PARTISAN REVIEW
593
to wake in the reader the feeling of identity with some of them. The
disputants take for granted that there is one "objectively correct" con–
cept of socialism and that whatever the circumstances, the social and
human costs, state ownership of the industry and the land is the
basic (though not exhaustive) content of this concept. Therefore, not
only do they not question the socialist character of the Soviet society
but they seem to agree that nothing in the world is more important
than the defense of this system of ownership, the most precious treasure
of mankind. To say nothing of Mr. Johnstone, who mostly repeats the
Soviet state catechism, both Mr. Krass6 and Mr. Mandel subordinate
their thinking to that fundamental opposition: the utterly corrupted and
utterly irreformable capitalism versus socialism that is not yet perfect
and still suffers bureaucratic distortion but represents today, because of
the state monopoly of ownership, the highest achievement of humanity.
Certain ly, whoever believes that in respect to this opposition all other
circumstances a re secondary may take perfect comfort in the awareness
that he does not properly deny the realities of Soviet past and present –
severa l dozen millions of victims, universal slavery, ruthless exploitation
of the working society, imperial foreign policy, national oppression,
glaring inequalities, cultural devastation - but he still considers these
realities as regrettable mistakes or historical necessities which do not
affect the "essence." The only question is: on which reasons are we to
accept this hierarchy of values?
The reader feels a certain relief in studying the last chapter of
the book, Mr. C.
J.
Arthur's "The Coming Soviet Revolution." The
author is criticizing the idea expounded by Trotsky in
The Re volu–
tion Betrayed
(and accepted since in the Trotsky movement ) that
the Soviet society cannot get rid of its bureaucratic degeneration with–
out a revolution, but a "political," not a "social," revolution, since the
socialist basis of the society, i.e., nationalized property, remains intact
despite the parasitic bureaucracy's political power. The author attacks
(rightly, I think) this artificial distinction between political and social
revolution. H e argues that the political expropriation of the ruling ap–
paratus would mean not only the abolishment of the existing system of
material privileges but a change in the rela tion of production as well,
because " the social character of production in the Soviet Union im–
poses fetters on the most important productive force of all , the initia–
tive and creativity of the worker himself. The completely hierarchical
command structure of the Soviet economy makes the individual work–
er the same kind of labor-power machine and nothing more than he
is in a capitalist
r
actory" (except, it should be added, that in the ca p–
italist factory the worker has the right of strike, the right of association,
the freedom of speech, the right of demanding participation in the man-
