A Question regarding the transition from Capitalism to Communism.

[durhamleft]

Is there anyway one can make this transformation without it descending into authoritarianism and/ or bureaucracy? Ideologically I complete support communism however I fear that under the Socialist transitional stage how would one deal with the capitalists without becoming authoritarian? Also, I am a great believe that the USSR was not communist, however what one must ask is if they weren't, but were desiring communism, how would be create international Socialism without falling into the same problems other nations have who've attempted Communism.

To me Communism should always be strived for with liberty in mind and thus it is counter productive to become authoritarian. I am not an intellectual, and I am a communist, however I am just concerned that we could end up becoming stuck in the Socialist transitional stage and end up messing things up.

Regards, DL.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Is there anyway one can make this transformation without it descending into authoritarianism and/ or bureaucracy? Ideologically I complete support communism however I fear that under the Socialist transitional stage how would one deal with the capitalists without becoming authoritarian? Also, I am a great believe that the USSR was not communist, however what one must ask is if they weren't, but were desiring communism, how would be create international Socialism without falling into the same problems other nations have who've attempted Communism.

To me Communism should always be strived for with liberty in mind and thus it is counter productive to become authoritarian. I am not an intellectual, and I am a communist, however I am just concerned that we could end up becoming stuck in the Socialist transitional stage and end up messing things up.

Regards, DL.

First, define being authoritarian.

If by what you mean "authoritarian", you're implying the acts of oppressing, then through a transitional stage from Capitalism to Communism, through a Proletarian State, we must oppress the opposing classes. The sets of conditions between a Bourgeois State & a Proletarian State are in contradiction, but the acts of the State are only different on who they are to oppress. Whereas we see in the Bourgeois State - bourgeois being the ruling class - they oppress the proletarians. So in contradiction, through the formation of a Proletarian State - proletarians now being the ruling class - we oppress them until class differences are no longer an issue.

[durhamleft]

First, define being authoritarian.

If by what you mean "authoritarian", you're implying the acts of oppressing, then through a transitional stage from Capitalism to Communism, through a Proletarian State, we must oppress the opposing classes. The sets of conditions between a Bourgeois State & a Proletarian State are in contradiction, but the acts of the State are only different on who they are to oppress. Whereas we see in the Bourgeois State - bourgeois being the ruling class - they oppress the proletarians. So in contradiction, through the formation of a Proletarian State - proletarians now being the ruling class - we oppress them until class differences are no longer an issue.

Ah, but do you not think that if Socialism was to occur, it would not just be the bourgeoisie who would oppose it, but also parts of the proletariat?

By authoritarian, I mean forcing people to accept socialism and communism as the system and actively removing or silencing those who oppose it.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Ah, but do you not think that if Socialism was to occur, it would not just be the bourgeoisie who would oppose it, but also parts of the proletariat?

By authoritarian, I mean forcing people to accept socialism and communism as the system and actively removing or silencing those who oppose it.

Well by the time the transition takes place, the majority of the country or whatever means this transition is taking place will be Socialist. Those that oppose, re-education will be needed. I don't see where proletarians would oppose a Proletarian State, though.

[Lyev]

It's not really inherent in the "socialist transition", or dictatorship of the proletariat (DOTP), as such. Indeed, a Trotskyist critique does not claim that the thermidor effect was directly as a result of the DOTP; we would pick up on the use of Comintern to further the Soviet Union's immediate national interests, rather than promote those of the international proletarian movement on a whole. I would also criticise "socialism in one country" (not really as concisely-defined doctrine in itself), but because it also gives us the opportunity, with this linking in with the example of the Comintern, but to posit Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" as a sufficient alternative to the question: "how do we develop socialism (or indeed capitalism, perhaps) in an economically backward country"?

Something else we need to acknowledge though is that many Bolsheviks perished (I think maybe over half, I'm not sure though) in the civil war. The war slowed down socialist construction somewhat; I don't think it was until late 1920 that full-scale nationalisation of industry could take place (after the last White commander was expelled from the far reaches of Siberia). Furthermore, to illustrate my point that it's not as simple as "descending into authoritarianism or bureaucracy", between 1913 and 1920 productivity in the Russian economy had lapsed by a fifth.

Also, a further complication as regards the bureaucracy etc. in Russia, was that famine was quite a regular occurrence. As if famine in various localities across the country every few years wasn't bad enough, such defeats for the Bolsheviks as the loss of Ukraine greatly exacerbated problems pertaining food distribution and so forth, due to it's rich resources, ripe fields, productivity in agriculture and whatnot. You can understand how such a problem snowballed, thereby contributing to the adoption of "War Communism" and the like. In short, everything that can possibly go wrong went wrong for the Bolsheviks: foreign intervention, civil war, famine, economic turbulence etc. etc. I think that just about covers most of what I want say; apologies if my explanation is a bit vague or hard to understand in places.

[Lyev]

Well by the time the transition takes place, the majority of the country or whatever means this transition is taking place will be Socialist. Those that oppose, re-education will be needed. I don't see where proletarians would oppose a Proletarian State, though."Re-education"? Careful there, it makes you sound like a crazy cultist or something. Anyway, you would hope that agitating for proletarian emancipation would occur largely before a social revolution. A socialist transformation of society, by very definition, necessitates the majority of society actually wanting socialism, and at least basically understanding what it means and entails. Also, as regards the part I emphasized there is this Marxist concept of false consciousness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness).

[Rusty Shackleford]

Sure, a Socialist State is authoritarian, all states are. Its about perspective though. If you are a worker and you live where there is a socialist state, chances are, its going to work for you.

if you happen to be a cappie or someone with aspirations of owning some private business, then you would be immediately at odds with the state ideologically. you take up arms against it and all hell will reign down upon you :D

most of the bourgeois economists use authoritarian to mean "you cant start up your own business" or "the state is planning the economy" or "i cant have blue jeans and a coke because i live in the Soviet Union."

Also, socialism will look RADICALLY different in the US than in the former SU, Cuba, China, or anywhere else. Capitalism is all fully developed here. Agriculture is industrialized, and almost all needs could be met within a few years of planning and restructuring. If revolution were to happen in the US, i am sure that the rest of the world would be liberated and on to sovereign decision making. give it a few decades and the majority of the world may be socialist :D and yes, these are rather high hopes lol.

[RedMaterialist]

Marx, Engels, and Lenin believed that capitalism would be replaced by a "dictatorship of the proletariat." The capitalist state would be replaced by a workers' state. As all states exist for the sole purpose of suppressing a particular class, the worker state will suppress the capitalist class. Once the capitalist class disappears then the state will no longer have any function and will "wither away and die."

Exactly how this will happen depends on the circumstances and social and economic development in each country. Marx said somewhere that the working class in each country will first have to settle accounts with its own capitalist class.

I am beginning to suspect that there may be a kind of natural law which says that the brutality of the capitalist class (in Russia, the Tsarist state) will be matched by the brutality of the worker class. Sort of a zero sum relationship. Thus, we have the brutality of Stalin.

Under Stalin, a "degenerate" (Trotsky's word) workers' state came into existence. Degenerate it may have been but still a state which suppressed the capitalist class. Although this state ultimately withered and died (in 1989) its fall did not result in the classless state, but rather it gave birth to a new kind of gangster capitalism under Yeltsin. Under Putin a mixed state-socialist, state-capitalism economy has developed (somewhat similar to Western Europe.)

If socialism is allowed to develop in Western Europe, Russia and China (and some other countries) then it is likely that the capitalist state, as such, will slowly disappear. However, if capitalism fights back (say, a repeat of Hitler) then it could mean a defeat of socialism for at least another 100 years.

[Charles Xavier]

Ah, but do you not think that if Socialism was to occur, it would not just be the bourgeoisie who would oppose it, but also parts of the proletariat?

By authoritarian, I mean forcing people to accept socialism and communism as the system and actively removing or silencing those who oppose it.

The proletariat wouldn't have any reason to oppose it. Other than if they are paid agents. The socialist state doesn't fit in the interest of all people, just 95% of the population, I.E. the working class.

[Kiev Communard]

My views on the reasons for socialist revolutions' failure in the 20th century and the ways to avoid the same outcome now are summarised in this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?t=141432). Here I may only say that involves post-revolutionary dismantlement of the system of the social division of the labour (and thus basis for private property and class rule) through widespread automation (including the functions performed by bureucracies) and the abolition of material scarcity through the development of biotechnologies and molecular manufacturing (nanotech).

[penguinfoot]

I would also criticise "socialism in one country" (not really as concisely-defined doctrine in itself)

There's a reason why "socialism in one country" was never defined as a coherent doctrine, and that's because it was never supposed to be a genuine contribution to Marxist theory in the sense of a set of conclusions and political strategies derived from examination of concrete social conditions and designed to serve as a basis for future political action - it was about providing a pseudo-theoretical justification for the socialist credentials of an isolated Soviet Union under Stalin. There is absolutely no way you can square socialism in one country with the basic Marxist principle that you can only build any form of progressive or egalitarian society on the basis of a highly developed productive apparatus that has emerged under the conditions of class antagonism during the main part of human history - this is a central Marxist principle because it was by pointing to the development of the productive forces under capitalism that Marx was able to argue against those romantic or reactionary critiques who criticized the emergence of capitalism from the standpoint of feudalism and other pre-capitalist types of social formation being more desirable. Lenin and all of the other main Bolsheviks were quite clear that Russia did not possess the economic means to build socialism on its own and there was no sign that they accepted that this was true for any individual country either in practice or in theory, as a central part of Lenin and Bukharin's analyses of imperialism was that the world was becoming increasing interlinked as an economic unit and that even the most advanced capitalist countries were dependent on the periphery for raw materials and other advantages such as markets and sites for investment. For this reason I don't think that Trotskyists should necessarily say that we criticize socialism in one country because to do so is to give it more theoretical weight than it deserves, rather we should acknowledge that socialism in one country was merely the ideological manifestation of a much deeper crisis that had its roots in changing material conditions.