Economic basis and political superstructure¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter opens with a restatement of elementary Marxist principles to clarify the shifting political regimes of Western Europe, distinguishing them from the Eastern half dominated by the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its core argument is that the political character of a regime—whether Bonapartist, fascist, or democratic—is fundamentally determined by the relations between classes at a given stage of development, not mechanically by the economic base. The author insists that while all regimes cited (Hitler, Roosevelt, Attlee, Mussolini, Franco, Gouin, Perón, Salazar, de Valera, Chiang Kai-Shek) are capitalist governments resting on capitalist exploitation, this does not exhaust the problem. The instrument by which the bourgeoisie ensures its rule must be classified, and this is decided by the objective-subjective inter-relations between classes, predicated by previous history and class struggle.
The chapter polemicises sharply against a vulgar materialism that holds the superstructure is immediately determined by economic development. The author argues that the disappearance of the economic basis for bourgeois democracy does not lead to its immediate collapse, only prepares it in the long run. Imperialism had rendered bourgeois democracy outmoded by the century’s turn, yet it persisted for decades. The First World War proved capitalism had outlived its historic functions, but the proletariat was prevented from overthrowing the system by its own organisations—the Social Democracy betrayed the revolution. In the revolutionary epoch following the war, the bourgeoisie relied on Social Democracy as its only reliable prop, and Lenin and Trotsky characterised the counter-revolutionary regime in Germany in 1918 as bourgeois-democratic.
The author draws on historical examples to refute the conception of Comrade Frank, who appears to argue that the disappearance of the economic basis for reforms automatically poses Bonapartism. The chapter notes that Bonapartist regimes existed even during capitalist ascendancy—Louis Napoleon and Bonaparte himself came to power during booms. After Louis Napoleon, bourgeois democracy lasted decades in France. The author mocks Frank’s logic: if followed consistently, France has had Bonapartism since 1851. The grain of truth in Frank’s case—that the economic basis for reforms has disappeared—proves only that democratic regimes under such conditions are unstable, convulsive, and must give way either to revolutionary proletarian dictatorship or the open dictatorship of finance capital through Bonapartism or fascism. The chapter concludes by rejecting the method of the ‘bureaucratic collectivists’ who equated state intervention under Hitler, Blum, Roosevelt, and Stalin, insisting that decisive traits, not points of similarity, determine definitions of regimes.