RICHARD CARVER reviews the year when everyone ran flat out to stay in the same place. 1977. Sadat and Begin, Charter 77 and Bahro, the neutron bomb and Star Wars, punk and skateboards, and the Silver Jubilee. And farewell to Gandhi, Bhutto and Bandaranaike, to Rabin and Bert Lance, to Agee and Hosenball, to Marx and Chaplin, and Presley and Prentice. Farewell too to the unity of the Communist Parties.
Yes, a lot happened in 1977, but nothing on the scale of the victories in Indochina and Angola which requires a complete reassessment of the world political scene. Many of last year's developments could change the face of world politics. But not yet.
Since the defeat of the Portuguese revolution and the anti-imperialist victory in Angola carly in 1976 there has been no fundamental shift in the balance between the classes on a world scale. And in that sense 1977 looks very like 1976 a year of shifting and shuffling and wait-and-sec, with massive explosions just around the corner but never quite happening.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Western Europe. Much of the year was spent waiting for governmental changes: in Britain the fall of the Labour Government; in France the victory of the Union of the Left; and in Italy the entry of the Communist Party into government.
GOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT In the event, the Italian Communist Party arrived at a governmental agrocment (though not ministerial posts) with the right-wing Government without any ballyhoo. After all, its policies now are hardly different from when it was in 'opposition', In France the Union ofthe Left has all but fallen to bits and the long awaited governREVIEW OF THE YEAR ment may have to be long-awaited for a while longer. And even in Britain the opinion polls now raise the unheard of prospect of Labour returned at the next election.
Of course none of this alters the fundamental social forces at work. A working class upsurge and the accompanying crisis of the traditional parties is still long overdue in each or these countries... but not in 1977.
UNEVENNESS The same sort of staggering, stuttering, grunting unevenness marked the international capitalist cconomy over the last year. Already 1976 had seen the beginnings of a besitant and inflationary upturn, particularly in the strong est capitalist economies: the United States, West Germany and Japan. That recovery has continued Into 1977 though it has faltered as the year progressed. But the crisis of overproduction has continued. With a vast excess of productive capacity it has proved difficult, if not impossible, for even the strongest cconomies to attract productive investment.
The weaker imperialist countries have fared worse. The inflationary increase in consumer demand which helped the partial recovery in the US, West Germany and Japan could not be repeated in countries Britain and Italy, above all — with high intlation and balance of payments deficits. In such conditions the ruling class was forced to do the exact opposite: bold down consumer demand by "austerity" measures which constituted a brutal attack on working class living standards.
Buc there is no cause for complacency on the part of the imperialist strategists. Nothing decisive has turned in their favour. With the significant exception of Britain, where austerity was policed by the trade unions, the working class has generally been successful in nullifying the impact of gosernment policy on their pay packets — even in places like Italy and Spain where the fight back has run in the face of the workers" parties themselves.
The rise in industrial production has been most marked in the dependent or semi-developed countries, such as Brazil, Iran, South Korea and Hong Kong. In each of these cases this has been achieved at massive cost to the working class, in terms of both extreme poverty and severe political repression. This increase in production has sharpened trade rivalry between the imperialist and dependent countries and among the imperialist powers themselves -and this in the context of an overall contraction of world trade As always, while it is possible to make these broad generalisations aabour the cconomy, there are no such easy conclusions in politics.
TWO FORUMS There were two obvious forums for developments in world politics: the Helsinki recall conference in Belgrade and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. On the face of it neither held out the promise of Kissinger-style "detente" lasting much longer. Although we are promised a new SALT agreement in the near future, US arms developments - such as the cruise missile and the neutron bomb which Jimmy Carter claims are not covered by SALT — are bound to provoke a response from the Soviet Union — and justifiably.
If you took any notice of the human rights thetoric at Belgrade you might be reinforced in the view that East-West relations were crumbling. But not So. The stuff about the sanctity of human life is strictly for holidays and is not to be used when you are concluding an arms deal with the Shah of Iran or faced with dissidence in Poland, SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 5 January 1978 page? Czechoslovakia or East Germany Equally Carter and US Imperialism Inc. have no interest in stimulating an opposition in Eastern Europe which could "destablise" the West. Hence Solzhenitsyn and Bukovsky are trumpeted for their perceptive observations on the Decline of the West while Marxists like Bahro and Biermann are ignored in jail or exile.
SOVIET BUREAUCRACY The Soviet bureaucracy has become even more uneasy in its relations with the imperialist powers since the runn ing sore of 'Eurocommunism' chose 1977 to spill its unpleasant contents on a half-suspecting world. The signifi cance of Eurocommunism is dealt with elsewhere in this review. For the momeant it is enough to say that the Soviet bureaucracy brought Eurocommunism on itself. Where its policies have not been inherited wholesale from the Moscow line, Eurocommunism's criticisms have their root in the brutally undemocratic practices of the East European regimes The loss of these instruments of foreign policy in the imperialist countries has tended to force the Kremlin into an cver closer relationship with the imperalist governments themselves. There was an appropriate symbolism in the visit of Soviet President Brezhnev to Paris, when he refused to meet the French Communist Party leader.
In this context the perennial problem of the Soviet regime only becomes more acute: how is it possible to in crease the Soviet sphere of influence -primarily for strategic reasons with out upsetting the international status quo by exporting revolution? 1977 off ered no answer to that dilemma as the Soviet Union scood by helplessly while the Americans took the initiative in the Middle East, and two states, both sup plied with identical Sovict weapons. slugged it out in the Horn of Africa
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