ABSTRACT

The social system in which I live can, from the economic point of view, be described as bureaucratic centralism and, from the political point of view, a bureaucratic dictatorship. The system developed as a revolutionary rejection of the capitalist mode of production and the bourgeois political system. The social revolution was inconsistent, however, and from the outset was distorted by Stalinism. Both politically and economically it led to an even greater subjugation of workers than had been the case under capitalism and bourgeois democracy. Both capitalism and Stalinism, in fact, display common features: the reification of labour, the manipulation of those who carry out that labour and of the entire society, the political and economic expropriation of workers and the feeling of alienation. Even so, the essence of capitalism and bureaucratic centralism is different.