The rise of the USSR and “socialist aid”

The rise of the development aid agenda is also intertwined with the rise of socialism. The world order that emerged from WWI had the elements that allowed for the eventual emergence of a development aid system: a new Wilsonian pattern of international relations including a developmental state and an ideology of “development”. It also included a new kind of state, the USSR, which as we saw, played a role in fostering both of these elements:

Lenin preceded Wilson as a champion of self-determination, and the USSR broke with capitalism and took the developmental state paradigm to its logical conclusion (White, 1984; Gerschenkron, 1962). Although the Soviet Union kept on the sidelines of the world order worked out at Versailles and also to some extent on the sidelines of the postwar order that emerged from WWII, it was key in shaping the 20th century and the aid development system. It was a novelty because it emerged from a philosophical project aimed at rebuilding society from scratch. While ideas had played an important role in fashioning states and/or social orders before, (the role of the Enlightenment in fostering the French Revolution and the French Republic is a case in point), the radicalism of the Soviet Revolution was unprecedented (Priestland, 2009).

Lenin, the father of the Soviet project, developed his vision at the crossroads of two intellectual movements: the revolutionary ideas of the (mostly expatriate) Russian intelligentsia and the Marxism of the Second International of socialist parties (Service, 2000; Walicki, 1979; Joll, 1975;

Ali, 2017). Lenin wanted to bring these two traditions together and ground in Marxism the case for a revolution that would lead to socialism in Russia.

This feat would not be easy though. A keystone idea of Marx’s historical materialism was that capitalism had the historical mission to develop the world’s productive forces (wealth) and institutions (democracy, rule of law), preparing the stage for socialism – a superior mode of production that would eliminate the class exploitation that hitherto had been the engine to create wealth. Taken literally this meant that at the end of the 19th century, backward Russia, where capitalism was only starting to develop, did not seem ripe for socialism. Yet Lenin counted on Karl Kautsky, the intellectual heir of Marx and Engels and an authority of German social democracy, to make his case (Lenin, 1972b). Two interrelated ideas that Kautsky developed in his 1907 pamphlet “Socialism and Colonial Policy” became key to Lenin’s thought and relevant to our story (Kautsky, 1978).

First, Kautsky argued that, by the end of the 19th century, world capitalism had entered a new reactionary monopolistic and colonialist phase (which he referred to as “imperialist”) and had abandoned its “progressive historical mission”. The times were thus ripe for socialism, which in Marxist terms was by nature an international endeavour. But where should the worldwide transition towards socialism start? Though Germany was the most obvious candidate (it was the advanced capitalist country with the strongest Social-democratic Party), Kautsky presciently suspected that in this new phase of imperialism, Russia could well become the “spark” of a world revolution (Kautsky, 1978, pp. 95-96).³⁴ Yet to keep within the boundaries of historical materialism, he insisted that a revolution led by social-democrats in a backward country such as Russia could only succeed if it sprawled out to other advanced capitalist states.

Second, the idea of a new reactionary and monopolistic phase of capitalism led Kautsky to revisit the colonial and national questions that were at the time matter of a vivid discussion at the Second International of Socialist Parties. Orthodox Marxists tended to justify colonialism as an expression of the “historical progressive mission” of capitalism. They even envisaged a positive colonial policy by which future socialist developed countries would keep and continue to civilise, in a gentler way, their inherited colonies (Mármora, 1978). In contrast, Kautsky argued that colonialism was not justified either under capitalism or (even less so) under socialism. Social-democrats should have no colonial policy whatsoever and should support the right to self-determination of all nationalities and colonies.

These two ideas implied an important distinctive role for socialist aid.

Kautsky’s point of departure was that aid was consubstantial with socialism.

Unlike capitalism, which was built on competition, individualism, the profit motive and the nation state, socialism was to be based on the principles of cooperation, solidarity, sharing and an international community of peoples.

The idea that a revolution in Russia could ignite socialist revolutions in advanced capitalist countries relied on this link between socialism and aid:

the triumphant Russian revolutionary state would support revolutions in developed countries, which, once triumphant, would in turn help backward Russia construct socialism at home. Similarly, the idea that social-democrats

34 The views of Kautsky on the revolutionary potential of Russia were all the more credible as they were built on insights that he quoted from Marx and Engels on the subject (Marx &

Engels, 1980).

should have no colonial policy and once in power adhere to the principle of self-determination, did not mean that they should disengage with the former colonies. On the contrary, they should grant them purely altruistic foreign aid as part of what Kautsky represented as acultural mission:

The victory of the proletariat [in the advanced capitalist countries] will of course find the most various kinds of cultural stages in existence in the world, and this victory will not make the spread of European technology, of European science and thought amongst the peoples of the tropics unnecessary. On the contrary, it will create the conditions for their most rapid dissemination. But from this cultural mission no new relations of domination will arise. The victorious proletariat will not transform itself into the ruling class in the countries now possessed as colonies, but will forgo all foreign domination. (Kautsky, 1978, p. 119)

Kautsky, quite ahead of his time, went beyond the colonial aid paradigm and argued for aid from the developed to the independent underdeveloped countries, the principle that underpins the North-South aid paradigm that took root after WWII.

In his famous pamphlet on “Imperialism” (1916), Lenin took on board and refashioned Kautsky’s views on capitalism’s “new regressive phase” and its implications for socialism, the colonial and national questions and socialist aid (Lenin, 1963).³⁵ In November 1917, in the midst of a ruinous war, with a presumably “robust Marxist theory” in place, Lenin managed to take power.

Yet the difficult part was to match the doctrine with reality: he had a hard job to put his programme, influenced by Kautsky’s ideas, into practice.

As the Revolution triumphed, the Bolsheviks issued a “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia” which gave all oppressed nations and colonies of the Empire the right to self-determination. In practice, however, the Bolsheviks did not follow through on this promise: it did not fit with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat that they imposed and in the middle of a savage civil war, it was ultimately the force of arms (rather than the ballot as Lenin had promised) that decided whether a given nation under

35 By then, however, Kautsky had changed his views, claiming that inter-imperialist wars were no longer inevitable since imperialist states could avoid self-destruction and coalesce in a sort of “ultra-imperialist” federation to administer “agrarian” colonies and semi-colonies (Kautsky, 1970). Due to this and his lukewarm position towards the war, Lenin disparaged his “renegade” former master who, in his view, had capitulated to imperialist interests and nationalism (Lenin, 1974b).

tsarist oppression would join the new USSR or go its own way as Finland and the Baltic Republics did.³⁶ The Bolsheviks also tried to unleash the promised world revolution, encouraging the workers and soldiers of the other advanced (belligerent) countries to join their cause. But although they managed to inspire revolts in Germany and Hungary and had some influence in the Wilsonian movements (mentioned above) in Korea, China and India, by the early 1920s it was clear that a world revolution would not take place.

As this dream faded, the Bolsheviks had to come up with a new plan. After a short spell of “state capitalism” (the New Economic Policy), Joseph Stalin, the new leader of the USSR, decided to go it alone on the basis of an increasingly totalitarian regime (Erlich, 1960). This strategy, which was known as “socialism in one country”, was un-Marxist in a double sense. Marx expected socialism to emerge from advanced capitalism and at an international level. In contrast, the socialism that the Soviets began to construct under Stalin was an alternative (non-capitalist) path to industrialisation and modernisation in a single and backward country – a sort of extreme version of the state-led growth model followed by Japan’s Meiji Restoration to catch up with the advanced economies of the West.

Contrary to what Kautsky and Lenin had expected, the backward USSR received no aid from abroad, yet still managed to build a sort of socialism and industrialise using its own resources (Allen, 2003; Nove, 1989). Now that it had succeeded, though at a terrible human cost, it was to become a model for other backward developing countries to copy. It was also to become – this time in tune with what Kautsky and Lenin had expected – a source of aid that would ease the way of those countries aiming to modernise and industrialise following the socialist path.³⁷ Soviet foreign policy was bound to be closely linked to the emerging agenda of development aid.

36 In his texts written before and during WWI, Lenin insisted that all oppressed nations should

“self-determine” if they wanted to secede or not, through free democratic referendums – quoting as an example the way Norway seceded from Sweden in 1905 (Lenin, 1972).

37 Following Kautsky, Lenin also considered that “Socialism (……) will be able to give the underdeveloped peoples of the colonies unselfish cultural aid without ruling over them”

(Lenin, 1974a, p. 339).

3.2.4 The US “Good Neighbour Policy”: a first try at modern