Marxist theory has always exhibited a dynamic equilibrium between two of its aspects: economic determinism and voluntarism. The predomination of one or the other generally reflects the prevailing political climate. During times of capitalist stability, or when there is little of working class militancy, there is a tendency towards determinism. The air becomes sonorous with declamations that inevitably, but sometime in the distant future, the objective and iron laws controlling the capitalist economy will lead to a catastrophic crisis and the ushering in of the millenium. The mechanistic invocation of the objective conditions plays a very important role in rationalising the quietism of the labour movement during politically slack periods and also giving it hope for the future. The pre-1914 German Social Democracy evolved a very determinist version of marxism. Trotsky characterised its tradition as one that "bore a semi-automatic character: each day followed 'naturally' from the day before and just as 'naturally' prepared for the day to follow". The limits of this mechanistic approach are reached when the class struggle flares and most "unnatural" jumps in political life occur.
When crises do occur, then voluntarism becomes stressed. Before the Russian Revolution, Lenin confidently predicted the inevitable revolution - but not in his lifetime. With the revolution came the Theses and the statement that theory is a [illegible] to ACTION and not a dogma. The strength of voluntarism lies in its understanding that it is men who make their own history, and therefore lays an ideological basis for the subjective factors such as the role of the vanguard, when the objective conditions were ripe for action. The weakness in voluntarism lies in its ability to ignore objective conditions and to degenerate into adventurism - a process much evident during the "third period" which led to the tragi-comedy of the Baltic States when handfuls of communists tried to seize power in the face of working-class apathy.
WAR OR SLUMP
The debate among the British marxists during the fifties and early sixties was set firmly within the confines of economic determinism. Socialism, it was assumed, could only follow in the wake of a catastrophic crisis. Lenin had clearly stated that, "Revolution is impossible without a national crisis affecting both the exploiters and the exploited." The majority of British marxists saw the national crisis as being either a war or a slump. Nuclear war could only be regarded as the precursor to socialism by a lunatic fringe, so the debate as to whether socialism was on the agenda in Britain became translated into a debate on whether or not there would be a slump. A majority decided that the permanent war economy had given capitalism a very considerable breathing space and therefore revolution in Europe was impossible. Instead, there would be the steady fragmentation and depoliticisation of the working class. These concepts clearly show the pressure of bourgeois ideas such as Daniel Bell "end of ideology" school and Goldthorpe's sociology of declining class consciousness. The events of France in May rudely intruded themselves into the carefully woven [illegible] The point that no-one predicted the French [illegible] is not too important: it could mean [illegible] drummed out of the Soothsayers' Circle, but marxism has never attempted to compete with astrology. The important fact is that the majority of British marxists refused to accept that such an eventuality was possible. Why was this so? Very largely the fault can be found in the mechanical and economic determinist [illegible] of marxism prevalent in Britain. Crude equations such as crisis equals slump, which in turn [illegible] revolution have been implicit in much of the pre-French debate. This, in spite of the "red" thirties, that mean dispirited decade, when it was shown that slump could lead to working class demoralisation and political reaction.
ENGELS ON CRISIS
Crisis need not mean slump, nor does it have to be a purely economic phenomenon. Engels made this point in a letter to Joseph Bloch: "the economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure - political form of the class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc. - forms of law - and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the combatants: political, legal, philosophical theories, religious ideas - and their further development into dogma - also exercise their influence upon the course of historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form." The French events, certainly, cannot be understood on the basis of a slump theory. There were economic problems - an unemployment figure oscillating in the 500,000 to 700,000 region, and some cut-back in welfare provision - but no slump.
Neo-capitalism has, probably, the ability to avoid catastrophic crises. This does not mean that it will suffer no crises. Wage freezes, regional unbalance and problems of liquidity have dogged all of the metropolitan capitalist countries. The "affluence" of sectors of the working class brings an additional problem, as alienation as consumers complements the alienation suffered as producers. The "affluence" does not destroy the militancy of the workers; in fact it is often the most prosperous sections of the workers who are the most militant. The economic and social gains made by the working class ensure the emergence of new categories of essentials such as cars, paid holidays, televisions, security of employment and state health services. These gains are not contrasted with the wretched conditions in the Third World, thus solidarising the workers with the capitalists, nor does the worker use the depressed thirties as a reference point to judge a "utopian" present. A relativism comes into play only with regard to the standards of life that the workers have struggled to achieve for themselves. A figure of 500,000 unemployed in France, given a climate of disillusionment with Gaullism and the militancy of the students was unacceptable to the workers.
INCREASING ALIENATION
The increased alienation of the workers clashes with the mechanism of neo-capitalism; the prices and incomes policy, increasing division of labour national planning and automation. The demands of the labour movement that are necessary to combat these phenomena have to be raised to a higher level. Potentially, the call for nationalisation under workers' control is no longer just the demand of the revolutionary vanguard, but has become the property of the whole labour movement. Over whole areas of neo-capitalism latent crises exists authoritarianism, the anti-imperialist struggle, education and the student revolt, incomes policy and even questions to do with the quality of life. No economic eschatology is required - the opportunities for struggle exist now.
Ernest Mandel put his finger on a vital point when he wrote, "...it is above all the subjective factor which plays the key role in deciding whether or not the workers' movement makes use of the opportunity which neo-capitalism provides for an anti-capitalist strategic offensive." The British left has to do more than free itself of economic determinist concepts and to abstractly realise that struggle is possible. The next stage of debate has to come to grips with the subjective factor. Questions about the transitional programme and the revolutionary [illegible] will have to be settled - and quickly at that.