Rudolf Bahro - The Alternative (Book)

The Alternative (Book)

The book is divided into three parts:

1. The phenomenon of non-capitalist path to industrial society
2. The anatomy of real existing socialism
3. The strategy of a communist alternative.

The preceding introduction begins with the premise that the Communist movement did not lead to the theoretically expected ratios, but in fact the capitalist road with only superficial changes continues to carry on. "The alienation, the subaltern of the working masses to take on a new level." The book would analyze the reasons for this development and solutions.

The first main part is a historical analysis of the development of socialism in the Soviet Union. Bahro comes to the finding that there and consequently also in countries like the GDR the theoretically expected socialism had not emerged, but a kind of proto-socialism. The main reason he sees the fact that the Soviet Union at the time of the October Revolution was far from the stage of development, which Marx had assumed in his theory. Nevertheless, the method chosen by Lenin was the right way. The subsequent massive industrialization powered by Stalin was called a necessary development, and the party purge was seen as inevitable.

In the second part Bahro analyzes the really existing form of society which is referred to, in his opinion falsely, as socialism and in fact was still a class society. How this society works, it presents detailed, and he argues that this would provide the reasons for the observed stagnation of the economy. In the third part, he developed solutions, which include the call for a new revolution that would transform not only the social relations, but also the people. In essence, the intention was to overcome the subaltern mentality, the "form of existence and way of thinking 'little people'." The division of labor is to abolish this division, and everyone should participate in science and art as well as lower work.