Class Struggle in Eastern Europe, 1945-1983

One idea dominated the thinking of the left throughout the world for half a century — the idea that socialist countries already existed. It is an idea which has increasingly paralysed those who would fight lor a better society. They have seen the so-called socialist countries reproduce all the evils of the capitalist society they were supposed to replace. There have been economic crises driving millions to desperation (Poland), the wholesale sacking of workers and the formation of reserve armies’ of the unemployed (Yugoslavia and China), the use ot tanks to conquer other peoples (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan), border wars between ‘socialist armies’ (Russia and China, China and Vietnam), state incitement of anti-Semitism i Poland), the mass deployment of slave labour (Stalin’s Russia), even tin- establishment of extermination camps (Kampuchea). The accumulation of wealth has continued to be accompanied by the ac- < uinulation of poverty, massive privileges by massive drudgery, the promise of liberation by the reality of repression. l or a whole generation the great majority of socialists in the West ami the third world tried to ignore these realities. They tried to dé tend the indefensible, to hide from themselves what they could not hide from others, to cover up for their own uncertainty by empty i hetoric.