Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

—   Ge - Gh   —

GENERAL AGREEMENTS ON TRADE TARIFFS (GATT)
The predecessor set of trade agreements, and the organization to arbitrate and enforce those agreements, which later became the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“Lenin’s basic point of view was that the imperialist era is the final stage of capitalism, an era during which all the contradictions of capitalism become enormously concentrated and intensified, and therefore an era of interimperialist war, of economic crisis, and of proletarian revolution. And, actually, looking back at the past century, this does not seem to be too bad a summary of what has actually happened—though clearly the era is not yet over and the process is by no means complete.
         “Nevertheless, it is now clear that the imperialist era is stretching out to be a whole lot longer than Lenin envisioned, and that within this long historical epoch there are fairly long sub-periods of war or of relative peace, of economic crisis or of relative economic good times (for the bourgeoisie anyway), and of revolution or of relative political quiescence. Consequently the old formula of the imperialist epoch being characterized as one long general crisis of capitalism no longer seems correct. It now appears much too simplistic.
         “In fact, it has become quite obvious that the capitalist business cycle continues to operate in the imperialist era. That is, there continue to be booms, busts, depressions (or recessions) and recoveries. It is true that the proper analysis of this business cycle in the imperialist era is still subject to dispute. Some people say recessions are now generally much milder (except for the Great Depression of the 1930s of course!), others talk about short waves and long waves, and still others have quite different theories....
         “But however one views the development of the business cycle over the past century, it is undeniable that there was at least one long overall boom in the capitalist world—the quarter-century period after World War II. Thus, from the point of view of economics, at least, it seems really wrong to say that the entire imperialist era has been one of a ‘general crisis of capitalism’.
         “I should note that most modern (post World War II) theorists of the GCC thesis do not deny that the business cycle continues to exist in the imperialist era, nor that there are still booms as well as busts. But this was not the view of most of the Comintern theorists of the GCC back in the 1930s; they did see the Great Depression as an integral part of the general crisis of capitalism. But in light of the long capitalist recovery after World War II, GCC theorists these days are forced to say that the general crisis of capitalism is not the same as one long capitalist economic crisis.” —Adapted from Scott H., “Comments on Sison’s ‘Contradictions in the World Capitalist System and the Necessity of Socialist Revolution’” (Jan. 23, 2002).

But, despite drawing a distinction between the GCC and periodic industrial crises, modern GCC theorists still see intensified economic problems as a very important part of the general crisis of capitalism. For example, the Soviet revisionist writer V. Trepelkov wrote that there are four “major features” of the general crisis of capitalism:

1. “[T]he world is divided into two opposing socio-economic systems, the socialist and capitalist ones…. [T]he change in the alignment of forces in favor of socialism is the most significant manifestation of the increasingly deepening general crisis of capitalism…. The contradiction between the two opposing social systems is the principal contradiction of the modern era.”
         2. “[T]he crisis of the colonial system, a crisis which at a definite stage develops into its breakdown…. A large group of countries that have won political independence are now fighting for their economic independence. Some have opted for the non-capitalist road of development….”
         3. “[T]he aggravation of the internal economic contradictions of the imperialist countries, and the heightening of economic instability and decay. This makes itself felt in sharp fluctuations in the growth rates, in disproportionate economic development, in increasingly frequent crises, in constant under-loading [perhaps this just means the gross underutilization of existing factories —S.H.], in chronic unemployment, in runaway inflation, in the crisis of international monetary relations, in militarization of the economy, etc.”
         4. “[T]he crisis of bourgeois politics and ideology.” [From V. Trepelkov, General Crisis of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983), pp. 21-25.]

However, if we look at each of these four “features” we find serious problems for the GCC thesis:

“With regard to point 1), the world was not really divided into a socialist sphere and a capitalist sphere in 1983 when Trepelkov’s book was published, nor is it today. The so-called ‘socialist camp’ at that time was really a competing state-capitalist camp. And a mere 6 or 8 years later much of this so-called ‘socialist camp’, including the Soviet Union itself, fell apart completely.
         “Feature 2), with regard to the crisis of the colonial system, also has some problems. It is true that old-style open colonialism had a world-wide crisis which led to its nearly universal replacement with neo-colonialism. But the completion of this great (but superficial) change actually led to a lot of demoralization (because neo-colonialism is really little better), and probably even to an overall reduction in anti-imperialist struggle around the world for a time. Of course I don’t say that there cannot be struggle in the neo-colonies for ‘economic independence’, but so far this struggle has been mostly under the leadership of national bourgeois forces—which is why it has been so pathetically weak and ineffective. And as for seeking economic independence by some ‘non-capitalist’, but also non-socialist, road—that is certainly a dead-end pipe dream.
         “Anti-imperialist struggle, at one level or another, is a permanent feature of the imperialist era. And as such, it might well be described as a permanent problem for imperialism. But none of this necessarily means that imperialism is in a permanent ‘general crisis’.
         “Let me skip feature 3) for a moment and go on to feature 4), ‘the crisis of bourgeois politics and ideology’. Well, of course, there have been many political crises over the past few decades, but bad as this has been in the ‘West’, it has been worse in the Soviet sphere—which ended up collapsing completely. This general crisis, which is supposed to be ‘a process in which more and more countries depart from capitalism’ has turned out to be more of a general crisis of revisionism, wherein more and more revisionist countries revert to Western-style capitalism. And while there has indeed also been considerable ideological ferment in the ‘West’, actually Western ideologists have been riding relatively high in the saddle in recent years. So much so, in fact, that some of them have proclaimed the ‘end of ideology’ and even the ‘end of history’! Unfortunately, the bigger ideological crisis has been within the ranks of revolutionaries and Marxists, many of whom have been losing their bearings. (It is bitter to recognize things like this, but it is the truth of the matter.)
         “So really, if you want to defend the GCC thesis today, it must all come down to ‘feature 3)’, the aggravation of economic contradictions in the capitalist world. And here too there are great problems for the GCC thesis. Here’s one big problem: If this serious aggravation of economic problems is not due to the same contradictions which bring about ‘ordinary crises’, then what is it due to? That should be a really embarrassing question for ‘modern’ GCC theorists, if they were ever to consider it. Neither Marx, nor Lenin, nor Soviet revisionist economists, nor anybody else (as far as I know), has ever given an answer to this question. And in fact, Lenin said exactly the opposite—that the contradictions of the imperialist era are the very same contradictions as racked capitalism beforehand, but now greatly intensified. So while the GCC theorists started out by denying that the GCC is the same as a capitalist economic crisis, in the end that is pretty much all that is left of their doctrine after the invalid and now-discredited political points are thrown out.
         “It is true, of course, that we can no longer look at capitalist crises in the same way we did in the 19^th century. We are forced by plain and obvious facts to recognize that there are both short term fluctuations in the capitalist economy (still usually called ‘business cycles’) and longer-term, broader ups and downs, such as the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom, and the 35-year-long slowdown that began in the early 1970s. And, once again, the very fact that there are also longer-term ups and downs is fatal for the GCC claim of permanent general crisis.
         “The old Comintern theory of the ‘general crisis of capitalism’ cannot be upheld in either its 1930s form, nor its ‘modern’ form. It is a failed, and even incoherent theory, once you start to look at it carefully. Reality is much more complex than that simple theory comprehends.” —Extracts from Scott H., “Comments on Sison’s ‘Contradictions in the World Capitalist System and the Necessity of Socialist Revolution’” (Jan. 23, 2002). See that essay for further criticism of the GCC thesis.

“GENERAL SEMANTICS”
Pseudo-scientific academic cult, with little or no actual connection to the semantics branch of linguistic science.

GENERAL WILL
An important concept in the social philosophy of Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his definition the general will is the common good that any well-formed (normal) citizen would recognize, and is neither that citizen’s own private will nor quite the same as the shared private wills of all individual citizens. The concept of the general will is therefore a rather sophisticated abstraction, in the same way that the class interests of a given social class are a sophisticated abstraction from the totality of all the individual interests of members of that class.

“There is often a great difference between the will of all [what all individuals want] and the general will; the general will studies only the common interest while the will of all studies private interest, and is indeed no more than the sum of individual desires. But if we take away from these same wills, the pluses and minuses which cancel each other out, the sum of the difference is the general will.” —Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, translated by Maurice Cranston, (NY: Penguin, 1983), Book II, Chapter 3, pp. 72-73. The words above in brackets are in the original.
         [Ignoring Rousseau’s incorrect psychological focus, what is being said here is that the common interests of members of a group must be abstracted from their individual interests, and are by no means always identical to their shared individual interests. Quite a sophisticated observation for 1762! —S.H.]

“The word gentry is used here to describe landlords, rich peasants, and persons who made a career of serving them and their interests (such as bailiffs, public officials, village scholars) whose standard of living was comparable to that of the wealthy and came from the same source—the exploitation of the peasants.” —William Hinton, footnote in his book Fanshen (1966).

GEOGRAPHY — and the Development of Society
[Intro to be added...]
        Two important works by G. V. Plekhanov that relate to this topic are: “Fundamental Questions of Marxism”, chapter VI, and “N.G. Chernyshevsky”, chapter II.

GERMAN IDEOLOGY, THE
A book written jointly by Marx and Engels in the years 1845-46, but not published in their lifetime. In it they worked out their theory of historical materialism and criticized various contemporary idealist philosophers and ideologists. Although this is an early work, it is also one of the most extensive presentations of historical materialism by Marx and Engels, and thus is extremely valuable.

“The manuscript, amounting to nearly 800 printed pages, was in two volumes, the first of which was mainly devoted to an elaboration of the basic theses of historical materialism and to a criticism of the philosophical views of Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer and Max Stirner, and the second, to a criticism of the views of various representatives of ‘true socialism.’
         “In 1846-1847 Marx and Engels made repeated attempts to find a publisher in Germany who would issue their work. They were, however, unsuccessful, due to the obstacles raised by the police and because the publishers, themselves interested parties, were champions of the very trends combated by Marx and Engels and refused to handle it. Only one chapter appeared during the lifetime of Marx and Engels. That was Chapter IV, Volume II of German Ideology, which was published in the magazine Das Westphalische Dampfboot (Westphalean Steamer), August and September 1847. The manuscript was pigeonholded for dozens of years in the archives of the German Social-Democratic Party. The German text was first published in full [in German] in 1932 by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C., C.P.S.U. A Russian translation appeared in 1933.” —Note 36, LCW 1:520.

GERONIMO JI JAGA
See: Geronimo PRATT

Dictionary Home Page and Letter Index

MASSLINE.ORG Home Page