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Steuermann 972 , Rühle showed that the tendency towards state capitalism was irreversible and that no country
could escape from it, because of the worldwide nature of the crisis. The path taken by capitalism was not a
change of nature, but of form, aimed at ensuring its survival as a system:
“The formula of salvation for the capitalist world today is: a change of form transformation of the managers,
renewing the facade, without renouncing the goal, which is profit. It is a question of looking for a way that will
allow capitalism to continue on another level, another domain of evolution.” 973
Rühle envisaged roughly three forms of state capitalism, corresponding to different levels of capitalist
development. Because of its economic backwardness, Russia represented the extreme form of state capitalism:
“the planned economy was introduced in Russia before the free capitalist economy had reached its zenith, before
its vital processes had led to its senility”. 974 In the Russian case, the private sector was totally controlled and
absorbed by the state. At the other extreme, in a more developed capitalist economy, like Germany, the opposite
had happened: private capital had seized control of the state. But the result was identical – the strengthening of
state capitalism: “There is a third way of arriving at state capitalism. Not through the usurping of capital by the
state, but the opposite – private capital grabs hold of the state”. 975 The second ‘method’, which could be called
‘mixed’, took place through the state gradually appropriating sectors of private capital: “[The state] conquers a
growing influence in entire industries: little by little it becomes master of the economy”. 976
However, in none of these cases was state capitalism a ‘solution’ for capitalism. It could only be a palliative for
the crisis of the system: “State capitalism is still capitalism [...] even in the form of state capitalism, capitalism
cannot hope to prolong its existence for very long. The same difficulties and the same conflicts which oblige it to
go from private to state capitalism reappear on a higher level.” 977 No state capitalist ‘internationalisation’ could
resolve the problem of the market: “The suppression of the crisis is not a problem of rationalisation,
organisation, production or credit, it is purely and simply a problem of selling”. 978
Rühle’s was a Marxist work of the first order. It nonetheless also contained a number of the ambiguities current
in the council communist movement. In the first place, Rühle, in contradiction with his own analysis, considered
state capitalism to be a ‘higher form’ of capitalism. On the one hand it was descending into barbarism; on the
other hand it was regenerating itself in a country like Russia, preparing the way for a world wide state
capitalism: “The young collective economy in Russia with its exuberant vitality and will to conquer, is seeking,
once it has incorporated the capitalist culture of the west, to achieve a world wide planned economy, the
economic form of the future age”. 979 And Rühle added – moving away from Marxism – that “this is a state
capitalism tending towards and preparing the way for socialism”. Apart from turning Russian State capitalism
into a ‘progressive’ phenomenon, he denied the possibility of strictly national State capitalisms. Although he
denied the charge, this vision of an internationally planned capitalism was reminiscent of Hilferding. 980
972 Carl Steuermann (Otto Rühle), La crise mondiale ou vers le capitalisme d’Etat (Paris: NRF, 1932). An extensive view of
the theoretical reflections on the nature of Soviet Union in the radical Left, since the 20s, in: M. van der Linden, Von der
Oktoberrevolution zur Perestroika. Der westliche Marxismus und die Sowjetunion (Frankfurt am Main: Dipa-Verlag, 1992).
973 Steuermann, op. cit., p. 222.
974 Ibid., Chapter 7, ‘The soviets grow up’.
975 Ibid., p. 231.
976 Ibid., pp. 229-230.
977 Ibid., pp. 291-293.
978 Ibid., p. 249.
979 Ibid., p. 209.
980 See Chapter 7, “State capitalism”: “It will be necessary to take measures to create a state capitalism on a world scale.
These measures will be both political and economic. Small states, governments of ‘countries’ will be abolished. The
administration will be reformed, great unions between states will be set up, there will be a single customs system [...] The
whole life of the state and the economy will be the object of a grandiose and implacable process of rationalisation” (pp. 247-
248).
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