When did Stalin say Socialism has been achieved? [Archive]

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 06:55

Socialism was legislatively achieved in 1936 Constitution, correct me if wrong.

That's right. The '36 constitution stated, correctly in my opinion, that the only classes which existed in the Soviet Union at that time were workers, peasants, and intellectuals. In a speech about the new constitution Stalin announced that exploiting classes were absent from the Soviet Union, that capitalist exploitation had been abolished, and that the working class held political power. "As a result," he said "we now have a fully formed multinational Socialist state." That's the speech people usually refer to when they talk about Stalin "declaring" the USSR socialist. http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/11/25.htm

It's important to remember that Stalin, like all Marxists, understood the establishment of socialism to be a revolutionary process, not something that one just declares to have happened overnight. In the speech he lays out his account of how Soviet socialism developed during the first two five year plans.

Tablo

16th February 2010, 13:00

Thank you very much. :)

RED DAVE

16th February 2010, 13:04

That's right. The '36 constitution stated, correctly in my opinion, that the only classes which existed in the Soviet Union at that time were workers, peasants, and intellectuals.Your opinion is quite wrong. Stalin conveniently forgot to mention the mass of millions of bureaucrats, of which he was the leader, in and out of the party, who actually controlled the society.

This class ultimately became part of the new capitalist class that runs Russia today.

RED DAVE

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 13:11

Stalin conveniently forgot to mention the mass of millions of bureaucrats, of which he was the leader, in and out of the party, who actually controlled the society.

This class ultimately became part of the new capitalist class that runs Russia today.

Please comrade, let's not start with this argument again. I'm still waiting for your response to my objections from the last time we debated the class nature of the USSR. http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1659511&postcount=21

Demogorgon

16th February 2010, 13:13

Your opinion is quite wrong. Stalin conveniently forgot to mention the mass of millions of bureaucrats, of which he was the leader, in and out of the party, who actually controlled the society.

This class ultimately became part of the new capitalist class that runs Russia today.

RED DAVE
Quite so, apologists for what happened in the USSR tend to forget how smoothly this bureaucratic class became the capitalist class in the 90s. There is a reason this happened.

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 13:24

apologists for what happened in the USSR tend to forget how smoothly this bureaucratic class became the capitalist class in the 90s.

If there's one thing I remember about the '90s it was a smooth political and economic transition in the former Soviet Union. Nothing says smooth like an 80% decline in GDP, a 12.8 percent increase in mortality, and a 20% increase in unemployment. It's unsettling how many there are on the left who celebrate the economic immiseration of hundreds of millions of their fellow humans.

Kléber

16th February 2010, 13:56

If there's one thing I remember about the '90s it was a smooth political and economic transition in the former Soviet Union. Nothing says smooth like an 80% decline in GDP, a 12.8 percent increase in mortality, and a 20% increase in unemployment.
If there's one thing I remember about the Marxist conception of history, it's that social crises do not come out of nowhere, but are the product of class antagonisms. If market capitalism was restored in 1991, class forces, not just a single leader, were ultimately responsible. And if capitalist elements existed in the USSR with the power to wreak such havoc upon the working class, that means that the USSR was not actually socialist after all.

It's unsettling how many there are on the left who celebrate the economic immiseration of hundreds of millions of their fellow humans.
No one is celebrating capitalist restoration. People are just looking back further than Gorbachev or Khrushchev, and in greater depth than just the subjective policies of a few politicians, for a materialist explanation of how it happened.

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 14:15

social crises do not come out of nowhere, but are the product of class antagonisms. If market capitalism was restored in 1991, class forces, not just a single leader, were ultimately responsible. And if capitalist elements existed in the USSR with the power to wreak such havoc upon the working class, that means that the USSR was not actually socialist after all.

No one is celebrating capitalist restoration. People are just looking back further than Gorbachev or Khrushchev, and in greater depth than just the subjective policies of a few men, for a materialist explanation of how it happened.

I would be grateful if you could show me one instance on this entire site where I have attributed the capitalist restoration to one individual or to the subjective politics of a few.

Indeed, I have elsewhere dealt with a materialist explanation of the capitalist restoration which was indeed the result of longstanding class antagonisms. What separates me from some of the other posters is that I do not imagine that these class antagonisms are nationally bounded.

The capitalist restoration was primarily the result of the tremendous international pressure exerted by bourgeois imperialists against the threat posed to them by Soviet socialism and allied socialist movements in the bourgeois countries. The details of this pressure are well known: support for counter-revolutionary terror in colonial, semi-colonial, and post-colonial countries to isolate the USSR from diplomatic and trading partners; provoking the USSR into an expensive, hopeless, and demoralizing Afghani war; draining the treasury through a suicidal arms race, etc.

The ideological trend of revisionism has but a small role to play in this story, insofar as it divided the CPSU against itself and divided the socialist world in ways that made the external threat of bourgeois imperialism harder to combat.

Demogorgon

16th February 2010, 14:30

If there's one thing I remember about the '90s it was a smooth political and economic transition in the former Soviet Union. Nothing says smooth like an 80% decline in GDP, a 12.8 percent increase in mortality, and a 20% increase in unemployment. It's unsettling how many there are on the left who celebrate the economic immiseration of hundreds of millions of their fellow humans.
Did I say it was smooth? No I did not. I said that the ruling class in the Soviet Union transferred itself into the ruling class of the CIS without any difficulty. Now quite how stating that fact translates into celebrating what happened is something of a mystery to me, but I suppose it is just one of those wild accusations thrown when someone states an inconvenient fact.

Now that quick morphing of the ruling class should show a rather big problem with the Soviet Union, shouldn't it? If the USSR had been functioning as a socialist state, those in the Government would have been socialists. Yet the instant the system unravelled most of them showed their true colours and revealed their actual dedication to neoliberal economics. Now call me picky, but I am of the view that a socialist society should not in the first instance have its Government composed of a group who are effectively a separate class, but also should not have a Government packed with closet neoliberals.

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 14:46

Did I say it was smooth?

Yes.

Now that quick morphing of the ruling class should show a rather big problem with the Soviet Union, shouldn't it?

It would, but you have far from demonstrated this. In fact you have shown no evidence whatsoever, you have just stated it as fact. In fact, the cast majority of the bourgeois who now rule Russia were neither members of the CPSU nor involved in Soviet government. Yeltsin, Potanin, and Khodorkovsky were ex-communists, but the existence of a few ex-communist opportunists among the great many post-Soviet bourgeoisie does not prove any general point about the class nature of the Soviet Union anymore than the biography of Talleyrand proves that the French Republic was an aristocratic, feudal regime.

Now call me picky, but I am of the view that a socialist society should not in the first instance have its Government composed of a group who are effectively a separate class.

Again we have statements without evidence. If indeed the Soviet bureaucracy was a ruling class then you should be able to demonstrate that by showing the exploitation of workers via the extraction of surplus value in the form of profits, rents, or interest. In fact, no such exploitation occurred outside of small, isolated pockets of the black market. If you can show me that such exploitation was general in Soviet society, then I will gladly concede the point.

Sendo

16th February 2010, 15:06

If there's one thing I remember about the Marxist conception of history, it's that social crises do not come out of nowhere, but are the product of class antagonisms. If market capitalism was restored in 1991, class forces, not just a single leader, were ultimately responsible. And if capitalist elements existed in the USSR with the power to wreak such havoc upon the working class, that means that the USSR was not actually socialist after all.

I also remember something about Marxism--it's that qualitative changes come from an unstable accumulation of quantitative changes. Taking the metaphor of water*, evaporation (qualitative change from water to gas) takes place suddenly once a certain threshold of heat has been reached (accumulated quantitative change). Kruschev's revisionism, stagnation, frantic militarism and top-down guidance of the economy in light of the Cold War all weakened the workers' state and the reliance on elites in Moscow created a similar bourgeois thinking that China suffered from and was not able to fully shake during the GPCR. The result in the USSR was a prolonged but more certain death of socialism.

The capitalist forces were not all waiting in the shadows (though some crime families and others did just that), nor were bureaucrats synonymous with capitalists temporarily stuck in civil service. And bureaucracy in and of itself means nothing--former Soviet bloc people have complained about even more bureaucracy in the west (but with less return).^

* Lifted from Stalin, though I don't know if he himself was lifting from another on this.
^ Michael Parenti lecture

Demogorgon

16th February 2010, 15:48

Yes.

Perhaps you may wish to read what I said again. I was not referring to the shift in the change of economic policy, but the smooth way the ruling class transformed itself.

The Soviet Union went from a planned economy with a large welfare state to a no holds barred neoliberal one with little welfare, that was disastrous, but the change of the ruling class was quick and smooth.

You could describe it as somewhat akin to the privatisation and sabotage of the welfare state in the West in the eighties. There were shifts in economic policy and the people suffered, but the ruling class remained the same. The case in the Eastern Bloc was just much more extreme, with more extreme problems to go with it.

It would, but you have far from demonstrated this. In fact you have shown no evidence whatsoever, you have just stated it as fact. In fact, the cast majority of the bourgeois who now rule Russia were neither members of the CPSU nor involved in Soviet government. Yeltsin, Potanin, and Khodorkovsky were ex-communists, but the existence of a few ex-communist opportunists among the great many post-Soviet bourgeoisie does not prove any general point about the class nature of the Soviet Union anymore than the biography of Talleyrand proves that the French Republic was an aristocratic, feudal regime.

Nope, much of the political elite did come from the CPSU as did the economic elite. This wasn't just in Russia incidentally, but also in the other Eastern European states as well. This is because the Communist parties there were the only real path for the ambitious to gain power, so that is the path they took. People weren't joining because they believed in Communist principles, but for the sake of personal power. If you want a really extreme modern version of that, look at China.

Again we have statements without evidence. If indeed the Soviet bureaucracy was a ruling class then you should be able to demonstrate that by showing the exploitation of workers via the extraction of surplus value in the form of profits, rents, or interest. In fact, no such exploitation occurred outside of small, isolated pockets of the black market. If you can show me that such exploitation was general in Soviet society, then I will gladly concede the point.
So the Soviet population were not employed in Waged Labour were they? Come off it. More to the point there was not an unwieldy bureaucracy sustaining itself on the profits of state owned enterprises and of course taxes?

Further when we talk about a ruling class, we tend to talk about one that rules. Do you seriously deny that there was an elevated body in Soviet society than ran the country without significant input from the rest?

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 16:24

Nope, much of the political elite did come from the CPSU as did the economic elite.

Well of course this all depends on the meaning of the word "much." If by much you mean a small minority, yes. If by much you mean a majority or large minority than this is simply a journalistic myth of the 1990s. I'd recommend doing some actual reading on the post-Soviet privatizations. Authors from across the political spectrum are pretty clear about the political origins of most of the post-Soviet bourgeois. I'd recommend Yegor Gaidar's Days of Defeat and Victory, Shleifer and Treisman's Without a Map: Political and Economic Reform in Russia, and Jeffrey Surovell's Capitalist Russia and the West for starters.

Come off it. More to the point there was not an unwieldy bureaucracy sustaining itself on the profits of state owned enterprises and of course taxes?

Of course there was a bureaucracy to administer the socialist state; of course the Soviet bureaucracy was riddled with problems and inefficiency. That is not the question. The existence of a state apparatus run through taxation tells you nothing about whether or not their was exploitative extraction of surplus value through profits, rents, and interest. If you want to show that Soviet workers were exploited, you need to show that the Soviet bureaucrats accumulated capital during the Soviet era.

This is simply not the case. When the Soviet workers' property was finally privatized in the 1990s, there was no one in the country, CPSU member or not, who had the capital to buy these concerns. Indeed, capital accumulation from 1991-1994 was not general accumulation but primitive accumulation. If in fact some organization had been exploiting the workers for 74 years, capital accumulation in that period would have been general. It is this fact which accounts for the gangsterism and oligarchy of that period. For a good introduction to this phenomenon, I'd suggest Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Smith's essay "The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism" which appeared in The Monthly Review in the early part of the last decade. Again, if you can show me that capital accumulation in this period was general, I will concede the point.

Further when we talk about a ruling class, we tend to talk about one that rules.

I am a Marxist. When I talk about a ruling class, I mean a class which controls the means of production. As I have demonstrated above, the Soviet state apparatus was non-exploitative, ergo did not have control of the means of production in any substantive way.

robbo203

16th February 2010, 16:53

In which speech did Stalin claim Socialism had been achieved? I'm pretty sure it was after the Second 5 Year Plan, but I need to find the specific speech for this Russian guy I know.

Stalin was talking a load of bollocks when he said that. Socialism had not been achieved in the Soviet Union. What had been achieved was a system of state run capitalism.

Ironically many years earlier and well before lenin had started to muck around with the S word and redefine it as state capitalist monopoly made to serve the whole people. Stalin wrote quite a good pamphlet Anarchism or Socialism (1905) in which he stuck closely to the orginal marxian definition. Here is what he said

Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, con sequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour.

Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed -- there will be only free workers.
Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists -- there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc. As you see, the main purpose of production in the future will be to satisfy the needs of society and not to produce goods for sale in order to increase the profits of the capitalists. Where there will be no room for commodity production, struggle for profits, etc.

Clearly none of these things had disappeared in the Soviet Union. There was still wage labour, there was still buying and selling, there were still profits (in fact state enterpises were obliged to keep profit and loss accounts and managers could be penalised if they did not make a profit).

Stalin even attempted to justify the existence of commodity production in socialism of ( see "Commodity Production Under Socialism" in section two of his work Economic Problems of the USSR 1951) on the grounds that the agricultrual sector in particular was still characterised by a vast number of a small and medium-sized producers which ruled out expropriation and the complete "socialisation" of production and, hence, according to him, the persistence of commodity production in "socialism".

However instead of being intellectually honest about this and conceding that the persistence of commodity production demonstrated (as his 1905 pamphlet had suggested) that there was no socialism in the SU , he chose wilfully to attempt to square the circle

RED DAVE

16th February 2010, 16:57

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 17:01

Your opinion is quite wrong. Stalin conveniently forgot to mention the mass of millions of bureaucrats, of which he was the leader, in and out of the party, who actually controlled the society.

This class ultimately became part of the new capitalist class that runs Russia today.

RED DAVE

Gee in case you never heard, Stalin gave several addresses on the subject of bureaucrats and bureaucracy, and the reforms he spearheaded led to a massive offensive against the party bureaucracy in 1936-37.

http://www.anesi.com/east/stalin.htm

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/MB37.html

http://frontierweekly.googlepages.com/stalin-38-49.pdf

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 17:03

For the working class, the transition was not smooth at all. It would be, approxiamtely, like the transition from social democracy to a more ruthless form of capitalism.

But for the bureaucracy as a class, the transition was relatively easy. They did not lose their privileged position. They became part of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie of private capitalism.

Same thing in China and Vietnam.

RED DAVE

Yup, Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky, Abramovich, and a slew of others didn't lose their privileged positions. When the USSR privatized, some of the new oligarchs came from lower down the totem pole, whereas others at the top found themselves on the losing end. This was one reason why in 1993, some of the men holding out against the tanks in the white house had previously supported Yeltsin's bid for power. They realized that they would be on the losing end of his shock therapy.

RED DAVE

16th February 2010, 17:05

If indeed the Soviet bureaucracy was a ruling class then you should be able to demonstrate that by showing the exploitation of workers via the extraction of surplus value in the form of profits, rents, or interest. In fact, no such exploitation occurred outside of small, isolated pockets of the black market. If you can show me that such exploitation was general in Soviet society, then I will gladly concede the point.Simple to demonstrate, and figures are available.

How was the entire economic structure on infrastructure of the USSR built? On surplus value, which in the capitalist countries takes the form of private profit and taxes, but in state capitalism takes the form of state extracted profit and taxes. Unless you are going to argue that there was no surplus value being extracted.

Then, the issue becomes: who controls that surplus value? Since the USSR was a bureaucratized, top-down, undemocratic society, the state bureaucracy controlled it and made the key decisions from the top of society to the shop floor level.

RED DAVE

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 17:08

Simple to demonstrate, and figures are available.

How was the entire economic structure on infrastructure of the USSR built? On surplus value, which in the capitalist countries takes the form of private profit and taxes, but in state capitalism takes the form of state extracted profit and taxes. Unless you are going to argue that there was no surplus value being extracted.

Then, the issue becomes: who controls that surplus value? Since the USSR was a bureaucratized, top-down, undemocratic society, the state bureaucracy controlled it and made the key decisions from the top of society to the shop floor level.

RED DAVE

Wow, you basically said nothing in that paragraph. For one thing, it is a lie that the state controlled everything down to the shop floor. Talk to anyone who lived in the USSR or read a number of memoirs and other historical sources and you will see that often on the shop floor or in localities, people sometimes had more say than they would in liberal democratic countries.

Capitalism is defined by private accumulation of wealth via the exploitation of labor and private ownership of the means of production. So you really need to answer Joe's question.

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 17:21

On surplus value, which in the capitalist countries takes the form of private profit and taxes, but in state capitalism takes the form of state extracted profit and taxes. Unless you are going to argue that there was no surplus value being extracted.

"state extracted profit"!? Did you just make this term up out of the blue? A definition please. From what I can tell, "state extracted profit" is just a way of saying taxes which is politically convenient to you.

As to taxation, the Soviet Union was guilty as charged. The point is that this taxation was nothing more than the way that the Soviet Union organized health care, old age pensions, most education, some newspapers, and some up-keep and replacement of the means of production. As you and I have been through before, other social services like housing, art, entertainment, sports, some up-keep and replacement of the means of production, and most newspapers were funded not through taxation but rather directly controlled by the trade unions.

The point is not that there existed taxation in the Soviet Union. Even if you insist on calling it "state extracted profits" the question remains: Who's hands did it end up in. As I have said time and again, and never has anyone attempted to contradict me on this point, if taxes or "state extracted profits" had not ended up broadly and more or less equally distributed in the hands of the workers, then capital accumulation in the period of restoration would have been general not primitive.

If this wealth ended up in the hands of the workers and not a ruling class there seems to me to be only one possible materialist explanation: that the working class was the ruling class, or to put it another way, the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Demogorgon

16th February 2010, 17:47

Of course there was a bureaucracy to administer the socialist state; of course the Soviet bureaucracy was riddled with problems and inefficiency. That is not the question. The existence of a state apparatus run through taxation tells you nothing about whether or not their was exploitative extraction of surplus value through profits, rents, and interest. If you want to show that Soviet workers were exploited, you need to show that the Soviet bureaucrats accumulated capital during the Soviet era. You don't seem to understand what exploitation is. You are giving it a very narrow definition which excludes all pre-capitalist exploitation, but also an interpretation which ignores how it actually works in capitalism.

As for exploitation in the Soviet Union. THe state apparatus was largely parasitical, not adding anything to the production process. So how do you think those involved got their money?

As for accumulating capital, of course they did. All capital was in the hands of the state and as the state was not democratic, that meant effectively in the hands of those running it. The personal benefits they got from this was obvious. Higher salaries, greater access to Western goods and so forth.

I am a Marxist. When I talk about a ruling class, I mean a class which controls the means of production. As I have demonstrated above, the Soviet state apparatus was non-exploitative, ergo did not have control of the means of production in any substantive way.
At best you are misunderstanding Marx. Leaving aside your lack of understanding of exploitation, you also seem not to grasp what control means. The fact that you conclude that the Government did not have control over the means of production shows that even if you were right about everything else then there must be a crippling flaw in your methodology as it clearly did have control. It made all decisions related to their use, unless you deny that (which would put your arguments into some perspective) it is patently absurd to say that they did not have control.

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 18:18

You don't seem to understand what exploitation is. You are giving it a very narrow definition which excludes all pre-capitalist exploitation, but also an interpretation which ignores how it actually works in capitalism.

As for exploitation in the Soviet Union. THe state apparatus was largely parasitical, not adding anything to the production process. So how do you think those involved got their money?

The state added nothing to the production process? For one thing, it was a state-planned economy, at least until Khruschev's sovnarkhozy reforms.

As for accumulating capital, of course they did. All capital was in the hands of the state and as the state was not democratic, that meant effectively in the hands of those running it. The personal benefits they got from this was obvious. Higher salaries, greater access to Western goods and so forth.

But a great deal of that surplus product also went back to the people in the form of subsidized goods, rent, education, healthcare, and a wealth of other cultural programs, plus the investment into the expansion of means of production and thus more consumer goods, which were bought by the workers. This cannot be compared with the exploitation based on private property under capitalism.

Another important thing to remember is that those who began to benefit from their positions did so by subverting the system, finding loopholes, or benefiting from those who had done so before. By contrast, the mechanisms which create such wealth differentials under capitalism are written into the law and thus the system itself.

Joe_Germinal

16th February 2010, 18:26

You don't seem to understand what exploitation is. You are giving it a very narrow definition which excludes all pre-capitalist exploitation, but also an interpretation which ignores how it actually works in capitalism.

As I understand it, there are two primary opinions about the class nature of the Soviet Union: (1) that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat (or a deformed workers state) either way it had a socialist economy or (2) it was a state capitalist regime. That is why I limit my discussion of supposed exploitation in the Soviet Union to the question of whether there existed capitalist exploitation. If somebody starts arguing that the Soviet Union was a neo-feudal regime or a modern slave society, I will take those arguments in turn. As to not understanding the nature of exploitation in capitalist regimes, I'm open to the possibility that this is true. If so, please enlighten me as to how capitalist exploitation "actually works" apart from the extraction from the working class of profits, rents, and interest by the owners of capital.

As for exploitation in the Soviet Union. THe state apparatus was largely parasitical, not adding anything to the production process. So how do you think those involved got their money?

It is true that most of the civil servants in any society are non-productive laborers. In the Soviet Union, the civil service was primarily engaged, as I have said, in health, education, information, and various forms of social insurance. But Marx was very clear, unproductive labor can be socially useful. I think that in a socialist society, especially a young one, such unproductive bureaucratic labor is perfectly acceptable and we should not begrudge the public sector worker her or his wage by saying she or he is merely a parasite.

These people were administering the wealth of the Soviet Union, but as I keep trying to explain, and you keep avoiding, we have conclusive evidence that they were not accumulating capital. We know this, because every account of post-Soviet privatization from books by Marxists to books by Shock Therapists agrees that there existed in 1991 no class or class fraction in Soviet society with the wealth necessary to buy newly privatized industries. You may be right. I may be incredibly theoretically backwards and unsophisticated in my understanding of exploitation, but I'm pretty sure that capitalist exploitation must result in the appearance in society of a class controlling stocks of accumulated capital. If such a class existed in the Soviet Union in the period of 1991-1994, why didn't they come forward to buy privatized industries.

The fact that you conclude that the Government did not have control over the means of production shows that even if you were right about everything else then there must be a crippling flaw in your methodology as it clearly did have control. It made all decisions related to their use, unless you deny that (which would put your arguments into some perspective) it is patently absurd to say that they did not have control.

As I said above in a post you didn't read, the state did not have absolute control. Control of Soviet economic and political life was dominated primarily by the State and by the Trade Unions. Of course, this arrangement left the state with much in its control. The question before us is what does this mean? If the state was controlled by an exploitative ruling class, this would have meant that the state was used to accumulate capital. If, on the other hand, this state was merely the administrative apparatus of the working class then the wealth of the Soviet Union would have been broadly and equally distributed by the state among the working class.

To make a comparison to capitalist society: General Electric has an accountancy department. The people who work there control GE's capital in the same way the Soviet state controlled Soviet wealth. However, the accountancy departments of the Fortune 500 are not the capitalist bourgeoisie because they don't accumulate the profits of those companies, they just draw a wage for administering those profits. Similarly, the Soviet state apparatus "controlled" Soviet wealth, in the sense of administering it, but they did not accumulate capital because they were under the political control of the working class, just as accountants are under the economic control of the bourgeoisie.

So, to conclude, all you need to do to prove me wrong is to show me examples of Soviet bureaucrats buying means of production off the state in the period 1991-1994. If you can't show me that; you can't show me exploitation.

Kléber

16th February 2010, 20:41

I also remember something about Marxism--it's that qualitative changes come from an unstable accumulation of quantitative changes. Taking the metaphor of water*, evaporation (qualitative change from water to gas) takes place suddenly once a certain threshold of heat has been reached (accumulated quantitative change). Kruschev's revisionism, stagnation, frantic militarism and top-down guidance of the economy in light of the Cold War all weakened the workers' state and the reliance on elites in Moscow created a similar bourgeois thinking that China suffered from and was not able to fully shake during the GPCR. The result in the USSR was a prolonged but more certain death of socialism.

The capitalist forces were not all waiting in the shadows (though some crime families and others did just that), nor were bureaucrats synonymous with capitalists temporarily stuck in civil service. And bureaucracy in and of itself means nothing--former Soviet bloc people have complained about even more bureaucracy in the west (but with less return).
So according to you, Khrushchev represented capitalist interests, but without a capitalist class? He was a lone gunman without any class interests behind him? Doesn't make sense. A materialist analysis looks further than individuals.

As I understand it, there are two primary opinions about the class nature of the Soviet Union: (1) that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat (or a deformed workers state) either way it had a socialist economy or (2) it was a state capitalist regime. That is why I limit my discussion of supposed exploitation in the Soviet Union to the question of whether there existed capitalist exploitation. If somebody starts arguing that the Soviet Union was a neo-feudal regime or a modern slave society, I will take those arguments in turn. As to not understanding the nature of exploitation in capitalist regimes, I'm open to the possibility that this is true. If so, please enlighten me as to how capitalist exploitation "actually works" apart from the extraction from the working class of profits, rents, and interest by the owners of capital.
Actually, social relations in the USSR were quite exploitative. It is not a simple question of "socialist/state capitalist" because state capitalism was being exercised through the political form of a workers' state, which complicated things until 1991. But the huge salaries which managers and officials received definitely constituted a form of exploitation, which Lenin, among others, thought was a holdover of capitalism. And we have to find out how the workers lost political control of their own state.

Through their exclusive political control over the state, the bureaucratic elite exerted a monopoly of economic power as well since all industrial and agricultural activity was publicly controlled. Their unaccountable control over the economy was used to wrench a number of exclusive privileges from the working class. The privileges enjoyed by bureaucrats included: access to dachas (mansions) and staff, preferential apartment housing in cities, limousines and chauffers, access to special stores and restaurants for people of high rank only, and special lanes of the street for their cars. Capitalists in the USA don't even have their own lane! On top of that, the salaries of the top bureaucrats were ten to twenty times as much as the workers, a wage differential which Lenin called "state capitalism" in 1918 (source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm)). There were also super-exploited segments of the population like domestic servants and the agricultural lumpenproletariat during "socialism."

Any opposition group which threatened bureaucratic privilege was suppressed. It was impossible to form a legal faction to defend the interests of the working class. Therefore bureaucratic power was constituted in a political dictatorship over the workers, which defended itself using a revised version of Marxism, that paved the way for outright restoration.

Viewed in this context, the market reforms undertaken by Khrushchev and successors represent not the ruinous revisionism of an individual but the interests of the bureaucracy in expanding its exploitation and domination of the Soviet working class.

Again we have statements without evidence. If indeed the Soviet bureaucracy was a ruling class then you should be able to demonstrate thatActually, the responsibility to produce evidence is with you, the defenders of the claim that the USSR was socialist. Since the USSR never published comprehensive data about the salaries and privileges of its officials, and evidence points to massive corruption and exploitation, it is reasonable to assume that Trotsky was right that they were living the lives of Western capitalists.

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 20:56

So according to you, Khrushchev represented capitalist interests, but without a capitalist class? He was a lone gunman without any class interests behind him? Doesn't make sense. A materialist analysis looks further than individuals.

Khruschev did not so much represent capitalist interests as he did revisionism. It is likely that Khruschev, deluded as he was, actually thought he was advancing socialism.

Actually, social relations in the USSR were quite exploitative. It is not a simple question of "socialist/state capitalist" because state capitalism was being exercised through the political form of a workers' state, which complicated things until 1991. But the huge salaries which managers and officials received definitely constituted a form of exploitation, which Lenin, among others, thought was a holdover of capitalism. And we have to find out how the workers lost political control of their own state.

Managers and officials did not always have such huge salaries, nor were they always able to appropriate so much of the bonuses.

Through their exclusive political control over the state, the bureaucratic elite exerted a monopoly of economic power as well since all industrial and agricultural activity was publicly controlled.

For a long time the bureaucratic elite did not have a monopoly on economic power seeing as how they were severely crippled in 1936-37 due to the elections.

Their unaccountable control over the economy was used to wrench a number of exclusive privileges from the working class. The privileges enjoyed by bureaucrats included: access to dachas (mansions) and staff, preferential apartment housing in cities, limousines and chauffers, access to special stores and restaurants for people of high rank only, and special lanes of the street for their cars.

Dachas are not "mansions", many Soviet workers had access to dachas and there are many families which still own their dachas.

Capitalists in the USA don't even have their own lane!

Are you seriously going to argue that a Soviet bureaucrat had a cushier lifestyle than an American capitalist? This is laugahble.

On top of that, the salaries of the top bureaucrats were ten to twenty times as much as the workers, a wage differential which Lenin called "state capitalism" in 1918 (source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm)). There were also super-exploited segments of the population like domestic servants and the agricultural lumpenproletariat during "socialism."

Socialism doesn't come all at once.

Viewed in this context, the market reforms undertaken by Khrushchev and successors represent not the ruinous revisionism of an individual but the interests of the bureaucracy in expanding its exploitation and domination of the Soviet working class.

Yes but with one important difference; during the Stalin era this tendency, despite the fact that it was widespread, was fought. Also you fail to realize that many of the corrupt individuals who constituted the new ruling class were not in fact bureaucrats or managers but rather middle-men working in an illegal capacity(new NEP men they were called). Whereas under Stalin their illegal activities(illegal economic activity was the charge) were punished, they were overlooked under Khruschev, and progressively legalized.

Actually, the responsibility to produce evidence is with you, the defenders of the claim that the USSR was socialist. Since the USSR never published comprehensive data about the salaries and privileges of its officials, and evidence points to massive corruption and exploitation, it is reasonable to assume that Trotsky was right that they were living the lives of Western capitalists.

If you claim that the USSR never published comprehensive data about salaries and privileges, then the burden of proof is on you to back up the claims you made about both in this very post.

And as for Trotsky's claim, while there were a few notable exceptions, the claim is simply laughable. Certainly those Russians who became the oligarchs of today prefer their current lifestyle to their much more restricted lives under the Soviet Union's system.

Tablo

16th February 2010, 21:25

Stalin was talking a load of bollocks when he said that. Socialism had not been achieved in the Soviet Union. What had been achieved was a system of state run capitalism.
I know. I never said I thought it had been achieved. I was asking when he SAID it had happened. Don't think I'm some Marxist-Leninist or something.

Kléber

16th February 2010, 21:30

Khruschev did not so much represent capitalist interests as he did revisionism. It is likely that Khruschev, deluded as he was, actually thought he was advancing socialism.
Revisionism means socialism in words, capitalism in practice. Bureaucrats like Khrushchev consciously revised Marxism to fit their economic interests.

Managers and officials did not always have such huge salaries, nor were they always able to appropriate so much of the bonuses.
So where's the transparent and accountable data about how much they made, to prove everything was fair and democratic? Surely the working class would want to keep its public servants as accountable as the capitalists do.

For a long time the bureaucratic elite did not have a monopoly on economic power seeing as how they were severely crippled in 1936-37 due to the elections.
Well they solved that problem in a democratic way all right - by completely wiping out all other factions and suspected opponents in the Bolshevik Party through mass murder in 1937-38! Two/thirds of the 17th Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_Congress_of_the_All-Union_Communist_Party_%28Bolsheviks%29) (the "Congress of the Condemned") representatives and CC members were purged by the Stalin clique.

Dachas are not "mansions", many Soviet workers had access to dachas and there are many families which still own their dachas.
Yes, of course. When he was an official, Trotsky had (only) one as well. This does not change the fact that country homes were only enjoyed by a minority of Russians, assigned as part of a system of political patronage, and the best and largest dachas were indeed given to the highest-ranking bureaucrats, who often had several.

Are you seriously going to argue that a Soviet bureaucrat had a cushier lifestyle than an American capitalist? This is laugahble.
I am pointing out the very clear fact that Soviet bureaucrats enjoyed a visual privilege over the working class when driving on the street, that capitalists are too afraid to take for themselves because it would lead to immense jealousy and anger. You must agree with me that this is an indication of the social power of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Socialism doesn't come all at once.
No, and Stalin effectively abandoned the construction of socialism by declaring it to exist in 1936.

Yes but with one important difference; during the Stalin era this tendency, despite the fact that it was widespread, was fought.
There were anti-corruption drives under everybody, even the ultra-corrupt Brezhnev era. The fox shouldn't guard the chicken coop. The only real way to stop corruption would have been a return to democratic centralism.

Also you fail to realize that many of the corrupt individuals who constituted the new ruling class were not in fact bureaucrats or managers but rather middle-men working in an illegal capacity(new NEP men they were called). Whereas under Stalin their illegal activities(illegal economic activity was the charge) were punished, they were overlooked under Khruschev, and progressively legalized.
The Nepmen were effectively wiped out in the late 1920's, and their activities weren't illegal until then. Stalin's leadership can not be excused, moreover, for responsibility over what happened after 1956, because the state of the Party after Stalin's death was a direct consequence of the purges.

If you claim that the USSR never published comprehensive data about salaries and privileges, then the burden of proof is on you to back up the claims you made about both in this very post.
How can I prove what salaries were when the bureaucrats kept the juicy information secret? Trotsky demanded that the Soviet government publish transparent data about wages and salaries more than 70 years ago to prove the claim it was "socialist." He had been in the government and knew how it worked. Yet they didn't publish the data he asked for, they assassinated him to shut him up about that and other issues. This fact seems to back up his argument.

I have however tried to research salary data on the USSR, it's not easy. Bureaucrats often got 1,500-2,000 rubles a month and there were probably salaries much higher than that. That's not counting bonuses or extraordinary salaries of 4,000. Meanwhile, workers got 100-300 a month. There was a luxury economy which expanded into the 1930's and catered exclusively to the Soviet elite, offering them goods and services completely unaffordable to the average Soviet citizen.

And as for Trotsky's claim, while there were a few notable exceptions, the claim is simply laughable. Certainly those Russians who became the oligarchs of today prefer their current lifestyle to their much more restricted lives under the Soviet Union's system.
Certainly. But that oligarchy has its roots in state capitalist exploitation in the USSR. They were sick of having their rate of exploitation limited by the vestiges of the workers' state, so they abolished it altogether.

Kayser_Soso

16th February 2010, 22:28

Revisionism means socialism in words, capitalism in practice. Bureaucrats like Khrushchev consciously revised Marxism to fit their economic interests.

No, revisionism means removing the revolutionary content from Marxism-Leninism.

So where's the transparent and accountable data about how much they made, to prove everything was fair and democratic? Surely the working class would want to keep its public servants as accountable as the capitalists do.

Well it's funny you mention that because on one hand you use the argument that the data was not released to fight the argument that the USSR was socialist, yet you make claims about the differentials to back up your claims that it wasn't.

Well they solved that problem in a democratic way all right - by completely wiping out all other factions and suspected opponents in the Bolshevik Party through mass murder in 1937-38! Two/thirds of the 17th Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_Congress_of_the_All-Union_Communist_Party_%28Bolsheviks%29) (the "Congress of the Condemned") representatives and CC members were purged by the Stalin clique.

What use are factions in the government?

Yes, of course. When he was an official, Trotsky had (only) one as well. This does not change the fact that country homes were only enjoyed by a minority of Russians, assigned as part of a system of political patronage, and the best and largest dachas were indeed given to the highest-ranking bureaucrats, who often had several.

Obviously there were dachas of differing qualities, but I would venture to say that Soviet workers owned more summer homes than workers in capitalist countries of those days, and those who didn't had access to various vacation resorts by the Black Sea.

I am pointing out the very clear fact that Soviet bureaucrats enjoyed a visual privilege over the working class when driving on the street, that capitalists are too afraid to take for themselves because it would lead to immense jealousy and anger. You must agree with me that this is an indication of the social power of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Capitalists are too afraid to take for themselves? You ought to see modern-day Moscow. No forget that- just go outside. You will see constant flaunting of wealth in any capitalist country.

No, and Stalin effectively abandoned the construction of socialism by declaring it to exist in 1936.

I'm sorry are we discussing Marxism-Leninism or Zen Buddhism here?

There were anti-corruption drives under everybody, even the ultra-corrupt Brezhnev era. The fox shouldn't guard the chicken coop. The only real way to stop corruption would have been a return to democratic centralism.

First of all, your boy Trotskyism didn't seem to like democratic centralism too much, as his entire career proves, so I wouldn't bring that up. The thing is that under Stalin, anti-corruption drives actually kept things in check.

The Nepmen were effectively wiped out in the late 1920's, and their activities weren't illegal until then. Stalin's leadership can not be excused, moreover, for responsibility over what happened after 1956, because the state of the Party after Stalin's death was a direct consequence of the purges.

Actually I would argue that the state of the party after the revolution is what led to the purges in the first place. Also I am speaking about the NEW NEP men, not the original.

How can I prove what salaries were when the bureaucrats kept the juicy information secret? Trotsky demanded that the Soviet government publish transparent data about wages and salaries more than 70 years ago to prove the claim it was "socialist." He had been in the government and knew how it worked. Yet they didn't publish the data he asked for, they assassinated him to shut him up about that and other issues. This fact seems to back up his argument.

That is very faulty logic.

I have however tried to research salary data on the USSR, it's not easy. Bureaucrats often got 1,500-2,000 rubles a month and there were probably salaries much higher than that. That's not counting bonuses or extraordinary salaries of 4,000. Meanwhile, workers got 100-300 a month. There was a luxury economy which expanded into the 1930's and catered exclusively to the Soviet elite, offering them goods and services completely unaffordable to the average Soviet citizen.

Again, you said that reliable information hasn't been released on this matter. I have heard similar claims that Stalin's salary was 500 rubles a month. Somewhere around here I do have a list of prices in the 30s of various consumer goods that is very accurate. When considering the low salaries, you have to also consider how many benefits were provided to the worker, and how low the prices of staple goods were.

Certainly. But that oligarchy has its roots in state capitalist exploitation in the USSR. They were sick of having their rate of exploitation limited by the vestiges of the workers' state, so they abolished it altogether.

If the workers' state appropriates the surplus product and then gives workers back most of it in the form of healthcare, education, entertainment, consumer goods, and the investment of new means of production for the expansion of all of the above- how is this exploitation anything comparable to capitalism? It isn't- plain and simple.

Kléber

16th February 2010, 23:17

No, revisionism means removing the revolutionary content from Marxism-Leninism. How does that fundamentally differ from my definition? Seems like you just want to use "revisionism" as a curse word for people you don't agree with.

Well it's funny you mention that because on one hand you use the argument that the data was not released to fight the argument that the USSR was socialist, yet you make claims about the differentials to back up your claims that it wasn't.Well, so little data is available, we can only go off what there is.

What use are factions in the government?There is such a thing as principle in working-class politics. When you massacre the Left, Right, and United Oppositions on phony charges of treason, it sets a precedent, and no one cares when you cry wolf about Molotov and the Anti-Party Group.

Without some form of political independence from the bureaucracy, and freedom to criticize policy and propose alternatives from a socialist perspective, the working class can not stop the ruling elite from restoring capitalism. Otherwise you are just praying for the leader to stay true to the faith and not become a corrupt "revisionist." You compared Trotsky's critique of the "victory of socialist construction" to Zen Buddhism, but your "anti-revisionist" Stalinist orthodoxy sounds more like Wahhabi Islam!

We aren't just talking about the ban on factions either, 2/3 of the 17th Congress and 70% of its CC were executed. Not to mention the entire Politburo of Lenin's time, most of the Society of Political Prisoners, etc. This was a murderous attack against the generation of working-class leaders which had carried out the 1917 revolution.

Obviously there were dachas of differing qualities, but I would venture to say that Soviet workers owned more summer homes than workers in capitalist countries of those days, and those who didn't had access to various vacation resorts by the Black Sea.That is total speculation, and basically irrelevant to the question of social differentiation in the USSR.

Capitalists are too afraid to take for themselves? You ought to see modern-day Moscow. No forget that- just go outside. You will see constant flaunting of wealth in any capitalist country.Yes, but I don't see caste privileges like a special lane on the road for people of high rank!

First of all, your boy Trotskyism didn't seem to like democratic centralism too much, as his entire career proves, so I wouldn't bring that up.Trotsky ardently defended democratic centralism within the Party when there wasn't a war going on. Trotsky also put down revolts. There was no war going on when the various opposition groups were suppressed, and Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov, Pyatakov, Radek, to name a few, never revolted.

The thing is that under Stalin, anti-corruption drives actually kept things in check.Stalin's careful pruning somehow missed the likes of Khrushchev, Brezhnev etc. as they were worming their way to the top.

Actually I would argue that the state of the party after the revolution is what led to the purges in the first place.Sure. But those purges destroyed any remaining hope for the CPSU as a democratic centralist organization capable of constructing socialism.

Also I am speaking about the NEW NEP men, not the original.Yes, the black market grew along with subtle market reforms after Stalin's death, but the policies of his clique are still responsible for promoting the type of revisionist leadership which would oversee such "reforms."

Again, you said that reliable information hasn't been released on this matter. I have heard similar claims that Stalin's salary was 500 rubles a month. Somewhere around here I do have a list of prices in the 30s of various consumer goods that is very accurate. Prices are completely irrelevant for a discussion of social inequality, if it isn't clear what wages are in the first place.

When considering the low salaries, you have to also consider how many benefits were provided to the worker, and how low the prices of staple goods were.The social wage for workers was countered by the rank-based social privileges for the ruling elite. Which still doesn't justify 1:20 or wider pay scales.