Base/Superstructure and Revolution

[Widerstand]

I'm a bit confused about the German Wikipedia entry on the Marxist theory of Base and Superstructure. It starts off by explaining that Marx believed that the Base determines the Superstructure (eg. classic HM), and that he consequently believed that in a revolution, the new Base would start building within the old society, and then the Superstructure would change and a revolution would happen. So far so good, I can roughly agree with this, based on my reading of Marx.

The article then however goes on to say that strands of Leninism, particularly in the "real existing socialist countries" rejected this notion, saying that it only applied to antagonist revolutions, and that in a socialist revolution, the Superstructure would have to be created first, only then could the new Base be built. They don't cite any sources whatsoever, so can anyone tell me where it comes from? Is this some justification for the actions of those regimes (purges, state capitalism, etc.), or does it actually appear in Lenin's writings?

[ComradeOm]

In the first place it has to be noted that the base/superstructure relationship (itself an abstraction) is a dialectical one; that is, it is not strictly deterministic and is much more than simple cause and effect. The economic base influences the political superstructure but is in turn also influenced by the latter. To quote Engels (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_25.htm):


Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. The state, for instance, exercises an influence by tariffs, free trade, good or bad fiscal system...Emphasis in original. So while "economic necessity" may ultimately be the decisive factor, there are still other factors that must be accounted for

As for the Leninist stance - I can't comment for Trotskyists or Stalinists - there is no one piece of dogma that explains away the apparent contradiction. This was however a problem that Soviet economists wrestled with post-revolution and particularly after the collapse of War Communism. The debate is caught up in the politics of the time (these were policy discussions rather than simply speculation) and particularly with regards the backwards nature of the Russian economy. I'll very briefly quote from Preobrazhensky's The New Economics (1926) regarding the difference in the initial evolutionary stages of capitalism and socialism:


Bourgeois revolutions begin after capitalist has gone far in building up its system in the economic sphere. The bourgeois revolution is only an episode in the process of bourgeois development, which begins long before the revolution and goes on more rapidly after it. The socialist system, on the contrary, begins its chronology with the seizure of power by the proletariat. This follows from the very essence of the socialist economy as a single complex which cannot be built up molecularly within the world of capitalism. While merchant capital could develop in the pores of feudal society, while the first capitalist enterprises could function without coming into irreconcilable contradiction with the existing political structures and property-forms... the complex of socialist production can appear only as a result of breaking through the old system all along the line, only as a result of social revolution. This fact is of colossal significance for understanding not only the genesis of socialism, but also the entire subsequent process of socialist construction.

...

Primitive capitalist accumulation could take place on the basis of feudalism whereas primitive socialist accumulation cannot take place on the basis of capitalism. Consequently, if socialism has a pre-history, this can only begin after the conquest of power by the proletariat. The nationalisation of large-scale industry is the first act of socialist accumulation, that is, the act which concentrates in the hands of the state the minimum resources needed for the organisation of socialist leadership of industry. But... in socialising large-scale production the proletarian state by this very act changes from the start the system of ownership of the means of production: it adapts the system of ownership to its future steps in the matter of socialist reconstruction of the whole economy. In other words, the working class acquires by revolution only that which capitalism already possessed... . Primitive socialist accumulation, as a period of the creation of the material prerequisites for socialist production in the true sense of the word could only begin with the seizure of power.