Stages of Socialism/Communism

[#FF0000]

So who would run a theoretical communist state?

The correct term is "socialist" state. Communism is stateless and classless. Socialism is the period between capitalism and communism.

And it would be run via radical worker's democracy. I think the USSR had a sort of federal system where it was a bunch of workers councils. Local ones, then bigger regional ones, then the supreme soviet.

[Blake's Baby]

Unlike 'The Best Mod in Revleft History', and Lenin, some of us follow Marx and don't refer to the lower stage of communism as 'socialism'.

[Zanthorus]

The correct term is "socialist" state. Communism is stateless and classless. Socialism is the period between capitalism and communism.

I should probably point out here that the idea of a "socialist" stage between capitalism and communism is a theoretical invention of Lenin which not all socialists accept. Although almost all other communists agree that the transition period would be a radical workers democracy.

[Blake's Baby]

To be fair, Marx thought that would be a transitional stage, it's just Lenin who called that stage 'socialism'.

[Zanthorus]

To be fair, Marx thought that would be a transitional stage, it's just Lenin who called that stage 'socialism'.

The problem with ascribing the label "socialist" to the period between capitalism and communism though is it seems to imply that class divisions will have been eliminated yet the state will still exist for some unfathomable reason which is inconsistent with the Marxist theory of the state.

It's also what justified Stalin calling the USSR "socialist" which is why I'm wary of the label.

And the idea of an entire "epoch" of history between capitalism and communism makes communism into a far off ideal to be achieved in however many hundreds of years instead of an immanent reality.

This is also why I'm loathe to talk about the state "withering away" since that implies a slow drawn out process. What actually happens is the state attacks it's own basis (the existence of class divisions).

[Weezer]

Unlike 'The Best Mod in Revleft History', and Lenin, some of us follow Marx and don't refer to the lower stage of communism as 'socialism'.

So then what do we call it?

I hear the battle cry now:

"ONWARDS COMRADES! FOR THE GLORIOUS ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LOWER TRANSITIONAL STAGE OF COMMUNISM WHICH IS THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT BUT IT ISN'T ACTUALLY A DICTATORSHIP CUZ ITS SUPPOSED TO BE A DEMOCRATIC STATE!"

[Zanthorus]

So then what do we call it?

Why call it anything? Why not make the cry for communism but make it implicit that a period of transition will be necessary? Why does everything need fit into some catchy slogan?

[Weezer]

Why call it anything? Why not make the cry for communism but make it implicit that a period of transition will be necessary? Why does everything need fit into some catchy slogan?

But the transitional stage is different from communism. It should be called something else to differentiate. Socialism seems to work, but I guess you could call it something else.

[Zanthorus]

It should be called something else to differentiate.

It's not really a "stage" though. It's just the point were we move from capitalism to communism. You could just as easily call it "revolution".

[scarletghoul]

I use the words communism and socialism interchangably when referring to the first stage of communism, especially when talking to a learner.

When explaining communist theory to someone it's not worth going off into the semantics of something like 'oh there has never been a communist state because communism is stateless and classless bla bla'. That's silly because it doesn't have a lot of meaning beyond the words, and your time (+their patience) would be better spent actually addressing what they need to know about communism.

It is sometimes neccessary to explain that there are 2 stages of communism; proletarian state and statelessness, however these are both parts of communist theory and the learner will want to know about the proletarian state (even if they call it by a name you dont use for it).

When someone says "communism didn't work in china", you are a moron if you just say "china was never communist !!!". Because that doesn't answer their questions about the failings of Chinese socialism. You have to answer their questions and not correct their terminology.

When someone asks me about this or that communist country, or communist states in general, I start by answering their immediate questions but also relate it to communist theory, so that they understand what happened more. The fact that there are 2 stages of communism is not immediately relevent usually...

[Zanthorus]

The revolution is already done in some sense so the development can still be called 'revolution' but only on a internal scale due to the classes still being there (i.e. kulaks snd such) since no one has ever had a revolution in which there were no remainders of the bourgeoisie, or classes that took up the role of bourgeoisie, in their society. So to simply call it 'revolution' is ignoring the fact that after said revolution( wait isnt then the revolution of the revolution?) and seeing that revolution is "the most authoritarian act one can due, revolution is where one class overthrows and imposes its will apon the other"-friedrick engles.

This is just semantics. I would say the revolution is still being carried out if there are still class divisions even if the surface appearance is of relative calm.


Are you refering to solgans like "workers of the world unite!" or something else that really doesnt need to be up for this discussion?

RedVelvet seemed to be saying that we should be able to summarise all our positions in some catchy slogans. Of course if that was true then Marx was wasting his time writing Capital.


So this transitional (insertnamethatisntstagehere) is not a 'stage' but rather just a transition of society which society has had stages but apperently there are no stages of society so then what do we call them? phases? seqeuences? periods?

Whatever you call it the point is that it isn't a fixed period of society which would require serious effort to change like capitalism or communism. By it's very nature the transitional period can only either proceed on the march towards communism or slip backwards into reaction.


It is sometimes neccessary to explain that there are 2 stages of communism; proletarian state and statelessness,

The proletarian state isn't a stage of communism.

[Weezer]

The proletarian state isn't a stage of communism.

lol

[Shinigami]

...Guys, please don't derail this, it was supposed to be a thread by a beginner with doubts about communism, not what we should call this or that. : /

[Zanthorus]

...Guys, please don't derail this, it was supposed to be a thread by a beginner with doubts about communism, not what we should call this or that. : /

Good point.

Could a moderator split all the posts pertaining to the stages of communism?

[robbo203]

It's not really a "stage" though. It's just the point were we move from capitalism to communism. You could just as easily call it "revolution".


Good point.

As far as I know Marx's scenario for a post capitalist epoch was as follows and in strict sequence

1) a political transtion period

2) lower phase of communism/ socialism (he used these terms interchangeably)

3) higher phase of communism/socialism

If I might be heretical for a momnent I would scrap 1) and 2) and relocate the transition period to a time PRIOR to the revolutionary capture of state power to immediately abolish capitalism and the state. The latter would be seen then as essentially a mere "mopping up" operation - a formalisation of the changeover. The incremental transformative process of transcending the commodity relationship would have already began as a grassroots phenonmenon within capitalist society and in line with the growth of the anarchocommunist movement itself.

After all, capitalist relations developed in this way within the interstices of a medieval feudal world. Is there any persuasive reason to think that an analogous kind of process might not manifest itself in the transition towards a communist/socialist society?

[#FF0000]

Unlike 'The Best Mod in Revleft History', and Lenin, some of us follow Marx and don't refer to the lower stage of communism as 'socialism'.

My mind is blown and I feel like an idiot.

[Blake's Baby]

I really can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. On the one hand, you could be genuinely insinuating that my point is completely irrelevent, and implying that your usage is somehow 'correct'. On the other hand, you could be genuinely acknowledging that the majority of socialists on the planet, as well as the mnority of people who call themselves communists, don't follow this usage, and it in fact derives from one particular (influential certainly) communist thinker, and your usage was problematic (and calling it the 'correct term' is just wrong).

Ah well, the perils of internet communication.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The problem with ascribing the label "socialist" to the period between capitalism and communism though is it seems to imply that class divisions will have been eliminated yet the state will still exist for some unfathomable reason which is inconsistent with the Marxist theory of the state.
In the period following a workers revolution class divisions will not be eliminated - simply the working class will control society and the bourgeois class will not. It will be necessary to have a state under democratic workers control in order to protect against counter revolution. The state will only 'wither away' as the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes die off (for want of a better phrase).

[Zanthorus]

In the period following a workers revolution class divisions will not be eliminated - simply the working class will control society and the bourgeois class will not. It will be necessary to have a state under democratic workers control in order to protect against counter revolution. The state will only 'wither away' as the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes die off (for want of a better phrase).

Yes, but if class divisions exist in this state, in what way is it "socialist"?

[robbo203]

In the period following a workers revolution class divisions will not be eliminated - simply the working class will control society and the bourgeois class will not. It will be necessary to have a state under democratic workers control in order to protect against counter revolution. The state will only 'wither away' as the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes die off (for want of a better phrase).

If the workers "control society" , as you say, why would they want to permit the continuation of class exploitation for one second more, having captured the state which affords them the means to exercise this control?

Their very existence as a class and indeed that of the "bourgeois class" itself testifies to continuation of the exploitation of the former by the latter. If that is the case it follows that the workers must allow or voluntarily permit themselves to be exploited since they are in a position to end it at a stroke, (being in control of society) but chose not to.

I cannot think of any plausible reason why the workers would want to behave in such a magnaminous and altruistic fashiion as to perpetuate a system of class relationships in which they constititue the exploited class - by definition. Can you?

[#FF0000]

I really can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. On the one hand, you could be genuinely insinuating that my point is completely irrelevent, and implying that your usage is somehow 'correct'. On the other hand, you could be genuinely acknowledging that the majority of socialists on the planet, as well as the mnority of people who call themselves communists, don't follow this usage, and it in fact derives from one particular (influential certainly) communist thinker, and your usage was problematic (and calling it the 'correct term' is just wrong).

Ah well, the perils of internet communication.

No I was being sincere. I remember socialism and communism being explained to me like that a long time ago. Apparently they oversimplified it.

But then, has socialism been used interchangeably with communism?

[Zanthorus]

But then, has socialism been used interchangeably with communism?

Well basically, originally in their propaganda work Marx and Engels made the distinction between "communists" and "socialists" in order to distuinguish between themselves and the various breeds of reactionary, bourgeois and utopian socialists. In private their distinction between the two is more lax. And in later theoretical work Marx uses the two basically interchangeably to refer to the same thing.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

What's with all the hating on Lenin? He recognized the difference between the workers state and the lower phase of communism. He made his reasoning behind the usage of "socialist republic" clear:


Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Socialist Soviet Republic implies the determination of Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the new economic system is recognised as a socialist order. The idea that they had socialism while retaining a state and classes comes from the time of Stalin.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't hate Lenin. I just think that his use of the term 'socialism' to cover what Marx called 'the lower stage of communism' is both a novelty (I'm not aware that any other socialist theoretician had used the term in that way before him) and a confusion for the same reason - because he applies an old word (used by countless writers before him) in a new way, he muddies the waters not only about what he means, but about what everybody else means too.

And then there is a further muddying between the 'lower stage of communism' and the transitional state. Thus people claim that the Soviet Union was 'socialist' when it was nothing of the kind.

But anyway; I don't hate Lenin. I just think he was wrong.

[Zanthorus]

What's with all the hating on Lenin? He recognized the difference between the workers state and the lower phase of communism. He made his reasoning behind the usage of "socialist republic" clear:

The idea that they had socialism while retaining a state and classes comes from the time of Stalin.

What relevance does that quote have to anything? It just shows that Lenin didn't think the RSFSR at the time was socialist. It says nothing about the existence of a workers state in socialism. In the state and revolution Lenin pretty clearly states that the state will still exist even in the lower phase of communism (or "socialism") because of some crappy inference he draws from the existence of "bourgeois law":


It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.

The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.

“Equality” apparently reigns supreme.

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

[...]

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.

[...]

Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

[Gecko]

If the workers "control society" , as you say, why would they want to permit the continuation of class exploitation for one second more, having captured the state which affords them the means to exercise this control?

Their very existence as a class and indeed that of the "bourgeois class" itself testifies to continuation of the exploitation of the former by the latter. If that is the case it follows that the workers must allow or voluntarily permit themselves to be exploited since they are in a position to end it at a stroke, (being in control of society) but chose not to.

I cannot think of any plausible reason why the workers would want to behave in such a magnaminous and altruistic fashiion as to perpetuate a system of class relationships in which they constititue the exploited class - by definition. Can you?

the workers love good leaders and they will trust and support them to do the right thing..

[mikelepore]

In the period following a workers revolution class divisions will not be eliminated - simply the working class will control society and the bourgeois class will not. It will be necessary to have a state under democratic workers control in order to protect against counter revolution. The state will only 'wither away' as the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes die off (for want of a better phrase).

That's a part of the theory that I dispute. As I see it, classes would cease to exist abruptly. Once the capitalists have been locked out of the industries and the workers have recognized their own democratic assemblies as the only official management, the laws recognizing capitalist property rights have all been repealed, the capitalist's stock certificates are only worthless pieces of paper, and the stores no longer redeem the old capitalist paper money for goods, there will be no basis for a capitalist class to continue to exist for a single day more. There will be _former_ capitalists, but they won't be a class anymore; they will only be some segment of the population that makes gripe and grumble sounds. They may even resort to violence and vandalism, but that would only be a matter of society responding to crime when it occurs, it wouldn't be a class versus class situation.

[Blake's Baby]

I hope you're right Mickelpore, but I fear you won't be. I'm afraid I, like Jolly red Giant, see the stae continuing in some form for a little while, while the proletariat, organising itself through the workers' councils, excercises state power to surpress capitalism and the counter-revolution. I don't expect them to go quietly.