the “imperialist enemy” or favoring “capitalist restoration.” What nonsense!

Those of us who hold socialist positions are ideologically and politically confronting the state capitalism that exists in Cuba, though concealed as “state socialism.” Precisely what we seek is to transform this state capitalism” into a more participatory and democratic socialism, where the workers and the people are those who decide how to reproduce their lives and all the laws that affect them, while preventing the restoration of the old regime of exploitation by private capitalists, imperialist corporations, and Creole land owners and oligarchs – as occurred everywhere that “state socialism” was attempted.

In the specific case of Cuba, as we have reiterated, such restoration would lead to neocolonial dependency, which would be nothing less than our real or virtual annexation to the northern giant, which wants us as an unconditional ally and yet despises us.

The advocates of state capitalism don’t know that they’re working for annexation in the long run.

Our positions are reflected in our programs, proposals and actions. Whether people are unfamiliar with them or have class limitations for understanding them is another matter; workers who are exploited under wage-labor statism will understand this quickly and well. This is why some bureaucrat said to be careful with these ideas of “autogestion” or self-management because they’re like cocaine, addictive.

Many of us have already had our anti capitalism and our anti-imperialism put to the test in direct confrontation against their forces in the countries and cities of imperialism itself. This is unlike some of those “pro-state capitalist ‘anti-capitalists,’” dedicated to defending it, without rhyme or reason, from their positions within the state, with the people’s resources, enjoying all types of media perks and privileges – with all of this having been done in the name of “socialism and the working class.”

“Socialism” learned by rote

Indeed, as Professor Jorge Luis Acanda has pointed out, the “prostitution of language” has led quite a few journalists, intellectuals, politicians, activists and “leaders” to employ the terms of political economy without the slightest attachment to their content as historically recognized by socialists.

They call something “socialism” that has never been socialist; they consider something to have been a “social revolution” when it was only a political revolution; they consider “the enemy” to be anyone who doesn’t think like them; they confuse “social revolution” with the government, a party and the state.

All of this confusion — introduced into the language of the social sciences by the neo-Stalinists — is in part what has led such “anti-capitalists” to be supporters of state capitalism and defend it to the hilt, with their eyes closed and fangs bared, like bloodthirsty zombies, without the least consideration, without knowing or investigating the essences of the positions they call “contaminated,” with no idea of who they’re accusing.

Clearly… the problem is that they never linked capitalism with wages. When they studied capitalism in college (if they studied capitalism), nobody told them that capitalism is a social relation of production linked to wage-labor exploitation. And if they ever had Capital in their hands, it was for reading excerpts under the guidance of their teacher.

For these “anti-capitalists,” capitalism is evil and exploitative, because that’s what they’ve heard ever since when that were kids. They never knew why. They simply believe that “capitalism is evil because it’s evil; therefore anyone who looks like they’re defending something that has to do with capitalism is my enemy.” From this, they end up viewing almost all of humanity living under capitalist regimes as being the enemy.

Knee-jerk tendencies

Because of that same ignorance, a guard at the Presidio Modelo Prison in the era of the Batista dictatorship allowed the prisoners to read Capital, thinking it was a work in support of capitalism. Extremes meet.

Such “anti-capitalists” don’t differentiate between democratic, authoritarian or fascist capitalists. To these people, all of them are enemies just the same.

It was because of this that the alliance between the socialists and the democrats was rejected and that the policies of the Comintern under Stalin helped Hitler come to power in Germany. It was because of an underestimation of the strength of the democrats and maintaining his alliance with the neo-Stalinist conservative-hounds of state capitalism in the USSR that Gorbachev ended up being the victim of a coup by his “comrades” on the Politburo.

Those who delve into history only to know what happened, without recognizing the lessons of the past for the present, can contribute much to the knowledge of the past, but little to the development of the present and the future.

We have “anti-capitalists” who are so “anti-capitalist” that they reject everything that comes from capitalism (except for its sophisticated products, which they consume and enjoy to the utmost, thanks to the perks provided by state capitalism). But for them, the human values that led to the triumph of capitalism over feudalism “have no validity under socialism.” They see capitalism— and socialism as well — as having landed on the earth in alien spacecraft (complete with ETs), and having nothing to do with what previously existed.

They don’t know, never knew, never wanted to know, nor was it of any interest to the neo-Stalinists, whether productive forces and production relations of socialism and its values had been developing within the capitalist core.

Struggling to maintain special privilege

How long will this infantile disorder of the left continue? How long will these senseless insults go on, these accusations of collusion with the imperialist enemy? How long are some of these people going to keep on disrespecting differences, even “pro-capitalist” positions, though they don’t share them?

How long are they going to continue considering the term “democracy” exclusively as the political system of the bourgeoisie? How long are they going to consider human rights and democratic values achieved by the humanist struggles over the ages to be bourgeois?

Could it be that the bureaucracy that controls state capitalism and its means of production and distribution is well served by this prostitution of language in that it allows them to continue trying to confuse the workers with their “socialism” that never was? Do they really want socialism to be an economic and political model that is rejected by the workers and people in general?

Everyone makes their own judgments. It’s true that there’s much confusion and ignorance, but what’s apparent in some of these “anti-capitalist” extremists is the most vulgar opportunism.
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To contact Pedro Campos, write: perucho1949@yahoo.es