SOCIALISM AND LIBERATION
507
slovakia and Poland that there are considerable differences
in
practice.
I wish to suggest that when we examine Marxist
theory
we can de–
tect even greater potential differences in meaning-a complex of
ambiguities which manifest, or can be given, either a democratic or
totalitarian variant. Because Marxism is primarily a critique of capi–
talism, it provides no specific directives but only general guides as
to how to build socialism. These guides are more social, political and
moral than economic in nature, because Marx assumed that the pro–
cesses of accumulation would have progressed to a point where there
would be no problem of having to construct capital goods industries.
The ambiguities in Marxism are aggravated by the bolshevik success
in refuting (or revising) Marx in their attempt to lay the founda–
tion of socialist economy
by
political
means in industrially backward
areas-something presumably ruled out by historical materialism.
The most fervent "Marxists" today are those who have actually re–
futed Marx while excoriating the revisionists of Marx.
There is no historical necessity in the way in which socialism
is to be built, otherwise we could not speak of different paths to
socialism. No matter what the objective economic conditions, other
factors enter into the situation. Among them an important-I do not
say decisive- factor may be the way in which traditional Marxist
principles are interpreted and developed. The direction in which
"socialist" economy and society will develop may depend, for ex–
ample, in some countries upon how the principle of "workers' con–
trol," stressed in pre-revolutionary terms by both syndicalists and
Marxists alike, is understood. Let us look more closely at this concept.
There has always been an ambiguity about the nature and
function of "workers' control" in socialist theory. The Utopian
theory of Marxism, according to which some day the state will disap–
pear, made the organs of workers' control on the level of the factory,
the administrative unit of society which would function without co–
ercion by the voluntary cooperation of an historically new species
of man. For purposes of revolutionary struggle, "workers' control"
was stressed as a means of heightening the pitch of a revolutionary
situation, breaking the resistance of the class enemy, and getting pro–
duction going again. All tendencies within the socialist movement
declared themselves
for
workers' control but few seemed clear about
what it meant and those who were clear were not always in agree-
