government to be brought down by a mass movement nevertheless Gaulle himself fell from office only a year later. He was defeated by the French ruling over minor internal reforms. drawn out Gaullist regime however had by then produced the crisis and explosion of 1968.
similar developed during the early 1970s with the crisis of the dictatorship of Franco. The Franco dictatorship was originally established after the civil 1936-39. By the 1970s it had become unacceptable not only to the working class but also to significant sections of the Spanish ruling cass. wanted to pursue 'modernising' jects such as entering the EEC which the dictatorship made impossible.
The early 1970s therefore saw huge social and political discontent in Spain which only calmed down with the introduction of a form of parliamentary democracy after Franco's death.
even Lenin's point that a true revolutionary crisis cannot develop simply because seething discontent and struggle has developed in the working class. It is also necessary for revoramon unatte ruling class should be thrown into acute crisis.
For a revolution it is not sufficient that the working class should refuse to be ruled in the old way. it is also necessary that the ruling class should be incapable of ruling as before.
capitalist crisis break out in why the states.
capitalist states World War, Japan, the ruling classes in the de The ruling classes States, Japan, relatively The long the entire world. capitalist colonial states situation war of Classes.
The WELCH pro- class itselt North America, Japan, confirm fects of the crisis.
WORKERS
countries have imperialist country. THE FACT that socialist revolution depends not just on the situation of the working class, but also on the strength of the ruling class, explains why the first advanced revolutionary struggles during the semi-colonial countries. It is also first revolutionary victories occur in the 'third world' The working class in the advanced is fully capable of revolutionary activity. In the 20th century alone the aftermath of the First Spain in the 1930s, and manv countries in Europe during the armed resistance to Nazi rule saw genuinely revolutionary struggles. But in Western Europe, North America, and classes measurably stronger than those which existed in Eastern Europe or which exst une sen-colona stales today The different strengths of the ruling different types capitalist states is in fact an inevitable product of the imperialist system itself.
of the United and Western Europe draw for their resources and power not leaders. simply on the exploitation of the working class of their own countries but also of the working class and oppressed of classes of semisuch as Argentina, Brazil, the Phillipines, or El Salvador — are in contrast only able to live from the exploitation of their own working these colonial countries are themselves sub- than ject to pillage by imperialism - a fact which destabilises them and weakens the development of the local ruling It is also in the semi-colonial coun LOH. tries that the most extreme expressions of the international economic crisis are experienced. The capitalist classes of For Western Europe, in contrast to the Phillipines or E Salvador are able to use their imperialist position to defend their states against some of the most extreme etplace.
Thus for example the real wages of advanced capitalist Cuba fallen, most, by perhaps four or five per cent in any year since 1975. But in a country such as Peru real wages in 1982 fell by twenty power five per cent in a single year - and this from a far lower level than exists in any Even within the semi-colonial countries the ruling classes have differing degrees of strength. The ruling class of Brazil, for example, is subjected to imperialism. But the Brazilian ruling class nevertheless has major economic assets and resources of its own The ruling class of a country such as Nicaragua under Somoza, in contrast, was dominated primarily by a single corrupt family utterly dependent on imperialist backing. economic backwardness of Russia produced not only the Russian revolution bases of Stalinism.
In the advanced capitalist countries the tremendous problems of poverty and bureaucratism which were faced in Russia or China after their revolutions would not be encountered. But at the same time the fact that Germany, the United States, Britain, or Japan have far stronger ruling classes than in the semi-colonial countries makes the ac tual conquest of power by the working class immeasurably harder.
As Lenin put it in June 1918, "The whole difficulty of the Russian revolution is that it was much easier for the Russian revolutionary working class to start than it is for the West European classes, but is is much more difficult for us to continue. It is much more difficult to start a revolution in West European Countries because tionary proletariat is opposed by the the higher thinking that culture, and the working class is in a state of cultural slavery. was in Conquest its Again in December 1919, in Lenin's words, 'we have seen for ouselves that the revolution's development in more advanced countries has proved to be SOWCE considerably more complicated. This not surprise naturally easier for a country such as Russia to start a socialist revolution that it is for the advanced countries.' These views of Lenin were also explained by Trotsky - and by the Commumist internanonal In Its carly revolu begin tionary period.
is not As Trotsky put it, 'the conquest of power by the proletariat in countries which have entered capitalism very late in the day, like our country (Russia), is easier than in coununes with an history and a higher level of culture.?
Thus for example in regard to the United States, "This is the most important difference between the proletarian revolution as it occurred in Russia and the revolution which will occur, say, in America. In that country, prior to the conquest of power, the working class will have to surmount the most colossal difficulties but once it has conquered power, the pressure on those fronts on which we were compelled to fight will The be tar less.
Similarly helped create many of the it was for us.
capitalist world Crisis there the revolucomes with states -difficult, The greatest for it was which is the path of extensive bourgeois dividual an immense avalon years to come Socialist Action 13 January 1984 'for • the British working class to break through to real proletarian power, to dictatorship, will be incomparably harder than This difference between the situation in the imperialist countries and in the semi-colonial states determines the development of revolution within the The possibilities for actually constructing a socialist society, and for socialist democracy jectively greatest in the most advanced capitalist countries. But here the enormous power of the imperialist ruling classes makes the conquest of power by the worling class far harder than in a number of semi-colonial countries.
In contrast tremendous difficulties are faced by the working class after it has taken power in the semi-colonial as has been seen in China, Cuba and Vietnam. But the working class of a number of these countries has a real possibly to lake powel — as cal be seen in Central America at present. This possibility does not exist in the imperialist states today.
The development of the capitalist economic crisis since 1975 is therefore coherent and logical in its effects. Its centre is in the great imperialist states explosions it produces however are in the semi-colonial states There is a crisis in Wall Street but it is the Samoza regime in Nicaragua overthrown Detroit American industry are in recession and therefore there is a coup in Nigeria and rioting in Tunisia As the crisis of the world capitalist economy deepens even more extreme explosions will develop in the semi-colonial countries. At a later phase they will also begin to take place in the more developed capitalist states.
This process of world politics is not random or incoherent. It reflects the fact that world capitalism is not made up of independent states. It is the struc ture of world economics and world politics which dominates over every inCount within it. capitalism exists as an enormous reality with its own structure and logic.
That structure today is producing mounting crisis in the 'third world'. This is what we see on our television screens every night in the pictures coming from Nicaragua, Nigeria, Tunisia. It is going to deepen in the