State capitalism, the permanent arms economy and deflected permanent revolution are the three pillars of our little tradition. Taken together they make an excellent compass to find ones way through the history of the 20th century.
We are naturally quite proud of the intellectual tradition of the IS, yet there is a mildly demagogic argument that says “if you’re ideas are so great why don’t more people support you”. Such an argument skips over why an idea’s verity should depend on mass acknowledgement and how this is to be realistically achieved in a capitalist society under bourgeois ideological dominance. It also underestimates how popular the ideas actually are. Over the decades tens of thousands of people have been schooled in IS theory, many times more have been exposed to it. No one today seriously equates the former Soviet Union with workers power, even if they might call it socialist. But this gets onto why the notion of Actually Existing Socialism endured.
The Eastern Bloc was a source of hope for many people who aspired to a better society. The history of the old CPGB was paltry next to the French or Greek CP, let alone the Russian or Chinese parties, yet it stands out proud against the meagre achievements of the rest of the pre-war left. To argue against this is to argue against hope. Nonetheless the state capitalist argument appealed to specific groups of people, such as radicalised students or union shop stewards, a large minority who did not want to act out the foreign policy of an unattractive state. Instead of socialism existing somewhere beyond, to be defended by them, IS theories put the job realising socialism back into their hands.
Where is Actually Existing Socialism today? Well, there is Latin America. Though the continent has undergone progress beyond in 1980s, Bolivarianism is hardly the deadly rival Bolshevism was, hence, amongst other things, left-wing governments in South America have not gone through an experience comparable to the Russian Civil War. There is no world-movement of Bolivarianism. In Britain, for example, there is a small, internet cadre who pray to Caracas and use mental gymnastics similar to the old Stalinists in debate, but this is Actually Existing Socialism Lite.
So who do we address such arguments to today? There is the human-nature-will-to-power-Lenin-led-to-Stalin train of thought that rules out all movements for progress. A comic example: I remember in the depths of a comment box underneath a CiF article on Occupy London people berating the camp members to read 1984 and think again: because camping on the steps of a church leads to gulags, you understand? But that can only really be answered negatively. You can’t conclusively disprove that Lenin led to Stalin because it’s impossible to rerun history under different conditions. People you convince over this will already be half-convinced in the first place.
So who is the positive argument with? Who are we pitching a slogan to, such as Neither Washington nor Moscow but international socialism, for them to turn into action?
Like we said, there is no Actually Existing Socialism, no fully-formed alternative route to socialism, complete with state power and prestige. While a perfectly valid set of theories with plenty more to offer, state capitalism is alive and well in the 21st century, but, for the time being, they are not part of day-to-day agitation.