Production

[The Bear]

why did all 20 century socialist states force mass production of raw materials , and force heavy industry instead of consumable goods production ?

why was it important... why did countries of eastern block esspecially push it ?

[Muzk]

Please be more specific

Anyways, technology man, technology!

:/

[The Bear]

Please be more specific

Anyways, technology man, technology!

:/

i mean socialist states... such as china soviet union..they were always advising close allies to force production of materials and support heavy industry , quantity over quallity , raw materials over consumable goods

[Muzk]

raw materials over consumable goods
I don't get this part

Anyways, who knows why? Only them, we can only try to think of what would be the most likely thing.
But, for us communists the collective stands over the individual, why would we produce 20 green apples if we could as well produce 30 red ones and feed more people?

[Hyacinth]

why did all 20 century socialist states force mass production of raw materials , and force heavy industry instead of consumable goods production ?

why was it important... why did countries of eastern block esspecially push it ?


[T]he national economy cannot be continuously expanded with-out giving primacy to the production of means of production.
I'll refrain from commenting on whether or not this is sound, but this was the justification for the emphasis on heavy industry over light industry. (For more, see The Law of Value Under Socialism (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1951/economic-problems/ch04.htm), which is the chapter the quote is from.)

[ComradeRed]

The honest answer is: it depends who you ask.

The Leninists will give you answers...well, precisely like the ones already given.

A more realistic perspective would be noting that pre-revolution Russia and China were really feudal or barely post-feudal.

Industrialization in Russia was on the Western-most fringes, and that was due entirely to foreign investment.

The logical progression of society would be some form of industrialization, which is precisely what happened in the USSR and China. It was just draped in Leftist-sounding rhetoric.

[ComradeOm]

I'll refrain from commenting on whether or not this is sound, but this was the justification for the emphasis on heavy industry over light industryIts sound. The stubbornly low productivity of the Soviet workforce dictated that the only way to maintain industrial growth was through the constant expansion of industry. Consumer goods do not facilitate this growth and so consistently received less capital than heavy industry. The planners were always trying to balance the needs of these two sectors of industry but rarely got it right. I can't remember all the details but Ellman covers it in his Socialist Planning


A more realistic perspective would be noting that pre-revolution Russia and China were really feudal or barely post-feudal.I agree with those who label Imperial Russia as 'semi-feudal'. Regardless of the peasantry, there existed a large (in absolute terms) and very modern industrial sector. Russian industrial hubs (Petersburg, Moscow, Ivanovo, etc) were generally comparable to any in the West in terms of scale and technological advancement

Nor were these entirely the products of foreign capital. While this was most certainly a factor in the late Imperial economy, to assert that industrialisation "was due entirely to foreign investment" is very much an exaggeration. It ignores the, very considerable, role of the state and, to a lesser degree, the growing class of indigenous Russian capitalists

[New Tet]

The so-called socialist states of the 20th Century needed to industrialize more fully to catch up with the advanced capitalist regimes and because, in the case of Russia, any talk of socialism was absurd without the formation of a majority working class.

In a nutshell.

[scarletghoul]

You can't produce 'consumable goods' without raw materials, and a developed economic infastructure (which also requires raw materials).

[ComradeRed]

I agree with those who label Imperial Russia as 'semi-feudal'. Regardless of the peasantry, there existed a large (in absolute terms) and very modern industrial sector. Russian industrial hubs (Petersburg, Moscow, Ivanovo, etc) were generally comparable to any in the West in terms of scale and technological advancement Sorry, but this isn't entirely accurate; your zero references and statistics convinces me of this.

The fact of the matter is that 80% of the population of Russia, in 1917, was peasantry. (Reference: The Russian Revolution, 1917 (http://books.google.com/books?id=uBfnjdxFUkUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Rex A. Wade)

This seems to indicate your assertions would be incorrect.

In fact, in 1914 the urban industrialized workers (if they could be called that) consisted of less than 2% of the population.


Nor were these entirely the products of foreign capital. While this was most certainly a factor in the late Imperial economy, to assert that industrialisation "was due entirely to foreign investment" is very much an exaggeration. It ignores the, very considerable, role of the state and, to a lesser degree, the growing class of indigenous Russian capitalists So sorry, but your 'reasoning' is once again without either reference or fact.

The economic boom of 1908-1917 was driven predominantly by foreign investors.

See Clive Trebilcock's The Industrialization of the Continental Powers, 1780 - 1914 for numerical details...

[RotStern]

Russia which is the only one I can really speak for was an underdeveloped country that just got past Feudalism while the West had a long time ago.
They needed to industrialize to keep up.
But it is also a priority of communism to harvest by fertilizing the soil.

[ComradeRed]

Russia which is the only one I can really speak for was an underdeveloped country that just got past Feudalism while the West had a long time ago.
They needed to industrialize to keep up.
But it is also a priority of communism to harvest by fertilizing the soil.

Do not mistake me, I am in no way suggesting what happened in Russia was in any way or sense "bad".

It just wasn't "communism" or "socialism".

It really couldn't have been, either, since it never really industrialized enough to catch up with the industrialized nations.

The numbers seem to indicate this to be the case as well, with only 2% of the population being industrial workers it's hard to believe that anyone could say with a straight face that 1917 was a "workers' revolution", or the USSR was a "workers' state".

The assertions otherwise are backed up by nothing!

Numbers don't lie...

[ComradeOm]

The fact of the matter is that 80% of the population of Russia, in 1917, was peasantry. (Reference: The Russian Revolution, 1917 (http://books.google.com/books?id=uBfnjdxFUkUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q=&f=false) by Rex A. Wade)And at what point did I deny that this was the case? The size of Russia's peasantry is well known. What is less well known, and what I asserted, was that this peasantry coexisted with a large (again, in absolute terms) and advanced industrial sector. According to SA Smith ('Red Petrograd', 1983), "Petrograd industry was remarkable for its advanced technology. From the start of industrial take-off in the 1890s, most branches of industry in the capital were highly mechanised... By 1914 Petrograd industry had obtained a high level of technological sophistication. Its largest firms lagged little behind those of America and Western Europe". Davies et al ('The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union', 1994) state that, "by 1913 a modern factory industry was firmly established in the Russian Empire" and that this industrial sector (not including construction, transportation, or services) already contributed over 21% of national income. In terms of absolute size (estimates vary from three million 'pure' workers to several million urban workers) it compares favourably, for example, to the working class of fin de siècle France (Mayeur, 'The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War', 1973)

In addition, and something that I did not mention above, there was an increasing intrusion of capitalist relations into the traditional peasant economy as subsistence farming slowly began to give way to more market (read:capitalist) production. The Stolypin Reforms being of course the most obvious example but by 1914 the average Russian peasant household was selling up to 40% of its produce on the market (Davies et al). It was this, along with the advances in industry noted above, that caused Lenin to exclaim, perhaps prematurely, that capitalism in Russia was already the "prevailing tendency" in his Development of Capitalism in Russia (quoted in Moshe Lewin, 'The Making of the Soviet System', 1985)

Given the above I consider it absurd to simply write off the entire Russian economy as 'feudal'. There's no question that this was not a society in which capitalism had come to dominate as in the West (although it should be noted that substantial peasantries remained in Western European countries well into the 20th C) but it is clear that there existed an advanced, and growing, industrial base. Its also clear that the peasant economy was becoming increasingly integrated into a broader capitalist market. Capitalism was not yet the dominant mode of production in Russia but by 1914 it was clearly the 'prevailing tendency'


The economic boom of 1908-1917 was driven predominantly by foreign investorsAnd at what point did I suggest that this was not the case? You'll note that I was merely correcting your assertion that "Industrialization in Russia was... due entirely to foreign investment". This is simply false

According to SA Smith, by 1914 no more than two thirds of Russian commercial banks were foreign owned and in Petrograd a mere 15 factories were owned outright by foreign companies. The latter was half the number of state run companies alone and according to Smith, "the industry of Petrograd was distinguished not so much by its dependence on foreign capital as its dependence on the state". This was particularly true of the years following 1908 in which the war industry, both state owned and in the form of orders to private companies, and railroad programmes became major drivers of industrial growth. Davies et al note that "the growth of the iron industry, railway engineering and armaments depended on the state budget, state contracts, and state protective tariffs". It was these capital industries that drove the 1909-1913 boom

Smith also notes that "The biggest fraction of the capitalist class was also the most genuinely Russian, and consisted of those entrepreneurs in the Moscow region... who were independent of foreign and government finance". The distinction between the Petrograd and Moscow capitalists is also commented on by Figes ('A People's Tragedy', 1998) while Davies ('Soviet Economic Development from Lenin to Khrushchev', 1998) also notes the major role played by the state and the increasing role played by indigenous capital

So your original contention - again, that Russian industrial growth was almost entirely driven by foreign capital - does not hold true


The numbers seem to indicate this to be the case as well, with only 2% of the population being industrial workers it's hard to believe that anyone could say with a straight face that 1917 was a "workers' revolution"Are you seriously contending that the millions of Russian workers who drove the revolutionary events of 1917 just did not exist? Or do you merely subscribe to the stagist view that it is only when the working class has become a majority on a national level that a workers' revolution is possible? :confused:

[ComradeRed]

And at what point did I deny that this was the case? The size of Russia's peasantry is well known. What is less well known, and what I asserted, was that this peasantry coexisted with a large (again, in absolute terms) and advanced industrial sector.
Well, your point about the "absolute size" of the working class is moot since for every worker there was 40 peasants to match.

Unless you are seriously trying to assert that having x million workers makes Russia capitalist or not, the "absolute size" of the peasantry was significantly larger (yes, shockingly enough, 147.7 Million is greater than 3.69 Million).

In absolute terms, the peasantry was still larger.

Now, as to the point of having an "advanced industrial sector", this is relative to what?

To the state of technology that England had when it was industrializing during the cottage industry?

To the technology that was around during that time period at the turn of the Twentieth century?

In the case of the former, it doesn't really amount to much other than stating the obvious.

In the case of the latter, it's a baseless assertion that needs to be backed up with some evidence.

In fact, if you look into it, the only countries in Europe that had similar distribution of occupations were Yugoslavia, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, none of which are really noteworthy as "advanced capitalist nations" of the early Twentieth century.

(In fact, England had 22.7% of its population in agriculture in 1841; 47.3% of its population during that period were in industry related jobs.)

Curiously, Colin Clark in his book The Conditions of Economic Progress makes rather illuminating computations of quantitative data of various nations during the 1917 period.

The interested reader is invited to peruse Mr Clark's book.


Given the above I consider it absurd to simply write off the entire Russian economy as 'feudal'. Which is why I wrote it off as "barely post-feudal" if you recall...

I wrote off China as feudal (although I'm sure this is equally as controversial a statement!).


Are you seriously contending that the millions of Russian workers who drove the revolutionary events of 1917 just did not exist? Or do you merely subscribe to the stagist view that it is only when the working class has become a majority on a national level that a workers' revolution is possible? I'm seriously contending that:

(1) the revolution of 1917 and what follows was revolutionary but not a "workers' revolution";

(2) the results of 1917 was effectively a capitalist revolution, destroying what remained of the residues of the feudal state apparatus.

As Marx remarked


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, not from the "treasures of this earth", as grobian superstition imagines, but 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. (Italics are Marx's)

Karl Marx, "Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality" in Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung No. 86, October 28, 1847 (Marxists.org (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/10/31.htm#90))

[ComradeOm]

In absolute terms, the peasantry was still larger.Why thank you for pointing that out Captain Obvious. Unfortunately you'll note, if you read my post, I have not once denied that this was not the case or suggested otherwise. Now I have an idea as to why you continue to harp on about that one point but I'll get to that later. As it is my assertion was not that Russia was an advanced industrial nation but that it was a nation that possessed an advanced industrial base. I'll assume that you can tell the difference between the two

That the Russian industrial base was small relative to the larger agrarian economy is not in question. That does not give you reason however to simply ignore it and pretend that it did not exist or was irrelevant. The reality is, I repeat, that in 1914 Tsarist Russia possessed an industrial base that was comparable to any in Western Europe in terms of technology and absolute size. Hence why I particularly referenced the Third Republic above. Now the size and advancement of the working class is obviously of huge significance when considering the potential of a working class revolution


yes, shockingly enough, 147.7 Million is greater than 3.69 MillionAt least get your figures right. There were 53-70 million self-employed peasants in the Russian Empire in 1913. Plus roughly another 3 million agricultural workers who sold their labourer (Davies et al). Unless you deliberately intended to massage the figures by including non-working peasants (such as young children and the infirm) in your total...?


(1) the revolution of 1917 and what follows was revolutionary but not a "workers' revolution"So is a case of you subscribing to a stagist model of history that insists that a workers revolution can only occur when 51% of the population are workers. I'd hoped that such deterministic and lineal thinking had died out with the Second International

In the first place the reality is that the October Revolution was indeed proletarian in character and objective. I recommend some works below that ensure that this is a matter not of opinion but of historical record. Every theory has to contend with this central fact

Now, as to why a proletarian revolution took place in an overwhelmingly agricultural nation, the answer lies in the quick sketch that I've already provided. Whatever the size of the Russian peasantry - which would have profound impact on the course of the Revolution following October - it has to be restated that Russia possessed a numerically large, cohesive, and advanced proletariat that was engaged in real class struggle with Russian capitalism. This was something that the peasantry had no direct impact on. As a whole the Russian Empire may not have been an advanced capitalist nation but capitalist relations certainly existed, no matter how limited in scope, and eventually gave rise to a proletarian revolution


(2) the results of 1917 was effectively a capitalist revolution, destroying what remained of the residues of the feudal state apparatus.And this is where class analysis goes out the window. Tell me, just how can a revolution be considered capitalist when one of its primary aims is the liquidation of the bourgeoisie as a class? One might think that it would be difficult to classify as capitalist a revolution that was carried out by the proletariat, through the creation of organs of proletarian control and democracy, with explicitly anti-capitalist goals, and led to the creation (however brief) of a moneyless economy, no? Of course the great irony here is that you've actually missed one of the more acute criticisms that can be directed at the Bolsheviks - their land policies actually reinforced feudal land relations :lol:

Unfortunately an overly mechanical and deterministic reading of history tends to gloss over such inconveniences as historical reality. No research is required when a single figure (80% peasant) suffices to damn an entire movement. With a bit of research I think you'll find that history is slightly more complicated than a simple switch from a feudal stage to a capitalist stage

The interested reader is invited to peruse any number of books that deal with the proletarian nature of the Russian Revolution. In particular I'd recommend Shelia Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution and Alexander Rabinowitch's Bolshevik trilogy - Prelude to Revolution, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, and The Bolsheviks in Power. The aforementioned Red Petrograd by SA Smith provides an excellent in-depth insight into the revolution in Russia's factories. Moshe Lewin's The Making of the Soviet System contains a wealth of information regarding the Russian peasantry and its interaction with the Bolsheviks and Soviet state


To the technology that was around during that time period at the turn of the Twentieth century?

...

In the case of the latter, it's a baseless assertion that needs to be backed up with some evidenceI have provided quotes from an academic work on the subject. If you disagree with Dr Smith's assessments then feel to either present your reasons for this or take it up with him directly. However to call it a "baseless assertion" indicates that you have not read either his work or my post. That is your error, not mine


(In fact, England had 22.7% of its population in agriculture in 1841; 47.3% of its population during that period were in industry related jobs.)Yet just under 70% of the French population was rural in 1870 of which the vast majority were involved in agriculture (Teich and Porter, (1996), The Industrial Revolution in National Context). Do you believe that Marx was wrong to support the potential of the Paris Commune?

[PRC-UTE]

The interested reader is invited to peruse any number of books that deal with the proletarian nature of the Russian Revolution. In particular I'd recommend Shelia Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution and Alexander Rabinowitch's Bolshevik trilogy - Prelude to Revolution, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, and The Bolsheviks in Power. The aforementioned Red Petrograd by SA Smith provides an excellent in-depth insight into the revolution in Russia's factories. Moshe Lewin's The Making of the Soviet System contains a wealth of information regarding the Russian peasantry and its interaction with the Bolsheviks and Soviet state


That's a great list. Though I haven't read all of those works, I agree that academic studies of the Russian Revolution are essential. That's what I've had to rely on to get a decent understanding of just what happened.

Outside of academic studies, I'd recommend Trotsky, but even Leon was influenced by his own biases.

Maybe this thread could be stickied, it's a useful one.

[ComradeRed]

That the Russian industrial base was small relative to the larger agrarian economy is not in question. That does not give you reason however to simply ignore it and pretend that it did not exist or was irrelevant. Which is precisely what I'm not doing.

You went off rattling on about Russia not being feudal, that's not really in question. (I don't think that you'll challenge the notion that, effectively, China was feudal; which is what I was referring to earlier.)

The question you should really try to be answering is "Is pre-1917 Russia capitalist?"

You've done a beautiful job avoiding that subject.

I don't think the question of Russia being "post-feudal" is debatable; but you've got no reasoning that Russia was capitalist other than some random figures.

You've forgotten to set up the criteria of having a mode of production be capitalist.

Did the law of accumulation hold? You have no quantitative data indicating so.

Your opus citatum doesn't really appear to indicate it either.


The reality is, I repeat, that in 1914 Tsarist Russia possessed an industrial base that was comparable to any in Western Europe in terms of technology and absolute size. Hence why I particularly referenced the Third Republic above. Now the size and advancement of the working class is obviously of huge significance when considering the potential of a working class revolution Unsurprisingly enough, you are committing the same error that vulgar economists commit when comparing Cuba to the US: you're ignoring scale.

Or is vulgar thinking supposed to be your selling point?

In terms of technology, it just had what everyone else had. It was "modern" compared to the cottage industry but "par" compared to Western Europe.

With regards to the distribution of labor, which is kind of important, it was not as modernized as it could've been. It was comparable to Turkey!

Or are you suggesting the Ottoman empire could've had a "proletarian revolution"? :lol:


At least get your figures right. There were 53-70 million self-employed peasants in the Russian Empire in 1913. Plus roughly another 3 million agricultural workers who sold their labourer (Davies et al). Unless you deliberately intended to massage the figures by including non-working peasants (such as young children and the infirm) in your total...? ...and what about primitive accumulation of capital?

When did it happen?

Supposing that it magically happened "sometime" before 1917, the Russian society was most similar (in the first quarter of the 20th century) to the Ottoman Empire.

Or is the Ottoman Empire also on the "vanguard of industrialization" in the early 20th century?


So is[sic] a case of you subscribing to a stagist model of history that insists that a workers revolution can only occur when 51% of the population are workers. I'd hoped that such deterministic and lineal thinking had died out with the Second International Yep, anything above 50.0% :rolleyes:

Of course, your straw man - although comical - completely mischaracterizes my position.

What else could be expected from one who appeals to vulgar economic thinking?


In the first place the reality is that the October Revolution was indeed proletarian in character and objective. I recommend some works below that ensure that this is a matter not of opinion but of historical record. Every theory has to contend with this central fact This is getting off topic; your incoherent regurgitation of the party line, doubly so.

The Soviet folklore turned out to be precisely that - just folklore.

Of course, it's "bourgeois lies" to assert such a thing :lol:


I have provided quotes from an academic work on the subject. If you disagree with Dr Smith's assessments then feel to either present your reasons for this or take it up with him directly. However to call it a "baseless assertion" indicates that you have not read either his work or my post. That is your error, not mine Uh, no, you've provided the passage


Davies et al ('The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union', 1994) state that, "by 1913 a modern factory industry was firmly established in the Russian Empire" and that this industrial sector (not including construction, transportation, or services) already contributed over 21% of national income. In terms of absolute size (estimates vary from three million 'pure' workers to several million urban workers) it compares favourably, for example, to the working class of fin de siècle France (Mayeur, 'The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War', 1973) So, yes, relative to the cottage industry, it was an "advanced" factory.

It doesn't really convince me that Russia was on the "vanguard of innovation" in terms of industrialization; it was just using what technology was available to it at the time.

That's to be expected when a nation starts industrializing as late as the early twentieth century.

If Afghanistan starts industrializing, should we be surprised it is using relatively modern machinery? No, of course not.

Does it make Afghanistan ready for revolution? No, of course not.


Yet just under 70% of the French population was rural in 1870 of which the vast majority were involved in agriculture (Teich and Porter, (1996), The Industrial Revolution in National Context). Do you believe that Marx was wrong to support the potential of the Paris Commune? Frankly, yeah, Marx was making the Paris commune into something it wasn't.

Realistically, he used it as a model to dissect and pick apart, showing (and sometimes exaggerating) positive aspects of the Paris Commune.

Marx is not beyond scrutiny here, but I doubt that you'd care to entertain that notion.

Critical thinking is to be abhorred, right? :lol:

[ComradeOm]

The question you should really try to be answering is "Is pre-1917 Russia capitalist?"

You've done a beautiful job avoiding that subjectI'm going to try this one last time. Its clearly necessary to spell this out in simple language because, despite forming a constant thread in my posts, you've still not picked up on the fact that I reject the vulgar conception of rigid historical stages. As I said in my very first post in this thread, I consider the late Tsarist economy to be semi-feudal in character. This means that it comprised a large, and largely backwards, agricultural economy that coexisted with a rapidly growing industrial sector and capitalist relations

Now I think that I've demonstrated fairly clearly above that Russia did in fact possess a significant and advanced industrial base. It goes without saying that this was capitalist in nature. I've also mentioned in passing (and can devote more time to this if you wish) that capitalist relations were increasingly coming to the fore in the agricultural economy

It is you, and only you, who insist that a economy be feudal or capitalist; that it cannot exist in the same nature with other. This is a fundamentally determinist viewpoint that I had thought died out with the Second International. Its actually more acceptable in their case given the lack of Marx's published material available to the early Marxists. What is not acceptable, in an age when our knowledge of both Marx's theories and actual socio-economic change is unparalleled, is the clinging to the tired and frankly bankrupt concept of rigid historical phases. This, along with your ignorance as to the pre-war Russian economy, you have demonstrated with every post in this thread

I also want to note that I've demonstrated the nature of the Russian economy through the use of accepted figures and academic analysis regarding the period in question. This is in contrast to yourself, who apparently only knows the percentage of peasants in Russia at the time. Yet you write these off as "random figures" and "baseless assertions". My quick reading list, uniformly comprised of Western academics, is rubbished as "incoherent regurgitation of the party line" and "Soviet folklore" while you suggest that I will in turn accuse you of "bourgeois lies"!

I suggest that you actually some of those titles that I've recommended and return to this discussion when you have some grasp of the topic and the ability to string coherent paragraphs together


In terms of technology, it just had what everyone else had. It was "modern" compared to the cottage industry but "par" compared to Western EuropeThis is an example of the typical evasion and wordplay that you've demonstrated in this thread. I've fairly sure that everybody but yourself understands when I mean by modern in this context - if you really want to be pedantic consider it to mean "pertaining to present and recent time" - yet you try and dance around the point. Which is incidentally, that Russian industry was "modern" not compared only to cottage industry but by the standards of early 20th C industry. That is, Russian factories, in certain fields of course, was "on par" with advanced Western industry. This implies of course that it was not only more advanced than cottage industry but also British/German industry of, say, the turn of the century

Now if you have any information that suggests otherwise, I'd ask you to produce it rather than engaging in semantic quibbles


Or is the Ottoman Empire also on the "vanguard of industrialization" in the early 20th century?This is just priceless. Tell me, at what point did I claim that Russia was the "vanguard of industrialization"? And by what criteria are you linking it to the Ottoman Empire? Frankly its an absurd comparison and one that only serves to highlight the progress made by the Tsarist Empire. According to Hershlag (Introduction to the Modern Economic History of the Middle East) there were a mere 200-300 hundred industrial enterprises (as opposed to small workshops), employing a mere 17,000 workers, in the Ottoman Empire in 1913. In contrast Smith gives (an admittedly war-inflated) the figure of 1011 enterprises, employing almost 400K workers, in Petrograd alone at the beginning of 1917. Of the latter only 3% of the Petrograd workforce was employed in factories comprising less than 50 workers

This is obviously just one indicator but one that does adequately display the degree to which Russian industry was far more developed than that of the Ottomans


That's to be expected when a nation starts industrializing as late as the early twentieth century.

If Afghanistan starts industrializing, should we be surprised it is using relatively modern machinery? No, of course notI fail to see the significance. Would you suggest that late 19th C Germany was in no position for a revolution because it too made use of British technology to take a 'short-cut' during its own late industrialisation programme? What of Japan? Or even China today?

No nation in the world (with the possible exception of Belgium and, to a lesser degree, France) went through the same lengthy technological development process that led to the British industrial revolution. All industrialised nations copied, to some degree, the innovations first pioneered in England before becoming in themselves centres of innovation. This should not be surprising (as the opposite would imply a pointless expenditure of time and money to replicate already established processes) and is of absolutely no importance (the trend, not the specific developments/advances) when considering the size and conditions of an emerging working class


Marx is not beyond scrutiny here, but I doubt that you'd care to entertain that notionWell, as I've made clear above, in terms of "critical thinking" you're right up there with those of the Second International. Of course not even they would have gone so far as to consider 19th C Europe devoid of revolutionary movements and completely without potential

Historical materialism is, and was always intended to be, a "guide to study, not a lever for construction". It is not a rigid model and those who write off entire movements and ignore historical reality on the basis of a few arbitrary percentage points or straitjacketed and preordained 'historical role'. Do you even realise that you simply dismissed the Russian Revolution as "bourgeois" without even the most cursory explanation as to the role of the bourgeoisie in it or an examination of the Russia proletariat that we've been discussing? You have your conception of history and historical fact (aka what actually happened) appears to have no place in it

Although I do enjoy the accusation that I am some form of dogmatist when it is you who has produced Marx to support your thesis :lol:


-----

To be honest this entire discourse has been a waste of my time and I've only continued for the benefit of any interested readers. You've produced nothing of note when describing the late Tsarist economy and really added little but petty semantics and irrelevant comparisons. Looking through your last two posts, at no point have you addressed (beyond outright rejection and mis-characterisation of my sources) the figures and fundamental thesis that I provided in post #13. Its fairly clear to me at this stage that you consider your loose grasp of Marxian economics to be a substitute for real study of this historical economy

Of course the latter in itself would not preclude a worthwhile discussion but your dogmatic attitude and polemic style makes anything even resembling that impossible

[KurtFF8]

You can see some of the negative effects of a focus on consumer production in places like the United States that has been stagnate since the late 1960s (Stagnate in the "Real Economy" as Foster from the Monthly Review argues). The US has instead had to shift mainly towards finance capital (a trend started in Lenin's time as well but the focus on finance over industrial output in the US didn't happen until the late 1960s really).

This has lead to many problems in the US as we're seeing right now.

Now the natural question is: would a focus on heavy industry be the solution to this problem? Were the socialist countries that focused on heavy industry on the "right track"? For the second question I would say, for development: yes, this had to be done with capitalist countries as well.

As for the first question: that's a tough one. Would the US, if it turned socialist tomorrow, be able to return to a focus on heavy industry that would be sustainable both economically and environmentally? I'm not quite sure I know how to answer that one.

But as for producing the means of production: it's quite clear that in countries like the USSR and China: they were not "advanced" capitalist countries by the time their respective Communist Parties began their planning stages. Thus the expansion of industry and infrastructure was absolutely necessary. Some may argue that once that industry was expanded enough, they didn't know where to go from there and that is why places like Czechoslovakia hit what some call a "planning wall" earlier than places like the USSR.

[cyu]

Would the US, if it turned socialist tomorrow, be able to return to a focus on heavy industry that would be sustainable both economically and environmentally? I'm not quite sure I know how to answer that one.

I don't think the direction of the economy is for you or I to decide, at least not by ourselves. If the economy were to be truly democratically controlled, then everyone should have equal say over where it goes. Maybe people will vote for heavy industry, maybe not. Everybody should be welcome to try to convince others to change their votes - discussion and debate are some of the best ways to learn new things.

Maybe there are many sustainable ways to focus on heavy industry, but until there's an environment where people are able to freely discuss these ideas without being drowned out by the loudspeakers of the wealthy, then those ideas probably won't see the light of day.

On the other hand, maybe people will convince society to not worry about heavy industry so much - but that's all a question for post-capitalist times. The first thing we have to establish is economic democracy and we can worry about the rest later. I have a good deal of faith in the combined "parallel processing" of the general population in coming up with new ideas, as opposed to leaving it all in the hands of a few egotistical bastards who think they're the best thing since sliced bread, because they caught a few more lucky breaks that they now rationalize as "intelligence".