The Turning Point of Socialism.
Garaudy was for many years one of the leading intellectuals of the French Communist Party, in the best Stalinist tradition, and the initiator of its recent dialogue with the Church. He was a member of the Central Committee until 1968 when He was expelled from it on account of his opposition to the Party's attitude to the Czech invasion -- in particular he demanded that the Party should use the occasion to open a debate on the question of Stalin and the nature of the Soviet Union. His increasingly independent pronouncements in the subsequent year finally led to his expulsion from the Party itself, the pretext being the publication of his book. The Turning Point of Socialism.
He begins this book with the statement that " the International communist movement is in a state of crisis" and goes on to analyse its causes and possible solutions. The decisive stage in modern bistory has now been reached, secording to Garaudy, by the conquest of the three 'infinities': The infinitely small (atomic energy), the infinitely large (apace exploration) He cannot grasp the inherent anareby of the comes close to that of Baran and Sweezy. It insists on the dominant role of monopoly capital in the American economy. From this analysis and his initial postulate, Garaudy derives his theory of the new historic bloe' between the blue and white collar workers, the latter now outnumbering the former This bloc is making demands of a new type, an example of which is the recent MIT. technicians strike waged over the meaning of their work and not simply economic demands. He does not, however, make any attempt to discuss the possible influence by the campus students on the type of demands made by the strikers.
Claiming that the specificity of American society is its 'frontier' formation, with the frontier extended to include South America as well. Garaudy goes on to endorse the 'New Frontier' policy of Kennedy with all its ramifications. Instead of Auerican capitalism exalting the Yügoslar educational system waging wars in Vietnam and elsewhere, he would welcome a capitalism bent on a war against poverty at 'home' and on industrialisation of the South. Such a capitalism he calls "purposeful capitalism'. It is this which exposes the fragile base of Garaudy's Marcism. Union is only a transitional form of society instead of predicting the Soviet masses and their ability to carry out a political revolution, he still places his hopes on a palace revolution a la Khrusches. His assessment or rather his cumulative ignorance does not allow him to understand the dynamics of the bureaucracy trying to walk the tightrope of economic reforms without undermining the present politica. balance.
There is a brief discussion of Duboek-style reforms. The fact that his attempt to give more power to the factory managers meant also upsetting the political balance internally (more political freedom) and externally (Soviet interests) is hardly discussed. Likewise his model of socialist society, Yugoslavia, exchanged bureaueratic control of the economy stone in Garaudy's evolving consciousness for control not by workers' councils, but by factory and administrative managers. In nowhere does he mention the Belgrade student strike of 1968 or the criticism of Yugoslas society made by revolutionary Yugoslav students at that and subsequent times (ct. The Red Mole, Vol:1, No: 10). He believes that the high growth of the Yugoslav economy since 1963 illustrates the thesis that workers control book, the section discussing France, that hus statement: ".....a Communist Party in an economically and technologically advanced society cannot adopt the same organisation torm as those very justifiably advanced by Lenin." He totally rejects democratic centralian. Obviously an effect of decades of being a hatchet man for French Stalinsm. His programme for the future is both utopian and pathetic showing his total bankruptcy: "What can be done here and now is to press, in the United States, for a form of capitalism that hap human goals; in the Soviet Union, for the democratisation of socialism; in the Third World for the discovery of new criteria and methods of development."
Is this absurd hope simply a stepping or does it represent the last and pathetic outcry of a Stalinist-turned-liberal. A new version of the disillusioned Stalinists of the THirties who turved to capitalism for new hope and prostituted themselves and their 'talents' against Marxism. Garaudy's evolution has not been as simple, but his end will be the same if he coptinues to maintain his present beliefs Paul Petzie