Real socialism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The terms real socialism , real socialism or real existing socialism were introduced and used from the German Democratic Republic in the 1970s as an external and self-designation for various social systems in Europe, Asia and Cuba . What they had in common was the predominance of a communist party and the self-image as a socialist social order mostly within the Soviet sphere of influence.

The form of government of actually existing socialism was " People's Republic " or "Democratic People's Republic"; the political system of those societies was characterized by an autocratic one-party rule , the economic system by a planned economy or clearly planned economy elements.

Concept formation

The term “real existing socialism” was used for the first time by Erich Honecker at the 9th meeting of the SED Central Committee in May 1973 and then appeared again and again in official statements to characterize social conditions in the GDR. He expresses that in the respective states Marxist claims and empirical reality diverge. The states under Soviet hegemony were criticized in particular by supporters of leftist currents who were striving for democratic socialism for lack of democracy or the mere nationalization instead of a demanded “socialization” of the means of production . The term should bring them closer to utopian socialists . The term was later used outside the real socialist world to criticize this very discrepancy . Totalitarian Stalinism in particular is considered a synonym for this discrepancy.

Rudolf Bahros The alternative. Regarding the criticism of the actually existing socialism , the approach of Lenin and Stalin in building socialism in the Soviet Union recognized as correct. But he assumed that the real socialist states had got stuck in a kind of “protoform” of the theoretical model. According to Manfred Hildermeier , the term was already used at the end of the 1960s, it was appropriate for the socialist states of the entire Brezhnev era . Instead of a chaotic dictatorship , halfway regulated power structures have been set up. At the same time, political science rose as a science in western countries .

According to Stefan Wolle , several specific problems in the GDR are associated with the term . Initially, this was not founded as a nation-state and, due to the lack of a historical basis, was particularly dependent on ideological categories. The reference to the “real existence” is only meaningful where it is disputed or completely questioned. The term fits into an official partisan vocabulary, which is more reminiscent of pietistic inwardness than political discourse. It betrays a permanent defensive stance against the loss of utopia as well as one's own theoretical claims.

Benedikt Sarnov does not see the term real socialism as a euphemism, but as a form of Newspeak that people made fun of early on.

The Germanist Carsten Gansel noted various special interactions between GDR real socialism and literature such as collective memory. The term was therefore mainly used to brand approaches to reforms of “real” socialism as counter-revolutionary or utopian, especially in connection with the Prague Spring .

International environment

The Sino-Soviet rift , which lasted from the end of the 1950s until well into the 1980s, played an important role in the discussion about real socialism . At the time of this schism of the communist movements, both of them denied each other the right to speak for socialism. Real socialism was also criticized by Trotskyists and councilor communists as “ state capitalism ”. In the context of the K groups , the various assignments to various special routes, in addition to the People's Republic of China , Albania , Yugoslavia or North Korea were sometimes bitterly discussed. After the end of the Cultural Revolution , members and pioneers abroad, especially Maoist groups like Charles Bettelheim , withdrew in disappointment.

China's special role

John Kenneth Galbraith found the political system's influence on the economy to be limited. Historical relative differences, such as in Eastern Europe , between individual states could never be eliminated by socialism. The fundamental failure of real socialist systems in developing countries is mainly due to the lack of planning and administrative capacity in the respective countries, China confirms the rule as an exception with an administrative history stretching back thousands of years.

A key internal difference was how agriculture was handled . In the Soviet Union , the economically successful but ideologically unsuitable New Economic Policy was apostrophized as “ Brest-Litovsk against the kulaks ”, and the peasants were brutally collectivized from the end of the 1920s .

In contrast to this, in China itself the mobilization of the peasants and the economically successful supply of the army on the Long March was an essential and formative element of the revolution in China. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was long after the Civil War as an economic actor - both in terms of real estate as well as with various companies within and beyond the Armor area - successfully and present. Right from the start, the PLA was forced to provide the soldiers with food on its own. The army is of central importance for Chinese society, even if the beginning of the 1980s began to separate civilian production of the PLA from the general association.

Existing real socialist societies

Real socialism in the states of the European Eastern Bloc has completely collapsed since 1989. In contrast, real socialist societies in Latin America and Asia continue to exist or have been further developed. Among other things, socialism with Chinese characteristics became known under the motto Deng Xiaoping “It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it is already a good cat ”. Initially, neither the state of proto-socialism nor the "kindling of the productive forces" was seen as a problem as long as the political supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was secured.

With the similar concept of Đổi mới in Vietnam , a considerable expansion of economic production, especially of cash crops such as coffee, was achieved there. However, this came too late for the solution of real socialist supply problems with consumer goods in the GDR .

Existing, officially socialist states are u. a .:

See also

literature

  • Rudolf Bahro : The alternative. On the critique of actually existing socialism , Tribüne Verlag 1977, new edition: Bund-Verlag 1990.
  • Antonio Carlo: Political and Economic Structure of the USSR (1917–1975). Dictatorship of the proletariat or bureaucratic collectivism , Wagenbach, Berlin 1972.
  • Klaus Steinitz: The Failure of Real Socialism. Conclusions for the Left in the 21st Century , VSA, Hamburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-89965-235-2 .
  • Mathias Wiards: Crisis in Real Socialism. The political economy of the GDR in the 1980s , Argument, Hamburg 2001.
  • Martin Blumentritt, Eberhard Braun , Wolfram Burisch: Critical Philosophy of Social Practice. Confrontation with Marx's theory after the collapse of real socialism. ISBN 3-8260-1011-6 .
  • Hartmut Elsenhans : Rise and Fall of Real Socialism. Some political and economic remarks . In: COMPARATIVE. Leipzig contributions to universal history and comparative social research, Universitätsverlag Leipzig, Issue 1 (1998), pp. 122–132.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Klaus Ziemer , Real existing socialism , in: Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Lexikon der Politik , Vol. 7, directmedia, Berlin 2004, p. 535 f.
  2. ^ Peter Borowsky, The GDR in the 1970s , Information on Political Education 258, online ; Retrieved June 7, 2010.
  3. ↑ Everhard Holtmann (Ed.), Politik Lexikon , 3rd edition 2000, p. 635.
  4. ↑ The alternative. To the criticism of the actually existing socialism. European Publishing House (EVA), Cologne / Frankfurt 1977, ISBN 3-434-00353-3 .
  5. ↑ Manfred Hildermeier , The Soviet Union 1917–1991 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2007, p. 147 ff.
  6. ↑ Stefan Wolle , The ideal world of dictatorship , Ch. Links Verlag, 1998, p. 237 ff.
  7. ^ Benedikt Sarnov , Our Soviet Newspeak : A Short Encyclopedia of Real Socialism. Moscow 2002, ISBN 5-85646-059-6 (Наш советский новояз. Маленькая энциклопедия реального социализма.), Real Socialism , pp. 472–474.
  8. ↑ Carsten Gansel , Memory and Literature in the “Closed Societies” of Real Socialism between 1945 and 1989 , V&R unipress GmbH, 2007.
  9. ↑ So z. B. in Charles Bettelheim u. a., China 1972. Economy, Business and Education since the Cultural Revolution , ed. together with Maria Antonietta Macciochi, Wagenbach, Berlin 1975.
  10. ↑ John Kenneth Galbraith, The nature of mass poverty. German: The arrogance of the satiated. Strategies for Overcoming Global Mass Poverty. Scherz, Bern / Munich 1980.
  11. ^ A b Robert W. Cox , “Real Socialism” in historical perspective , in: Ralph Miliband and Leo Panitch (eds.): Communist Regimes: The Aftermath. Socialist Register , Merlin Press, London 1991 ( online ).
  12. ↑ a b A Country Study: China - Library of Congress Call Number DS706 .C489 1988
  13. ↑ "China's People's Liberation Army is celebrating its 80th birthday with a large exhibition in the Beijing Military Museum. It is still a powerful state within a state. All reactionaries are paper tigers ”, by Andreas Schlieker, TAZ August 12, 2007.