OriginalGumby
12th November 2009, 19:51
http://socialistworker.org/series/The-fall-of-the-wall
Ongoing set of articles on the 1989 revolts. I know that there is a great deal of disagreement on this site about this set of events but I hope that the ISO articles are considered in the context set by this quote from the end of the article by Alan Maass.
"What happened after the revolutions of 1989 was a step sideways. The mass upheaval from below overthrew one form of capitalism, presided over by a state bureaucracy, but this was replaced by free-market capitalism on the model of the West.
This was cheered on by most of the old oppositionists thrust into power by the revolutions. Many had been influenced decades before by the struggles of the 1960s and the rise of a new left in Western Europe. But the conservative period that followed shaped their thinking now--they saw no alternative to the Stalinist system but free-market capitalism. It was a deeply frustrating contradiction of the time--hearing men and women who had done time in police-state prisons for defending free trade unions sing the praises of a union-busting monster like Margaret Thatcher.
The expectations that the capitalist free market would bring prosperity and freedom were dashed. Already meager living standards in countries like Poland and elsewhere took a further dive.
But the suffering endured under the free market in the following years shouldn't overshadow what the Eastern European revolutions accomplished. A dictatorial system that had seemed immune to any form of protest was brought down across half a continent in a matter of months.
The revolts cleared the way for genuine socialism, not polluted by the crimes of Stalinism, to be rediscovered. This is the tradition we look to today--one that puts the emancipation of the working class, accomplished by the working class itself, at the center of the project of creating a new world."
Ongoing set of articles on the 1989 revolts. I know that there is a great deal of disagreement on this site about this set of events but I hope that the ISO articles are considered in the context set by this quote from the end of the article by Alan Maass.
"What happened after the revolutions of 1989 was a step sideways. The mass upheaval from below overthrew one form of capitalism, presided over by a state bureaucracy, but this was replaced by free-market capitalism on the model of the West.
This was cheered on by most of the old oppositionists thrust into power by the revolutions. Many had been influenced decades before by the struggles of the 1960s and the rise of a new left in Western Europe. But the conservative period that followed shaped their thinking now--they saw no alternative to the Stalinist system but free-market capitalism. It was a deeply frustrating contradiction of the time--hearing men and women who had done time in police-state prisons for defending free trade unions sing the praises of a union-busting monster like Margaret Thatcher.
The expectations that the capitalist free market would bring prosperity and freedom were dashed. Already meager living standards in countries like Poland and elsewhere took a further dive.
But the suffering endured under the free market in the following years shouldn't overshadow what the Eastern European revolutions accomplished. A dictatorial system that had seemed immune to any form of protest was brought down across half a continent in a matter of months.
The revolts cleared the way for genuine socialism, not polluted by the crimes of Stalinism, to be rediscovered. This is the tradition we look to today--one that puts the emancipation of the working class, accomplished by the working class itself, at the center of the project of creating a new world."