Original article
Kees van der Pijl,
PhD, Former Professor, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
Address: Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, Arts Building C, Arts Road, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SJ, United Kingdom
E-mail: keesvanderpijl@protonmail.com
Article ID: 020211771
Published online: 10 January 2022
HANDLE: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12656/thebeacon.4.020211771
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.4.020211771
Quoting (Chicago style): Van der Pijl, Kees. 2021. “The Centenary of the Russian Revolution and Permanent Counterrevolution.” Beacon J Stud Ideol Ment Dimens 4, 020211771. https://doi.org/10.55269/thebeacon.4.020211771
Language: Russian
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In my paper, I analyse the distant consequences of Russian Revolution of 1917 in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They can be traced even now. I also study the ideological opposition of Soviet–Russian and international socialism vs. Western capitalism through the prism of revolutionary–counterrevolutionary struggle in both Soviet and post-Soviet times. In view of persistent economic and mental crisis of modern Western capitalism, it is high time to revise our understanding of the achievements of planned economy that was characteristic for the Russian Revolution and the former Soviet Union. These achievements are important in the situation of the global systemic crisis of the Western neoliberal ideological model, especially for ecological socialism and healthy democratic debates / decision-making. Key words: revolutionary ideology; counterrevolution; Soviet socialism; liberalism; Western capitalism; fascism; modern Russia; Soviet Union; internationalism; national policy; political economy
I advance an unusual view on the confrontation of the Western capitalism and Soviet–Russian socialism. I suggest to see this confrontation through the prism of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary ideologies.
Today, almost one hundred years after the October Revolution 1917 in Russia, there are few reasons to celebrate the success of revolutionary ideology. Indeed, the Soviet Union, the socialist country built as a result of the Revolution, demised thirty years ago, while its economy was pillaged and devastated by the new Russian oligarchy. Simultaneously NATO advanced to the East and the EU approached the very Russian borders (e.g., Baltic countries). However, such achievement of revolutionary ideology as planned economy may be regarded as a useful instrument for developing eco-socialism and especially repairing Western capitalism and corporate liberalism that were seriously threatened by the incessant financial, economic and mental crises of the last decades. During these decades, the ruling political elites were able to keep status quo by means of injecting additional capital to the breeches using sovereign debt, inflation and corporate debt. The great financial crisis of 2007-2008 put an end to this.
Retrospectively, what Marx named the transition from capitalism to socialism may seem to be repeatedly stifled by the Western capitalism. I name it permanent counterrevolution. The modern version of the Western counterrevolutionary ideology is economically based upon supply chains that combine the cheapest workforce in Asia with Western markets but dampen the overall demand in the global sense. The financial crisis led to narrowing the class compromise, as the income division of the global society strengthened.
The Western counterrevolutionary strategy is focussed on protecting the global supply chains (“globalisation”) and modern analogues of debt collection and it uses economic wars and real wars for regime change in different parts of the world. None the less, the increase in financing the US military budget cannot be justified merely by the argument of defending the global supply chains and sustaining credit lines of International Monetary Fund and transnational corporations. Samuel Huntington’s concept of the “clash of civilizations” came handy in 1990s after the demise of the Soviet Union and collapse of the Soviet bloc. Huntington can be viewed as a mouthpiece of the counterrevolutionary ideology, as he placed Russia, China and Islamic countries beyond the borders of the “civilised” Western realm. People inhabiting these “outer lands” should be marked as castaways from the “real” world and therefore existential enemies of the West.
After the collapse of the Soviet system in early 1990s, Russia was initially controlled by the rapacious neoliberal clique teamed around Boris Yeltsin. According to the words of Misha Glenny, the “grandest larceny in history” and the “single biggest flight of capital the world has ever seen” ensued. The Soviet rouble was devalued and the inflation surged. The prices for everyday goods skyrocketed, while the prices for energy resources remained at the Soviet levels, with the world prices being forty times higher. As a result, a group of new oligarchs appeared in the twinkling of an eye. The counterrevolutionary ideology was in full force in Russia then.
Afterwards Vladimir Putin reinstated the control apparatus over the oligarchy that pillaged the post-Soviet Russia’s economy, without problematising the validity of the capitalist model. The commodity price rise in 2000s allowed Putin to increase the level of revenues, modernise military forces and create satisfactory public policy.
Now a new informational revolution lays foundation to the global society of a new type. Therefore, careful studying achievements and drawbacks of the revolutionary ideology and planned economy must be undertaken. We may observe the process of the informational revolution’s effacing the capabilities of neoliberal order at the global scale due to centralisation of huge informational torrents collected and stored by transnational corporations that specialise in data-processing and artificial intelligence.
© 2021 Kees van der Pijl. Licensee The Beacon: Journal for Studying Ideologies and Mental Dimensions.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) that permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
