The Collapse of the USSR, "Red" China, et al.

[RED DAVE]

Okay, let me open the big can of worms.

I would like an answer from Stalinists and other supporters of the USSR, Maoists, Hoxhaists, Orthodox Trotskyists, etc., to the following question:

How is the the so-called socialist countries, the USSR, "Red" China, et al., were transformed from what you call socialism (or a degenerated workers state) into capitalism virtually overnight, without resistance from the working class to defend this so-called socialism?

The theory of these societies being state capitalism explains this change very well as a transformation from one form of capitalism to another. What do you say?

RED DAVE

[Drace]

USSR didn't transform to capitalism overnight.
There were market reforms back all the way to Khrushchev.

And the USSR degenerated from the inside, the people had no outside threat to fight.

[manic expression]

This has been discussed, and the fact of the matter is that the relative lack of resistance was due to the leadership of the party, not due to the USSR itself. Gorbachev empowered the voices of reaction and silenced the voices of socialism, hamstringing the organs of the workers. Why do the anti-Soviets ignore this? Why do they insist that this was somehow inevitable when the experience was not universal?

The "state capitalist" argument is infinitely stupid. Not only did generalized commodity production not exist, but no one owned private property in the USSR. The fundamentals of Soviet production were collectivized and not under the sway of a capitalist market. The "state capitalist" argument is nothing but anti-socialism dressed up in cute rhetoric.

On edit, Soviet citizens voted to keep the USSR intact. The workers were not against the Soviet Union by any means. Yeltsin and his lap dog Gorbachev, however, couldn't care less about what the workers thought, and that's why Gorbachev let scum like Walesa and others go unchallenged.

[mikelepore]

The USSR didn't collapse. It was abolished.

[Drace]

On edit, Soviet citizens voted to keep the USSR intact.

When was this?

[New Tet]

Okay, let me open the big can of worms.

I would like an answer from Stalinists and other supporters of the USSR, Maoists, Hoxhaists, Orthodox Trotskyists, etc., to the following question:

How is the the so-called socialist countries, the USSR, "Red" China, et al., were transformed from what you call socialism (or a degenerated workers state) into capitalism virtually overnight, without resistance from the working class to defend this so-called socialism?

The theory of these societies being state capitalism explains this change very well as a transformation from one form of capitalism to another. What do you say?

RED DAVE

The Soviet Union was never a form of state capitalism.

The USSR was a form of state socialism that never should have come into existence. But, once alive, was compelled to do "one good thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTzQHftgIdk) before she died: confront fascism and defeat it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTzQHftgIdk

[New Tet]

This has been said before by smarter people than myself but it's worth repeating: "The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought the world closer to a unipolar state from its former bipolar condition."

The former political, economic and military rivalry between the, so-called Soviet, Socialist Block (you know the Warsaw Pact kinda' Block), no longer exists.

It's pretty much as Orwell suggested in Animal Farm (In fact, it turned out almost too close to the fucking allegory!): The Pigs, sitting with humans, smoking a cigar and discussing how they're going to "divey-up" the farm, the world and the lives of their animals...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqko1yNUv5I

Oh, and by the way: for those of you too young to remember: This shit has been happening longer than most all of us here can remember.

[Kovacs]

The irony of eton-boy Eric Blair satirising exterme statist control when being the recipient of those transferred privileges and monetary advantages does always make me chucke. A great writer, yes and in his own peculiar way something of an anarchist. But hardly in the position to judge. Christ aliv, Down and Out in Paris and London is an EXTREMELY unflattering depiction of the working classes. They smell and talk funny. Well, shit me Eric, you exposed yourself to the enviroment of peoples who pre-TV had some odd dialects and limited access to baths then wrote it all up and sold it to bourgeois liberals.

I love his prose. It is muscular, sparse and emphatic. He was very much a product of his clss, despite his bleeding heart. He also gets kudos for being in the spanish civil war. He did live what he preached.

[Invincible Summer]

The irony of eton-boy Eric Blair satirising exterme statist control when being the recipient of those transferred privileges and monetary advantages does always make me chucke. A great writer, yes and in his own peculiar way something of an anarchist. But hardly in the position to judge. Christ aliv, Down and Out in Paris and London is an EXTREMELY unflattering depiction of the working classes. They smell and talk funny. Well, shit me Eric, you exposed yourself to the enviroment of peoples who pre-TV had some odd dialects and limited access to baths then wrote it all up and sold it to bourgeois liberals.

I love his prose. It is muscular, sparse and emphatic. He was very much a product of his clss, despite his bleeding heart. He also gets kudos for being in the spanish civil war. He did live what he preached.

... What?


And to Red Dave... are you suggesting that the USSR, PRC, etc were doomed to "state capitalism" from the start? Because it took years of inter-party struggles to get the reactionary reforms into place that created the capitalist monstrosities we see today.

[Kovacs]

... What?



perhaps you might elucidate further? I was simply talking about the validity of Orwell being in this discussion given that both left and right like to use him as some sort of figurehead. Perhaps you might expand on 'what'?

[manic expression]

When was this?

http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1991march&Year=1991&Theme=4e6174696f6e616c6974696573&navi=byTheme

[robbo203]

There is of course the argument that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a kind of revolution from above - that is from within the ranks of the old state capitalist ruling class, the nomenklatura. Just under half of the oligarchs - the super rich elite in Russia today - were previously members of the Nomenklatura and got to where they are today by using their connections from the Soviet days. Thus a manager of a state factory might become a company director. In other former state capitalist regimes in Eastern Europe the figure is much higher. For Romania I believe it is something like 85%

This is interesting for it once again exposes the utter folly of the Leninist theory of the vanguard. It was the vanguard that was supposed to guide the Russian working class along the road to "socialism". It is the same vanguard, if the thesis is correct, that ended up betraying the working class and pushing for market reforms and in the process ensuring the ignonminious demise of the Leninist vanguard

[bailey_187]

Capitalist restoration in these countries should be seen as a long process after Revisionists took over. The USSR took many quantitative steps towards capitalism, after the death of Joseph Stalin. Aside from negating 30 years of Socialism by denouncing Stalin, a number of ‘reforms’ were implemented. Most notable is Khrushchev’s “State of the whole people” and the “Party of the whole people”, replacing the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, effectively ending the class struggle against bourgeois influence and ideas.
Another notable reform was the economic reforms of 1965, or the ‘Kosygin Reform’, making enterprise profit the guiding principle in investment decisions by planners, rather than putting politics into action. However, these were not qualitative changes. As Stalin explained in Historical and Dialectical Materialism: “Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open’ fundamental changes’ to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.”
The “insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes” being the post-Stalin reforms, and the “fundamental changes” being the events of 1989-1991.

Concerning the class character of 1989-1991, yes the working class was the primary force on the streets demanding change; but what change were they demanding? In 1990, in the referendum asking people whether they wanted to dissolve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the overwhelming majority, 76% said “No”. In May 1991, an American poll found 54% of Russians wished to keep Socialism, 27% wished for a mixed economy and only 20% wanted a free market economy (Monthly Review 12/94). A similar poll, reported in the New York Times (12/1/89) found that 47% of Czechoslovakians wished for their economy to remain state controlled, 43% wanted a mix and 3% wanted majority private ownership.
It would appear, the working class in the socialist countries did not take to the streets demanding an end to Socialism. Rather, the protests, discontent and apathy to capitalist restoration was due to issues such as party corruption, comparatively low living standards and shortages in goods (exacerbated by market reforms in the late 80s). This popular discontent was exploited by a new bourgeois class, arising from within the Party and the explosion of the black market (in the case of the USSR) under Brezhnev. The roots of the black market are a result of policies such as Khrushchev’s mechanical levelling of wages, decreasing motivation (as “bourgeois right” was still existent), creating shortages. This problem was made worse by the large increases in wages, despite nothing to buy with them from the formal economy.
The extent of this problem can be seen in 1969 when Soviet citizens would save 70% of their income (Bahman Azad – Heroic Struggle, Bitter Defeat). A shortage of goods available, combined with large amounts of unspendable income created the conditions for a black market. This black market created a class whose interests lay in private property and free markets. It was this class and their intellectual and political representatives, many of who were in their respective Communist parties, that led the movements of 1989-91 and made the qualitative leap to Capitalism.

[robbo203]

Capitalist restoration in these countries should be seen as a long process after Revisionists took over. The USSR took many quantitative steps towards capitalism, after the death of Joseph Stalin. Aside from negating 30 years of Socialism by denouncing Stalin, a number of ‘reforms’ were implemented. Most notable is Khrushchev’s “State of the whole people” and the “Party of the whole people”, replacing the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, effectively ending the class struggle against bourgeois influence and ideas.
Another notable reform was the economic reforms of 1965, or the ‘Kosygin Reform’, making enterprise profit the guiding principle in investment decisions by planners, rather than putting politics into action. However, these were not qualitative changes. As Stalin explained in Historical and Dialectical Materialism: “Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open’ fundamental changes’ to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.”
The “insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes” being the post-Stalin reforms, and the “fundamental changes” being the events of 1989-1991.

Concerning the class character of 1989-1991, yes the working class was the primary force on the streets demanding change; but what change were they demanding? In 1990, in the referendum asking people whether they wanted to dissolve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the overwhelming majority, 76% said “No”. In May 1991, an American poll found 54% of Russians wished to keep Socialism, 27% wished for a mixed economy and only 20% wanted a free market economy (Monthly Review 12/94). A similar poll, reported in the New York Times (12/1/89) found that 47% of Czechoslovakians wished for their economy to remain state controlled, 43% wanted a mix and 3% wanted majority private ownership.
It would appear, the working class in the socialist countries did not take to the streets demanding an end to Socialism. Rather, the protests, discontent and apathy to capitalist restoration was due to issues such as party corruption, comparatively low living standards and shortages in goods (exacerbated by market reforms in the late 80s). This popular discontent was exploited by a new bourgeois class, arising from within the Party and the explosion of the black market (in the case of the USSR) under Brezhnev. The roots of the black market are a result of policies such as Khrushchev’s mechanical levelling of wages, decreasing motivation (as “bourgeois right” was still existent), creating shortages. This problem was made worse by the large increases in wages, despite nothing to buy with them from the formal economy.
The extent of this problem can be seen in 1969 when Soviet citizens would save 70% of their income (Bahman Azad – Heroic Struggle, Bitter Defeat). A shortage of goods available, combined with large amounts of unspendable income created the conditions for a black market. This black market created a class whose interests lay in private property and free markets. It was this class and their intellectual and political representatives, many of who were in their respective Communist parties, that led the movements of 1989-91 and made the qualitative leap to Capitalism.


If what you say is correct then this confirms the point that the collapse of Soviet state capitalism was initiated from within the old state capitalist ruling class itself. That being the case, this destroys all credibility whatsoever attaching to the leninist theory of the vanguard.

[Drace]

http://soviethistory.org/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1991march&Year=1991&Theme=4e6174696f6e616c6974696573&navi=byTheme"

This only addresses whether the Soviet Union should continue to exist or not though.
Anything to suggest the people's want for socialism?

[scarletghoul]

As has been pointed out the transition to full-blown capitalism is far from overnight; it took the soviet union decades and the PRC is still not fully capitalist.

without resistance from the working class to defend this so-called socialism?
There was/is huge resistance in China. The Cultural Revolution was of course the most potent example of anti-capitalist struggle, but there has been constant dissent and resistance against the transition to capitalism ever since. From Tienenman Square in '89 to the official count of 58000 mass incidents in the first quarter of 2009 alone.

If what you say is correct then this confirms the point that the collapse of Soviet state capitalism was initiated from within the old state capitalist ruling class itself. That being the case, this destroys all credibility whatsoever attaching to the leninist theory of the vanguard.
No it just means the vanguard can't be allowed to get corrupt and full of revisionists. This doesn't mean that the vanguard party itself is a bad idea (indeed it has proven to be the only effective model for a revolutionary movement and to reject it would be to ignore 100 years of history) it just means it needs to be fixed, like they tried to do in China, to prevent revisionista takeover. The lesson of the GPCR, coordinated mass class struggle against counterrevolutionary elements especially in the party, is an invaluble contribution to Communism as it holds the key to preventing revisionist (and eventually capitalist) takeover. The reason these revisionists were able to take over was because the party was not under enough control of the masses, and it became an alienated dictatorial body rather than an organ of workers' power. So when proper socialists like Stalin are in charge of such a party, it's all well and good, but when revisionists take the party, the masses don't have the power to stop them. In other words we need democratic institutionalised class struggle under socialism to ensure the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Hope this helps

[Valeofruin]

This has been said before by smarter people than myself but it's worth repeating: "The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought the world closer to a unipolar state from its former bipolar condition."

The former political, economic and military rivalry between the, so-called Soviet, Socialist Block (you know the Warsaw Pact kinda' Block), no longer exists.

It's pretty much as Orwell suggested in Animal Farm (In fact, it turned out almost too close to the fucking allegory!): The Pigs, sitting with humans, smoking a cigar and discussing how they're going to "divey-up" the farm, the world and the lives of their animals...

Rqko1yNUv5I

Oh, and by the way: for those of you too young to remember: This shit has been happening longer than most all of us here can remember.

too bad the youtube video you posted was sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency of the Imperialist United States of America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_%281954_film%29


"In 2000, The New York Times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times) printed an article alleging that the CIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA) had been covertly involved in the purchase of the film rights from Orwell's widow. They subsequently went on to modify the screenplay from the original novel to overemphasize the anti-communist byline of the original story.[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_%281954_film%29#cite_note-3) Such tactics were commonplace throughout the Cold War by all sides.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm_%281954_film%29#cite_note-4) The CIA's funding and deep editorial involvement in the film is demonstrated and thoroughly examined in Daniel Leab's 2007 book Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm (2007; Pennsylvania State University Press). The CIA continues to decline Freedom of Information Act requests concerning the film."

I can't say I'm suprised though.. the Trotskyists (and their sympathizers) have been working alot with the CIA as of late. Particularly when it comes to the subversion of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

“We would like to have contact with North Korean workers, but there is no dissident group of revolutionary workers. What dissidents there are have no base in the working class. Workers so far are absolutely controlled by the party.” (http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/1626)

[Pavlov's House Party]

I can't say I'm suprised though.. the Trotskyists have been working alot with the CIA as of late. Particularly when it comes to the subversion of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

This made me lol. apparantly us trots have been in cahoots with the CIA without even knowing it:rolleyes:

Anyways, the Trotskyist analysis of the degeneration of the USSR says that because socialism in one country is impossible (especially in a country as backwards as Russia was then) and the revolution failed to spread to countries with advanced means of production like Germany, France and the rest of Europe, a bureaucracy emerged from previously educated citizens because the majority of Russia's population were illiterate.

People like Stalin became the figureheads of this bureaucracy and abandoned the ideals of revolutionary international socialism in favour of the nationalist "socialism in one country" line which damned the achievements of the revolution of 1917 to degeneration and eventual collapse.

[scarletghoul]

So the USSR was bound to degenerate from the moment the German revolution failed? Or was there an alternative course of action they should have took ?

I don't really see what this line offers but defeatism and useless criticism

[Andropov]

If what you say is correct then this confirms the point that the collapse of Soviet state capitalism was initiated from within the old state capitalist ruling class itself. That being the case, this destroys all credibility whatsoever attaching to the leninist theory of the vanguard.
Not at all.
When analysing the origins of the likes of the Gorbachovs we must look to the very foundations of the Party.
The very foundations of the Party included an element of petty bourgeois in primary rural areas where limited private property still existed thus feeding a petty bourgeois mentality.
The first example of this manifesting itself in a position of significant power with the CPSU was with Khruschev.
But that is not to say that revisionist liberal trends could not have been reversed within the party, indeed Andropov started this task before his untimely demise.

[Valeofruin]

This made me lol. apparantly us trots have been in cahoots with the CIA without even knowing it:rolleyes:

Anyways, the Trotskyist analysis of the degeneration of the USSR says that because socialism in one country is impossible (especially in a country as backwards as Russia was then) and the revolution failed to spread to countries with advanced means of production like Germany, France and the rest of Europe, a bureaucracy emerged from previously educated citizens because the majority of Russia's population were illiterate.

People like Stalin became the figureheads of this bureaucracy and abandoned the ideals of revolutionary international socialism in favour of the nationalist "socialism in one country" line which damned the achievements of the revolution of 1917 to degeneration and eventual collapse.

I believe the words for it are 'Useful Idiot'...

[Led Zeppelin]

The Soviet Union was never a form of state capitalism.

The USSR was a form of state socialism that never should have come into existence. But, once alive, was compelled to do "one good thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTzQHftgIdk) before she died: confront fascism and defeat it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTzQHftgIdk

What does that Bob Dylan song have to do with this issue?

[FSL]

The theory of these societies being state capitalism explains this change very well as a transformation from one form of capitalism to another. What do you say?

RED DAVE


The theory of these societies being state capitalist only points to people who are unbelievably lazy to actually bother looking at the course the Soviet Union took, the laws, the constitution reforms etc. People who also refuse to accept that the society's base is found in production and material life, who believe that elements in the superstructrure can completely autonomize themselves and generally people who make a mockery out of anything marxist.


Of course, that the state's budget was always balanced, that state officials had no rights upon the enterprises (no dividends, no passing them to one's children), that quite a few companies operated at a loss even during the final years, that the state had virtually ceased planning the economy after 1956 and especially after 1965 and the Kosygin reform won't bother these people the tiniest bit.
Reality is but an inconvenience.


PS I'm expecting that at least someone will bring Lenin's quote in order to support their claims, where Lenin himself characterizes the economy as state capitalist. Please do so, laughter is always welcome.

[FSL]

a bureaucracy emerged from previously educated citizens because the majority of Russia's population were illiterate.

People like Stalin became the figureheads of this bureaucracy and abandoned the ideals of revolutionary international socialism in favour of the nationalist "socialism in one country" line which damned the achievements of the revolution of 1917 to degeneration and eventual collapse.


Ok, how did the laws enacted support the interests of this educated minority and hurt the interests of the majority of the workers? I'm sure you know, you can't have just said this without evidence.

[bailey_187]

http://www.frso.org/about/docs/1999declaration.htm

This is a good document on cause of overthrow of USSR

[bailey_187]

"

This only addresses whether the Soviet Union should continue to exist or not though.
Anything to suggest the people's want for socialism?

Its asking if they want the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics to continue to exist.

Besides, there are polls from around the time (one is included in my first post in this thread) asking people if they want to keep Socialism.

[ReggaeCat]

After Stalin Russia went on a revisionist path,albania broke with them...china after mao went on revisionism albania in 78 broke with them also,jugoslavia was form the beging pet of the american,dont know much tho about eastern germany neither about northern korea,hoxha died in 1983 so it was like 5 years that economy of albania started to fall because of chinese machines and ramiz alia always said that his plan was to make albania a capitalist state but in a greater period of time and in 1991 students and stuff went on a demo on th streets fouight with cops and overthrew communism, anyways what i want to say is that from the 60's to 1990-1991 are like 30 years of suppresion of the masses by non leninist marxist party leaders,so it was logic people that actually live worse then they had in pro communist times to want to abolish it.Although there are a plenty of other reasons and we dont know everything cause of the great american propaganda about those states....


P.S Cuba is still marxist Leninist.:D

[Pavlov's House Party]

So the USSR was bound to degenerate from the moment the German revolution failed? Or was there an alternative course of action they should have took ?

I don't really see what this line offers but defeatism and useless criticism

The point is that socialism in one country is impossible. Every revolution that has established a "socialist state" has degenerated in one way or another due to various material conditions, but mostly because they have followed the Stalinist line that you can build socialism in one country, not some "Revisionist" boogeyman like Khrushchev or Xiaoping.

Between Stalin and Trotsky, the only one offering defeatism was Stalin for abandoning the Marxist ideal of world revolution after the failure of the German and other revolutions, opting for famous "socialism in one country" line.

[FSL]

The point is that socialism in one country is impossible. Every revolution that has established a "socialist state" has degenerated in one way or another due to various material conditions, but mostly because they have followed the Stalinist line that you can build socialism in one country, not some "Revisionist" boogeyman like Khrushchev or Xiaoping.

Between Stalin and Trotsky, the only one offering defeatism was Stalin for abandoning the Marxist ideal of world revolution after the failure of the German and other revolutions, opting for famous "socialism in one country" line.


This is pure gold. Pure.

So please repeat it. *All* the revolutions, that went on to establish socialism in *a number of countries*, denegerated because they were *all* socialism in *one country*?


PS I'd also like to know the answer to "how did the laws enacted support the interests of this educated minority and hurt the interests of the majority of the workers?" if it's not much trouble.

[bailey_187]

The point is that socialism in one country is impossible. Every revolution that has established a "socialist state" has degenerated in one way or another due to various material conditions, but mostly because they have followed the Stalinist line that you can build socialism in one country, not some "Revisionist" boogeyman like Khrushchev or Xiaoping.

Between Stalin and Trotsky, the only one offering defeatism was Stalin for abandoning the Marxist ideal of world revolution after the failure of the German and other revolutions, opting for famous "socialism in one country" line.

This is a cop out. Simply saying "AHH BECAUSE ITS SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY DUHHHH IT CANTW ORK IM SO CLEVER" is the shittest explanatiom ever. You give no real reason. The USSR faced much much bigger challenges in its history than those it faced in the late 80s/91 (and many when there actually was SIOC) and it survived. So why did it not collapse sooner?

So Stalin had the power of world revolution in his hands? That bastard. Why did he not bring us the "Marxist ideal"? Probably because his "asiatic eyes" maybe?