Ussr

[Kropotkin93]

Okay, i have used the search function, but couldn't really find that much :(

Firstly, i'm sure most here agree that the USSR was not communist, it was sort of stuck in the transition stage to a stateless communist society. My question here is why didn't the soviet union complete this final stage, and how long do you think it would have taken if it hadnt collapsed? did the USSR just degenerate into a beurocratic, authoritarian regime, or was it perhaps infiltrated by bourgeosie elements?

What do you guys think went wrong?

[Rusty Shackleford]

No sane socialist or communist sees the fSU as communist. or any other self proclaimed socialist state with a communist government as communist.

the soviet union couldnt just become communist so long as imperialist powers and capitalism remained elsewhere in the world. socialism may have come into existence in varying degrees at varying times in the fSU but the rest of the world needed to overthrow capitalism as well. so long as it exists, capitalism will seek to destroy socialism to open up markets to sell commodities and exploit labor.

as for its fall, the partys leadership slowly shifted to the right to such a point where even people like Yeltsin and Gorbachev had high positions in the CPSU. as for it being "authoritarian" the state is a tool of repression which a class wields to maintain its position. it is a product of class society. and the fSU was by no means a classless society, and the world itself was most definitely not a classless society. therefore the state remained to protect the gains of the working class in the october revolution. In the US for example, the state caters to the interests of the bourgeoisie, the capitalists.

so, wherever the is a state, there is authoritarianism. and repression. but it is along class lines and interests.

[Comrade_Oscar]

The Soviet Union was far from being a stateless communist society and it would've taken it an extremely long time to transition to a stateless society. The main reasons for collapse were the war in Afghanistan, corruption, traitors, and outside imperialist pressure.

[Kropotkin93]

therefore the state remained to protect the gains of the working class in the october revolution

So you think that stalin and later leaders were working in the interest of the working class? i.e. they were still the vanguard party, or do you think that they just became corrupt and protected the interests of the new elite class (nomenklatura or whatever you want to call them)?

[Jose Gracchus]

One can dispute the role played by objective material factors, as well as the subjective role of Social Democratic ideology, organization, and political practice, as well as particularly influential individual actors, e.g., Lenin and Trotsky, but the fact remains that soviet power--working-class power--was destroyed by the end of 1918. The Bolshevik leadership moved to coup the soviets when they lost in over a dozen cities in 1918, used a bomb plot by a rogue cell of their only coalition partner (who they had frozen out of legislation, particularly the peace settlement negotiations) as a pretext to repress the entire party, and subordinated the factory organizations to a state bureaucracy.

Attempts to reinvigorate the rule of the immediate producers in 1921 were utterly crushed, in particular in the Kronstadt "uprising" (in fact an unprovoked act of direct repression).

[VirgJans12]

The Soviet-Union was never near a communism. In the beginning, under Stalin, it had a very strict regime, but it had more socialist elements than at the end, under Gorbatsjov's rule, who ruled gently but introduced capitalism to the USSR.

If it hadn't collapsed, it would have been among the first to transit into a communism, once the rest of the world was a socialism. But that would have taken a long time, possibly hundreds of years. It would also need leaders that apply both the socialist doctrine as well as progression towards communism (by applying democratic centralization on the entire population and such). But giving power away seems to be a problem for a lot of leaders.

[Hebrew Hammer]

So you think that stalin and later leaders were working in the interest of the working class? i.e. they were still the vanguard party, or do you think that they just became corrupt and protected the interests of the new elite class (nomenklatura or whatever you want to call them)?

Stalin, yes, Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders post-Stalin? No, it is by Krushchev and his revisionism, that the USSR slowly began to corrode and degrade into state-capitalism before finally collapsing.

[Thirsty Crow]

Stalin, yes, Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders post-Stalin? No, it is by Krushchev and his revisionism, that the USSR slowly began to corrode and degrade into state-capitalism before finally collapsing.
So, you are completely willing to attribute a social revolution (the transition from one mode of production to another; in this case, from the supposed classless socialism - at least, classless in the sense of antagonistic classes - and state directed capitalism), or counterrevolution if you will, to a set of ideas held by a group of people ("Kruschev and his revisionism") which then resulted in specific counter-revolutionary political practice?

Wow, I guess that the materialist conception of history is out of the window then.


The Bolshevik leadership moved to coup the soviets when they lost in over a dozen cities in 1918, used a bomb plot by a rogue cell of their only coalition partner (who they had frozen out of legislation, particularly the peace settlement negotiations) as a pretext to repress the entire party, and subordinated the factory organizations to a state bureaucracy.
Just one point regarding the bolded part: as far as I'm aware, the Left SR's argued for a "revolutionary war", which enough of an issue for anyone to feel OK with them frozen out of te peace settlement negotiations.