For non MLs: Was the Russian Revolution socialist ?

[red cat]

What do anarchists, Trots, LCs etc think ? This is because true workers control or socialism (in the original Marxist sense) seem to have been absent. Also, Lenin openly announced that they were following state capitalism.

Please be respectful towards each other and don't troll.

[Savage]

For the Communist left there is no unanimous position, most tend to see the revolution as proletarian, but councilists tend to see it as a bourgeois revolution (however both maintain that the Soviet Union became a capitalist society of some sort). In regards to workers control, there is no doubt that it existed for some time, even if it was strangled by the very many factors present at the time. So from a Left Communist position the Dictatorship of the Proletariat did exist for some time in the Soviet Union, but whether you consider the Proletarian Dictatorship to be socialist or not is something different, for instance many consider socialism to be an early stage of communism (therefore stateless and market-less) rather than workers control.

[ComradeOm]

This is because true workers control or socialism (in the original Marxist sense) seem to have been absentHence it ultimately failed. Revolutions are not however judged by their outcomes but by the class drivers behind them. The Russian Revolution was carried out by a revolutionary proletariat with explicitly socialist objectives. Whatever occurred after that should not detract from this

[graymouser]

Well, Trotkyists tend to think it was socialist, obviously. The things Lenin said about "state capitalism" should not be taken with any more weight than his statement that "soviets plus electrification equals socialism" - both were polemical turns about the level of development in the country, not dogmatic statements.

[Savage]

Well, Trotkyists tend to think it was socialist, obviously. The things Lenin said about "state capitalism" should not be taken with any more weight than his statement that "soviets plus electrification equals socialism" - both were polemical turns about the level of development in the country, not dogmatic statements.
The Soviets didn't exist in anyway after the early 20's, Lenin wasn't ignorant towards this, he accepted the implications of the failure of the German Revolution.

[Paulappaul]

As a Council Communist, I see Russia pre 1917 as having the historical goal of reaching Capitalism - which was achieved in post 1917. I don't think the Russian Revolution was a bad thing, I just recognize without a Capitalist structure and international revolution, there can be no Socialism. Russia could only be a sort of Ethical Capitalism - a theory I derive from the early Socialist Labor Party.

[Pretty Flaco]

Hence it ultimately failed. Revolutions are not however judged by their outcomes but by the class drivers behind them. The Russian Revolution was carried out by a revolutionary proletariat with explicitly socialist objectives. Whatever occurred after that should not detract from this

What does it matter what the intent was if the objectives were never achieved? The outcome is the reason for the revolution in the first place.

[Savage]

What does it matter what the intent was if the objectives were never achieved? The outcome is the reason for the revolution in the first place.
Because the question is about the nature of the Revolution. We shouldn't dismiss failed revolutions, we should learn from them.

[S.Artesian]

The "intent" is not determined by will, by voluntaristic notions of what is desired, but by the conflict between means and relations of production that propels a class struggle.

Russia, in all its backwardness, was an integral part of international capitalist exchange. The backwardness then marked the limits not just to the Russian capitalism, the Russian bourgeoisie, but to all of capitalism, to the entire network of accumulation and reproduction of the bourgeoisie.

Under these conditions, which are the conditions known as "uneven and combined" development there is no alternative class to the proletariat seizing the means of production and attempting to meet the legacy of this uneven and combined development.

There is no alternative, also, to the expropriation of private property, of the private mode of accumulation, to confront these conditions, since the private property mode of accumulation has preserved, reproduced the very conditions of unevenness--of the backwardness.

We cannot escape the social character of the Russian Revolution as a proletarian revolution driven forward by this uneven and combined development, this "expanded inadequacy" of capitalism. We cannot escape the fact that the very forces that drove the proletariat to power, this legacy of capitalism's uneven and combined development, meant that resolving these antagonisms on a local, national scale was impossible.

Note to Graymouser: I think Lenin's formulation of "soviets plus electrification" is much better, much much better than his musings on "Soviet state capitalism." Actually I think "soviets plus electrification" pointing out the interrelation, the "co-dependency" of workers' governing/control and technological advance is pretty damn good-- actually brilliant.

And I am not a "Leninist."

[syndicat]

It was both a workers and peasants revolution. The peasantry seized the land. the old aristocratic landlord class was expropriated.

The creation of the "soviets" as a potential workers local government, the creation of the factory committee movement, a radical shop movement that tended to attack capitalist rights and in some dozens of cases to expropriate capitalist firms with workers taking over.

and there were strong anti-capitalist political organizations that played an important role...tho often not one that facilitated actual worker power.

It shook up the capitalist system, and put workers power on the agenda, but there was no consolidating of actual worker power. So it's more appropriately described as a workers revolution.

it would be fair to describe it as an attempted socialist revolution but one that failed.

[Geiseric]

I'm a trotskyist, and I recognise that after the worldwide revolutions failed Russia stopped with it's socialist agenda and moved towards a state capitalist one, which is sad seeing as the potential the workers around the world had. I blame Stalin and the Comintern for messing up the revolutions however, just for the record, and that's unforgivable.

[ComradeOm]

As a Council Communist, I see Russia pre 1917 as having the historical goal of reaching Capitalism - which was achieved in post 1917. I don't think the Russian Revolution was a bad thing, I just recognize without a Capitalist structure and international revolution, there can be no Socialism. Russia could only be a sort of Ethical Capitalism - a theory I derive from the early Socialist Labor Party.Which is nothing more than Menshevism


What does it matter what the intent was if the objectives were never achieved?Its called 'class analysis'. That is, an examination of the composition and aspirations of the revolutionary movement. Much more useful than simply working back from preconceived notions

Any examination of the Russian proletariat in 1917 (that is, not what Lenin said and not events a decade or two later) cannot but conclude that it was revolutionary in character and socialist in aspiration. Why on earth would anyone conclude that this movement - which incidentally liquidated the bourgeoisie as a class - partook in a capitalist revolution?


The outcome is the reason for the revolution in the first placeSo you're saying that the Russian proletariat marched and fought for a brutal one-party dictatorship that would cause them immense misery? Or that they were actively working towards economic collapse and mass starvation? :confused:

[graymouser]

What does it matter what the intent was if the objectives were never achieved? The outcome is the reason for the revolution in the first place.
What does it matter? After all, what importance would be the success of the first ever socialist revolution on the planet, since it failed to create the world revolution that its leaders so desperately hoped for?

The French Revolution overthrew a monarchy but it wound up with Napoleon in the saddle - so clearly the 19th century democrats should've looked down on and spat on it, like our anti-Leninists do with the Russian Revolution. And the Paris Commune established the dictatorship of the proletariat in its embryonic form but after all it failed to win the day, so what does it matter? It's not like these revolutions were signposts for revolutionaries in the years to come, the sole lights that let them know what was possible, is it? We should also throw away the legacy of the Civil War and Radical Reconstruction in the United States since the KKK by terrorism and the Northerners by betrayal allowed the rollback of reconstruction in the 1870s, right? That wasn't a source of inspiration and guidance for the people fighting Jim Crow in the 50s and 60s, was it?

You can choose to throw away all the revolutionary history you like, but it's of value for those of us who want to find a way forward.

[graymouser]

I'm a trotskyist, and I recognise that after the worldwide revolutions failed Russia stopped with it's socialist agenda and moved towards a state capitalist one, which is sad seeing as the potential the workers around the world had. I blame Stalin and the Comintern for messing up the revolutions however, just for the record, and that's unforgivable.
That's not a Trotskyist position, comrade. Trotsky fought against state-capitalist and bureaucratic-collectivist interpretations of the Soviet Union throughout the '30s and in his final months in the '40s. You list Socialist Organizer as your organization, so this should be part of the education curriculum in that group - if not, at least read The Revolution Betrayed and In Defense of Marxism.

[bailey_187]

I'm a trotskyist, and I recognise that after the worldwide revolutions failed Russia stopped with it's socialist agenda and moved towards a state capitalist one, which is sad seeing as the potential the workers around the world had. I blame Stalin and the Comintern for messing up the revolutions however, just for the record, and that's unforgivable.

Trotskyists are supposed to blame stuff like the isolation of the revolution, the backwardsness of Russia, the destruction of the working class in the civil war and use of the old Tsarist bureaucracy etc etc, not simply "Stalin was bad"

[Widerstand]

The revolution certainly. What came after it, not so much.

[Burn A Flag]

Can I have a source to where Lenin says that the RSFSR was following state capitalism?

[Geiseric]

That's not a Trotskyist position, comrade. Trotsky fought against state-capitalist and bureaucratic-collectivist interpretations of the Soviet Union throughout the '30s and in his final months in the '40s. You list Socialist Organizer as your organization, so this should be part of the education curriculum in that group - if not, at least read The Revolution Betrayed and
In Defense of Marxism.

Ok, my bad. I was almost asleep when I posted that, I should have been more specific in my approach. I meant that trotsky fought against it, however despite his efforts it happened, and it's dissapointing that it happened. There are many factors that attributed to it, but Cominterns mismanagement of the other revolutions is a major part in it in my opinion.

[graymouser]

Ok, my bad. I was almost asleep when I posted that, I should have been more specific in my approach. I meant that trotsky fought against it, however despite his efforts it happened, and it's dissapointing that it happened. There are many factors that attributed to it, but Cominterns mismanagement of the other revolutions is a major part in it in my opinion.
Well, the failure of the German Revolution was the main reason that the Russian Revolution was able to degenerate to the level that it did, and part of that has to lay at the feet of Zinoviev, Stalin and the Comintern. But Trotsky was merciless about the state capitalism question, and really hammered on authors who used the description. Here's a good discussion of the question by Trotsky on the Lenin reference:


However, what interests us most within the limits of this analysis is the fact that Urbahns attempts also to include the economy of the USSR under the term “state capitalism.” And while so doing he refers – it is hardly believable! – to Lenin. There is only one possible way of explaining this reference: as the eternal inventor who creates a new theory a month, Urbahns has no time to read the books he refers to. Lenin did actually apply the term “state capitalism” but not to the Soviet economy as a whole, only to a certain section of it: the foreign concessions, the mixed industrial and commercial companies and, in part, the peasant and largely kulak [rich peasant] cooperatives under state control. All these are indubitable elements of capitalism, but since they are controlled by the state, and even function as mixed companies through its direct participation, Lenin conditionally, or, according to his own expression, “in quotes,” called these economic forms “state capitalism.” The conditioning of this term depended upon the fact that a proletarian, and not a bourgeois, state was involved; the quotation marks were intended to stress just this difference of no little importance. However, insofar as the proletarian state allowed private capital and permitted it within definite restrictions to exploit the workers, it shielded bourgeois relations under one of its wings. In this strictly limited sense, one could speak of “state capitalism.”

Lenin came out with this very term at the time of the transition to the NEP, when he presupposed that the concessions and the “mixed companies,” that is, enterprises based upon the correlation of state and private capital, would occupy a major position in the Soviet economy alongside of the pure state trusts and syndicates. In contradistinction to the state capitalist enterprises – concessions, etc., that is – Lenin defined the Soviet trusts and syndicates as “enterprises of a consistently socialist type.” Lenin envisioned the subsequent development of Soviet economy, of industry in particular, as a competition between the state capitalist and the pure state enterprises.

We trust that it is clear now within what limits Lenin used this term that has led Urbahns into temptation. In order to round out the theoretical catastrophe of the leader of the “Lenin(!)bund,” we must recall that, contrary to Lenin’s original expectations, neither the concessions nor the mixed companies played any appreciable role whatsoever in the development of the Soviet economy. Nothing has now remained generally of these “state capitalist” enterprises. On the other hand, the Soviet trusts whose fate appeared so very murky at the dawn of the NEP underwent a gigantic development in the years after Lenin’s death. Thus, if one were to use Lenin’s terminology conscientiously and with some comprehension of the matter, one would have to say that the Soviet economic development completely bypassed the stage of “state capitalism” and unfolded along the channel of the enterprises of the “consistently socialist type.”

Here, however, we must also forestall any possible misunderstandings, and this time of just the opposite character. Lenin chose his terms with precision. He called the trusts not socialist enterprises, as the Stalinists now label them, but enterprises of the “socialist type.” Under Lenin’s pen, this subtle terminological distinction implied that the trusts will have the right to be called socialist not by type, not by tendency, that is, but by their genuine content – after the rural economy will have been revolutionized, after the contradiction between the city and the village will have been destroyed, after men will have learned to fully satisfy all human wants, in other words, only in proportion as a real socialist society would arise on the bases of nationalized industry and collectivized rural economy. Lenin conceived that the attainment of this goal would require the successive labors of two or three generations and, moreover, in indissoluble connection with the development of the international revolution.

To summarize: under state capitalism, in the strict sense of the word, we must understand the management of industrial and other enterprises by the bourgeois state on its own account, or the “regulating” intervention of the bourgeois state into the workings of private capitalist enterprises. By state capitalism “in quotes,” Lenin meant the control of the proletarian state over private capitalist enterprises and relations. Not one of these definitions applies from any side to the present Soviet economy. It remains a deep secret what concrete economic content Urbahns himself puts into his understanding of the Soviet “state capitalism.” To put it plainly, his newest theory is entirely built around a badly read quotation.
Source: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/10/sovstate.htm

With this Trotsky laid to rest the position that LibertarianMarxist proposes above - namely, that Lenin was a precursor of modern state cap theorists. Instead Lenin's term has to be understood in the strictly limited context it was used in. (Generally Lenin is like this: taking his quotations out of context and generalizing them can lead to very bizarre conclusions.)

[DaringMehring]

It was socialist, because the proletariat seized state power, expropriated the bourgeoisie, took over the means of production, and aimed to proceed directly to socialism.

Whatever tortured tale of reverses came later, October 1917 was a socialist revolution in the classical Marxist sense.

[Savage]

''Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism, that would be a victory.''-I fail to see how I am taking his quotation out of context and generalizing them to lead to a 'bizarre' conclusion. Regardless of what Lenin thought, how can you subscribe to the idea that the USSR was socialist, whether degenerated or not when the Soviets were dead and gone by the early 20's? If the USSR had continued it's proletarian dictatorship throughout the 20's you would have seen the destruction of the bourgeois state, Lenin also refereed to the USSR as the Tsarist state apparatus with a 'Socialist' label.

[Geiseric]

''Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism, that would be a victory.''-I fail to see how I am taking his quotation out of context and generalizing them to lead to a 'bizarre' conclusion. Regardless of what Lenin thought, how can you subscribe to the idea that the USSR was socialist, whether degenerated or not when the Soviets were dead and gone by the early 20's? If the USSR had continued it's proletarian dictatorship throughout the 20's you would have seen the destruction of the bourgeois state, Lenin also refereed to the USSR as the Tsarist state apparatus with a 'Socialist' label.

I can agree with this on some points, the stalinist government was far more efficient in it's opression then the Tsars were however, but both were one party autocratic states. Inevitably, behind the gilded coating that the Communist Party put over the reality of the U.S.S.R. It was even worse to people who have lived through the Tsars and seen what the workers revolution became.

[Jose Gracchus]

What does "was the Russian Revolution socialist?" itself mean? This is a hopelessly vague and subjective question. What do we mean by socialist? Do we mean that the classes driving the historical events were the urban industrial proletariat, thereby meeting Marxian criteria for a proletarian revolution? Do we mean that it successfully establishing workers' power over public and social decision-making, including the central public-social decision-making centers in economic relations and production? Do we mean that a workers' democracy became a clear means of political rule? What is it we mean by these questions?

In any case, I do believe the Russian Revolution was substantially a popular affair, though many of the policies and decisions taken by the leadership elements of political organizations in support of the Revolution, such as the Bolsheviks in particular, quickly undermined the popular forces. In addition, the deep material deprivation, the collapse of urban society and the military, the aggressive intrusion first by the Central Powers into much of the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian heartland, and the general intervention by the Entente Powers thereafter, put immense pressures upon the socialist experiment and popular forces during the Civil War. As the Civil War ran down though, the Bolshevik party and the revolutionary state it dominated, resisted attempts by radical working class and peasant popular forces to continue socialist experiments (Kronstadt and the Makhnovshchina in particular). Furthermore, attempts by old parties (Left SRs, Menshevik Internationalists), as well as new ones (Workers and Peasants Socialist Party), non-party workers, and even dissident Communists (Moscow and Petrograd in particular) to enter and compete within the soviet system on the basis of free democracy and participation - in free competition with, not at the exclusion of, the Communist Party - were all nullified, even after the economic and military crisis had long exited its worst phases. The Bolshevik leadership increasingly walled-off even intra-party dissenters' attempts at influencing policy and rejuvenating socialist democracy. By turning their back on rejuvenating soviet democracy and open competition over decision-making on the minimum basis of the Kronstadt rebels' criteria (review of political prisoners and selective amnesty, non-partisan guards in the factory and on the roads, opening up of some trade with the countryside, and competitive free and fair elections to new soviets contested, and preceded by open propaganda and agitation, by anarchists and left or revolutionary socialists), followed by the ban on factions within the party, closed the door on progressive development of the Russian Revolution, and assured it would degenerate into an undemocratic, closed society dominated by a self-selecting caste, basing itself upon a nascent ruling class of a new type.

[Savage]

I can agree with this on some points, the stalinist government was far more efficient in it's opression then the Tsars were however, but both were one party autocratic states. Inevitably, behind the gilded coating that the Communist Party put over the reality of the U.S.S.R. It was even worse to people who have lived through the Tsars and seen what the workers revolution became.
I'm not disagreeing with this, my position is that the Russian Revolution was an example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat for it's first few years but due to various factors served the purpose of transforming Russia from a feudal society to a capitalist one. It is wrong to say that the USSR was 'worse' than feudal Russia, a raise in general living standards is inherent in the transition from feudalism to capitalism, just as living standards will increase when we bring socialism upon the world.

[Tommy4ever]

I believe the Russian Revolution was a socialist one. It only went array later on.

[Geiseric]

Definitely to Libertarian Marxist, agreeing with your above post.

[Jose Gracchus]

The Spanish Revolution was a somewhat stalled and localized revolution, but I think it qualifies as socialist as well.