Kapitalismusanalyse, Bürokratiekritik und sozalistische Strategie bei Ernest Mandel

The present paper is a thematically structured study and debate on the political thinking of Ernest Mandel (1923-1995), the most well-known member oft the ("trotzkyist") IVth International, who bequeathed us with an extensive theoratical and journalistic work. 1972 Mandel was impeded for political reasons to enter as teaching staff at the Freie Universität Berlin and made ineligible for admission into Germany by the then-SPD/FDP government. The Belgian Ernest Mandel became well-known in Germany primarely as a Marxist economist because among others his "Marxist Economic Theory (german 1968) and what himself understood as his economical chief work "Late Capitalism" (german 1972) had been published with a high print run in Germany. Most incidence until ourdays however has his work "Introduction to Marxism" (firts edition german 1979), which beyond a critic of the political economy deals with many other issues. Thus he worked in a large number of independent publications and in a highly visible number of contributions in anthologies, newspaper and magazine articles on a whole number of questions of political theory, contemporary history, left political objects and strategies, and byond that he also manifested himself in an equally large number of written contributions to discussions within his own international organisation on questions of current political debates, After a 26-pages long biographical draft (meantime Dutch Jan-Willem Stutje has presented an extensive biography of Mandel) the work at hand exposes Mandel's positions on the critique of contemporary capitalism (from the thesis of the "tendency to fall of the rate of profit" over the theory of the "partly independent variables" to the "Long waves of capitalist development"), explains his concept on socialism following Marx, Luxemburg and Trotzky ("transitional society", "socialist democracy", worldwide "classless society") and his criticism of the bureaucracy both in the working class movement and in post-capitalist societies (inmcluding criticism on "substitutionism") and references also equally elaborated his positions to the socialist strategy of the revolutionnary overcoming of the capitalist mode of production and the with that assiciated ("bourgeois") state (the meaning of the mass strike, the "double character" of the trade unions, "transitional demands", "workers' control", revolutionary parties and revolutionary international, policy of the united front, "permanent revolution"). It follows a chapter on "Emancipation and social disaster" in which Mandel's taking up of Trotzky's theory of fascism, but as well his from 1945 up to the 90ties at leat partially changing appreciation of the Nazi-rule and the Holocaust are described and discussed. The critical discussion of Mandel's theoretical lagacy is to be found concentrated in the last chapter ("Valuation and Perspectives"). Following his self-confidence based on undeniable prognostical permormances up to the 70ies (he early progosed the end of the long lasting postwar boom, the revival of the classical symtoms of the growing crisis of the capitalist system and also the final agony of the poststalinist systems, Mandel developed a prognostic optimism which characterized him because he constantly gathered supporting evidence for the chance of the universal emancipatory socialist project underexposing opposite tendencies. Furthermore his theoratical thinking constitutes an idiosyncratic compound of "open marxism" and rejection of sectarism on the one hand and a strive towards coherent "revolutionary-marxist" orthodoxy on the other hand, whereas as well his identification with his own quite insignificant organisation (compared to the hopes of its founders in 1938)limited his mater-of-factly ability of critical objective thinking. Nevertheless it is also worthwhile our days to tie up to Mandel's work. This not only belongs to the balance of the 20th century, but also to the discussion on a renewed "socialism of the XXI century". In the center of Mandel's conception stands "the self organisation of the working class" as decisive potentially changing power and as well a determined internationalism in terms of Luxemburg ("The core of the proletariat's organization as a class lies in the International"). With mora than 400 pages and with a bibliography with a ten pages long list og works og Ernest Mandel hinself, the present work can claim to be a first cornerstone for further refurbishment of Mandel's theoratical heritage.