István Mészáros is author of Socialism or Barbarism: From the “American Century” to the Crossroads (Monthly Review Press, 2001) and Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition (Monthly Review Press, 1995). This essay is excerpted from his book, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time: Socialism in the Twenty-First Century (2009).
After Alienation
16 January 2018, bySince the collapse of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union, many on the left seem to have swallowed the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism. Debate has been limited to what can (or rather cannot) be achieved within its confines. Here is a powerful book with the opposite message: What must be abolished is not only classical capitalist society but the reign of capital as such. Indeed, the Soviet example proves it is not enough to “expropriate the expropriators” if you do not uproot the domination of labor on which the rule of capital rests. An alternative exists, or more precisely, can be forged, provided it is radical and fundamental.
Four theses on the Catalan crisis
5 November 2017, byThesis 1: The Catalan crisis has been caused by the state apparatus of the Spanish liberal monarchy, with the intention of controlling the political consequences of the economic crisis of neoliberalism.
Catalonia: Past and Future
3 November 2017, byThe battle around the October 1 independence referendum — called by the Catalan parliament but banned by Spain’s highest court — has become one of the most dramatic European developments in years.
Contradictions in Russian Cultural Politics: Conservatism as an Instrument of Neoliberalism
2 November 2017, byToday, it is common to contrast the statism of today’s Russia with the Western neoliberal order, which is based on the primacy of political and economic freedom. European journalists and experts discuss Putin’s Russia as though it were a revisionist state that is not only ready for military aggression but is also driven by internal destructive forces: a “populist international” of right and left parties, attacking an imaginary “establishment.” [1]
Debt— Lloyd George blames the Soviets
8 October 2017, byIn the final plenary conference, Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, made a revealing reply:
"There is a real sympathy for Russia’s condition. If Russia is to get help, Russia must not outrage the sentiments — if they like, let them call them the prejudices — of the world. (…) what are these prejudices?
Reasserting debt repudiation ends with success
8 October 2017, byBefore the Genoa conference, Soviet Russia had managed to sign bilateral treaties with Poland, the Baltic Republics, Turkey and Persia. More importantly, it had managed to sign a trade agreement with the UK. Signed in 1921, this agreement had sanctioned the Soviet laws of nationalization before UK courts and this meant that companies that traded with Russia no longer ran the risk of getting into trouble. [2]
Genoa (1922): proposals and, counter-proposals on the Tsarist debt
8 October 2017, byOn 20 April 1922, Chicherin announced the Soviet response to the Western powers’ proposals of 15 April. It indicated that: “The Russian delegation are still of the opinion that the present economic condition of Russia and the circumstances which are responsible for it should fully justify the complete release of Russia from all her liabilities mentioned in the above proposals by the recognition of her counter-claims”.
In 1922 creditor powers again attempt to subjugate the Soviets
7 October 2017, byWestern governments presented a full list of demands aimed at solving in their favour the litigation over debt repudiation and expropriations decreed by the Soviet government. Those demands were presented in Genoa on 15 April 1922, five days into the conference, in a document entitled “London Experts’ Report on the Russian issue.” [3]
Diplomatic manoeuvers around Russian debt repudiation
7 October 2017, byFor five weeks in April and May 1922, a summit conference was held. Britain’s prime minister, Lloyd George, played a central role in it, as did Louis Barthou, the minister of the French president Raymond Poincaré.
The main aim of the meeting was to persuade Soviet Russia [4] both to acknowledge the debts it had repudiated in 1918 and to cease calling for a global revolution.
Footnotes
[1] This idea is, for example, one of the main theses of the expert paper: ‘Post-Truth, Post-West, Post-Order?’, presented at the Munich security conference at the beginning of 2017. https://www.securityconference.de/e...
[2] Article 9 of the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement stipulated: “The British Government declares that it will not initiate any steps with a view to attach or to take possession of any gold, funds, securities or commodities not being articles identifiable as the property of the British Government which may be exported from Russia in payment for imports or as securities for such payment, or of any movable or immovable property which may be acquired by the Russian Soviet Government within the United Kingdom.” https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Anglo-Soviet_Trade_Agreement.
On this topic see also E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, Vol. 3, pp. 286-9.
[3] See full text at https://moodle2.units.it/pluginfile.php/78252/mod_resource/content/1/1922_Genoa_Conference_papers.pdf
[4] When the Conference of Genoa took place, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did not yet exist. It was founded in December 1922 and officially dissolved in December 1991. At the Conference of Genoa, the Soviet delegation officially represented the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which we have abbreviated in the present text to “Soviet Russia”.
