The Next Communist Superpower...? [Archive]

Yazman

27th May 2009, 13:38

Yeah, Yazman is quite wrong. He seems to relate space to post-scarcity somehow (how else he would put up Australia as an example would be beyond me).

However, I agree that to reach post-scarcity the revolution doesn't have to reach every single country on the planet. The world economy runs on an "economic axis"; USA, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK and perhaps Spain and Italy are the ones that matter. Having a successful revolution in a few of these countries would do miracles.

It has nothing to do with "space" - its called a technate. It is based on existing survey data coupled with improvements in efficiency and elimination of waste. Pretty basic principles of post-scarcity, although many of the people that come here do not necessarily aim for that (like you, evidently). That an area of continental size is generally required is because within most continental regions the resources to support a technate exist therein, whereas no single nation has in its own territory all the required resources to support a technate. There are some studies and reports I've seen that support the idea of a "global technate" but there seems to be more reliable evidence pointing towards there being a few parts where this may not be possible for one reason or another (most of the world could, though).

Rather than blathering on and labelling as wrong something you clearly know little to nothing about perhaps you should do some research on what I am speaking on - join the Human Progress Group. Find the Technocracy Q&A threads (there's one in Learning and one in OI Learning). Join the Anarchist & Communist Technocrat forum and ask some questions.

How? What about Asia, Africa, Latin America?

It varies - I've seen different reports and studies from different organisations stating that it would be possible in parts of africa or most of it, although with east asia's population density it makes it somewhat more difficult in India/China. Much of Africa and western asia could be part of a Eurasian/mediterranean technate. From what I've seen latin america has most of the resources that would be required for post-scarcity but would probably

Cult of Reason has done some interesting calculations that generally support the same data I've seen from Technocracy, Inc, The Venus Project and some academic stuff, although TVP's data varies significantly in some ways (they incorporate some slightly different assumptions).

I'll direct both of you to this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/technocracy-t105292/index.html?t=105292 We have fielded a lot of questions about this stuff in there. You can find Cult of Reason's report as well as a synopsis in his sig there - I would provide the links to you in this post but I don't want to hijack the thread.

If you want more links to other info on this I'll be happy to PM them to you, although you can always just post queries in the thread I've linked, or in the forum linked in my sig, or in the Human Progress Group here on RL (linked in my tendency).

But yeah I just wanted to make it clear that we can set up a sustainable, post-scarcity, monetary-free economy without any need for a "global revolution."

21st Century Kropotkinist

27th May 2009, 19:35

Oh boy this is going to be a fun thread, full with foolish preconceptions of "state-capitalism," and the like; but I'll bite.

Usually, our "foolish preconceptions of 'state-capitalism'" concern the Soviet Union and Mao's China, so maybe you mean foolish misconceptions, as we are mostly critiquing extinct and extant regimes, respectively. But I certainly have ideas about extant "Communist" regimes like Cuba and China.

I don't think it has to be a terribly nuanced conversation: if workers do not have direct control of their means of production, those of us with "foolish preconceptions" do not think it's "socialism." We believe in the "counterrevolutionary" approach that favors the working class determining the course of history without a bureaucracy to guide them. I know this deems me an "idealist." It is of course not naive in the least bit to think that a Vanguard can inoculate the working-class and make them revolutionary; there's nothing idealist about that.

Since many of us do not believe that workers in said countries, extinct or extant, have real control over the means of production or control of governance and political power collectively, we don't think there's anything remotely communist or socialist about said countries.

It's a different perspective than your own. By saying it's foolish is like saying it's unprecedented. Well, the "state-capitalist" charge has precedence. As a proponent, apparently, of Bolshevism, or Leninism or something, you won't buy it. That's fine. But to say that it's foolish writes off a thoughtful critique of revolutionary tactics. Usually, those of us who charge said countries of being state-capitalist believe there is a different road to communism: one that is not riddled with authority and bureaucracy.

Dimentio

27th May 2009, 19:46

According to Bill O'Reilly - USA, at least until 2013

Cymru

27th May 2009, 23:49

Wales:cool:

rednordman

28th May 2009, 00:01

UK, republic of ireland, and hopefully norway (DEFINETLY after Siv Jensen) and the rest of skandinavia.

Vincent P.

28th May 2009, 00:57

Out of all the countries that exist in the world today, which one has the greatest potential to become the next Communist superpower?

Lol what a creepy question.:laugh:
I think everything has been said about the self-contradictory nature of the question, but I'll add my answer which applies to a lot of anti-revisionists:

MASTURBATING IN FRONT OF T34 PICS IS HAS-BEEN.

Sarah Palin

28th May 2009, 01:02

America ya know? Cuz dey got tat new black socialist muslim guy I herd. He wants to give healthcare to the entire universe. Including Osama Bin Laden!

Bright Banana Beard

28th May 2009, 01:42

Australia

SecondLife

28th May 2009, 08:17

North Korea

Vincent P.

28th May 2009, 11:22

North Korea
Lol.

Red Saxon

28th May 2009, 20:44

More Fire for the People

28th May 2009, 21:04

Guam

mel

29th May 2009, 00:33

Alabama

What socialist said.

Charles Xavier

30th May 2009, 00:16

Full of misconceptions:
1. There can be no single communist country. The revolution has to be global
2. There can be no more "superpowers" in communism. The concept of superpowers applies only to the current capitalist nations-states.

Full of misconceptions:

1. There can be a single socialist country. The revolution varies from country to country.
2. The Concept of superpowers applies to former socialist states and possible future socialist states.

Holger Meins

30th May 2009, 10:14

A "communist" superpower sounds nothing but terrible.

Black Sheep

30th May 2009, 13:28

the Vatican

Pogue

30th May 2009, 14:05

Out of all the countries that exist in the world today, which one has the greatest potential to become the next Communist superpower?

Well I think that the GLORIOUS USSR SHALL ARISE AGAIN AND RE-ESTABLISH COMMUNISM.

But thats just me.

The Ungovernable Farce

30th May 2009, 14:46

By "superpower", I mean which Communist country is going to be the model for other nations to follow suit. I don't believe in Marx's idea of one giant proletarian revolution which overthrows all the governments of the world, it just isn't practical. As said previously, if one major economic entity goes Communist, then other nations will follow.

The Domino theory does make sense.
Right. Like how the USSR went communist, and now the entire world is communist?

Verix

4th June 2009, 06:34

yeah china
Maybe india and japan too if they go red

America has japan wrapped around its pinky finger, i dont even think japan has a army i think they rely on the US for defense, india would be a very good setting for a communist relvolution if they were not so religious, the best hope is china waking up and getting rid of the current ""communist"" party and replacing it with a REAL communist party

Il Medico

4th June 2009, 07:24

I may seem ignorant, but I really just don't know much terminology yet :)

By "superpower", I mean which Communist country is going to be the model for other nations to follow suit. I don't believe in Marx's idea of one giant proletarian revolution which overthrows all the governments of the world, it just isn't practical. As said previously, if one major economic entity goes Communist, then other nations will follow.

The Domino theory does make sense.
Yes! Because we are currently living in a glorious communist society free of oppression thanks to the efforts of the one country socialist! And the fantastic practicality of the Domino Theory!:rolleyes:

GiantBear91

4th June 2009, 07:35

America ya know? Cuz dey got tat new black socialist muslim guy I herd. He wants to give healthcare to the entire universe. Including Osama Bin Laden!

I fucking died man!!!! XD

RHIZOMES

4th June 2009, 08:32

Nepal

mykittyhasaboner

6th June 2009, 00:45

Thats not an argument. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM)

Actually, he was calling out your misconceptions, so his post was a valid argument.

On the other hand, your the one running away from debate by posting inane non-arguments, why so hypocritical?

Full of misconceptions:
1. There can be no single communist country. The revolution has to be global
2. There can be no more "superpowers" in communism. The concept of superpowers applies only to the current capitalist nations-states.
The person you were responding to in fact used big 'c' Communism, so I don't really think that Red Saxon was referring to communism as a stage in material development. The USSR, or PRC are known as "Communist" superpowers, so that's most likely what they meant.

There can be a single socialist country after the initial victory of socialism in said country, the USSR is proof of this. However, one socialist country cannot exist forever in a sea of capital and imperialism, only for some time, again after the initial victory of socialism. The final victory of socialism is when the bourgeoisie have been abolished globally; and unless you can somehow pull off a global revolution overnight, the overall transition to socialism will be a gradual process.

Second, the concept of "super-powers" can apply to any state that has significant influence on an international stage, and have disproportionate productive power as compared to most other countries. This does not specify any type of production, nor necessitate that "super-powers" have to be "current capitalist nation states".

internasyonalista

6th June 2009, 01:28

In communism, there are no nations anymore but a united human community...."superpower" is out of the question...

Sir Comradical

6th June 2009, 03:02

Hopefully India can transform itself into a worker-run society that has some influence in the world. In India, agriculture is being made unviable, farmers are killing themselves en masse and the rural population is migrating to the overcrowded cities to live in slums. This oppression may eventually boil over into a full scale revolt against the government. It has a young population and newly industrialised status, capital is largely centralized in India which also brings the workforce close enough to realize their own revolutionary potential.

Qayin

6th June 2009, 10:04

My house

Malakangga

6th June 2009, 13:11

Indonesia?

Haha...yeah crap :confused:

mykittyhasaboner

6th June 2009, 15:23

It doesn't matter what they're called.Actually, yeah it does because the word communism can mean many different things to different people. I thought this was a given.

Even Lenin never considered the USSR as communism. At best he considered it a transitional phase to communism called "socialism".Lenin said that the USSR had achieved communism, or that socialism had been built by 1924? That's simply false, nor is it relevant.

No doubt about that.Well if there is no doubt about that, then how are you going to have a global revolution where all countries abolish capitalism simultaneously?

The concept of imperialism is indeed a feature of "current capitalist nation states" and superpowers have always been imperialist states, e.g., US invading Vietnam etc, USSR invading Hungary, Afghanistan etc. So unless you think imperialism will be a feature in socialism you're argument is just wrong. The concept of "current capitalist nation states" is based on the capitalist mode of production. The current nation-states are a product of the capitalist stage of production (see Marx).Imperialism applies to some capitalist states, yes this is obvious; however your are mistaken in your classification of imperialism as an act of military intervention, as well as your assumption that "super-powers" must be imperialist states. While the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary and Afghanistan are debatable in terms of purpose and tactics; there is no question that these were not acts of imperialism, as the SU never concentrated capital in private hands, and extended such monopolized means of capital to these countries that witnessed military intervention on behalf of the Red Army. Would you mind telling me where the revisionist buearacrats ever profited from the suppression in Hungary or invasion of Afghanistan (mind you that the government of Afghanistan requested aid from the Soviet Union)? If you've ever read anything about imperialism, you would understand that it as an economic system, characterized by capitalist states which use military domination to conquer and exploit new markets. This is something that the Soviet Union never did, so while the SU was a "super-power", it was not an imperialist state (at least in the economic sense of the term).

mel

6th June 2009, 15:45

Lenin said that the USSR had achieved communism, or that socialism had been built by 1924? That's simply false, nor is it relevant.

PROTIP: Reading comprehension.

Previous poster said:

Even Lenin never considered the USSR as communism. At best [Lenin] considered [the USSR] a transitional phase to communism called "socialism".

mykittyhasaboner

6th June 2009, 16:35

Wut?
I misread. I thought you wrote that Lenin considered the USSR to be communist.

Right.Is this an argument?

Definition of imperialism: (http://www.answers.com/imperialism)
You are confusing the "abolition" of private property by law to mean the actual abolition of private property. By merely putting capital in the hands of the state, Stalinist states created the illusion of abolishing private property. In the meanwhile, the relationship of the means of production remain unchanged. As to how bureaucrats benefited from imperialism, they enjoyed a far better standard of living compared to workers. Some of them lived in palaces etc. See place economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_economy).What nonsense, all of this is hot air.

Private property was abolished in the Soviet Union, as ownership of the means of production was in the hands of the worker's state, in either two forms public (state) property or collective property. You contradict yourself by saying that by placing ownership of capital in the hands of the state, that private property hasn't been abolished; yet you just said that "capital was placed in the hands of the state", which by definition negates private ownership (there by effectively transforming the relations of of the means of production). The only one trying to create an illusion here is you.

Now on to your unsubstantiated claim that bureaucrats had a far better living standard than workers; this has absolutely nothing to do with imperialism. Citing a wiki article on "Palace economy" certainly doesn't count as proof. :lol: Even if they did (which wouldn't be surprising especially after 1956, when the economy of the Soviet Union switched to a profit-based system) this doesn't prove that the government of the SU carried out the invasion of Afghanistan nor the suppression in Hungary for the purpose of dominating new markets.

A better definition of imperialism, at least as Marxists understand it, can be found here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm); lets just disregard cheap Wiki definitions.

melbicimni: You like to capitalize on the mistakes of others, aren't you clever? Seriously if your going post something, don't make yourself look like an idiot by saying something completely worthless.

mel

6th June 2009, 17:19

melbicimni: You like to capitalize on the mistakes of others, aren't you clever?

No, I like to note when somebody has entirely misconstrued the point of another person's post, to the point where they are responding to the opposite of the point the original poster was making.

Seriously if your going post something, don't make yourself look like an idiot by saying something completely worthless.

I guess it's unfortunate Socialist types faster than I do, since my reply wouldn't have been "worthless" if he hadn't already addressed you. Oh well. Missed it by a minute or two. I'll type faster next time so I don't look like an idiot on the internet.

Manifesto

6th June 2009, 23:25

Well the US is starting to become socialist and this is a step closer to communism. And speaking of superpower which country will become the next (on account of the U.S.'s slow decline, prob China)?

pierrotlefou

6th June 2009, 23:38

Well the US is starting to become socialist and this is a step closer to communism. And speaking of superpower which country will become the next (on account of the U.S.'s slow decline, prob China)?
I don't think the US is in any direction close to socialism. Unless of course the gap between rich and poor gets even bigger than it is now and the people have enough and revolt. Then maybe it would start to move towards socialism. As of now though, I don't see the american soccer mom dumping her SUV for the good of the revolution.

#FF0000

6th June 2009, 23:39

Pogue

6th June 2009, 23:46

Iceland

Manifesto

7th June 2009, 00:32

I have more than the gist of what it is.

Manifesto

7th June 2009, 00:44

It even says here (number 3) what I said. ttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism. Add the "h" in the beginning of it I can't do hyper links yet (sorry).

teenagebricks

7th June 2009, 01:03

Manifesto

7th June 2009, 04:29

I won't even bother checking the dictionary definition of socialism because I don't much care what other people think socialism is, however I have a feeling that it will still be closer to true socialism than your idea of socialism. The Chinese government is not socialist, there are many, many socialist members of CPC, but it is not socialism. And the United States is certainly not getting any closer to communism.
Fine don't check if you don't want to but anyways you kind of contradicted yourself there with the definition thing and I know America will never get closer to communism unless something extreme happens and the Chinese government is not truly communist then again what really has?

mel

7th June 2009, 04:31

Manifesto

7th June 2009, 04:34

What I meant is that Obama does have some socialist ideas.

teenagebricks

7th June 2009, 05:07

Fine don't check if you don't want to but anyways you kind of contradicted yourself there with the definition thing and I know America will never get closer to communism unless something extreme happens and the Chinese government is not truly communist then again what really has?
It really depends, from an anti revisionist perspective there are plenty of examples of socialist states, from other points of view, none, because communism requires statelessness, therefore no government in could exist in the form which the Chinese or United States governments take. The idea of a communist government or state is a contridiction in terms, and a very dangerous one at that.

What I meant is that Obama does have some socialist ideas.
Again, no, one might argue that he is a left liberal, or a social liberal, some people might even say he's a social democrat but that's really pushing it. Barack Obama is a capitalist through and through no matter what CPUSA want to make themselves believe, he works for Wall Street. Being a capitalist does not necessarily mean that one cannot advocate free healthcare or other free public services though, it's generally expected that these things shouldn't be paid for anyway, America is just catching up with the rest of the world, they are by no means working towards socialism.

Manifesto

7th June 2009, 05:13

It really depends, from an anti revisionist perspective there are plenty of examples of socialist states, from other points of view, none, because communism requires statelessness, therefore no government in could exist in the form which the Chinese or United States governments take. The idea of a communist government or state is a contridiction in terms, and a very dangerous one at that.

Again, no, one might argue that he is a left liberal, or a social liberal, some people might even say he's a social democrat but that's really pushing it. Barack Obama is a capitalist through and through no matter what CPUSA want to make themselves believe, he works for Wall Street. Being a capitalist does not necessarily mean that one cannot advocate free healthcare or other free public services though, it's generally expected that these things shouldn't be paid for anyway, America is just catching up with the rest of the world, they are by no means working towards socialism.
Yes of course just because he has a couple of socialist ideas does not make him socialist when is capitalist and he does work for wall street as you said which recently does proves it.

mel

7th June 2009, 17:32

Yes of course just because he has a couple of socialist ideas does not make him socialist when is capitalist and he does work for wall street as you said which recently does proves it.

He doesn't have socialist ideas, he has some vaguely collectivist ideas that he isn't even really trying to implement.

mykittyhasaboner

7th June 2009, 22:30

I thought you were being rhetorical.
I was clearly asking a question, I'll repeat it. You agree that the overall transition from capitalism to socialism would be a gradual process, yet you also claim that "the revolution has to be global", so I'm guessing that you are calling for a simultaneous global revolution; and that socialism cannot be initially built in one country, in order to later spread to other countries. How do you justify both of these views when they are contradictory?

Haha. You have made your first "argument" right here.Great observation.

Private property can be owned by the state too. Passing laws to "ban" private property while not fundamentally changing the ownership of the means of production is not socialism. Try to understand this. I do understand this, the problem is you are completely misrepresenting the issue at hand. You claim that the Soviet government merely passed laws to "ban" private property (I find this really ironic, that your trying to prove how the Soviet Union never abolished private ownership, yet you admit that they passed laws banning private property; states create laws to their nature and to ignore what laws states pass is ridiculous), but the fundamental ownership of the means of production never fundamentally changed; this is simply untrue. The working class seized power in the October Revolution, with the Bolshevik party as the vanguard that facilitated this revolutionary overthrow of Kerensky & Co. After that, private property was banned, kulaks and remnant bourgeois owners were excluded from democratic participation and essentially all (legal) political, and economic involvement, and the working class exerted their power over society. The only forms of property in the SU (at least before 1956) were either owned by the worker's state or collectively owned. This entails that the fundamental relations and ownership of the means of production had definitely changed.

We have gubmint property right now here in the US, e.g., the White house, Pentagon etc. I assume these are "socialist"? We have a bunch of professional politicians and bureaucrats here too, like they had in the USSR, though the US rightly does not claim to be a "workers' state"! The Soviet Union ceased to be a workers state (whatever that means) when it started persecuting workers in places like Kronstadt etc.No, your simply pulling strawmans out of your ass. I never said the US bourgeois state owning property would make it "socialist", that doesn't make any sense.

On the other hand, it is evident that the Soviet commissar class had everything to gain by invading other countries because by having "shows of strength" would help them to consolidate their own power inside the country. They enjoyed killing workers from other countries in the name of war so that their own power over the Russian workers increased.That is a load of horse shit, and is clearly an substantiated claim.

You are sticking to a very narrow definition of imperialism where gaining new markets is the only purpose of such ventures.No, once again you completely take what I said out of context, but I didn't expect anything different.

I said before:

While the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary and Afghanistan are debatable in terms of purpose and tactics;The purpose of these military interventions were not acts of imperialism, and you have only (tried) to claim they were by saying that these acts benefitted the Soviet government. Even though this certainly isn't true (in the case of Afghanistan) just because the Soviet government benefited from these actions doesn't prove that this was imperialism. You obviously have no understanding on what imperialism is, or just how much the Soviet Union, in its history, did to fight it.

Yeah. The USSR was indeed practicing state capitalism. So, their imperialism naturally follows from this. My definition was from a dictionary. Lenin's theory of imperialism is also based on a similar definition. If only he had the astrological vision to see the future misdeeds of the Soviet Union so that he could include such actions in his text.:lol:Is this a serious argument? First, you claim the USSR was practicing "state-capitalism" on nothing but your own word, and shoddy analysis of the state acting as a capitalist class. This tripe is so old and unoriginal that it gets more pathetic every time. You can't have any kind of 'capitalism' without private ownership of the means of production, or without worker's labor power appearing on the market for sale; both of which never took place in the SU from 1917-1956 (and is debateable as to whether or not this was fundamentally changed after 1956-late 1980's).

Second, I don't care where your "definition" of imperialism comes from, because it certainly does not describe imperialism the way historical materialists/Marxists understand it, as a stage in capitalist development. You obviously haven't read Lenin's theory of imperialism, so don't go claiming that his definition is based on anything you got from Dictionary.com. :lol:

SocialismOrBarbarism

7th June 2009, 22:52

The purpose of these military interventions were not acts of imperialism, and you have only (tried) to claim they were by saying that these acts benefitted the Soviet government. Even though this certainly isn't true (in the case of Afghanistan) just because the Soviet government benefited from these actions doesn't prove that this was imperialism. You obviously have no understanding on what imperialism is, or just how much the Soviet Union, in its history, did to fight it.

I suggest you read this excellent post by comrade Ismail:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-social-imperialism-t106563/index.html?t=106563

Soviet imperialism certainly existed.

Is this a serious argument? First, you claim the USSR was practicing "state-capitalism" on nothing but your own word, and shoddy analysis of the state acting as a capitalist class. This tripe is so old and unoriginal that it gets more pathetic every time. You can't have any kind of 'capitalism' without private ownership of the means of production, or without worker's labor power appearing on the market for sale; both of which never took place in the SU from 1917-1956 (and is debateable as to whether or not this was fundamentally changed after 1956-late 1980's).

What is the fundamental difference between state property not under control of the working class, whose existence already makes socialism impossible, and bourgeois property not under control of the working class? Since when is a theory propounded by people like Engels, Bukharin, Hoxha, Mao, etc. considered shoddy analysis?

mykittyhasaboner

7th June 2009, 23:14

I suggest you read this excellent post by comrade Ismail:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-social-imperialism-t106563/index.html?t=106563

Soviet imperialism certainly existed.

This "Soviet social-imperialism" is not really imperialism, at least the way Marxists understand it; expansionism =/= imperialism. The analysis given for this "social-imperialism" completely negates the fundamental basis of makes imperialism a higher stage of capitalist development, that is essentially taking the form of monopoly capitalism where ownership of capital is in private hands. Thus, the Soviet Union's "imperialism" is fundamentally different, and if one would be so inclined to call it 'social-imperialism' then they are speaking of a different phenomenon altogether.

What is the fundamental difference between state property not under control of the working class, whose existence already makes socialism impossible, and bourgeois property not under control of the working class? Since when is a theory propounded by people like Engels, Bukharin, Hoxha, Mao, etc. considered shoddy analysis?

The working class's existence makes socialism impossible? I don't see how you can have any thing resembling socialism without workers.

mykittyhasaboner

7th June 2009, 23:17

:laugh:I expected no less from you than I would from a Christian who has been told his God does not exist. Righteous indignation and anger. I'd ask you to read the book from where I got my sig from and come back.
Nice one! Just poke fun at who your debating, that's a good way to avoid my arguments. Your so clever. ;)

mel

7th June 2009, 23:26

The working class's existence makes socialism impossible? I don't see how you can have any thing resembling socialism without workers.

I'm pretty sure what was meant was it's impossible to call a system socialist in which property is not under control of the worker.

SocialismOrBarbarism

7th June 2009, 23:37

The working class's existence makes socialism impossible? I don't see how you can have any thing resembling socialism without workers.

I don't see how you can have anything resembling a classless society when the working class still exists. The existence of the proletariat indicates the existence of capitalist production relations.

TrueLeninist

8th June 2009, 04:26

Venezuela will be a world-power, and it is safe to state that the Bolivarian Revolution is one of the most democratic governments of all human history.

TrueLeninist

Out of all the countries that exist in the world today, which one has the greatest potential to become the next Communist superpower?

mykittyhasaboner

8th June 2009, 04:30

I don't see how you can have anything resembling a classless society when the working class still exists. The existence of the proletariat indicates the existence of capitalist production relations.

Right, but the system of exploitation of labor by capital (the bourgeoisie) was abolished in the Soviet Union, so the label 'proletariat' doesn't exactly fit, as the relations of the worker's to the means of production was fundamentally different to those in capitalist countries. However, the 'proletariat' as an exploited class may have been abolished, but the worker's who made up this class don't simply disappear; instead they took the place of ruling class (in cooperation with the peasantry/petit-bourgeoisie; the DOTP). So essentially your right; the 'proletariat' can't exist in socialism. Stalin recognized this in his Economic Problems, and sums it up better than me:

Further, I think that we must also discard certain other concepts taken from Marx's Capital - where Marx was concerned with an analysis of capitalism - and artificially applied to our socialist relations. I am referring to such concepts, among others, as "necessary" and "surplus" labour, "necessary" and "surplus" product, "necessary" and "surplus" time. Marx analyzed capitalism in order to elucidate the source of exploitation of the working class - surplus value - and to arm the working class, which was bereft of means of production, with an intellectual weapon for the overthrow of capitalism. It is natural that Marx used concepts (categories) which fully corresponded to capitalist relations. But it is strange, to say the least, to use these concepts now, when the working class is not only not bereft of power and means of production, but, on the contrary, is in possession of the power and controls the means of production. Talk of labour power being a commodity, and of "hiring" of workers sounds rather absurd now, under our system: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself and sells its labour power to itself. It is just as strange to speak now of "necessary" and "surplus" labour: as though, under our conditions, the labour contributed by the workers to society for the extension of production, the promotion of education and public health, the organization of defence, etc., is not just as necessary to the working class, now in power, as the labour expended to supply the personal needs of the worker and his family.

TrueLeninist

8th June 2009, 04:33

The middle-classes of USA don't want USA to get economically better. The middle-classes of USA conspire to support the bankruptcy of the United States by voting every 4 years for Democrats and Republicans.

What we need is a workers-council state in USA. A government ruled by workers while at the same time on the economic side: the mega corporations of USA like Wal-Mart, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Mcdonalds, General Electric, etc. owned by workers, thru the system of "workers control of production" (Workers management/workers-ownership), or "Workers stock ownership" however you want to label it.

Only under the proletarian dictatorship are real liberties for the exploited and real participation of the proletarians and peasants in governing the country possible.

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy is proletarian democracy, the democracy of the exploited majority, based on the restriction of the rights of the exploiting minority and directed against this minority.

The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the peaceful development of bourgeois society and of bourgeois democracy; it can arise only as the result of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army, the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus, the bourgeois police.

Therefore, Lenin is right in saying: "The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the substitution for it of a new one" (see Vol. XXIII, P. 342)

Soviet power as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat signifies the suppression of the bourgeoisie, the smashing of the bourgeois state machine and the substitution of proletarian democracy for bourgeois democracy

Let other people you know learn about socialism! Spread the word... the more people who know the truth, the greater the force against the capitalist system! Resistance forever!

......................./´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............

SO PLEASE, STICK UP YOUR MIDDLE FINGER TO US IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALIST OPPRESSION !!

mykittyhasaboner

8th June 2009, 04:35

^^COOL STORY BRO!!!!

that had nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

SocialismOrBarbarism

8th June 2009, 11:34

Right, but the system of exploitation of labor by capital (the bourgeoisie) was abolished in the Soviet Union, so the label 'proletariat' doesn't exactly fit, as the relations of the worker's to the means of production was fundamentally different to those in capitalist countries.

That argument only applies to the period when the USSR was under workers control. You seem to think that the analysis of state capitalism isn't applicable to the USSR at an time during it's history, so unless you're arguing that the workers democratically controlled the USSR for it's entire existence, I'm not sure what your reasoning is for thinking it wasn't state capitalist even when they didn't.

^^COOL STORY BRO!!!!

that had nothing to do with the topic of this thread.

:laugh:

Jia

8th June 2009, 20:09

Greenland

mykittyhasaboner

8th June 2009, 21:27

That argument only applies to the period when the USSR was under workers control. Which would be from 1917 till when, in your opinion?

Worker's and peasants owned and controlled the means of production of the USSR from 1917-1956. While soviets were not the main organs of the state for the entirety of this period, local/factory soviets of people's deputies and neighborhood committees remained as functioning representative bodies for workers.

You seem to think that the analysis of state capitalism isn't applicable to the USSR at an time during it's history, so unless you're arguing that the workers democratically controlled the USSR for it's entire existence, I'm not sure what your reasoning is for thinking it wasn't state capitalist even when they didn't.
Actually I don't, revisionism in the USSR greatly ownership and control for workers, by introducing a profit-based system. While revisionism certainly set the Soviet Union on the path towards capitalist restoration, I still wouldn't call it 'state-capitalism' just like I wouldn't call it capitalism, because the worker's state created in 1917 which facilitated quantum leaps for the working classes in the USSR was not destroyed, simply steered by opportunists (which isn't solely applicable to the SU either). By the time Gorbachev was openly calling for markets, the Soviet Union might effectively be called 'state-capitalist' with perestroika especially in mind, as well as the increase in privatization in the 80's; however this is only reasonable because we know how these reforms played a part in the total overthrow of socialism in the USSR.

I think I see where the main problem in your argument lies, the assumption that lack of democratic control in the Soviet Union's political system inherently implies that the worker's and peasants did not own the means of production, and hence 'state-capitalism' was being practiced. Obviously, you attribute the characteristics of a capitalist class to the centralized bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, however this is incorrect for reasons which have been pointed out to you before (namely by manic expression): no bureaucrat exploited the labor of worker's; worker's were not forced to sell their labor power in the market, instead worker's employed themselves and labored on what was already theirs. No factory boss owned signifigant portions of the means of production and therefore increasingly large amounts of profit and surplus capital at the expense of the worker's share of wealth. Wealth and resources were not allocated, produced, distributed, consumed, or disposed of through privatized means; and instead central planning took this role, ensuring the needs of the population be met rather than generating profit (before the profit based system introduced by Khrushchev & co.).

mel

8th June 2009, 22:32

mykittyhasaboner

9th June 2009, 00:10

If the workers don't have control over the means of production, then the workers do not "own" the means of production in any meaningful sense.

The USSR was not under control of the workers since at least (and I suspect even earlier than this) Stalin's abolition of the congress of soviets in 1936.
Do you have any concrete explanation for this theory, or are you just posting something that might sound good?

If you'd actually have read the Constitution of 1936, you would find that while the Congress of Soviets was abolished; the Soviets of Working People's Deputies, as well as the Supreme Soviet still functioned on a democratically elected basis where the electorate served in their respective positions for the duration of their terms.

Soviet Constitution of 1936 (http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html)

mel

9th June 2009, 00:20

Do you have any concrete explanation for this theory, or are you just posting something that might sound good?

If you'd actually have read the Constitution of 1936, you would find that while the Congress of Soviets was abolished; the Soviets of Working People's Deputies, as well as the Supreme Soviet still functioned on a democratically elected basis where the electorate served in their respective positions for the duration of their terms.

Soviet Constitution of 1936 (http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/const/1936toc.html)

Democratic elections don't mean anything, and they don't equal worker control over anything to any meaningful degree. Control over the means and forces of production in the soviet union was transferred from the bourgeois to the state, which was controlled by the workers in name only.

The abolition of the Congress of Soviets just served to gather that control into even fewer hands. When more power is concentrated into fewer hands, and direct control taken from local bodies and placed into larger bodies, encompassing a greater number of people, it compromises autonomy.

TrueLeninist

9th June 2009, 03:51

I agree with u there. If workers don't own the economic and political power of a country, that country doesn't have a socialist-system, but an anomalie, a "Deformed workers state".

TrueLeninist

If the workers don't have control over the means of production, then the workers do not "own" the means of production in any meaningful sense.

The USSR was not under control of the workers since at least (and I suspect even earlier than this) Stalin's abolition of the congress of soviets in 1936.

mykittyhasaboner

9th June 2009, 14:55

Democratic elections don't mean anything, and they don't equal worker control over anything to any meaningful degree.
Seems like you really advocate democracy. :laugh:

Democratic elections don't mean anything in terms of worker control? Um, I thought the premise of worker's control was based on democratic elections? Guess I was wrong then.

Control over the means and forces of production in the soviet union was transferred from the bourgeois to the state, which was controlled by the workers in name only. Yeah, I really believe this now that you've said it, you don't need to explain or try and prove your views at all. :lol: I wonder if you actually have any explanation for it to begin with.

If it was controlled by workers "in name only," then what was the point of having elections or even soviets for that matter?

The abolition of the Congress of Soviets just served to gather that control into even fewer hands. When more power is concentrated into fewer hands, and direct control taken from local bodies and placed into larger bodies, encompassing a greater number of people, it compromises autonomy.Except this wonderful theory you've just produced doesn't take into account why a centralized state was necessary in the first place; disregards that local bodies still retained power and functionality, even with a centralized state above them; as well as ignores the fact that the Congress of Soviets was not the only organ of government subject to worker's democracy. While I disagree with the elimination of the Congress Of Soviets, it hardly represents a total loss of political power for worker's and peasants, and complete consolidation by a centralized bureaucracy.

mel

9th June 2009, 19:51

Seems like you really advocate democracy. :laugh:

Democratic elections don't mean anything in terms of worker control? Um, I thought the premise of worker's control was based on democratic elections? Guess I was wrong then.

I do advocate democracy, but a representative democracy where each representative "represents" a massive group of people over a large geographical region most certainly ensures that that representative will look out for their interests alone. No one person should represent such a large group, and the centralization of control ensured that while local governing bodies retain some power, the true power gets consolidated at the top.

If worker control was really "worker control" in a representative democracy like the one in the USSR after the abolition of the Congress of Soviets, then worker control should be a reality in the United States. After all, the majority of people in the good ol' US of A are workers. If the Bourgeoisie weren't allowed a vote in the US, it ought not have any significant impact on the number of votes, and the workers should still retain control. It's too bad that in reality, when decision-making power is made more and more centralized, that fewer people make decisions for a greater number of people, which ensures that the decisions workers get to make are fewer and further between. In a system where a worker only periodically gets a direct say in what goes on, because power has become centralized, that worker doesn't actually have decision-making power. The actual relationship between that worker and the means and forces of production has not changed significantly. They still receive directives from above that must be followed. Now they just get to check boxes on a ballot and elect somebody to represent them and several hundred thousand other people. Hooray!

Yeah, I really believe this now that you've said it, you don't need to explain or try and prove your views at all. :lol: I wonder if you actually have any explanation for it to begin with.

Am I explaining myself better now?

If it was controlled by workers "in name only," then what was the point of having elections or even soviets for that matter?

What is the point of a bourgeois election now? It's a great way to placate the masses and make them think they get to make decisions.

Except this wonderful theory you've just produced doesn't take into account why a centralized state was necessary in the first place; disregards that local bodies still retained power and functionality, even with a centralized state above them; as well as ignores the fact that the Congress of Soviets was not the only organ of government subject to worker's democracy. While I disagree with the elimination of the Congress Of Soviets, it hardly represents a total loss of political power for worker's and peasants, and complete consolidation by a centralized bureaucracy.

I understand that a centralized state may have been necessary for the deformed mess that was the USSR to survive. I think the question really is, was the USSR worth saving? Were Lenin and Stalin correct in their methods for transitioning to communism, or would an alternative methodology have worked better? There are plenty of other theories out there, and I have a strong inclination that Lenin and Stalin have been proven wrong by history.

The structure of government of the USSR lent itself to beaurocracy, corruption, power consolidation, and exploitation. While the things that were done may have been historically necessary for the survival of the USSR, and that's quite a different topic for debate, I think we can still have a reasoned debate as to whether or not the USSR had the right approach. I don't think so.

TrueLeninist

9th June 2009, 20:00

hahahaha, wake up, representative-democracy is bullshit. It is plutocratic-fascism. Real democracy is the dictatorship of the proletariat (100% socialism)

trueleninist

I do advocate democracy, but a representative democracy where each representative "represents" a massive group of people over a large geographical region most certainly ensures that that representative will look out for their interests alone. No one person should represent such a large group, and the centralization of control ensured that while local governing bodies retain some power, the true power gets consolidated at the top.

If worker control was really "worker control" in a representative democracy like the one in the USSR after the abolition of the Congress of Soviets, then worker control should be a reality in the United States. After all, the majority of people in the good ol' US of A are workers. If the Bourgeoisie weren't allowed a vote in the US, it ought not have any significant impact on the number of votes, and the workers should still retain control. It's too bad that in reality, when decision-making power is made more and more centralized, that fewer people make decisions for a greater number of people, which ensures that the decisions workers get to make are fewer and further between. In a system where a worker only periodically gets a direct say in what goes on, because power has become centralized, that worker doesn't actually have decision-making power. The actual relationship between that worker and the means and forces of production has not changed significantly. They still receive directives from above that must be followed. Now they just get to check boxes on a ballot and elect somebody to represent them and several hundred thousand other people. Hooray!

Am I explaining myself better now?

What is the point of a bourgeois election now? It's a great way to placate the masses and make them think they get to make decisions.

I understand that a centralized state may have been necessary for the deformed mess that was the USSR to survive. I think the question really is, was the USSR worth saving? Were Lenin and Stalin correct in their methods for transitioning to communism, or would an alternative methodology have worked better? There are plenty of other theories out there, and I have a strong inclination that Lenin and Stalin have been proven wrong by history.

The structure of government of the USSR lent itself to beaurocracy, corruption, power consolidation, and exploitation. While the things that were done may have been historically necessary for the survival of the USSR, and that's quite a different topic for debate, I think we can still have a reasoned debate as to whether or not the USSR had the right approach. I don't think so.

mel

9th June 2009, 20:04

hahahaha, wake up, representative-democracy is bullshit. It is plutocratic-fascism. Real democracy is the dictatorship of the proletariat (100% socialism)

trueleninist

Did you read my post? The whole thing was basically explaining how and why representative democracy is bullshit.

CHEtheLIBERATOR

9th June 2009, 23:20

If your saying like the soviet union Russia or something then China.But a "communist superpower" is a state capitalist state.
THE NEXT COMMUNIST SUPERPOWER WILL BE THE WORKING CLASS

SocialismOrBarbarism

9th June 2009, 23:28

Actually I don't, revisionism in the USSR greatly ownership and control for workers, by introducing a profit-based system. While revisionism certainly set the Soviet Union on the path towards capitalist restoration, I still wouldn't call it 'state-capitalism' just like I wouldn't call it capitalism, because the worker's state created in 1917 which facilitated quantum leaps for the working classes in the USSR was not destroyed, simply steered by opportunists (which isn't solely applicable to the SU either). By the time Gorbachev was openly calling for markets, the Soviet Union might effectively be called 'state-capitalist' with perestroika especially in mind, as well as the increase in privatization in the 80's; however this is only reasonable because we know how these reforms played a part in the total overthrow of socialism in the USSR.

If the workers state isn't under the control of the workers it isn't a workers state. Opportunists weren't steering a wokers state, because by then(according to you) it had ceased to be one. If there was a workers state we didn't have socialism anyway, because the workers state is the period of the construction of socialism.

I think I see where the main problem in your argument lies, the assumption that lack of democratic control in the Soviet Union's political system inherently implies that the worker's and peasants did not own the means of production, and hence 'state-capitalism' was being practiced. Obviously, you attribute the characteristics of a capitalist class to the centralized bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, however this is incorrect for reasons which have been pointed out to you before (namely by manic expression): no bureaucrat exploited the labor of worker's; worker's were not forced to sell their labor power in the market, instead worker's employed themselves and labored on what was already theirs. Manic Expression? Hah, right. The state exploited workers, hence the expression "state capitalism." The argument was never that individual bureaucrats exploited workers. If the state is not under the control of the workers, then obviously it's not "already theirs." They were forced to sell their labor power to a state they had no control over.

No factory boss owned signifigant portions of the means of production and therefore increasingly large amounts of profit and surplus capital at the expense of the worker's share of wealth. Wealth and resources were not allocated, produced, distributed, consumed, or disposed of through privatized means; and instead central planning took this role, ensuring the needs of the population be met rather than generating profit (before the profit based system introduced by Khrushchev & co.).The state owned the means of production. The state took in surplus value, and it did not ensure the needs of the population. We know from Marx that the production of surplus value does not end until workers have full control over the means of production. The soviet system wasn't geared towards producing use-values for the population, far from it. Most of the states income went to heavy industry instead of consumer goods out of necessity because they were not developed enough. It was geared towards the accumulation of capital. Sound familiar?

Your whole argument seems to be that if we have total state or public ownership we have socialism. Luckily, Engels, Bukharin, etc showed us that this was not the case. As Bukharin said, it matters not wether capitalist monopoly is private or public, because the state becomes the direct expression of the capitalist class. The relation of capital to labor remains the same. You're confusing capitalist relations of production with the form in which they are usually manifested.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 01:00

I do advocate democracy, but a representative democracy where each representative "represents" a massive group of people over a large geographical region most certainly ensures that that representative will look out for their interests alone.
What?! That is probably the most naive thing you've said, but I haven't read your entire post yet....

How the hell is it ensured that a representative will only look after themselves just because they represent a large amount of people? Mind you, that this representative was elected, and therefore has promises to keep; whether or not a representative does this is one thing, but its certainly not ensured that representatives will act solely on their own interests. That is a complete fabrication of reality.

No one person should represent such a large group, and the centralization of control ensured that while local governing bodies retain some power, the true power gets consolidated at the top. Typical. Do you know how big the Soviet Union was? Out of size alone, centralization was necessary, let alone economic and political reasons...

If worker control was really "worker control" in a representative democracy like the one in the USSR after the abolition of the Congress of Soviets, then worker control should be a reality in the United States.No it doesn't mean this, that's a complete strawman. The state in the USSR was a worker's state created after the seizure of power in 1917 by the Russian working and peasant classes, a worker's state. This state's fundamental character was based on consolidating power for the working classes, as well as suppressing the bourgeois and other exploiting classes like kulaks.

The US on the other hand is a bourgeois state, founded in the aftermath of a bourgeois revolution, fundamentally based on the rule of the American bourgeoisie.

You can't compare things in a black and white perspective as if governments and societies exist in bubbles.

After all, the majority of people in the good ol' US of A are workers. If the Bourgeoisie weren't allowed a vote in the US, it ought not have any significant impact on the number of votes, and the workers should still retain control. It's too bad that in reality, when decision-making power is made more and more centralized, that fewer people make decisions for a greater number of people, which ensures that the decisions workers get to make are fewer and further between. In a system where a worker only periodically gets a direct say in what goes on, because power has become centralized, that worker doesn't actually have decision-making power. Right, representative democracy is a sham in the US, not because it's representative, but because the American government is not a worker's state, but a bourgeois state. Again, all of this is incomparable with the Soviet system of democracy, because the Soviet system operated in fundamentally different conditions.

The actual relationship between that worker and the means and forces of production has not changed significantly. They still receive directives from above that must be followed. Now they just get to check boxes on a ballot and elect somebody to represent them and several hundred thousand other people. Hooray!Blah, blah, blah, you keep rambling with out saying anything of value.

Am I explaining myself better now?No, not at all. In fact your explanaitions just shows how weak your positions are.

What is the point of a bourgeois election now? It's a great way to placate the masses and make them think they get to make decisions.
Are you impaired in some way that inhibits you from observing the simpliest of things?

The Soviet state was a state based on the opposite class interests than bourgeois states. Of course I've repeated this like 3 or 4 times, yet I doubt its sinking in.

I understand that a centralized state may have been necessary for the deformed mess that was the USSR to survive. I think the question really is, was the USSR worth saving? Were Lenin and Stalin correct in their methods for transitioning to communism, or would an alternative methodology have worked better? There are plenty of other theories out there, and I have a strong inclination that Lenin and Stalin have been proven wrong by history. Yes the USSR was worth saving, even in 1989. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia and the other former republics went into complete destitution, and one doesn't need a healthy, informed perception of politics to understand that if the life expectancy of Russia goes down like 20 years, all of the economy becomes privatized and subject to hyper inflation, massive unemployment and lack economic welfare, not to mention neo-nazi gangs beating up immigrants, after the SU dissolved; that it was much better then, than now. The Soviet Union acheived so much that its laughable to even ask whether it was worth saving.

The structure of government of the USSR lent itself to beaurocracy, corruption, power consolidation, and exploitation. While the things that were done may have been historically necessary for the survival of the USSR, and that's quite a different topic for debate, I think we can still have a reasoned debate as to whether or not the USSR had the right approach. I don't think so.Bolshevism was the only approach for Russia, and the development of Marxism-Leninism and socialism revolutionized the lives of massive portions of humanity, almost an entire continent. I think they had the right approach, if they could constantly rebuild an entire society after 3 huge wars (1 being the largest most destructive in history), and maintain one of the fastest growing economies of all time, all while eliminating the exploitation and destitution, and aiding other countries in doing so, I definitely think they had a good approach.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 01:42

If the workers state isn't under the control of the workers it isn't a workers state.
OK, well if your definition of control is elections for state positions and democracy in the workplace, and ownership of the means and instruments of production, then the Soviet Union was a worker's state.

However, obviously you reject the idea of worker's being in control unless they do so in a decentralized manner, without any state to enforce proletarian class rule. Unfortunately it is impossible to maintain a worker's state with out some degree of centralization, for a number of reasons.

Opportunists weren't steering a wokers state, because by then(according to you) it had ceased to be one. If there was a workers state we didn't have socialism anyway, because the workers state is the period of the construction of socialism.
No I never stated that the Soviet Union ceased to be a worker's state in any time during its history, (except maybe by the time Gorbachev initiated capitalist reforms, but that is pretty much when the SU dissolved) and if I did then I either don't know what I was thinking or mis-typed.

Opportunists can 'steer' worker's states, it happened/is happening in plenty of socialist countries. A worker's state can't simply cease to be a worker's state unless the state itself is abolished. Revisionism, does not imply capitalist production; rather revisionist trends are reactionary tendencies that form when members from within a worker's state gain influence and spread counter-revolutionary politics (like market economic reforms, or insane shit like Juche), and in a lot of cases steer the development of socialism towards the restoration of capitalism.

The state exploited workers, hence the expression "state capitalism." The argument was never that individual bureaucrats exploited workers. If the state is not under the control of the workers, then obviously it's not "already theirs." They were forced to sell their labor power to a state they had no control over.
This is wrong in numerous places.

The state did not exploit workers, because officials or bureaucrats in the state did not make their living off of the labor of workers, nor did they buy labor from worker's at all, because the worker's labor was not sold on the market, instead belonged to the worker.

I refuted your claim of "worker's not controlling the state" earlier, so theres no need to here.

The state owned the means of production.
Right, along with society as a whole, as the state was the medium for worker's and peasant's class rule, and development of socialism.

The state took in surplus value, and it did not ensure the needs of the population.
Really? Come on now, the only surplus value the state took in may have been during the NEP, but that was not profit for the state, rather capital to be reinvested for the development of the economy; this was basically the whole purpose of the NEP.

The state, did in fact ensure the needs of the population were met. This came in the form of free nationalized housing, health care, education, economic security etc; as well as an emphasis put on increasing the living standards and earnings of workers (during the Five-Year Plan era that is, emphasis on profit was introduced later).

We know from Marx that the production of surplus value does not end until workers have full control over the means of production. The soviet system wasn't geared towards producing use-values for the population, far from it. Most of the states income went to heavy industry instead of consumer goods out of necessity because they were not developed enough. It was geared towards the accumulation of capital. Sound familiar?
Wow, the old 'consumer goods' is more important than heavy industry when you've got a backward-ass undeveloped country, argument. Tell me, is the use-value of developing the economy of the whole Soviet Union, essentially laying the foundations for industrial society and allowing for the increase of living standards, less useful or essential than developing consumer goods? This argument was railed into the ground decades ago when the Soviet Union was developing; essentially the proposition was that by putting emphasis on producing consumer goods would generate a profit. So you could make a hundred pubs, appliance and and general stores and make a profit over night, yet this profit is worthless when you have not developed your industrial base to maintain this profitability. Consumer goods and profit, were introduced as the central factors of the economy later, and this obviously failed horribly, evidenced by the growth of a lucrative black market in the Soviet Union.

Your whole argument seems to be that if we have total state or public ownership we have socialism.
No, if this was true then the Soviet Union couldn't be considered socialist during the NEP when there still remained small private ownership among the peasnatry in their petit-bourgeois nature.

Luckily, Engels, Bukharin, etc showed us that this was not the case. As Bukharin said, it matters not wether capitalist monopoly is private or public, because the state becomes the direct expression of the capitalist class. The relation of capital to labor remains the same. You're confusing capitalist relations of production with the form in which they are usually manifested.
Out of interest, I'd like to know where Bukharin says this, even though he's completley wrong by proposing such an anti-materialist, and overly generalized position. If the state becomes the direct expression of the capitalist class, then what's the point of a worker's state? I'm not confusing capitalist relations of production with anything, because capitalist production neceitates a class of individuals who own the majority of wealth in society, in the forms of means of production, personal profit, etc; and must make their living this way. However the state in the Soviet Union was a worker's state, created in the midst of a socialist revolution, again which is fundamentally based on proletarian dicatorship. State officials did not own the means of production, did not profit from the labor of others, did not purchase labor in a capitalist market; basically they did not live from the exploitation of labor. This is simple fact, and has been stated many times, yet "state-capitalism" is still the label of choice when it comes to the Soviet Union.

Pogue

10th June 2009, 01:45

OK, well if your definition of control is elections for state positions and democracy in the workplace, and ownership of the means and instruments of production, then the Soviet Union was a worker's state.

However, obviously you reject the idea of worker's being in control unless they do so in a decentralized manner, without any state to enforce proletarian class rule. Unfortunately it is impossible to maintain a worker's state with out some degree of centralization, for a number of reasons.

No I never stated that the Soviet Union ceased to be a worker's state in any time during its history, (except maybe by the time Gorbachev initiated capitalist reforms, but that is pretty much when the SU dissolved) and if I did then I either don't know what I was thinking or mis-typed.

Opportunists can 'steer' worker's states, it happened/is happening in plenty of socialist countries. A worker's state can't simply cease to be a worker's state unless the state itself is abolished. Revisionism, does not imply capitalist production; rather revisionist trends are reactionary tendencies that form when members from within a worker's state gain influence and spread counter-revolutionary politics (like market economic reforms, or insane shit like Juche), and in a lot of cases steer the development of socialism towards the restoration of capitalism.

This is wrong in numerous places.

The state did not exploit workers, because officials or bureaucrats in the state did not make their living off of the labor of workers, nor did they buy labor from worker's at all, because the worker's labor was not sold on the market, instead belonged to the worker.

I refuted your claim of "worker's not controlling the state" earlier, so theres no need to here.

Right, along with society as a whole, as the state was the medium for worker's and peasant's class rule, and development of socialism.

Really? Come on now, the only surplus value the state took in may have been during the NEP, but that was not profit for the state, rather capital to be reinvested for the development of the economy; this was basically the whole purpose of the NEP.

The state, did in fact ensure the needs of the population were met. This came in the form of free nationalized housing, health care, education, economic security etc; as well as an emphasis put on increasing the living standards and earnings of workers (during the Five-Year Plan era that is, emphasis on profit was introduced later).

Wow, the old 'consumer goods' is more important than heavy industry when you've got a backward-ass undeveloped country, argument. Tell me, is the use-value of developing the economy of the whole Soviet Union, essentially laying the foundations for industrial society and allowing for the increase of living standards, less useful or essential than developing consumer goods? This argument was railed into the ground decades ago when the Soviet Union was developing; essentially the proposition was that by putting emphasis on producing consumer goods would generate a profit. So you could make a hundred pubs, appliance and and general stores and make a profit over night, yet this profit is worthless when you have not developed your industrial base to maintain this profitability. Consumer goods and profit, were introduced as the central factors of the economy later, and this obviously failed horribly, evidenced by the growth of a lucrative black market in the Soviet Union.

No, if this was true then the Soviet Union couldn't be considered socialist during the NEP when there still remained small private ownership among the peasnatry in their petit-bourgeois nature.

Out of interest, I'd like to know where Bukharin says this, even though he's completley wrong by proposing such an anti-materialist, and overly generalized position. If the state becomes the direct expression of the capitalist class, then what's the point of a worker's state? I'm not confusing capitalist relations of production with anything, because capitalist production neceitates a class of individuals who own the majority of wealth in society, in the forms of means of production, personal profit, etc; and must make their living this way. However the state in the Soviet Union was a worker's state, created in the midst of a socialist revolution, again which is fundamentally based on proletarian dicatorship. State officials did not own the means of production, did not profit from the labor of others, did not purchase labor in a capitalist market; basically they did not live from the exploitation of labor. This is simple fact, and has been stated many times, yet "state-capitalism" is still the label of choice when it comes to the Soviet Union.

And here we see the perfect result of the Soviet propoganda machine in all its glory. Christ thank fuck I'm not a Leninist.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 01:52

And here we see the perfect result of the Soviet propoganda machine in all its glory. Christ thank fuck I'm not a Leninist.

Hey, HLVS, how ya doin? Nice to see you like my post. I think you would make a good Leninist.

mel

10th June 2009, 01:52

What?! That is probably the most naive thing you've said, but I haven't read your entire post yet....

How the hell is it ensured that a representative will only look after themselves just because they represent a large amount of people? Mind you, that this representative was elected, and therefore has promises to keep; whether or not a representative does this is one thing, but its certainly not ensured that representatives will act solely on their own interests. That is a complete fabrication of reality.

On this point, I don't see how you can say that a diverse group of people can possibly have their interests adequately represented when power gets consolidated to higher levels of government, and each "representative" is supposed to speak for the interests of hundreds of thousands of people. No one person can adequately represent the interests of a large, diverse group of people in such a way that those people have any reasonable degree of control over that representative.

I can't imagine in which world you live that a single person can make decisions that are supposed to represent the interests of a group that large and will do an adequate job. I was wrong to say that they will act solely in their own interest, but when the way for a group of several hundred thousand people to "control" the means of production is to elect one person to represent them in an even larger governing body that will make those decisions for them, they are not controlling the means of production.

Typical. Do you know how big the Soviet Union was? Out of size alone, centralization was necessary, let alone economic and political reasons...

No it doesn't mean this, that's a complete strawman. The state in the USSR was a worker's state created after the seizure of power in 1917 by the Russian working and peasant classes, a worker's state. This state's fundamental character was based on consolidating power for the working classes, as well as suppressing the bourgeois and other exploiting classes like kulaks.

The state in the USSR was a "worker's state". While you say that the fundamental character of the state was based on consolidating power for the working classes, I have seen little to suggest that this was actually the case. The consolidation of power was rarely for the ultimate good of the working class, who despite being ruled by a "worker's state" did not have their relationship to the means of production fundamentally changed. Sure they "owned" the means of production, because that is what some piece of papers said. Sure they "controlled" the means of production, because they could have elections and those elections would choose a group people who would talk with another group of people who would agree on things and then hand down directives from above. The fact of the matter is, that under the government of the USSR, the workers still had instructions to be followed, and they did not have a significant degree of autonomous control over the way their workplace was run on a day to day basis. While they may not have been being exploited for profit "per se", there was no significant change in the relationship between worker and factory when ownership changed hands from the Bourgeois to the State, especially when decision making power moved away from individuals and towards centralization.

That centralization was necessary at the time because of the conditions of the world in which the USSR was trying to survive is irrelevant because if a worldwide socialist revolution was impossible (and it was, because so much of the world was entirely backwards), and cooperation or competition with capitalist states was necessary, a "worker's state" could not hope to stay worker controlled, and would necessarily collapse into the sort of bureaucratic, centralized, exploitative mess that was the USSR.

Right, representative democracy is a sham in the US, not because it's representative, but because the American government is not a worker's state, but a bourgeois state. Again, all of this is incomparable with the Soviet system of democracy, because the Soviet system operated in fundamentally different conditions.

Representative democracy is a sham whenever the representatives are supposed to speak for too large a group of people, and whenever power is consolidated towards the center. The greatest power should be consolidated at the individual, then the community, and so on. With the USSR's continuous consolidation of power towards the center, "democracy" became more and more of a sham. If decisions that significantly affect your day-to-day life are being made by people who have no connection to you, and who have to represent a sufficiently large group of people, a significantly large group of people are going to get fucked over. In any scenario where great decision-making power is concentrated into relatively few hands, a large number of people will not be adequately represented. This is why any representative democratic system has to have representatives that come from the community they are representing, and that community has to have the power to remove them at any time if they are not adequately representing their interests. If a group too large being represented, and there is no longer any accountability.

Blah, blah, blah, you keep rambling with out saying anything of value.

Oops.

No, not at all. In fact your explanaitions just shows how weak your positions are.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

Are you impaired in some way that inhibits you from observing the simpliest of things?

I'd like to ask you the same question.

The Soviet state was a state based on the opposite class interests than bourgeois states. Of course I've repeated this like 3 or 4 times, yet I doubt its sinking in.

I guess not, because I stll don't see how a small number of people subjugating another, much larger group of people for labor, and taking decision making power out of their hands, has fundamentally changed the relationship between the worker and the means just because the new administration says "I have your best interests at heart" and has a shiny new constitution to prove it.

Yes the USSR was worth saving, even in 1989. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia and the other former republics went into complete destitution, and one doesn't need a healthy, informed perception of politics to understand that if the life expectancy of Russia goes down like 20 years, all of the economy becomes privatized and subject to hyper inflation, massive unemployment and lack economic welfare, not to mention neo-nazi gangs beating up immigrants, after the SU dissolved; that it was much better then, than now. The Soviet Union acheived so much that its laughable to even ask whether it was worth saving.

I guess the question wasn't so much "was it worth saving" as much as "was it worth starting?". Maybe things were 'better' for workers for a time, although I think these improvements were largely in the same character as any bourgeois welfare state's improvements for the workers are now. The fact that when the USSR collapsed things got significantly worse does not mean that the USSR was good, or that Bolshevism was the right way to go back in 1917. Any alternative theories would be entirely speculative, so I'm not going to put forth a bunch of 'what if' scenarios about what may or may not have happened. I can't say I have a concrete vision for what might have been better at the time, and as I said, it's entirely speculation. But the fact is, that the worker was not class-conscious enough to be emancipated, no matter how much Lenin was itching to do it. Anyone could see that the time wasn't ripe for a worldwide socialist revolution, and while it's admirable that the USSR survived for so long despite constant pressure from all sides, that doesn't mean that its formation, and that revolution at that time, was the way to go, it clearly didn't turn out well for most involved.

Bolshevism was the only approach for Russia, and the development of Marxism-Leninism and socialism revolutionized the lives of massive portions of humanity, almost an entire continent. I think they had the right approach, if they could constantly rebuild an entire society after 3 huge wars (1 being the largest most destructive in history), and maintain one of the fastest growing economies of all time, all while eliminating the exploitation and destitution, and aiding other countries in doing so, I definitely think they had a good approach.

I think I addressed most of this above. Bolshevism might have been the only approach for Russia, since Bolshevism is what happened, I can't say I disagree. It's silly to talk about what else "could" have happened, since it didn't. We can, however, talk about whether or not Bolshevism is correct, and whether or not it works. I think it's been shown by history that if the time isn't right, it really isn't possible to emancipate the workers on the sheer willpower of a group of well-meaning professional revolutionaries, and that unless the majority of the world is ready for revolution, that the resulting centralized, dictatorial state will be in a bad position attempting to compete with and cooperate with thriving capitalist societies. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Lenin was right. I think you and I will have to disagree on this point though. In any case, I think we've sidetracked this thread enough. I think that this will be my last post on the subject in this thread.

SocialismOrBarbarism

10th June 2009, 02:09

OK, well if your definition of control is elections for state positions and democracy in the workplace, and ownership of the means and instruments of production, then the Soviet Union was a worker's state.

You already said they no longer had control after 56. If you're retracting that statement and saying it had democratic control for it's entire existence, I will lol and then retract my argument.

However, obviously you reject the idea of worker's being in control unless they do so in a decentralized manner, without any state to enforce proletarian class rule. Unfortunately it is impossible to maintain a worker's state with out some degree of centralization, for a number of reasons. No, I don't. I don't see how you could possibly get that from anything I've posted, and I've argued against the decentralization that anarchists propose quite a few times on this board.

No I never stated that the Soviet Union ceased to be a worker's state in any time during its history, (except maybe by the time Gorbachev initiated capitalist reforms, but that is pretty much when the SU dissolved) and if I did then I either don't know what I was thinking or mis-typed. You said it ceased being under workers control in 56. Hence, no longer a workers state.

Opportunists can 'steer' worker's states, it happened/is happening in plenty of socialist countries. A worker's state can't simply cease to be a worker's state unless the state itself is abolished. If they don't control it, as you said, it isn't a workers state. If the state is taken from under control of the workers, then yes, it ceases to be a workers state. Your understanding of the state seems to be way off. You seem to think if a class establishes a state, then it will always be used for the rule of that class, even if they no longer control it.

Revisionism, does not imply capitalist production; rather revisionist trends are reactionary tendencies that form when members from within a worker's state gain influence and spread counter-revolutionary politics (like market economic reforms, or insane shit like Juche), and in a lot of cases steer the development of socialism towards the restoration of capitalism.]So the workers are willingly adopting counter-revolutionary politics? I'd think that if it was truly a workers state any counter revolutionary delegates would be recalled.

This is wrong in numerous places.

The state did not exploit workers, because officials or bureaucrats in the state did not make their living off of the labor of workers, nor did they buy labor from worker's at all, because the worker's labor was not sold on the market, instead belonged to the worker.

I refuted your claim of "worker's not controlling the state" earlier, so theres no need to here. You don't seem to know what exploitation is, either. Exploitation is the process in which surplus value is extracted from the working class. But yes, bureacrats did make their living off of the labor of workers. Their pay came out of the states finances, and the states finances were surplus value extracted from the working class. Of course their labor power belongs to them, what does that have to do with them selling it?

You didn't refute anything, in fact you said they stopped controlling the state after 1956.

Right, along with society as a whole, as the state was the medium for worker's and peasant's class rule, and development of socialism. But you said it ceases to be the medium for workers rule after 1956, and that is the timeframe we're dealing with.

Really? Come on now, the only surplus value the state took in may have been during the NEP, but that was not profit for the state, rather capital to be reinvested for the development of the economy; this was basically the whole purpose of the NEP.

The state, did in fact ensure the needs of the population were met. This came in the form of free nationalized housing, health care, education, economic security etc; as well as an emphasis put on increasing the living standards and earnings of workers (during the Five-Year Plan era that is, emphasis on profit was introduced later).Well, unless workers had control of production, we have surplus value. Again, you already admitted that they did not after 1956, so you in effect admitted to the existence of surplus value. The state always emphasized the accumulation of capital.

Wow, the old 'consumer goods' is more important than heavy industry when you've got a backward-ass undeveloped country, argument. Tell me, is the use-value of developing the economy of the whole Soviet Union, essentially laying the foundations for industrial society and allowing for the increase of living standards, less useful or essential than developing consumer goods? This argument was railed into the ground decades ago when the Soviet Union was developing; essentially the proposition was that by putting emphasis on producing consumer goods would generate a profit. So you could make a hundred pubs, appliance and and general stores and make a profit over night, yet this profit is worthless when you have not developed your industrial base to maintain this profitability. Consumer goods and profit, were introduced as the central factors of the economy later, and this obviously failed horribly, evidenced by the growth of a lucrative black market in the Soviet Union. I don't think you understood what I was saying at all. I didn't say I think they should have focused on consumer goods. I just said that they didn't. In fact, I said they had no choice.

Most of the states income went to heavy industry instead of consumer goods out of necessity because they were not developed enough. The problem is that socialism can not exist in such conditions. Socialism is not geared towards accumulation. In fact, I remember Marx warning us that something like this would happen if socialism was attempted in an underdeveloped country, but it might take me a while to find the quote.

No, if this was true then the Soviet Union couldn't be considered socialist during the NEP when there still remained small private ownership among the peasnatry in their petit-bourgeois nature. Cool, because it wasn't socialist anyway. But you don't appear to know what socialism is, so I'm not surprised that you would say this?.

Out of interest, I'd like to know where Bukharin says this, even though he's completley wrong by proposing such an anti-materialist, and overly generalized position. If the state becomes the direct expression of the capitalist class, then what's the point of a worker's state?He says it in both Imperialism and the world economy" and "Historical Materialism." He is talking about a state that is not under the control of the working class, such as the Soviet Union after 1956.

I'm not confusing capitalist relations of production with anything, because capitalist production neceitates a class of individuals who own the majority of wealth in society, in the forms of means of production, personal profit, etc; and must make their living this way. That is why Engels and Bukharin said the state itself becomes the capitalist.

However the state in the Soviet Union was a worker's state, created in the midst of a socialist revolution, again which is fundamentally based on proletarian dicatorship.Not atter 56...

State officials did not own the means of production, did not profit from the labor of others, did not purchase labor in a capitalist market; basically they did not live from the exploitation of labor. This is simple fact, and has been stated many times, yet "state-capitalism" is still the label of choice when it comes to the Soviet Union.I already pointed out how they did in fact live from the exploitation of labor, but this isn't relevant to the argument at all. Any time I see someone argue against the analysis of state capitalism they always bring it up, but it has nothing to do with it, because the argument isn't that individual bureaucrats are capitalists. While I could make the argument that they were, I'm not going to, because it just isn't important.

Honestly, if you think we can have socialism without workers control, I'm not even sure you belong on this forum.

And here we see the perfect result of the Soviet propoganda machine in all its glory. Christ thank fuck I'm not a Leninist.

That's not really fair. There are plenty of Leninist's who share the view that the USSR was state capitalist.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 02:38

On this point, I don't see how you can say that a diverse group of people can possibly have their interests adequately represented when power gets consolidated to higher levels of government, and each "representative" is supposed to speak for the interests of hundreds of thousands of people. No one person can adequately represent the interests of a large, diverse group of people in such a way that those people have any reasonable degree of control over that representative.

The fact that representatives are elected gives an impression that those people have some reasonable degree of control over a representative.

I can't imagine in which world you live that a single person can make decisions that are supposed to represent the interests of a group that large and will do an adequate job. I was wrong to say that they will act solely in their own interest, but when the way for a group of several hundred thousand people to "control" the means of production is to elect one person to represent them in an even larger governing body that will make those decisions for them, they are not controlling the means of production.
Your making an assumption that the representative that is elected by a body of workers is completely un-subjected to the will of the people he/she is representing. I'm not saying a single person should represent a larger group of people out of disdain for the ability of the large collective to make effective decisions, rather that representation is an effective way of accounting performance and organization with in a political system, rather than relying solely on large groups that may or may not be accountable in any meaningful way. If worker's control has to be decentralized, then tell me how would industry perform effectively and produce infrastructure and instruments of production with out some kind of common, central plan? Industrial plans require hundreds of pieces and factors to fit together in a single predetermined way, and cannot be delayed or made inneffective by unneccesary decentralization. Without centralization, its likley that local worker's organizations would have uncontrollable autonomy; would it make sense if one city had different rights and laws than worker's in another city? Would it make sense if production and control were decentralized to the point where development wasn't following a common plan, and instead were free to do whatever the hell they wanted with their resources? This in my opinion would begin to resemble market relationships.

The state in the USSR was a "worker's state". While you say that the fundamental character of the state was based on consolidating power for the working classes, I have seen little to suggest that this was actually the case. The consolidation of power was rarely for the ultimate good of the working class, who despite being ruled by a "worker's state" did not have their relationship to the means of production fundamentally changed.
You keep repeating the same thing, yet have nothing to back it up excpet your claims. If the relationship of workers to the means of production did not fundamentally change from and exploited class relying on the sale of their labor, to a ruling class where the workers own the means of production, then I don't know what fundamentall changing relations is. You have seen little to suggest this because you refuse to look; namely at the devleopment of Soviet society that gave way to increased living standards for workers. Tell me if some phantom capitalist class controlled the Soviet government, than what was the point for developing benefital institutions for workers, like say nationalized health care as a shining example, which is credited with elminating much of the diseases that plagued Russian society for a long time? If you want proof for this, since of course you have seen little to suggest that the fundamental nature of worker's relations of the MOP had not changed, and that the basis of the economy was for development and increased living standards, then look here (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1551635), and here (http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=h1470563k3092248&size=largest).

Sure they "owned" the means of production, because that is what some piece of papers said. Sure they "controlled" the means of production, because they could have elections and those elections would choose a group people who would talk with another group of people who would agree on things and then hand down directives from above. The fact of the matter is, that under the government of the USSR, the workers still had instructions to be followed, and they did not have a significant degree of autonomous control over the way their workplace was run on a day to day basis. While they may not have been being exploited for profit "per se", there was no significant change in the relationship between worker and factory when ownership changed hands from the Bourgeois to the State, especially when decision making power moved away from individuals and towards centralization.

The same thing is being said here, just in a different way. I guess your standards for worker's control are simply too much for some to meet. Soceity is too complex to waste time fulfulling idealist nonsense like not "follwing directions".

Oops.
Everyone makes mistakes.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

It's ok. ;)

I'd like to ask you the same question.

I'm actually very observant.

I guess not, because I stll don't see how a small number of people subjugating another, much larger group of people for labor, and taking decision making power out of their hands, has fundamentally changed the relationship between the worker and the means just because the new administration says "I have your best interests at heart" and has a shiny new constitution to prove it.
You don't see how, becaues your misunderstanding the context and nature of the political system, acccording to how you just "described" the development of worker's power. Perhaps your purposley misunderstanding it.

I guess the question wasn't so much "was it worth saving" as much as "was it worth starting?". Maybe things were 'better' for workers for a time, although I think these improvements were largely in the same character as any bourgeois welfare state's improvements for the workers are now.
Wrong, capitalist 'welfare states' didn't even exist when the Soviet Union accomplished quantum gains for the workers of the world, like proving that socialist production is superior and surpasses the production of privately owned means.

The fact that when the USSR collapsed things got significantly worse does not mean that the USSR was good, or that Bolshevism was the right way to go back in 1917.
That fact that "things got worse" is evidently proof that even the revisionist caracture of a worker's state that was the USSR in the 1980's was better than complete capitalist restoration. If it was not the collapes of positive aspects of the Soviet system that caused this, then what did? Pure chance?

Any alternative theories would be entirely speculative, so I'm not going to put forth a bunch of 'what if' scenarios about what may or may not have happened. I can't say I have a concrete vision for what might have been better at the time, and as I said, it's entirely speculation. But the fact is, that the worker was not class-conscious enough to be emancipated, no matter how much Lenin was itching to do it. Anyone could see that the time wasn't ripe for a worldwide socialist revolution, and while it's admirable that the USSR survived for so long despite constant pressure from all sides, that doesn't mean that its formation, and that revolution at that time, was the way to go, it clearly didn't turn out well for most involved.
Actually, the world was fairly ripe for world revolution, except its not as easy as waiting for when "its ripe". First, let it not be forgot that revolutions happen in waves and not as singular events; secondly the Soviet Union did not simply wait for world revolution, this is fatalistic and inherently self-defeating. Instead the SU developed itself, and helped facilitate the spread of socialism when the time was "ripe" for revolution again.

I think I addressed most of this above. Bolshevism might have been the only approach for Russia, since Bolshevism is what happened, I can't say I disagree. It's silly to talk about what else "could" have happened, since it didn't. We can, however, talk about whether or not Bolshevism is correct, and whether or not it works. I think it's been shown by history that if the time isn't right, it really isn't possible to emancipate the workers on the sheer willpower of a group of well-meaning professional revolutionaries, and that unless the majority of the world is ready for revolution, that the resulting centralized, dictatorial state will be in a bad position attempting to compete with and cooperate with thriving capitalist societies. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe Lenin was right. I think you and I will have to disagree on this point though. In any case, I think we've sidetracked this thread enough. I think that this will be my last post on the subject in this thread.
Very well then.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 04:14

You already said they no longer had control after 56. If you're retracting that statement and saying it had democratic control for it's entire existence, I will lol and then retract my argument.
I will explain my reasoning in greater detail now. Worker's control was not simply done away with after '56, rather it was excessively curbed in favor of a different form of organization of the Soviet economy and the administrative organs of it. It is difficult to define the Soviet Union as a worker's state with significant power placed in worker's hands at this time when the system had been changed so greatly, however it was not completely abolished, and positive features remained (most importantly the Soviet of People's Deputies). If one would call it a deformed or degenerated worker's state, I would agree, I simply like to call it revisionism.

Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech" in 1956, this set on course his consolidation of power within the Communist Party. Anti-revisionists see this as the starting point for revisionism taking hold in the USSR, which was aimed (consciously or not) at curbing socialism in favor of capitalist restoration. In 1957, a reorganization of the economic organs of control were taken away from the Gosplan ministry and transferred over to regional economic boards (or sovnarkhoz) on the basis of each industry creating a profit and emphasizing consumer goods, as well as abstract nonsense like combating "centralism and compartmentalism". While national income and real earnings might have increased as a result, the elimination of centrally planned production and distribution showed its ineffectiveness when many capitalist countries out performed the SU in average growth of GNP between 1953-1965.

These reorganization policies also greatly changed how agriculture was produced as well, effectively damaging the previously successful agriculture industry. Private holdings of self-employed collective farmers were attacked and as a result the demand for certain products went up, with out a corresponding growth in production. Another disastrous policy was the Virgin Lands program, which created new farms in certain remote areas of Russia (I cant recall where) that had never been used for cultivation before. Of course it utterly failed and constantly was subjected to crop failure and diminishing returns. So instead of an economy planned by elected central planners, the foundation of the economy was fundamentally changed towards efforts to improve productivity, that ultimately failed, and led to the degeneration of the Soviet economic spheres of planned production into a failing contradictory system that eventually dissolved as a result of the path set out during this time.

This failure in economic ventures, could be argued as a prime factor for the Soviet Union taking out loans and purchasing capital from the west, which is another one of the main betrayals of socialism committed by Khrushchev.

No, I don't. I don't see how you could possibly get that from anything I've posted, and I've argued against the decentralization that anarchists propose quite a few times on this board. I was wrong then.

You said it ceased being under workers control in 56. Hence, no longer a workers state. Perhaps, but it didn't magically change to a "state-capitalist" state either.

If they don't control it, as you said, it isn't a workers state. If the state is taken from under control of the workers, then yes, it ceases to be a workers state. Your understanding of the state seems to be way off. You seem to think if a class establishes a state, then it will always be used for the rule of that class, even if they no longer control it. No absolutely not, I clearly recognize the tendency of reactionary tendencies to influence worker's states and turn to revisionism; it happend in the SU, PRC, DPRK, Yugoslavia, etc.

The Soviet Union retained positive gains made in the 1917 seizure of power through out its whole existence, however that does not mean serious mistakes and erroneous policies were carried out that served to undermine the nature and organization of socialism.

So the workers are willingly adopting counter-revolutionary politics? I'd think that if it was truly a workers state any counter revolutionary delegates would be recalled. No, because revisionist tendencies are aimed against worker's control and acts only to destroy it. However this does not mean that if revisionism takes hold that all of the sudden everything is lost, it took a little over 30 years to fully destroy socialist gains in the USSR.

You don't seem to know what exploitation is, either. Exploitation is the process in which surplus value is extracted from the working class. But yes, bureacrats did make their living off of the labor of workers. Their pay came out of the states finances, and the states finances were surplus value extracted from the working class. Of course their labor power belongs to them, what does that have to do with them selling it? If bureaucrats alone do not own the means of production, then they have no functions that specifically extract surplus value from workers, because they don't own the labor of workers.

And labor power does not belong to a worker, when he/she sells it to a capitalist; at that point the labor of the worker belongs to the capitalist, hence exploitation.

Well, unless workers had control of production, we have surplus value. Again, you already admitted that they did not after 1956, so you in effect admitted to the existence of surplus value. The state always emphasized the accumulation of capital. The state emphasized the accumulation of capital during "socialist primitive accumulation" during the NEP and Five Year Plan eras, because of the simple fact that primitive accumulation had not been undertaken by the bourgeoisie as it had in the West, where it was historically strong.

After the reorganization of the economy, the failure of the economy to increase production at a stable rate, capital accumulation was done on a profit basis. So yeah, it could be seen as a loss of worker's control over production, hence the state ceased to be a worker's state guided by Marxism-Leninism on the path towards communism, and became a deformed caricature that did curb democratic control of worker's through mainly economic means. However this did not entirely eliminate the system of elections for the Soviet of People's Deputies which was the basis for people's political power. The functionality of the SoPD following the reorganization is debatable however.

I don't think you understood what I was saying at all. I didn't say I think they should have focused on consumer goods. I just said that they didn't. In fact, I said they had no choice.
OK.

The problem is that socialism can not exist in such conditions. Socialism is not geared towards accumulation. In fact, I remember Marx warning us that something like this would happen if socialism was attempted in an underdeveloped country, but it might take me a while to find the quote.Socialism cannot exist in a developed form in these conditions, no. However this does not mean that DoTP cannot exist in order to develop the means for socialism. Many Marxists view the DoTP as socialism, as it implies the rule of the working class, however socialism cannot simply be called for and all of the sudden exist, you know this. It has to be developed, which is why it was so important to combat revisionist calls for profits instead of development.

Cool, because it wasn't socialist anyway. But you don't appear to know what socialism is, so I'm not surprised that you would say this?.I view socialism as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, where the workers have seized power in order to abolish bourgeois rule and develop socialist production.

He says it in both Imperialism and the world economy" and "Historical Materialism." He is talking about a state that is not under the control of the working class, such as the Soviet Union after 1956.

That is why Engels and Bukharin said the state itself becomes the capitalist.OK, thanks.

Not atter 56...Your keen to keep repeating this, however its not as simple as "it's a worker's state or not", as this is a narrow minded view of how revisionism developed and was put into practice; as well as how it affected the organization of the soviet government.

I already pointed out how they did in fact live from the exploitation of labor, but this isn't relevant to the argument at all. Any time I see someone argue against the analysis of state capitalism they always bring it up, but it has nothing to do with it, because the argument isn't that individual bureaucrats are capitalists. While I could make the argument that they were, I'm not going to, because it just isn't important. You can't live from the exploitation of labor, when you don't own the means of labor or production at the expense of others, namely the laborer. The state cannot function as a capitalist class, without individuals who comprise the state functioning as capitalists as well, so I don't see how it follows, when you say it is not relevant to the argument at all.

Honestly, if you think we can have socialism without workers control, I'm not even sure you belong on this forum.
I don't think we can have socialism with out worker's control, that's just silly.

ellipsis

10th June 2009, 04:19

Vermont

SocialismOrBarbarism

10th June 2009, 04:52

I will explain my reasoning in greater detail now. Worker's control was not simply done away with after '56, rather it was excessively curbed in favor of a different form of organization of the Soviet economy and the administrative organs of it. It is difficult to define the Soviet Union as a worker's state with significant power placed in worker's hands at this time when the system had been changed so greatly, however it was not completely abolished, and positive features remained (most importantly the Soviet of People's Deputies). If one would call it a deformed or degenerated worker's state, I would agree, I simply like to call it revisionism.

Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech" in 1956, this set on course his consolidation of power within the Communist Party. Anti-revisionists see this as the starting point for revisionism taking hold in the USSR, which was aimed (consciously or not) at curbing socialism in favor of capitalist restoration. In 1957, a reorganization of the economic organs of control were taken away from the Gosplan ministry and transferred over to regional economic boards (or sovnarkhoz) on the basis of each industry creating a profit and emphasizing consumer goods, as well as abstract nonsense like combating "centralism and compartmentalism". While national income and real earnings might have increased as a result, the elimination of centrally planned production and distribution showed its ineffectiveness when many capitalist countries out performed the SU in average growth of GNP between 1953-1965.

These reorganization policies also greatly changed how agriculture was produced as well, effectively damaging the previously successful agriculture industry. Private holdings of self-employed collective farmers were attacked and as a result the demand for certain products went up, with out a corresponding growth in production. Another disastrous policy was the Virgin Lands program, which created new farms in certain remote areas of Russia (I cant recall where) that had never been used for cultivation before. Of course it utterly failed and constantly was subjected to crop failure and diminishing returns. So instead of an economy planned by elected central planners, the foundation of the economy was fundamentally changed towards efforts to improve productivity, that ultimately failed, and led to the degeneration of the Soviet economic spheres of planned production into a failing contradictory system that eventually dissolved as a result of the path set out during this time.

This failure in economic ventures, could be argued as a prime factor for the Soviet Union taking out loans and purchasing capital from the west, which is another one of the main betrayals of socialism committed by Khrushchev.

Okay, you said it lacked workers control after 1956, so I was arguing on that basis. If it remained after that, albeit reduced, when would you say it had finally gotten to the point where they no longer exercised enough control for it to operate in the general interests of the working class? We will simply continue the debate on whether it was state capitalist or not after that point, if you even think that point exists.

Perhaps, but it didn't magically change to a "state-capitalist" state either.

It did when workers lost control of the state.

No absolutely not, I clearly recognize the tendency of reactionary tendencies to influence worker's states and turn to revisionism; it happend in the SU, PRC, DPRK, Yugoslavia, etc.

The Soviet Union retained positive gains made in the 1917 seizure of power through out its whole existence, however that does not mean serious mistakes and erroneous policies were carried out that served to undermine the nature and organization of socialism.
No, because revisionist tendencies are aimed against worker's control and acts only to destroy it. However this does not mean that if revisionism takes hold that all of the sudden everything is lost, it took a little over 30 years to fully destroy socialist gains in the USSR.

If the state was actually a workers state in the first place I don't see how workers control could be lost, unless their control was curbed from the beginning.

The state emphasized the accumulation of capital during "socialist primitive accumulation" during the NEP and Five Year Plan eras, because of the simple fact that primitive accumulation had not been undertaken by the bourgeoisie as it had in the West, where it was historically strong.

No, it did it for pretty much it's entire existence.

OK.
Socialism cannot exist in a developed form in these conditions, no. However this does not mean that DoTP cannot exist in order to develop the means for socialism. Many Marxists view the DoTP as socialism, as it implies the rule of the working class, however socialism cannot simply be called for and all of the sudden exist, you know this. It has to be developed, which is why it was so important to combat revisionist calls for profits instead of development.

I view socialism as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, where the workers have seized power in order to abolish bourgeois rule and develop socialist production.

The DotP and socialism are not the same thing, but anyway, like I said, the material conditions for workers rule did not exist. It was bound to go badly. Marx warned us:

Incidentally, if the bourgeoisie is politically, that is, by its state power, “maintaining injustice in property relations”, it is not creating it. The “injustice in property relations” which is determined by the modern division of labour, the modern form of exchange, competition, concentration, etc., by no means arises from the political rule of the bourgeois class, but vice versa, the political rule of the bourgeois class arises from these modern relations of production which bourgeois economists proclaim to be necessary and eternal laws. If therefore the proletariat overthrows the political rule of the bourgeoisie, its victory will only be temporary, only an element in the service of the bourgeois revolution itself, as in the year 1794, as long as in the course of history, in its “movement”, the material conditions have not yet been created which make necessary the abolition of the bourgeois mode of production and therefore also the definitive overthrow of the political rule of the bourgeoisie. The terror in France could thus by its mighty hammer-blows only serve to spirit away, as it were, the ruins of feudalism from French soil. The timidly considerate bourgeoisie would not have accomplished this task in decades. The bloody action of the people thus only prepared the way for it. In the same way, the overthrow of the absolute monarchy would be merely temporary if the economic conditions for the rule of the bourgeois class had not yet become ripe. Men build a new world for themselves...from the historical achievements of their declining world. In the course of their development they first have to produce the material conditions of a new society itself, and no exertion of mind or will can free them from this fate.

OK, thanks.
Your keen to keep repeating this, however its not as simple as "it's a worker's state or not", as this is a narrow minded view of how revisionism developed and was put into practice; as well as how it affected the organization of the soviet government.

I didn't really get into my own knowledge or views on the subject because that would start an entirely different debate that really doesn't matter, I just asked you when it ended. You said 1956.

You can't live from the exploitation of labor, when you don't own the means of labor or production at the expense of others, namely the laborer. The state cannot function as a capitalist class, without individuals who comprise the state functioning as capitalists as well, so I don't see how it follows, when you say it is not relevant to the argument at all.

Please explain how the state cannot perform the role of the capitalist class, and if you want to revise Marxist theory to state it isn't possible, then please stop talking about "revisionism" in the USSR, because it's hypocritical.

Yazman

10th June 2009, 07:23

It even says here (number 3) what I said. ttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism. Add the "h" in the beginning of it I can't do hyper links yet (sorry).

Dictionaries are written by lexicographers, not political or social scientists. The definition there isn't really something you can use in a politican argument.

mykittyhasaboner

10th June 2009, 21:20

Okay, you said it lacked workers control after 1956, so I was arguing on that basis. If it remained after that, albeit reduced, when would you say it had finally gotten to the point where they no longer exercised enough control for it to operate in the general interests of the working class?
Well this is very difficult to answer, because one would have to scurry through around 30 years of Soviet history in order to give a very definitive answer; but I'll take a guess based on what I already know.

I would say by the time the entire economy was reorganized, that any form of worker's control went fairly in vain. The way I see it, if you change the economic function of the Soviet Union from developing productive forces, increasing living standards, and the development of the means for socialism (as it was previously) to an economy that is evidently flawed, dubious in nature (specifically the emphasis on profits and consumer goods), and betrays the principles of socialism by taking out loans and capital from the West, then whats the point of worker's democracy? This is why the revisionist development in the Soviet Union so greatly pushed the whole country down towards the total restoration of capitalism.

We will simply continue the debate on whether it was state capitalist or not after that point, if you even think that point exists.
I don't think it exists because I disagree with the entire premise of "state-capitalism". The Soviet Union went from a worker's state, to a revisionist worker's state, not a "state-capitalist" state.

Now you will bring up: "if worker's control is curbed, then how is it a workers state?". Well because the worker's state created in 1917 was never abolished by revisionism until 1991, that is why.

It did when workers lost control of the state.Please explain, because I really don't see how it can simply turn into "state-capitalism" just because worker's gradually lost any control of the state. Lack of worker's control does not imply that the Soviet state had now been runned by capitalists, as this was not true. The capitalist mode of production is not applicable to the Soviet Union where the bourgeoisie had been eliminated.

If the state was actually a workers state in the first place I don't see how workers control could be lost, unless their control was curbed from the beginning.It can be lost through a number of ways, either by the overthrow of the state by imperialism (if that were the case, capitalism would be restored), or by anti-socialist tendencies within the state itself. These opportunists might be reactionary and implement flawed policies, however if said opportunists do not own the means of production, and exploit the labor of workers, then you can't have any kind of 'capitalism'.

No, it did it for pretty much it's entire existence. Right, but for different reasons, as I explained.

The DotP and socialism are not the same thing, but anyway, like I said, the material conditions for workers rule did not exist. It was bound to go badly. Marx warned us:Right, however the plan was never to go at it alone in Russia, but to have allies in Germany and Hungary, which would have been able to greatly aid Russia in it's development of productive forces.

The question is, if Russia had no allies and was encircled by imperialism, without the material conditions for socialism; then what was the point of taking power in 1917 and simply proclaiming defeat? If Russia would have just "given up" and decided not to build socialism, simply because of the failure of other revolutions, then what other alternative would you have proposed? Handing over the reigns back to the Russian/imperialist bourgeoisie?

I didn't really get into my own knowledge or views on the subject because that would start an entirely different debate that really doesn't matter, I just asked you when it ended. You said 1956. The beginning of the end was 1956 when Khrushchev gave the "Secret Speech".

Please explain how the state cannot perform the role of the capitalist class,The state can perform the role of the capitalist class, if this state is comprised of capitalists who own the means of production. What I meant was, a state that is not based on the rule of the private owners of the MOP, then it isn't any kind of capitalist state. Revisionism in the USSR might have been totally flawed and counter-revolutionary, however this does not create the conditions for the restoration of private ownership; in fact most revisionists claim that their reforms are aimed towards socialism, Even Khrushchev thought his policies were meant for developing the economy towards communism, which he though was actually fairly close.

and if you want to revise Marxist theory to state it isn't possible, then please stop talking about "revisionism" in the USSR, because it's hypocritical.I don't see how I'm in anyway trying to revise Marxist theory of the state, nor how talking about revisionism in the USSR is hypocritical.

SocialismOrBarbarism

10th June 2009, 22:12

I don't think it exists because I disagree with the entire premise of "state-capitalism". The Soviet Union went from a worker's state, to a revisionist worker's state, not a "state-capitalist" state.

Now you will bring up: "if worker's control is curbed, then how is it a workers state?". Well because the worker's state created in 1917 was never abolished by revisionism until 1991, that is why.

So explain why a state that is established by one class continues to be used for the rule of that class, even if they no longer control it. As I've said plenty of times, you can't have workers rule without workers rule, so I'm not so sure why you continue to call it a workers state after they lost control of it. You certainly won't find anything like that in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, etc. All of them explicitly acknowledged this possibility. This quote is probably the clearest:

Of course, our economic system can be changed into 'true' state capitalism, if the class
struggles in the sphere of direct processes of production and in the political sphere result in the loss of power by the working class.

Please explain, because I really don't see how it can simply turn into "state-capitalism" just because worker's gradually lost any control of the state. Lack of worker's control does not imply that the Soviet state had now been runned by capitalists, as this was not true. The capitalist mode of production is not applicable to the Soviet Union where the bourgeoisie had been eliminated.
How many times must I deal with this? The argument has nothing to do with individual bureaucrats being capitalists. The argument is that the state performs the functions of the capitalist class, becomes the "direct expression" of the capitalist class, the "national capitalist," etc. The soviet system maintained the same relation of capital to labor as capitalism, and you've yet to even attempt to prove otherwise.

It can be lost through a number of ways, either by the overthrow of the state by imperialism (if that were the case, capitalism would be restored), or by anti-socialist tendencies within the state itself. These opportunists might be reactionary and implement flawed policies, however if said opportunists do not own the means of production, and exploit the labor of workers, then you can't have any kind of 'capitalism'. If it was a true proletarian democracy then anti-socialist tendencies couldn't implement anti-worker policies because these "opportunists" would have no power of their own, they would just be administrators subject to immediate recall. Unless democracy had been curbed from the beginning, all power would lie with the workers, and I don't think they would be naive enough to give it up.

Right, but for different reasons, as I explained. I know it's reasons, the point is that production for accumulation is a characteristic of capitalism, not socialism.

Right, however the plan was never to go at it alone in Russia, but to have allies in Germany and Hungary, which would have been able to greatly aid Russia in it's development of productive forces.

The question is, if Russia had no allies and was encircled by imperialism, without the material conditions for socialism; then what was the point of taking power in 1917 and simply proclaiming defeat? If Russia would have just "given up" and decided not to build socialism, simply because of the failure of other revolutions, then what other alternative would you have proposed? Handing over the reigns back to the Russian/imperialist bourgeoisie? I didn't say there was an alternative, I just said the material conditions for socialism didn't even exist, so arguing that they achieved it doesn't seem to make much sense.

The state can perform the role of the capitalist class, if this state is comprised of capitalists who own the means of production. What I meant was, a state that is not based on the rule of the private owners of the MOP, then it isn't any kind of capitalist state. Revisionism in the USSR might have been totally flawed and counter-revolutionary, however this does not create the conditions for the restoration of private ownership; in fact most revisionists claim that their reforms are aimed towards socialism, Even Khrushchev thought his policies were meant for developing the economy towards communism, which he though was actually fairly close. But as I said, private ownership is only the legal form in which capitalist production relations usually appear. You're confusing that with those relations themselves. The relation of capital to labor is not fundamentally different whether we have state property not under the control of the working class or private property not under the control of the working class. You've yet to really explain how not having formal capitalists in administrative positions exempts the state itself from performing the role of the capitalist class.

Do you think that if the capitalist state nationalizes all of the means of production and there are no longer private owners of the MOP, it's socialism?

I don't see how I'm in anyway trying to revise Marxist theory of the state, nor how talking about revisionism in the USSR is hypocritical.
Well, you deny the possibility of a state passing from the control of a class, which is revisionist. You deny the possibility of the state performing the role of the capitalist class, which is revisionist. You think a workers state not under control of the working class can exist, which is revisionist. With that in mind, you calling anyone revisionist seems highly hypocritical.

mykittyhasaboner

11th June 2009, 02:15

So explain why a state that is established by one class continues to be used for the rule of that class, even if they no longer control it. As I've said plenty of times, you can't have workers rule without workers rule, so I'm not so sure why you continue to call it a workers state after they lost control of it. You certainly won't find anything like that in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, etc. All of them explicitly acknowledged this possibility. This quote is probably the clearest:
Again, you choose too claim that workers rule was simply abolished all together at once, sometime before 1991. Of course you can't have worker's rule, with out worker's rule, which is exactly revisionism is what it is, an opportunist set of tendencies that undermine socialism or socialist ideology. The mistake here, is that you associate revisionist tendencies (like that of Khrushchev or Xiapong) with a total change in the relations to production of the working class. Instead, revisionism is a ideological tendency that acts like a disease when it takes hold, and is not representative of a total elimination of a worker's state. Otherwise, revisionism wouldn't be called revisionsim, it would be called restored capitalism; but that didn't happen till 1991. Not to downplay the role in revisionism involved in the gradual restoration of capitalism, after all the Soviet Union dissolved with out firing a shot mostly because counter-revolutionary ideology had seeped its way into most aspects of the government (so much so that it was basically sold to the west). Opportunists aren't a clearly definied enemy, like imperialists or the formal bourgeois are; therefore operate in a completely different way.

How many times must I deal with this? The argument has nothing to do with individual bureaucrats being capitalists. The argument is that the state performs the functions of the capitalist class, becomes the "direct expression" of the capitalist class, the "national capitalist," etc. The soviet system maintained the same relation of capital to labor as capitalism, and you've yet to even attempt to prove otherwise. How many times must I deal with this? The last bit is totally wrong, and I'm surprised you go all the way and suggest this. The Soviet Union eliminated private ownership of the means of production as the foundation for economic relations, instead state or public property (the property of the whole people) and collective property (which was owned by those who operated the agricultural collective) were the sole forms of ownership. The Soviet Union eliminated the exploitative system where workers are forced to sell their own labor to private owners, instead the working class's labor belonged to them, and received the full value of their labor; worker's did not sell their labor to the state or receive a wage. The Soviet state did not form any "expression" of a capitalist class, because the means of production were owned by all of society, not just the state.

If it was a true proletarian democracy then anti-socialist tendencies couldn't implement anti-worker policies because these "opportunists" would have no power of their own, they would just be administrators subject to immediate recall. Unless democracy had been curbed from the beginning, all power would lie with the workers, and I don't think they would be naive enough to give it up.
Ah yes, "true" proletarian democracy! How can one argue against it?

Setting aside all idealist perceptions of democracy, I don't want to waste time speculating how "true" proletarian rule would look like.

I know it's reasons, the point is that production for accumulation is a characteristic of capitalism, not socialism.
Your right that primitive accumulation was a function of capitalism, historically the bourgeoisie have undertaken this role; however this was not possible for Russian capitalist class which was historically weak. Primitive accumulation was undertaken in Russia simply because it had too, but such accumulation was done with out an exploitative system based on private ownership, and instead the worker's and peasants set up a cooperative system where both would compliment each other in this challenge of developing the initial accumulation of capital in Russian society. Capital accumulation, like commodity production, is not objective in it's existence and is comprised of the same characteristics all of the time; conditions of accumulation do not exist in a bubble and take on different forms. If the primitive accumulation of capital had not been achieved, yet worker's have taken power, what do you do? Accumulate capital; because economic laws cannot be changed simply because we have a new form of ownership and organization, such as the one in the Soviet Union. Actually, the laws of economic development must be harnessed to the advantage of the owners of society, which in this case were the worker's and peasants. Capital is merely "money which is used to make money" to paraphrase Marx, and if capital accumulation is socially owned, does not operate in the framework of bourgeois society, and does not take the form of private ownership in some "free market", then it doesn't lead to capitalism.

I didn't say there was an alternative, I just said the material conditions for socialism didn't even exist, so arguing that they achieved it doesn't seem to make much sense.
I'm not arguing that socialism was achieved when the material conditions for it didn't exist, I said that the Soviet Union had to build socialism or else there was no point in taking power, whether or not they had any help.

But as I said, private ownership is only the legal form in which capitalist production relations usually appear. You're confusing that with those relations themselves. The relation of capital to labor is not fundamentally different whether we have state property not under the control of the working class or private property not under the control of the working class. You've yet to really explain how not having formal capitalists in administrative positions exempts the state itself from performing the role of the capitalist class.
This is incorrect. Private ownership is not merely some "legal form" of ownership; private ownership is defined by the ownership of a small minority of owners who employ workers to work for them on their property. You are confusing state administration with private ownership.

This was not the case in the Soviet Union, where workers possessed the MOP and effectively hired themselves, with the state as an administrative and political body, not a separate entity that solely owns the MOP. You are gravely mistaken in artificially applying the characteristics of a capitalist class, to a body that does not own the MOP at the expense of the rest of society. If the individuals who comprise a state are not actual capitalists, then how the hell are they a capitalist state? Especially when capitalists had been abolished and eliminated in the Soviet Union.

Do you think that if the capitalist state nationalizes all of the means of production and there are no longer private owners of the MOP, it's socialism?No, because this implies that the capitalist state has not yet been smashed, so how can their be socialism? A bit of a pointless question.

Well, you deny the possibility of a state passing from the control of a class, which is revisionist. You deny the possibility of the state performing the role of the capitalist class, which is revisionist. You think a workers state not under control of the working class can exist, which is revisionist. With that in mind, you calling anyone revisionist seems highly hypocritical.None of that is "revisionist" because you have obviously totally taken the term 'revisionist' out of context.

amandevsingh

11th June 2009, 03:06

It is an impossible question, but I think that South America, Venezuela in particular has the best chance. India has the best chance for a newly revolutionary country, see Naxalism. Fifth International Baby!! Hopefully anyways...

SocialismOrBarbarism

11th June 2009, 05:26

Again, you choose too claim that workers rule was simply abolished all together at once, sometime before 1991. Of course you can't have worker's rule, with out worker's rule, which is exactly revisionism is what it is, an opportunist set of tendencies that undermine socialism or socialist ideology. The mistake here, is that you associate revisionist tendencies (like that of Khrushchev or Xiapong) with a total change in the relations to production of the working class. Instead, revisionism is a ideological tendency that acts like a disease when it takes hold, and is not representative of a total elimination of a worker's state. Otherwise, revisionism wouldn't be called revisionsim, it would be called restored capitalism; but that didn't happen till 1991. Not to downplay the role in revisionism involved in the gradual restoration of capitalism, after all the Soviet Union dissolved with out firing a shot mostly because counter-revolutionary ideology had seeped its way into most aspects of the government (so much so that it was basically sold to the west). Opportunists aren't a clearly definied enemy, like imperialists or the formal bourgeois are; therefore operate in a completely different way.

I'm not really claiming anything of my own..I'm just going based off of what you said. You seemed to indicate that there was in fact a point at which workers rule was completely or almost completely abolished, and I was merely arguing based on that. If you're changing that to say they still had control up until the restoration of capitalism, then like I said, I will retract my argument. And no, I don't associate "revisionist tendencies" with a change in the relations of production.

If you're not changing your position to say that they had control up until the end, then please actually address this:

So explain why a state that is established by one class continues to be used for the rule of that class, even if they no longer control it. As I've said plenty of times, you can't have workers rule without workers rule, so I'm not so sure why you continue to call it a workers state after they lost control of it. You certainly won't find anything like that in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bukharin, etc. All of them explicitly acknowledged this possibility. This quote is probably the clearest:

Of course, our economic system can be changed into 'true' state capitalism, if the class
struggles in the sphere of direct processes of production and in the political sphere result in the loss of power by the working class.

How many times must I deal with this? The last bit is totally wrong, and I'm surprised you go all the way and suggest this. The Soviet Union eliminated private ownership of the means of production as the foundation for economic relations, instead state or public property (the property of the whole people) and collective property (which was owned by those who operated the agricultural collective) were the sole forms of ownership. The Soviet Union eliminated the exploitative system where workers are forced to sell their own labor to private owners, instead the working class's labor belonged to them, and received the full value of their labor; worker's did not sell their labor to the state or receive a wage. The Soviet state did not form any "expression" of a capitalist class, because the means of production were owned by all of society, not just the state. And I've dealt with the issue of private ownership and state/public property. But we were discussing a point at which the workers did not actually control the state, so this entire part of your post was pointless and avoided the issue entirely.

Setting aside all idealist perceptions of democracy, I don't want to waste time speculating how "true" proletarian rule would look like. I will admit that my comment was fairly idealist, but the point still stands that it cannot be called proletarian democracy if decision making is not made from the bottom up and power firmly in the hands of the workers, not their representatives. In such a democracy what you're describing would not even be possible.

Your right that primitive accumulation was a function of capitalism, historically the bourgeoisie have undertaken this role; however this was not possible for Russian capitalist class which was historically weak. Primitive accumulation was undertaken in Russia simply because it had too, but such accumulation was done with out an exploitative system based on private ownership, and instead the worker's and peasants set up a cooperative system where both would compliment each other in this challenge of developing the initial accumulation of capital in Russian society. Capital accumulation, like commodity production, is not objective in it's existence and is comprised of the same characteristics all of the time; conditions of accumulation do not exist in a bubble and take on different forms. If the primitive accumulation of capital had not been achieved, yet worker's have taken power, what do you do? Accumulate capital; because economic laws cannot be changed simply because we have a new form of ownership and organization, such as the one in the Soviet Union. Actually, the laws of economic development must be harnessed to the advantage of the owners of society, which in this case were the worker's and peasants. Capital is merely "money which is used to make money" to paraphrase Marx, and if capital accumulation is socially owned, does not operate in the framework of bourgeois society, and does not take the form of private ownership in some "free market", then it doesn't lead to capitalism.

I'm not arguing that socialism was achieved when the material conditions for it didn't exist, I said that the Soviet Union had to build socialism or else there was no point in taking power, whether or not they had any help. Things would be a lot easier if you had a consistent definition of socialism. Just a post or so ago you said that socialism meant the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this part of the argument isn't really necessary anyways.

This is incorrect. Private ownership is not merely some "legal form" of ownership; private ownership is defined by the ownership of a small minority of owners who employ workers to work for them on their property. You are confusing state administration with private ownership. Telling me what private ownership is defined by does not somehow prove me incorrect. Private property is the legal form in which capitalist relations of production usually manifest themselves. This is fairly basic Marxism, and you can get a vague feel for it in the Marx passage posted above. It was made clear by people such as Engels and Bukharin that capitalist relations of production can manifest themselves in the case of both state property and private property, because as long as the working class has no control there is no fundamental difference.

The capitalist mode of production is based on a monopoly of the means of production in the hands of the class of capitalists… There is no difference in principle whatsoever whether the state power is a direct expression of this monopoly or whether this monopoly is 'privately' organised. In either case there remains commodity economy (in the first place the world market) and, what is more important, the class relations between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

But the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.

This was not the case in the Soviet Union, where workers possessed the MOP and effectively hired themselves, with the state as an administrative and political body, not a separate entity that solely owns the MOP. You are gravely mistaken in artificially applying the characteristics of a capitalist class, to a body that does not own the MOP at the expense of the rest of society. If the individuals who comprise a state are not actual capitalists, then how the hell are they a capitalist state? Especially when capitalists had been abolished and eliminated in the Soviet Union. You already know that we're arguing based on the Soviet Union after the workers no longer controlled the state, so I can only assume you're desperate if you're reverting to this. Are you telling me that the US would cease to be a capitalist state if all of the government officials gave up any capital they own?

No, because this implies that the capitalist state has not yet been smashed, so how can their be socialism? A bit of a pointless question. Why would it matter if the result is the same?

None of that is "revisionist" because you have obviously totally taken the term 'revisionist' out of context.
None of that is revisionist? Of course it is. The only people that call them revisionists are people who think they're revisionists, and in your case it's funny because you reject theories propounded by Marx, Engels, the main theoretician of the Bolsheviks...