How does the nationalization the means of production make the means of production de

[tradeunionsupporter]

How does the nationalization the means of production make the means of production democratic sorry but I was always told in school that the Soviet Union nationalized the means of production to have power over the workers.

[Demogorgon]

Well it won't do much good if the workers lack control over the state doing the nationalisation. That was the problem in the Soviet Union.

As for the stuff about it doing it to have control over the workers, that is typical of the problem with school history. A lot of it is guff. While it is true that the Soviet authorities definitely abused their position regarding the workers, do you think they were somehow more free in Tsarist Russia before the nationalisations? If anything they were more free afterwards at least they had certain rights regarding paid holidays, sick leave and so forth.

[#FF0000]

How does the nationalization the means of production make the means of production democratic sorry but I was always told in school that the Soviet Union nationalized the means of production to have power over the workers.

Well, yeah, what do you think happens to people who try to say something positive about the soviets in the curriculum?

Certainly that isn't what socialists want to happen but it can be argued that it did happen in the Soviet Union because of the way the State was organized. From what I remember, shortly after the Revolution and Civil War and all that, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse, so Lenin resorted to dictatorial one-man control over the economy. But my knowledge of that situation isn't too in-depth and hopefully someone will correct me.

[RGacky3]

If the state is democratic, then nationalizing under the state would mean indirect democratic control, pretty obvious really.

[Dean]

Well, yeah, what do you think happens to people who try to say something positive about the soviets in the curriculum?

Certainly that isn't what socialists want to happen but it can be argued that it did happen in the Soviet Union because of the way the State was organized. From what I remember, shortly after the Revolution and Civil War and all that, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse, so Lenin resorted to dictatorial one-man control over the economy. But my knowledge of that situation isn't too in-depth and hopefully someone will correct me.

In fact, the regime heavily centralized economic power and disempowered the actual Soviets (worker collectives). It was realized after a while that this centralized, unrepresentative form of economic management was wreaking havok on the economy, so a limited state capitalism was implemented (though it has existed before, in reality this was expanded with some privatization, iirc).

Like many failing economic systems, it was the centralization of power - which catered to prevalent power brokers - that created the foundation for further disempowerment of labor.

[Baseball]

How does the nationalization the means of production make the means of production democratic sorry but I was always told in school that the Soviet Union nationalized the means of production to have power over the workers.


The objective of nationalisation was not to place power over workers, but to give power to the workers. The problem is that the socialist defined the workers as a single mass entity, demanded that democracy be the end all objective, and of course rejected capitalism. The result was a hostility to trends and beliefs amongst the workers that was hostile to whatever particualr socialist ideology the majority favored. The lack of capitalism led to economic privation.

[Dean]

The objective of nationalisation was not to place power over workers, but to give power to the workers. The problem is that the socialist defined the workers as a single mass entity, demanded that democracy be the end all objective, and of course rejected capitalism. The result was a hostility to trends and beliefs amongst the workers that was hostile to whatever particualr socialist ideology the majority favored. The lack of capitalism led to economic privation.
The workers were not "defined as a single mass entity" by socialists. In fact, socialism is by definition a re-acquisition of economic power by the working class - any homogeneous definition falls short of any real power in such a context. It wouldn't have mattered if the working class was defined among various erroneous distinctions; if the working class was empowered, "hostility to trends and beliefs amongst the workers" would be an impotent characteristic of whatever milieu which would have necessarily ceded its power to the working class.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well it won't do much good if the workers lack control over the state doing the nationalisation. That was the problem in the Soviet Union.

As for the stuff about it doing it to have control over the workers, that is typical of the problem with school history. A lot of it is guff. While it is true that the Soviet authorities definitely abused their position regarding the workers, do you think they were somehow more free in Tsarist Russia before the nationalisations? If anything they were more free afterwards at least they had certain rights regarding paid holidays, sick leave and so forth.

Correct, the USSR and later China were deformed worker's states, but they were still worker's states.

[Queercommie Girl]

Well, yeah, what do you think happens to people who try to say something positive about the soviets in the curriculum?

Certainly that isn't what socialists want to happen but it can be argued that it did happen in the Soviet Union because of the way the State was organized. From what I remember, shortly after the Revolution and Civil War and all that, the Soviet economy was on the verge of collapse, so Lenin resorted to dictatorial one-man control over the economy. But my knowledge of that situation isn't too in-depth and hopefully someone will correct me.


Lenin did not apply dictatorial measures, Stalin did. Lenin didn't even appoint Stalin as his successor.

After Stalin came to power, a group of Chinese students in Moscow joined the demonstrations against him and called for putting Trotsky into power.

Here is a section from an original Chinese article I translated into English for the CWI:


On 7 November 1927, during the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, young Chinese Trotskyist students stood together with Soviet Trotskyists within the demonstrators' ranks in Moscow's Red Square, and courageously they challenged the bureaucratism of Stalin. They shouted the slogans of "enacting the will of Lenin, remove Stalin from his post, and support Trotsky". In 1931, led by the founder and former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party - Chen Duxiu, a group of party cadres and the majority of Chinese students who returned to China after studying in the Soviet Union created China's own Trotskyist group - the Left Opposition of the Chinese Communist Party.


Chen Duxiu was one of the two founding members of the Chinese Communist Party, and was the first general secretary of the CCP. But in 1927 Stalin forcefully removed him from power through the Communist International.

As a Chinese person, I don't just criticise Stalin because he took away worker's democracy in the USSR, but also because his actions towards China were an example of his Russian nationalism. What right did he have to remove by decree the general secretary of the CCP in China?

[Baseball]

The workers were not "defined as a single mass entity" by socialists. In fact, socialism is by definition a re-acquisition of economic power by the working class - any homogeneous definition falls short of any real power in such a context. It wouldn't have mattered if the working class was defined among various erroneous distinctions; if the working class was empowered, "hostility to trends and beliefs amongst the workers" would be an impotent characteristic of whatever milieu which would have necessarily ceded its power to the working class.

Except that what we know is that socialists have disputed who is, and is not a socialist. The only way the working class is "empowered" in such a situation is if their broad agreement as to which socialist movement represents true socialism.