Why did the USSR stagnate and collapse? [Archive]

Rafiq

28th January 2012, 03:36

It collapsed because it was a state capitalist shithole and ruling class was tired of "state" part and wanted more economical liberties

This is just as valid as the "Revisionism theory" or the "Everything was good until Gorbachev theory".

The reason behind the collapse of the Soviet Union and it's friends, of course, was due to internal contradictions with capitalist systems. But we must ask ourselves: Why could it not surpass the capitalist mode of production?

The main answer we will get, is that the Bolsheviks became too authoritarian and power corrupted. This arises with "Why did the Bolsheviks become Authoritarian, etc.". This answer is antithetical with materialism. You have to drop one or the other, either you drop materialist consistency, or you drop the power corrupts bullshit. I'm a materialist, so I'll go with the latter.

The truth is that all the policies made by the Bolsheviks, from the Revolution to the Civil war, even threw the 20's, were of absolute necessity to protect the revolution. There is a reason why Amadeo Bordiga said Stalin was the gravedigger of the revolution and not the destroyer or killer.

It's because Stalin was just, like any gravedigger, doing his part, digging the grave for something that already died. Stalin was merely changing the direction the country was going because he had to (Remember that old propaganda cartoon of Stalin as a captain of a ship :D) Stalin had to adjust completely to the capitalist mode of production and to the world market. But why? Let us take a step closer to Marx and Engels. They very much stressed any successful proletarian revolution had to exist in an Industrialized, already fully capitalist country, if any others were to spread. There are several reasons for this. For one, if a revolution spreads to one industrialized country, it can spread to them all. And if it spreads to them all, this automatically abolishes the world market, and Imperialism. And if it abolishes Imperialism and the world market, countries like the Soviet Union would not have had to adjust themselves to the material conditions of the world, and start trading with Britain, or befriending regimes like that of Ataturk.

And, Imperialism aside, even if they left the country alone, Russia still needed help. Industrializing a country isn't easy, without capitalism. I mean, with the counter revolution, the Bolshevik party had to focus on doing things like distributing shoes to the masses, something that would have been taken care of with a capitalist industrial revolution. But imagine if the revolution would have spread to Germany, or France, Or Britain, etc. There would be an international effort to industrialize Russia, and it would have been carried out (even if it was done within the capitalist mode of production) without the famines, the purges, and the paranoia.

The failing of the Soviet Union was not a result of the building of Socialism, but of it's degeneracy. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. But wait, do you remember how we learned, that Capital does not abide by a limit (David Harvey?) There is a certain truth to this. The USSR constantly had to go through different stages, to prolong the death of it's own capitalism. From Stalin's changes, to Khrushchev Revisionism, to Brezhnev's policies, all the way to Gorbachev, and finally, death. Much like how the United States (And parts of Europe) went threw it's War time keynsianism, to Keynsianism-Welfare-State, to Neo-Liberalism, and to now, death. Like the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, there is no way out.

Caj

28th January 2012, 04:18

You have to drop one or the other, either you drop materialist consistency, or you drop the power corrupts bullshit. I'm a materialist, so I'll go with the latter.

So the notion that power has the potential to corrupt individuals is completely foreign to you? Power has absolutely no potential for corruption? That doesn't sound too materialist to me. . . .

The truth is that all the policies made by the Bolsheviks, from the Revolution to the Civil war, even threw the 20's, were of absolute necessity to protect the revolution.

That's quite an assertion. In what way was reversing all strides made towards socialism during the Revolution at the same time a protection of the Revolution?

Paulappaul

28th January 2012, 04:44

So the notion that power has the potential to corrupt individuals is completely foreign to you? Power has absolutely no potential for corruption? That doesn't sound too materialist to me. . . .

Power isn't a thing, so how could it be materialist?

That's quite an assertion. In what way was reversing all strides made towards socialism during the Revolution at the same time a protection of the Revolution?

I don't think he means the proletarian content, I think he means that by necessity of its material conditions, there had to be Bourgeois Revolution and the actions of the Bolsheviks were to protect the Bourgeois content of that revolution as to create the conditions for Socialism.

Veovis

28th January 2012, 04:46

That's quite an assertion. In what way was reversing all strides made towards socialism during the Revolution at the same time a protection of the Revolution?

I think he means it destroyed the revolution, but it was successful in keeping the Bolsheviks in power.

Die Neue Zeit

28th January 2012, 17:36

Let's consider two key policy debates during the Brezhnev period that underratedly characterized the stagnation.

Supporters of the "Brezhnev program" were all things to all economic sectors as much as possible. They emphasized agriculture and defense industry, but resources were doled out everywhere else, too. Supporters of the "Kosygin program" emphasized light industry. Supporters of the "Suslov program" emphasized defense industry and also the rest of heavy industry, the basis of scientific research and development. The likes of CC Secretary Andrei Kirilenko came around to supporting the "Suslov program" but failed to win the rest of the leadership over.

[Re. computerization and planning: that would fall under the broader "Suslov program" that actually continued Stalin's development preferences.]

Another key aspect was the discovery of more petroleum and natural gas in the Soviet Union. The balance of energy vs. the rest of heavy industry is tilted towards the former in countries rich with these resources.

Psy

28th January 2012, 18:18

eyedrop

28th January 2012, 18:42

Power isn't a thing, so how could it be materialist?

How about rephrasing it to 'social conditions/relations generally shape people', and running a huge economy top-down was certainly shaped how they saw the world.

Anyway I think people are pure shit anyway, they only show it when given the opportunity.

Die Neue Zeit

28th January 2012, 19:18

The problem was the USSR economy was not geared for maximizing the production of use value, instead the USSR economy was geared towards exports to accumulate foreign currencies. For example what utility was the production of T-72M tanks to sell to nations like Iraq from the standpoint of USSR, in reality the USSR export production was nothing but wasted production as the Comecon nations had everything to be self-sufficient thus any production for export was selling at a loss as of course capitalists won't pay full value for any commodity as capitalists never pay for the full value of labor.

Thus as world capital markets experienced crises after the long boom the USSR was effected as the devaluation of commodity prices meant the USSR got less and less surplus value through exports.

Indeed, some foreign currencies weren't really worth much.

I wouldn't go as far as you did with your statement, though. "Export" of civilian-industrial and military equipment to the rest of the Warsaw Pact was OK, but military exports to Iraq beyond the likes of rifles could have been better diverted to domestic heavy industry and even light industry.

On a side note, what do you make of Germany's role in Europe today? Are their exports wasted production, as well?

Rafiq

28th January 2012, 19:19

So the notion that power has the potential to corrupt individuals is completely foreign to you? Power has absolutely no potential for corruption? That doesn't sound too materialist to me. . . .

Power has no potential for corruption. Again, things don't "Corrupt". They change in accordance with certain material conditions. And power does not equate to material conditions. So, like I said, you must either drop materialist consistancy, or the power corrupts theory (Bourgeois thought).

Materialist does not mean: "Balanced". It's beyond me why that doesn't sound materialist to you, perhaps it's because materialism is something alien to your mode of thinking to begin with.

That's quite an assertion. In what way was reversing all strides made towards socialism during the Revolution at the same time a protection of the Revolution?

The fact that, if the Bolsheviks were to give supreme executive power to the soviets, the White Army would have crushed them immidietly. The working class was a minority in Russia, anyway, so it's not as if there was a "direct democracy" or any of that crap to begin with. Councils do not provide themselves useful in mobilizing mass numbers of people in mass regions, nor do they provide themselves as efficient in combating 17 of the world's most powerful nations plus the internal counter revolution and sabotage.

This is why we oppose Idealism. A fair system does not mean an efficient system. The efficiency of a system is not defined by how "fair" or "Democratic" it is.

Rafiq

28th January 2012, 19:21

I think he means it destroyed the revolution, but it was successful in keeping the Bolsheviks in power.

It's like this: You are a child, playing with a toy (The toy symbolizes the gains made from the revolution, and the child is the bolshevik party). A bully comes and wants to break your toy at all costs. So, you must temporarily stop playing with your toy, put it in storage, and deal with the bully. After you are done dealing with the bully, the repair shop has closed down (The Failure of the International Revolution). Now your toy is broken, and there's nothing you can do, eventually, you just throw it away. (The absence of having toys is the creation of the bourgeois classes). Keep in mind I don't mean to say that this is a maturity issue or anything, it's just an analogy.

soviechetnik

29th January 2012, 01:30

I think that's because the Soviet people lost morality and faith in God or some higher purpose,whatever you wish.Especially during Stalin's reign of terror.

Psy

29th January 2012, 02:16

Indeed, some foreign currencies weren't really worth much.

I wouldn't go as far as you did with your statement, though. "Export" of civilian-industrial and military equipment to the rest of the Warsaw Pact was OK, but military exports to Iraq beyond the likes of rifles could have been better diverted to domestic heavy industry and even light industry.

Right but I meant export as trading outside the Comecon.

On a side note, what do you make of Germany's role in Europe today? Are their exports wasted production, as well?
Well for Germany they are fully into the capitalist mode of production thus anything that makes surplus value is logical, the problem with the USSR had higher labor costs due to the legacies from the Bolshevik revolution. Of course the higher labor costs wouldn't have been an issue in a mode of production that actually is geared towards use value.

Ostrinski

29th January 2012, 02:20

I think that's because the Soviet people lost morality and faith in God or some higher purpose,whatever you wish.Especially during Stalin's reign of terror.yeah prob

Sir Comradical

29th January 2012, 03:56

I think that's because the Soviet people lost morality and faith in God or some higher purpose,whatever you wish.Especially during Stalin's reign of terror.

lolwtf

runequester

29th January 2012, 04:24

Revolution starts with U

29th January 2012, 04:41

Power has no potential for corruption. Again, things don't "Corrupt". They change in accordance with certain material conditions. And power does not equate to material conditions. So, like I said, you must either drop materialist consistancy, or the power corrupts theory (Bourgeois thought).

One person having de facto authority over another (even tho to have de jure authority over a person is impossible) is not a material situation? Sily me, I see it happening all the time... what am I looking at?

It's like this; you're working at your job and your boss tells you to do something or get fired. This is a material situation, correct? How then does your boss not "have power over you?"

I don't like the idea of power corrupting people (it would be more like people corrupting power). But to think the power cannot be seen as an end in itself, in the real world, is just wrong.

Klaatu

29th January 2012, 05:17

Why did the USSR stagnate and collapse?

IMHO, it had a lot to do with their gargantuan military spending. They simply bankrupted themselves... and in much the same way, the United States' Military-Industrial Complex is bankrupting America. President Eisenhower warned of this way back in 1961, and he was right.

Geiseric

29th January 2012, 07:54

Because world revolution wasn't a goal for the U.S.S.R. during the world depression in the late 1920s -30s, the goal was to preserve the existing beuracracy's role in the society they had authority in. And Socialism in One Country doesn't nor will it ever work. World economies are intevitably intertwined, so any attempt to cut one's country off from the rest, regardless of revolutionary consciousness or any political factors, will fail. However "preserving socialism" in the U.S.S.R. meant signing trade agreements and treaties with western capitalists. So really it wasn't even "socialism," but it was a post revolutionary society ruled by a state beuracracy.

Rooster

29th January 2012, 08:21

Power isn't a thing, so how could it be materialist?

I think you'll find that power is a thing, unless you think that no one can hold power. Do we just abandon all social relations then? :glare:

Psy

29th January 2012, 16:20

Anyone giving you a single, simple answer about something this complex is a fool.

A few things that were factors, amongst hundreds of others:

Nationalism was not overcome, leading to the 1990 and 91 crisis.

Setting success by comparison to united states.

Of course a workers state would compare themselves with the major capitalist powers as you have to be better them at them at industrial production, you have transform raw minerals into use value through the application of labor better then any capitalist even though capitalists are looking at exchange value not use value.

Lack of focus on research and development later on.

The USSR had good R&D the problem was many prototypes never made it to mass production in the USSR as the bureaucracy didn't retooling production as fast as USSR R&D came up with new working prototypes, for example Gosplan couldn't keep up with the rate Zelenograd was producing new electronic products ready for mass production, as by the time Gosplan could evaluate new Zelenograd technology Zelenograd announced that was now totally obsolete and that totally new technology for Gosplan to approve. This is why Zelenograd pushed for computer based planning with the idea Gosplan was obsolete and holding back the march of technology and that the computerization of all of the USSR was the next step towards communism allowing for the processes of economic planning to be partially automated by super computers connected through a centralized computer network.

Being reduced to a wartorn ruin twice in one century put the country on a permanent economic back footing.

Japan rebounded, so it shouldn't have been an issue for the Comecon to surpass the USA in industrial might with the proper economic planning.

No cheap foreign labour and imports to flood the market in consumer goods, leading people to wrongly associate communism with poverty.

Not needed for a production for use economy as you not aiming for surplus value in the production process. Your goal in a production for use economy is to mechanize production processes in order to generate abundance of utility.

daft punk

29th January 2012, 19:20

The revolution degenerated because of it's isolation in a backward country, and Stalin personified the degeneration as described in post 3.

I would add that Stalin speeded up the degeneration. First he wrecked the Chinese revolution, not deliberately at the time. Also he concentrated on favouring the rich peasants whereas Lenin and Trotsky wanted to tax them, and he did little to get the small peasants encouraged into cooperatives as Lenin and Trotsky had urged. And he only realised the need to industrialise after kicking out Trotsky, who's idea it was (plus Lenin).

He based himself on the middle class and wealthy to get at Trotsky and so the middle class and wealthy, gaining in numbers and power, launched a bid for power as Trotsky had predicted. Stalin was forced to collectivise.

Anyway, the root of why the regime slowly ground to a halt is that a planned economy needs democracy.

Lenin spelled it out in 1922, sort of, when he slated the Moscow Consumers Association for going to the Bolshevik Central Committee for a decision on buying canned meat. He said he was sick of red tape, bureaucracy, passing the buck and so on. It needed ordinary CP members to get learning how to administer and make decisions. But Stalin was working on turning it into a one man dictatorship from the day Lenin died, in fact even before, right back to 1918.

u.s.red

29th January 2012, 22:06

The USSR stagnated and died for the reason that Marx and Engels said the socialist state would wither and die: there was no class left to suppress in the soviet union. however, since the soviet union was surrounded by capitalism, a new type of capitalist state arose to fill the vacuum.

runequester

30th January 2012, 02:49

Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin Stalin

If stalin is the blame, why didn't the anti-stalinists that took power since then reverse the course taken?

Paulappaul

30th January 2012, 09:09

I think you'll find that power is a thing, unless you think that no one can hold power. Do we just abandon all social relations then? :glare:

Can you send me power for Christmas? :wub:

Please wrap it up with a big red bow too!

daft punk

30th January 2012, 10:00

If stalin is the blame, why didn't the anti-stalinists that took power since then reverse the course taken?

Khrushchev denounced the purges etc but he still maintained a dictatorship. The economy did move along in the 1950s and 60s but started slowing down after that. A planned economy needs decision making at low levels, as Lenin and Trotsky said.

Lenin, speech to 1922 congress:

"How could 4,700 responsible officials (and this is only according to the census) decide a matter like purchasing food abroad without the consent of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee? This would be something supernatural, of course. "

"We must all understand that this is a matter of state, a business matter; and if obstacles arise we must be able to overcome them and take proceedings against those who are guilty of red tape. "

"That is how the matter stands and that is the difficulty that confronts us. Any salesman trained in a large capitalist enterprise knows how to settle a matter like that; but ninety-nine responsible Communists out of a hundred do not. And they refuse to understand that they do not know how and that they must learn the ABC of this business. Unless we realise this, unless we sit down in the preparatory class again, we shall never be able to solve the economic problem that now lies at the basis of our entire policy."

So, the problem was ignorance of the communists, passing the buck, not getting decisions made.

In other words, you cant run a planned economy if every decision has to go to the top. He was slagging down the Moscow Communists for asking the CC if they could buy canned meat from France.

He also explained how the bureaucracy, which they inherited from the Tsar, was more clued up than the communists, and was taking over:

"If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed."

"This is a very unpleasant admission to make, or, at any rate, not a very pleasant one; but I think we must admit it, for at present this is the salient problem. I think that this is the political lesson of the past year; and it is around this that the struggle will rage in 1922."

Also he said that the retreat must come to an end:

"
But when in the spring of 1921 it turned out that the vanguard of the revolution was in danger of becoming isolated from the masses of the people, from the masses of the peasants, whom it must skilfully lead forward, we unanimously and firmly decided to retreat. And on the whole, during the past year we retreated in good revolutionary order.
The proletarian revolutions maturing in all advanced countries of the world will be unable to solve their problems unless they combine the ability to fight heroically and to attack with the ability to retreat in good revolutionary order. The experience of the second period of our struggle, i.e., the experience of retreat, will in the future probably be just as useful to the workers of at least some countries, as the experience of the first period of our revolution, i.e., the experience of bold attack, will undoubtedly prove useful to the workers of all countries.
Now we have decided to halt the retreat.
This means that the entire object of our policy must be formulated in a new way."

In other words the NEP must not go too far, needs to be slowly wound up

"The main thing now is to advance as an immeasurably wider and larger mass, and only together with the peasantry, proving to them by deeds, in practice, by experience, that we are learning, and that we shall learn to assist them, to lead them forward. In the present international situation, in the present state of the productive forces of Russia, this problem can be solved only very slowly, cautiously, in a business-like way, and by testing a thousand times in a practical way every step that is taken."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

In 1923 he stressed the need to get the poor peasants into co-operatives. He said it would take 10-20 years. The cooperatives must be given privileges to make them attractive to the small peasant, ie financial subsidy.

"All we actually need under NEP is to organize the population of Russia in cooperative societies on a sufficiently large-scale, for we have now found the degree of combination of private interest, of private commercial interest, with state supervision and control of this interest, that degree of its subordination to the common interests which was formerly the stumbling block for very many socialists. Indeed, the power of the state over all large-scale means of production, political power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured proletarian leadership of the peasantry, etc. — is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society out of cooperatives, out of cooperatives alone, which we formerly ridiculed as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to treat as such now, under NEP? Is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society? It is still not the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for it.
It is this very circumstance that is underestimated by many of our practical workers. They look down upon cooperative societies, failing to appreciate their exceptional importance, first, from the standpoint of principal (the means of production are owned by the state), and, second, from the standpoint of transition to the new system by means that are the simplest, easiest and most acceptable to the peasant.
But this again is a fundamental importance. It is one thing to draw out fantastic plans for building socialism through all sorts of workers associations, and quite another to learn to build socialism in practice in such a way that every small peasant could take part in it. That is the very stage we have now reached. And there is no doubt that, having reached it, we are taking too little advantage of it.
We went too far when we reintroduced NEP, but not because we attached too much importance to the principal of free enterprise and trade — we want too far because we lost sight of the cooperatives, because we now underrate cooperatives, because we are already beginning to forget the vast importance of the cooperatives from the above two points of view.
I now propose to discuss with the reader what can and must at once be done practically on the basis of this “cooperative” principle. By what means can we, and must we, start at once to develop this “cooperative" principle so that its socialist meaning may be clear to all?
Cooperation must be politically so organized that it will not only generally and always enjoy certain privileges, but that these privileges should be of a purely material nature (a favorable bank rate, etc.). The cooperatives must be granted state loans that are greater, if only by a little, than the loans we grant to private enterprises, even to heavy industry, etc."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

He also said the rich peasants must be heavily taxed.

"the rich peasant not to be expropriated, but taxed equitably, heavily
middle peasants to be taxed lightly
poor peasants-not at all."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/sep/21.htm

Stalin did the opposite. The rich got richer and nobody joined cooperatives.

Trotsky:

"In 1925, when the course toward the kulak was in full swing, Stalin began to prepare for the denationalization of the land. To a question asked at his suggestion by a Soviet journalist: “Would it not be expedient in the interest of agriculture to deed over to each peasant for 10 years the parcel of land tilled by him?”, Stalin answered: “Yes, and even for 40 years.” The People’s Commissar of Agriculture of Georgia, upon Stalin’s own initiative, introduced the draft of a law denationalizing the land. The aim was to give the farmer confidence in his own future. While this was going on, in the spring of 1926, almost 60 per cent of the grain destined for sale was in the hands of 6 per cent of the peasant proprietors! The state lacked grain not only for foreign trade, but even for domestic needs. The insignificance of exports made it necessary to forego bringing in articles of manufacture, and cut down to the limit the import of machinery and raw materials."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch02.htm

The Left Opposition had protested this:

"The revision of Lenin on the peasant question being carried through by the Stalin-Bukharin group may be summed up in the following eight principal points:

Abandonment of the fundamental principle of Marxism, that only a powerful socialized industry can help the peasants transform agriculture along collectivist lines.
Underestimation of hired labour and the peasant poor as the social basis of the proletarian dictatorship in the country districts.
Basing our hopes in agriculture upon the so-called “economically strong” peasant, i.e., in reality on the kulak.
Ignoring or directly denying the petty-bourgeois character of peasant property and peasant economy – a departure from the Marxian position towards the theories of the Socialist Revolutionaries.
Underestimation of the capitalist elements in the present development of the countryside, and hushing up of the class differentiations that are taking place among the peasants.
The creation of soothing theories to the effect that “the kulak and kulak organizations will have no chance anyway, because the general framework of evolution in our country is predetermined by the structure of the proletarian dictatorship.” [3] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch03.htm#n3)
Belief in the “grafting into our system of kulak cooperative nuclei”. [4] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch03.htm#n4) “The problem may be expressed thus, that it is necessary to set free the economic possibilities of the well-oft peasant, the economic possibilities of the kulak.” [5] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch03.htm#n5)
The attempt to counterpoise Lenin’s “co-operative plan” to his plan of electrification. According to Lenin himself, only these two plans in combination can guarantee the transition to socialism."

"The growth of land-renting must be offset by a more rapid development of collective farming. It is necessary systematically and from year to year to subsidize largely the efforts of the poor peasants to organize in collectives."

"The task of the party in relation to the growing kulak stratum ought to consist in the all-sided limitation of their efforts at exploitation. We must permit no departures from that article in our constitution depriving the exploiting class of electoral rights in the soviets. The following measures are necessary: A steeply progressive tax system; legislative measures for the defence of hired labour and the regulation of the wages of agricultural workers; a correct class policy in the matter of land division and utilization; the same thing in the matter of supplying the country with tractors and other implements of production."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/ch03.htm

But Stalin wanted to get rid of Trotsky so he leaned on the right - Bukharin, the kulaks and so on against him. Stalin did the opposite of what Lenin and Trotsky proposed. By 1928 only 2.9% of the land was collectively farmed, 2.5% of all farms. The kulaks had got richer and after Trotsky was kicked out they challenged for power.

Stalin was forced into a hasty collectivisation after all. Not the gradual voluntary one envisaged by Lenin, but a desperate brutal one to crush the enemies he himself had allowed to arise from 1924-8.

Forced collectivisation began in Feb 1929 and caused millions to die of hunger because of the way it was done.

Lenin and Trotsky had said to do it slowly, subsidising the cooperatives for the poor peasants so they would be enticed into joining.

The CC's Feb 1929 resolution said ‘Ukraine should in the shortest period provide models of the organization of a large nationalized economy.’They proposed to collectivise over 20% of the land in just over a year.

Rooster

30th January 2012, 15:16

Can you send me power for Christmas? :wub:

Please wrap it up with a big red bow too!

Can I wrap up a social relation?

Pirx

30th January 2012, 19:18

Not to forget the arms race imposed by USA and NATO, which always were one step ahead. Military spending in the USSR never reached more than 57% of their US counterpart. Nevertheless - that meant ca 15% of GDP, compared to 5% in the USA.

Xylophage

31st January 2012, 05:53

The comments above that talk about a "collapse" of the Soviet Union as a result of "stagnation" are unconsciously reciting the lies found in the bourgeois discourse about this topic. Many of the overly complicated hypotheses above about society's alleged dissatisfaction with life, high military spending, nationalism, etc really have no basis in the historical facts. The Trotskyist jargon about the "degeneration" of the revolution is absurd and not to be taken seriously. The theories about the inevitability of the end of the Soviet system because of its allegedly inherent flaws belongs in theology, not in the historical sciences.

There was no stagnation in in the Soviet Union's economic, social and cultural life in the 5 years prior to Gorbachev's initiation of "perestroika". A country that experienced severe economic stagnation was Japan in the 1990s. By contrast, the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1980s achieved decent rates of economic and social growth. For the Five-Year Plan of 1981-1985, the national income grew by 3.6%, industry by 3.7%, and the average wages of the workers ended up being 113% of the 1981 level. During the same period, W. Germany and England both had average annual rates of GDP growth of about 1.5%. Gorbachev when he assumed leadership embarked on the rewriting of history by portraying things in a disastrous light in order to justify his own aggressive policies. The "stagnation" myth then became established in western bourgeois historiography and to a lesser in Russia. But in the period from 1980-1989, the Soviet economy performed relatively well.

It's a total misnomer to talk about a "collapse" of the Soviet Union. There was no collapse, but rather a hijacking and subsequent dissolving of the economic and social system by Yeltsin and his gang. This was all preceded by power struggles between various sets of political actors, particularly that between Yeltsin and Gorbachev in 1990-91. Gorbachev himself came out on top in the Party in 1985 as a result of power struggles with democratic forces of the CPSU represented by G. Romanov, Y. Ligachev, and others. Having established control, Gorbachev proceeded to purge the leadership of democrats, as shown by ousting of A. Gromyko from the Foreign Ministry, the expulsion of his chief rival G. Romanov from the Politburo, who were replaced by his own revisionist allies. Gorbachev ended up alienating even the own government he appointed, which tried to drive out Gorbachev in August 1991, but were unsuccessful owing primarily to poor strategy. The revisionist Gorbachev-led clique ended up crippling the Party, which left the Russian people leaderless in the struggle against the counter-revolutionary wave, against which insufficient measures were taken to defend the country.

So the Soviet Union came to an end because of politics and particularly the power struggles between several sets of political actors. To get rid of his nemesis Gorbachev and come out on top, Yeltsin (illegally) brought out the so-called Belavezha Accord that did away with the Soviet Union.

leading people to wrongly associate communism with poverty.
Research shows that Russian people considered themselves well-off on the eve of the initiation of perestroika. Sociological Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences did a study in 1986 showing that 75% of the respondents considered themselves better off compared to the previous 10 years. 95% of respondents said they were "fairly well off": asked what "well off" meant, 38% said material well-being, 31% a good family, 29% an interesting job, 25% social justice. This is all summarized in the Update USSR periodical. So not only was there no stagnation in terms of the performance of the economy, it's also proven that Russians felt that things were getting better rather than worse.

But Stalin wanted to get rid of Trotsky so he leaned on the right - Bukharin
This has nothing to do with the Soviet 1980s.

Because world revolution wasn't a goal for the U.S.S.R. during the world depression in the late 1920s -30s, the goal was to preserve the existing beuracracy's role in the society they had authority in. And Socialism in One Country doesn't nor will it ever work.
You are wrong. Read some Lenin - he proves that socialism can be established in a few countries or even in a single country.

IMHO, it had a lot to do with their gargantuan military spending. They simply bankrupted themselves...
This is yet more bourgeois falsification of history. Rather than being bankrupt, the Soviet Union was a creditor involved with the COMECON countries and developing countries like Iraq and Ethiopia.

Nationalism was not overcome, leading to the 1990 and 91 crisis.

There was no nationalism in Russia, Belorussia, and most of Ukraine. The peoples of the Asian republics, which had large numbers of Russians, were just as pro-Soviet as the Russians. A lot of the nationalism during this time such as Armenian-Azerbaijani, Georgian-Ossetian, and others had nothing to do with Soviet power and was not anti-Russian, but instead resembled the pre-1918 ethnic clashes. There was poisonous nationalism in the in the Baltic republics, but there is no explanation as to why Soviet power could not have dealt with this similar to Chinese comrades' handling of Tibet and Xinjiang. The places where nationalism was strong composed no more than 5% of Soviet population and land. Had they seceded, that would still leave 95% of the USSR intact. So nationalism was widespread in tiny parts of the Soviet Union, but was virtually absent in the Slavic and Turkic republics.

daft punk

31st January 2012, 10:34

The comments above that talk about a "collapse" of the Soviet Union as a result of "stagnation" are unconsciously reciting the lies found in the bourgeois discourse about this topic. Many of the overly complicated hypotheses above about society's alleged dissatisfaction with life, high military spending, nationalism, etc really have no basis in the historical facts. The Trotskyist jargon about the "degeneration" of the revolution is absurd and not to be taken seriously. The theories about the inevitability of the end of the Soviet system because of its allegedly inherent flaws belongs in theology, not in the historical sciences.

There was no stagnation in in the Soviet Union's economic, social and cultural life in the 5 years prior to Gorbachev's initiation of "perestroika". A country that experienced severe economic stagnation was Japan in the 1990s. By contrast, the Soviet Union in the first half of the 1980s achieved decent rates of economic and social growth. For the Five-Year Plan of 1981-1985, the national income grew by 3.6%, industry by 3.7%, and the average wages of the workers ended up being 113% of the 1981 level. During the same period, W. Germany and England both had average annual rates of GDP growth of about 1.5%. Gorbachev when he assumed leadership embarked on the rewriting of history by portraying things in a disastrous light in order to justify his own aggressive policies. The "stagnation" myth then became established in western bourgeois historiography and to a lesser in Russia. But in the period from 1980-1989, the Soviet economy performed relatively well.

It's a total misnomer to talk about a "collapse" of the Soviet Union. There was no collapse, but rather a hijacking and subsequent dissolving of the economic and social system by Yeltsin and his gang. This was all preceded by power struggles between various sets of political actors, particularly that between Yeltsin and Gorbachev in 1990-91. Gorbachev himself came out on top in the Party in 1985 as a result of power struggles with democratic forces of the CPSU represented by G. Romanov, Y. Ligachev, and others. Having established control, Gorbachev proceeded to purge the leadership of democrats, as shown by ousting of A. Gromyko from the Foreign Ministry, the expulsion of his chief rival G. Romanov from the Politburo, who were replaced by his own revisionist allies. Gorbachev ended up alienating even the own government he appointed, which tried to drive out Gorbachev in August 1991, but were unsuccessful owing primarily to poor strategy. The revisionist Gorbachev-led clique ended up crippling the Party, which left the Russian people leaderless in the struggle against the counter-revolutionary wave, against which insufficient measures were taken to defend the country.

So the Soviet Union came to an end because of politics and particularly the power struggles between several sets of political actors. To get rid of his nemesis Gorbachev and come out on top, Yeltsin (illegally) brought out the so-called Belavezha Accord that did away with the Soviet Union.

Research shows that Russian people considered themselves well-off on the eve of the initiation of perestroika. Sociological Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences did a study in 1986 showing that 75% of the respondents considered themselves better off compared to the previous 10 years. 95% of respondents said they were "fairly well off": asked what "well off" meant, 38% said material well-being, 31% a good family, 29% an interesting job, 25% social justice. This is all summarized in the Update USSR periodical. So not only was there no stagnation in terms of the performance of the economy, it's also proven that Russians felt that things were getting better rather than worse.

Well, according to wikipedia, the Soviet economy stood still between 1979 and 1985. It is called the Era of Stagflation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union#1970.E2.80.931990

Whatever the growth figure are for particular years are I dunno, but we know that Russians only earned half as much as Americans.

Anyway, you say Yeltsin hijacked Russia and made it capitalist. This is true. How could a few people hijack a communist country where the working class are in power? Impossible. How could an elite in a dictatorship hijack a country? Quite easily.

And why did they do it? Largely because it was preferable than some revolution from below which might demand democratic socialism, with no elite at the top taking the piss.

DP: "But Stalin wanted to get rid of Trotsky so he leaned on the right - Bukharin "

This has nothing to do with the Soviet 1980s.

Stalin didn't try to fight the takeover by the bureaucracy, he took the lead. He used the right wing to get rid of Trotsky. He established a bureaucratic elite as dictatorship. In 1989 that elite went over to a different form of rule.

You are wrong. Read some Lenin - he proves that socialism can be established in a few countries or even in a single country.
Wrong.

""But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism." "
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/feb/x01.htm

Even Stalin in the spring of 1924 said

“Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. "
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism

a few months later he reversed that.

Strannik

31st January 2012, 12:33

I'd like to point out, that in my opinion, all posts here describe part of the problem. Power can corrupt individuals, but this is not immediately a social problem as long as society can replace the corrupted individuals before they can do much damage.

Soviet Union allowed itself to be besieged (politically, militaristically, economically), became too rigid (as a militaristic system on the defensive) and finally starved to death.

The same tactic of containment was used by bourgeoise for all other socialist revolutions. And it was possible, because in 20th century their power was still great. Possibility of revolution does not equal inevitability.

Nevertheless this does not mean that SU was unnecessary. History does not work like that - you can't wait for the perfect moment because then it will never arrive. You have to make the most of your situation. Bourgeoise classes required also many failed revolutions to overthrow feudalism.

Rafiq

1st February 2012, 02:02

One person having de facto authority over another (even tho to have de jure authority over a person is impossible) is not a material situation?

Unless, in some magical society, "one person" constitutes a whole class, than it's not a material situation, that could potentially ruin a new existing order of life because of "corruption".

Anyway, what I meant, is that material conditions do not change because of "Power". Power changes because of material conditions.

Things do not corrupt, they change in accordance to material conditions. "Having too much power" is not a material conditions.

Sily me, I see it happening all the time... what am I looking at?

You're looking at mere petty social relations that do not account for mass changes in historical conditions.

It's like this; you're working at your job and your boss tells you to do something or get fired. This is a material situation, correct? How then does your boss not "have power over you?"

I didn't say power does not exist. I said power does not carry the dynamics that material conditions do.

For example, things do not corrupt, they change in accordance with material conditions should be re read. Power could sometimes be a part of a material condition (One class dominating another) however, material conditions can not change solely because of power. Power is a reflection of those chances, and has to morph itself in accordance to material conditions.

All of the instances in which you believe power "corrupted" was a mere shift in material conditions and class changes. For example, Soviets no longer provided themselves efficient in building up a mass super power that could defend itself against it's many, many enemies. Get it?

I don't like the idea of power corrupting people (it would be more like people corrupting power). But to think the power cannot be seen as an end in itself, in the real world, is just wrong.

People cannot "corrupt power". Again, what you think is "corruption" is a change in material conditions.

Blake's Baby

1st February 2012, 12:23

The revolution degenerated because of it's isolation in a backward country, and Stalin personified the degeneration as described in post 3...

No.

The revolution degenerated because of its isolation period.

Would an isolated revolution in the USA have worked any better? In Germany? In Britain? In Holland or Belgium?

No, because socialism in one country is impossible, and an isolated revolutionary territory must either compete (become capitalist) or be crushed. A 70-year 'deformed workers' state' is not a feasable proposition.

Apart from which, Russia wasn't 'backward' in 1917 or 1921 on whenever you think it was 'isolated and backward'. It was the 5th biggest economy in the world in 1913 and had the largest and some of the newest factories in the world and a shed-laod of infrastructural development after 35 years of heavy capitalist development. Sure, in 1880 it was relatively 'backward', but not in 1913, or 1917, or 1921, or 1927.

daft punk

1st February 2012, 14:03

No.

The revolution degenerated because of its isolation period.

Would an isolated revolution in the USA have worked any better? In Germany? In Britain? In Holland or Belgium?

No, because socialism in one country is impossible, and an isolated revolutionary territory must either compete (become capitalist) or be crushed. A 70-year 'deformed workers' state' is not a feasable proposition.

Apart from which, Russia wasn't 'backward' in 1917 or 1921 on whenever you think it was 'isolated and backward'. It was the 5th biggest economy in the world in 1913 and had the largest and some of the newest factories in the world and a shed-laod of infrastructural development after 35 years of heavy capitalist development. Sure, in 1880 it was relatively 'backward', but not in 1913, or 1917, or 1921, or 1927.

Wrong. Russia was so backward the Bolsheviks werent even considering the socialist revolution starting there. Lenin changed his mind to agree with Trotsky only in April 1917. He then had to persuade his party as few agreed initially.

Most Russians were illiterate peasants and the working class was small. There was little capitalism, and what existed was mostly foreign owned. Russia was semi-feudal.

from some history website...

"Approximately 110 million people lived in Russia in 1900, 97 million of which were peasant farmers, three million were industrial workers, about a million made up the aristocracy and half a million or so were from the professional classes."
http://www.johndclare.net/Russ1_redruth.htm

The capitalists in Russia were incapable of leading progress. This is why Trotsky came to revolutionary conclusions. This is why the revolution happened.

An advanced country could not establish proper socialism on it's own but it would have things far easier than a backward one.

The level of production is as important as the isolation or not. Marx barely mentioned the possibility of socialist revolution starting in a backward country and the Bolsheviks never paid it much attention until April 1917.

Marx said a vital necessity was a high level of production.

One problem the Bolsheviks had was having to use the massive privileged bureaucracy of the Tsar to administer. They more or less took over from within.

Blake's Baby

1st February 2012, 16:50

Are you claiming Russia wasn't the 5th biggest economy in 1913?

Are you claiming the Putilov Works wasn't the biggest factory in the world in 1917?

Are you claiming that there hadn't been massive capital investment in Russia by foreign capitalists, and indeed the state, since the 1880s?

Which, exactly, of these propositions (all are true, go check them out) are you disputing?

Do you believe that socialism in one country is possible? If you do, the Russian revolution was obviously a mistake, it couldn't work in a backward country. Or do you believe that socialism in one country is not possible? If that's the case, the level of development in Russia is irrelevant, it is the world development of capitalism that determines whether or not conditions for revolution are ripe.

Unless you think that socialist development in a single territory is possible, the state of capitalist development in Russia is not an issue.

And even if it were, your estimation of the state of capitalism in Russia is seriously flawed.

Psy

1st February 2012, 22:52

Are you claiming Russia wasn't the 5th biggest economy in 1913?

If Russia economy was so advanced why was the a revolution against feudalism. You can't have a advanced capitalist economy along side feudalism therefore Russia most have been a backwards capitalist economy like Japan, where capitalists failed to snuff out the feudal means of production.

Are you claiming the Putilov Works wasn't the biggest factory in the world in 1917?

And WWII Japan had large factories yet as a whole Japan's economy was chained to the feudal mode of production at the time that prevented industrialization to spread to every corner of production, thus causing a crisis of underconsumption as most of people were peasants not proletariat in both these cases.

Are you claiming that there hadn't been massive capital investment in Russia by foreign capitalists, and indeed the state, since the 1880s?

Again same is true with Japan but the bourgeoisie was too weak to fully overthrow the feudal order in both cases.

Blake's Baby

1st February 2012, 23:06

Psy

1st February 2012, 23:32

Unlike, let's say, advanced capitalist countries like Britain, which didn't have a monarch or an aristocracy or an hereditary upper house at the time of the Russian Revolution; or Germany that didn't have a Kaiser as well as some Kings and gaggles of counts and Landgrafs and whatnot, you mean?

Britain and Germany had mostly ripped the peasantry off the land and threw them in bourgeoisie relations to production. In both Germany and Britain we were seeing modernity spread to ever corner of the nations and in both cases the ruling class was unified in putting the remains of feudalism on a short leash. The monarchs of Germany and Britain by WWI had no real power and mostly a facade of the bourgeois state.

All capitalist countries have feudal survivals.

Wrong as the bourgeoisie state grows it pushes the crown into either a powerless facade or trashes the crown all together (i.e USA).

At the beginning of the First World War, Russia was the 5th largest economy in the world. It had had decades of investment from French and German (particularly) capital, and the Russian state had also sponsored massive inward investment. Yes there were a lot of peasants in Russia. There were a lot of small farmers in America in the early 20th century too. Or in France. Were they (the biggest and 4th biggest economies) not developed either? Was it only the totally not-feudal Imperial Monarchies of Britain and Germany that were (but not the Imperial Monarchy of Russia, oh no)?
Peasants are not small farmers, the small farmers of the USA in the early 20th century where petit-bourgeoisie, the peasants of Russia were bound to the land and considered property.

Paulappaul

2nd February 2012, 00:39

Can I wrap up a social relation?

A social relation isn't a material thing.

u.s.red

2nd February 2012, 02:04

lol..well, it is under capitalism.

getfiscal

2nd February 2012, 02:32

The main problem was that economic planning has so many theoretical and practical problems that no credible economist or official supported the traditional planning model almost as soon as they experienced it, and started trying to reform things as soon as the first weird dictator died in their country. All reforms centered on total state ownership failed and this contributed to the near-universal agreement on legalizing private capital. Accordingly we remaining socialists are teenagers and freaks who haven't read enough about the ample evidence of the failure of actually existing socialism, pinning our hopes on bizarre ideas like "anti-revisionism" or "democratic planning".

daft punk

2nd February 2012, 18:41

Are you claiming Russia wasn't the 5th biggest economy in 1913?

Yes it was, it was level with the UK, but it had 3 times more people. And there was great inequality. The bulk of the population were illiterate peasants, only just of of serfdom, and unable to afford land. Russia was 400 years behind Britain in many ways. There was no bourgeois revolution. The average Russian's income in 1917 was about 10% of an American's.

Are you claiming the Putilov Works wasn't the biggest factory in the world in 1917? It employed 12,000 in 1900 out of about 140 million population. Wiki says it was the largest in St Petersburg, I dunno about the world. It was subsidised and made armaments.

Are you claiming that there hadn't been massive capital investment in Russia by foreign capitalists, and indeed the state, since the 1880s?
No, I am claiming the opposite, that much of the capitalism in Russia was foreign owned. It is the job of indigenous capital to avoid foreign domination. This did not happen.

Which, exactly, of these propositions (all are true, go check them out) are you disputing?

Do you believe that socialism in one country is possible? If you do, the Russian revolution was obviously a mistake, it couldn't work in a backward country. Or do you believe that socialism in one country is not possible? If that's the case, the level of development in Russia is irrelevant, it is the world development of capitalism that determines whether or not conditions for revolution are ripe.

Unless you think that socialist development in a single territory is possible, the state of capitalist development in Russia is not an issue.

And even if it were, your estimation of the state of capitalism in Russia is seriously flawed.

Socialism in one country is impossible (basic Marxism). Socialism in a backward country is impossible (basic Marxism). Revolutions are more likely in backward countries because capitalism is incapable of leading progress (Trotsky's theory).

The solution to this riddle? If a revolution happens in a backward country, make the best of it, try to spread it to advanced countries, and then the advanced ones can help the backward one achieve socialism.

Lenin, 1922:

"But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism."

Blake's Baby

2nd February 2012, 21:09

Britain and Germany had mostly ripped the peasantry off the land and threw them in bourgeoisie relations to production. In both Germany and Britain we were seeing modernity spread to ever corner of the nations and in both cases the ruling class was unified in putting the remains of feudalism on a short leash. The monarchs of Germany and Britain by WWI had no real power and mostly a facade of the bourgeois state...

Funny that Germany never had a 'bourgeois revolution' like Russia supposedly needed.

...
Wrong as the bourgeoisie state grows it pushes the crown into either a powerless facade or trashes the crown all together (i.e USA)...

I didn't say 'crown' I said 'feudal survivals'. America which was founded by a property owning aristocracy (look it up - actually, don't bother, it means 'rule by the best' and that's what the framers of the constitution considered themselves to be, which is why they were in the main scared of 'the mob'). And yet, in Germany and Britain, the other industrial powerhouses, Kings, Princes, Dukes (some even Grand and Arch), a state religon, hereditary upper house... have you ever studied property law in Scotland? Tell me that's not feudal.

...
Peasants are not small farmers, the small farmers of the USA in the early 20th century where petit-bourgeoisie, the peasants of Russia were bound to the land and considered property.

You mean serfs? Serfs were emancipated in the 1860s.

Look; Russia, in 1913, was the 5th biggest world economy. It had massive factories, including the world's biggest, the Putilov Works. It had some massive concentrations of workers too. Some of the factories were at the cutting edge of industry at the time, because capitalism in Russia was new. There had been massive investment in infrastructure and direct investment in industry from the 1880s. Go and check this out if you don't believe me.

There were also millions and millions of small farmers, many of whom had crippling debts because they were renting land. That doesn't mean they were serfs.

All this is by the by, however, unless you think socialism could have succeeded in the USA, for example. Do you? Was Stalin right? Is socialism in one country possible? If it isn't, the state of development of Russia is immaterial to why the revolution failed. If it is possible - if you agree with Stalin - then the state of Russia is important; but even then, you should be aware of the reality of the situation, not some hand-me-down opinion on Russian 'backwardness' that might have applied in 1860 but not in 1917.

{Putilov} employed 12,000 in 1900 out of about 140 million population. Wiki says it was the largest in St Petersburg, I dunno about the world. It was subsidised and made armaments...

Accord ing to Clive Emsley and David Englander (in Henry Cowper et al., War Peace and Social Change: Europe 1900-1955, Book II: World War I and Its Consequences (OU, 1990), pp. 145-8) Putilov employed 20,000 in 1917. Presumably because of increased production for the war. However, pretty sure EH Carr makes it more than that, but currently can't find the ref. According to 'The Great Soviet Encyclopedia' of 1979 (quoted here, with a suitable warning that the source may be biased or innaccurate - http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/St.+Petersburg+Strike+of+1914 ), 12,000 workers from Putilov went on strike in 1914; it seems this was not at that time the entire workforce. The very first sentence of this piece by Martin Glaberman at Marxists.org (one of many I could have quoted by putting 'putilov largest' into a search engine) - http://www.marxists.org/archive/glaberman/1967/06/us-russia.htm - is "In 1917 the largest and most modern factory in the world was the Putilov works in St. Petersburg."

Putilov also made railway track, engines, trams, and tractors: according to a review of Jonathon A Grant, Big Business in Russia: The Putilov Company in Late Imperial Russia, 1868-1917 (Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), apart from armaments, "...tractors, locomotives, rail cars, industrial machinery, and an array of other metal products" were made there - I guess 'rail cars' means what I'd call rolling stock - review at the Labour History New website, http://labourhistory.net/news/i0307_8.php

This stuff shouldn'r really be in dispute, but the long shadow Stalinism cast on Russian history is yet to be dispelled it seems. Lenin and Stalin were not 10-metre tall shining faced gods who transformed a nation of gnarled medieval forlock-tuggers into an industrial powerhouse through the prodigious excercising of their mighty talents and heroic moustaches. Russia in 1913 was a rapidly-industrialising country where a large and backward agricultural sector existed with a modern and rapidly expanding industrial sector.

Rafiq

2nd February 2012, 21:43

Blake's Baby

2nd February 2012, 21:50

All of which were eradicated and destroyed because of world war one. It was backward, in the sense that the proletariat was a minority as a class, etc. I don't see where you're getting at.

And in how many countries were the proletariat not a minority in 1914?

Errr, Britain.

Any others you know of?

What's the point you're trying to make? Socialist revolution should never be attempted in any country where the proletariat is not in a majority, maybe? Socialism in one country is possible if the proletariat is big enough? I don't see what you're getting at.

Rafiq

2nd February 2012, 22:55

And in how many countries were the proletariat not a minority in 1914?

Errr, Britain.

Any others you know of?

What's the point you're trying to make? Socialist revolution should never be attempted in any country where the proletariat is not in a majority, maybe? Socialism in one country is possible if the proletariat is big enough? I don't see what you're getting at.

Germany, France, and the U.S.A.

My point is that a revolution can exist in a country like Russia in 1917, if and only it spreads to industrialized nations. This is what Lenin emphasised.

But one should not dismiss this basic fact: although socialism in one country is always impossible, Russia's conditions for building socialism were especially difficult.

getfiscal

2nd February 2012, 23:12

No advanced industrial economy has embraced comprehensive economic planning because the problems associated with it are even more pronounced in a more complex and dynamic economy. For example, if you are a little basket case country like Albania then it is probably relatively easy to coordinate rudimentary steel production and collective farming and so on. The rapid diffusion of computerized manufacturing is more difficult to deliver by bureaucratic fiat. Accordingly comprehensively planned economics has failed to ever capture a majority attention in developed countries.

The furthest moves towards planning have always been within a market framework and have always quickly been braked. For example, the Mitterand Common Front government socialized a wide range of companies, but retained almost all features of market economics, even in the operation of these companies, and almost immediately Mitterand reversed course. Typically socialists, who can't conceive of policy reversals being based on evidence, choose to ascribe this to bourgeois reaction. In reality, it is because comprehensive planning is extremely difficult to pull off, which is why it is generally not tried except in extreme situations under dictators.

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2012, 00:10

Germany, France, and the U.S.A.

My point is that a revolution can exist in a country like Russia in 1917, if and only it spreads to industrialized nations. This is what Lenin emphasised...

Absolutely. I don't disagree at all.

But one should not dismiss this basic fact: although socialism in one country is always impossible, Russia's conditions for building socialism were especially difficult.

Ah. Not like the 'especially easy' brand of impossible that it would be if it were Britain, France, Germany or the USA, you mean?

Socialism in one country is impossible. Impossible in a big country with lots of resources but a huge agricultural base, relatively small and new proletariat like Russia, impossible in a small country with some resources, a relatively large and old proletariat and small but relatively efficient agricultural sector like Britain.

Impossible = impossible.
Impossible + difficult = impossible. Nothing makes it 'more' impossible.

Therefore, 'difficult' doesn't figure.

Psy

3rd February 2012, 00:25

Funny that Germany never had a 'bourgeois revolution' like Russia supposedly needed.

It did in the form of state subsidized modernity, where you had economists like Friedrick List put Germany on a path to empower the German bourgeoisie and to snuff out the old feudal ways of Germany through the power of industrialization. The German state nationalized feudal land, industrialized it and turned it over the German bourgeoisie.

I didn't say 'crown' I said 'feudal survivals'. America which was founded by a property owning aristocracy (look it up - actually, don't bother, it means 'rule by the best' and that's what the framers of the constitution considered themselves to be, which is why they were in the main scared of 'the mob'). And yet, in Germany and Britain, the other industrial powerhouses, Kings, Princes, Dukes (some even Grand and Arch), a state religon, hereditary upper house... have you ever studied property law in Scotland? Tell me that's not feudal.

Mostly hollowed out facades by WWI, where the bourgeoisie had the commanding heights of power and Kings, Princes and Dukes had to bowed to powerful capitalists as power had shifted totally away from the old feudal ruling class. In the 1920's you had General Motors giving demands to the Emperor of Japan.

You mean serfs? Serfs were emancipated in the 1860s.

I mean peasants, farmers that rented land from nobility yet had no capitalist property relations to the nobility they rented land from, as they were expected to provide free labor to the nobility in exchange for their rent.

There were also millions and millions of small farmers, many of whom had crippling debts because they were renting land. That doesn't mean they were serfs.

It makes them peasants

Rafiq

3rd February 2012, 00:39

Absolutely. I don't disagree at all.

Ah. Not like the 'especially easy' brand of impossible that it would be if it were Britain, France, Germany or the USA, you mean?

Socialism in one country is impossible. Impossible in a big country with lots of resources but a huge agricultural base, relatively small and new proletariat like Russia, impossible in a small country with some resources, a relatively large and old proletariat and small but relatively efficient agricultural sector like Britain.

Impossible = impossible.
Impossible + difficult = impossible. Nothing makes it 'more' impossible.

Therefore, 'difficult' doesn't figure.

Well, for one, Britian is already industrialized. In the end they would all end up as bourgeois states. However Britian would last longer and project better living standards

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2012, 11:14

It did in the form of state subsidized modernity, where you had economists like Friedrick List put Germany on a path to empower the German bourgeoisie and to snuff out the old feudal ways of Germany through the power of industrialization...

Yup, and the Russian government was involved in similar industrialisation programmes.

Please, feeel free to find any information that disputes what I've said; prove Russia hadn't had a massive industrialisation drive in the last quater of the C19th.

Well, for one, Britian is already industrialized. In the end they would all end up as bourgeois states. However Britian would last longer and project better living standards

So, what you are saying is, if there had been an isolated revolution in Britain instead of Russia, it would still have stagnated and collapsed? In which case I agree. Because any isolated revolutionary territory will stagnate and collapse. Therefore, the cause of stagnation and collapse is isolation. That's the 'why', which is what's under discussion.

'How', 'in what manner' that stagnation and collapse will take place is a matter of local specifics - policies of the proletarian power; relative weight of proletariat v peasants v bourgeoisie; levels of industrialisation; access to resources, etc. But these aren't what's being discussed.

Revolution starts with U

3rd February 2012, 12:52

Unless, in some magical society, "one person" constitutes a whole class, than it's not a material situation, that could potentially ruin a new existing order of life because of "corruption".

I'm with you in saying that corruption is a nonsense term. My later point that "people corrupted power" was supposed to illustrate that... but I guess my point didn't come out right.

But the essence of "power corrupts" is saying that centralizing power in smaller hands, no matter how many platitudes to "the people" and/or "emancipation," will not often, if ever, work out to the benefit of large swaths of people.
Humans are generally self-interested, even our altruism is often a self-interest thing; I want glory and praise, so I save a life... things like that. The people in which authority rests will protect themselves, and there their authority.
As such, the idea that the liberation of the proletariat and the abolition of classes can come from the hands of a small clique of intellectuals and politicians is absurd. Socialism can only come at the hands of the working class at large. Therefore, power MUST be spread, not consolidated, or things WILL go wrong, sooner or later (probably sooner).
Power corrupts is a nonsense phrase. But the idea that centralized power is detrimental to emancipation is as true as gravity. For every 1 benevolent dictator, there are 21 malevolent ones.

Anyway, what I meant, is that material conditions do not change because of "Power". Power changes because of material conditions.

Power is a material situation.

Things do not corrupt, they change in accordance to material conditions. "Having too much power" is not a material conditions.

Yes it is.

You're looking at mere petty social relations that do not account for mass changes in historical conditions.

The functions of the micro are the foundation of the functions of the macro. Dynamic social relations are the only thing that has ever changed macro society at large; revolutions start with people in their houses *****ing about the government long before they involve anybody actually taking to the streets.

I didn't say power does not exist. I said power does not carry the dynamics that material conditions do.

Power is a material condition.
By the way... what are these "material conditions" you are bandying about? I've never seen you explain that. Are you saying that socialism can only happen after it has been imposed upon capitalism, or am I misunderstanding you? (cuz that's logically impossible)

For example, things do not corrupt, they change in accordance with material conditions should be re read. Power could sometimes be a part of a material condition (One class dominating another) however, material conditions can not change solely because of power. Power is a reflection of those chances, and has to morph itself in accordance to material conditions.

All of the instances in which you believe power "corrupted" was a mere shift in material conditions and class changes. For example, Soviets no longer proved themselves efficient in building up a mass super power that could defend itself against it's many, many enemies. Get it?

Do you think that possibly could have been because power was too centralized to react to the dynamic and random change that happens in society?

People cannot "corrupt power". Again, what you think is "corruption" is a change in material conditions.

A social relation isn't a material thing.

Yes it is.... or are people imaginary now?

Psy

3rd February 2012, 16:32

Yup, and the Russian government was involved in similar industrialisation programmes.

Which is why Russia still hadn't really electrified in 1917? Also where was Russia's machinery industry? The German capitalist class realized that to gain economic independence they needed to industrialize with machinery they owned and not British machinery as Germany's long term goal was to economically bury Britain through developing bettering industrial processes this was back in the second half of the 19th century which put Germany on a collision course with British imperialism.

Thus by 1914 Germany had its own technological base and in many area Germany technology was surpassing British technology. Meanwhile in Russia they relied on British technology as its industry was dominated by foreign capitalists that was only intrested in extracting surplus value out of Russia, while the German bourgeois state heavily regulated foreign capital as German economic policy was based on economic independence with the long term goal of surpassing Britain as the dominant economic power on Earth.

We see this even after WWI with the Gaft Zeppelin's round the world journey, where the Gaft Zeppelin was the first flying machine many rural Russians saw as it flew over Siberia, as Siberia was still very backwards in 1929. Also the USSR airship development was basically a decade behind the Germans as it took till 1938 for the USSR to build a airship compilable to the Gaft Zeppelin and that as with a massive rush to modernize.

Rafiq

3rd February 2012, 20:25

Yes it is.... or are people imaginary now?

Look RSWU, I'm not going to respond to that post of yours. I told this to NGNM as well once before, and I'll say it again, if you want to be a lazy bastard and not properly quote someone's post (Making it difficult to reply) than I won't bother taking you seriously.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

3rd February 2012, 21:59

i'm so dubious about the idea that socialism in one country is "impossible" by definition.

Russia is very large, and history is filled with examples of autkarkic societies which have been functional. If socialism is purportedly much more efficient than capitalism, I cannot see any reason why socialism in one country would be doomed to failure and such arguments have always seemed like cop outs to me.

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2012, 23:19

Errm, because socialism is a classless communal society where production is for need not profit. How can you have a classless communnal society if the majority of the population exists in class-ridden, expropriating societies? Capitalism created the world market, the international capitalist class and the international proletariat. How can socialism be bounded by one country, even a big one? The world proletariat will create socialism, how can it do that in one place only?

getfiscal

3rd February 2012, 23:49

The world proletariat will create socialism, how can it do that in one place only?The argument about world revolution is not metaphysical but rather strategic. Trotsky didn't think it was impossible to have socialist countries in the midst of capitalist states. He thought it was unlikely that Russia would be able to develop a sustainable socialist state as an isolated and backwards power with a small industrial working class. Therefore he thought the correct strategy was to focus on exporting the revolution and in fighting bureaucratic tendencies.

But if, say, a bloc of advanced industrial countries had merged with the Soviets, then this superstate (while not global) could have developed a somewhat sustainable socialist economy, probably (if planning didn't have so many obvious problems).

Rooster

3rd February 2012, 23:58

A social relation isn't a material thing.

So I take it you haven't read the first chapter of Capital?

Rafiq

4th February 2012, 02:31

Blake's Baby

4th February 2012, 11:10

The argument about world revolution is not metaphysical but rather strategic. Trotsky didn't think it was impossible to have socialist countries in the midst of capitalist states...

So? "Even" Trotsky was wrong about some things. By which I mean, I think Trotsky was wrong about most things from 1918 onwards.

... He thought it was unlikely that Russia would be able to develop a sustainable socialist state as an isolated and backwards power with a small industrial working class...

I have always credited him with believing that it was impossible. If he thought it merely unlikely then he's even more wrong than I previously thought.

... Therefore he thought the correct strategy was to focus on exporting the revolution and in fighting bureaucratic tendencies...

As I hope has been amply demonstrated by the failures of the Soviet Union from 1919 onwards, that is a fundamentally wrong-headed approach based on the failure of the Bolsheviks to appreciate the relationship between party, class and state.

Revolution cannot be 'exported'. Look at what happened in Poland. The attempt to export the revolution (ie, invading a neighbouring country) was a total failure. Supporting revolutionary movements in neighbouring countries is one thing, invading them is something else.

However, the new 'Soviet' state made all kinds of short-term and opportunistic deals with neighbouring countries too - the Rapallo Treaty for instance, or the deal with Ataturk - which resulted in the massacre of communists.

...But if, say, a bloc of advanced industrial countries had merged with the Soviets, then this superstate (while not global) could have developed a somewhat sustainable socialist economy, probably (if planning didn't have so many obvious problems).

1 - there is no 'socialist economy', what it would have developed is a state-capitalist economy, because it would still be a state; it would have borders and external enemies and an army and an economy geared towards arms production and competition with capitalist states; it would also have, by necessity, an exploited working class to make all this possible. So yes, a larger, perhaps more efficient SuperSovietUnion may have developed but this would not be 'socialist', because socialism cannot be built until capitalism has been defeated;
2 - there are no problems inherent in planned production that are not also present in greater degree in unplanned production, so that's a non-argument.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

4th February 2012, 12:23

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

4th February 2012, 12:27

You are forgetting about international imperialism(sabatoge) and the world market.

Well naturally a society would have to defend itself from possible aggression - like every other capitalist society now. It seems unlikely to me that such a society would face continued aggression from a large body of capitalist nations, I can't imagine that being sustainable.

I don't know what the world market has to do with such things. Either the socialist society would be autarktic, or it would have to trade for things it really required. I can't any of these factors being significant enough to turn what would be a massively successful society into something like the soviet union.

Rafiq

4th February 2012, 14:20

Well naturally a society would have to defend itself from possible aggression - like every other capitalist society now. It seems unlikely to me that such a society would face continued aggression from a large body of capitalist nations, I can't imagine that being sustainable.

But that's exactly what happened in Russia.

If the revolution spreads to the imperialist powers, fighting the counter revolution is not onlt a lot easier, it becomes an international effort.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

4th February 2012, 15:06

But that's exactly what happened in Russia.

If the revolution spreads to the imperialist powers, fighting the counter revolution is not onlt a lot easier, it becomes an international effort.

Compare the investment the capitalists made in fighting each other in ww1 and ww2, with the assistance they gave to the whites in the civil war. Doesn't bear comparison. It strikes me that since capitalist societies can manage to maintain a method of self defense and a functional society at the same time, that is the least a socialist society could expect.

If it isn't possible to have a socialist society that defends itself but doesn't oppress/impose more brutal requirements and exploitation apon the workers than the SU did then I have no idea why you would be a communist.

Rafiq

5th February 2012, 01:50

Compare the investment the capitalists made in fighting each other in ww1 and ww2, with the assistance they gave to the whites in the civil war. Doesn't bear comparison. It strikes me that since capitalist societies can manage to maintain a method of self defense and a functional society at the same time, that is the least a socialist society could expect.

But none the less, the international bourgeoisie is willing to align themselves against a proletarian revolution. Capitalist societies find it easy to defend themselves for the same reason they are capitalist societies to begin with. A socialist society in one country will, if not being destroyed, inevitably reform itself, and adjust itself to the world economy. So, at the same time it could defend itself, it cannot defend itself and at the same time build socialism. One must be sacrificed.

Every country needs every country. The reason capitalist countries defend themselves is because they find friends (The U.S. aligned itself with France, only until it was able to develop), and with friends, trade (including of labor) happens inevitably. Notice how the Bolshevik government was forced to make ties with the Turkish bourgeoisie.

If it isn't possible to have a socialist society that defends itself but doesn't oppress/impose more brutal requirements and exploitation apon the workers than the SU did then I have no idea why you would be a communist.

It isn't possible. Which is why I say a proletarian revolution must occur in an industrialized country in order to survive. One industrialized country will spread not only to fellow powers, but to all of the third world puppet states that it controls. Revolutions do spread. Even reactionary ones, such as the case in Iran.

REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL

5th February 2012, 13:26

But none the less, the international bourgeoisie is willing to align themselves against a proletarian revolution. Capitalist societies find it easy to defend themselves for the same reason they are capitalist societies to begin with. A socialist society in one country will, if not being destroyed, inevitably reform itself, and adjust itself to the world economy. So, at the same time it could defend itself, it cannot defend itself and at the same time build socialism. One must be sacrificed.

So the capitalist countries grand alignment to destroy socialism was...the assistance they gave the whites in the civil war, which lasted all of about 3 years. Afterwards, there was in no way some awesome alightment to destroy socialism but what seems to me as the usual politicking of international states.

So in which case, why was it impossible to build socialism, and defend itself at the same time? Like I said, capitalist countries manage it.

No doubt a country existing in a predominantly capitalist world will have to make arrangements with under capitalist countries which would be less then ideal, for instance, it would have to mantain a military and so on, but that is just what captialist nations do - mantain a stronger military than is ideal and etc.

I don't also understand why being friends inevitably means that there will be a transfer of labour. So it isn't possible for a country with closed borders to be friendly with other nations e.g.north korea and china?

In short I think for such a bold idea, in which you explain why the soviet union did not work (and therefore any historical lessons about how communism should function) is on very shakey foundations

If capitalist countries will all unite to destroy socialism, why did they not do so, since it was clearly within their capacities.

If the former is not required, why does having to engage in capitalist polikiting mean that socialism cannot necessarily be built - given that capitalist nations manage to develop while wasting money on their militarizes.

Rafiq

5th February 2012, 15:56

So the capitalist countries grand alignment to destroy socialism was...the assistance they gave the whites in the civil war, which lasted all of about 3 years. Afterwards, there was in no way some awesome alightment to destroy socialism but what seems to me as the usual politicking of international states.

No, capitalist countries constantly attacking, and sabotaging the nation for it's whole existence (especially in the 1920's) was part of their agenda to overthrow the Bolshevik government, to enslave Russia of her resources. Winston Churchill and the United States government both understood... And feared the inevitable outcome of a Bolshevik controlled Russia, which was a massive super power (Russia ad been the fastest industrializing country in 1914, industrialization was inevitable, as was it's rise to a world power).

Actually, one of the major reasons the bolshevik government cut all relations with the British in 1928 was priscesly because of their attempts to sabotage any gain made by the Bolshevik government, from distributing propaganda, sending agents to sabatoge plans, etc.

Maybe your point would stand legitimate if the civil war was all the world powers did to destroy the Bolshevik government. However, as ahistorical as this is, it cannot be taken seriously as a symbolic representation of what happened.

So in which case, why was it impossible to build socialism, and defend itself at the same time? Like I said, capitalist countries manage it.

Well, why do you think Marx and Engels stressed the revolution must take place in, or at least spread to one of the Industrialized world powers? Perhaps if the revolution took place in, say, Britain, it would have been possible to defend itself against it's enemies at the same time building socialism. Again, you're underestimating the backward, shit conditions that Russia was in when the Bolsheviks took power. For example, one of the first things they had to focus on was distributing small things.. Like shoes and socks, to the population. There was no industry, it all had to be built by hand.

Again, every single country, if alone, must adjust itself to the world capitalist market. Do you think Cuba is adopting the reforms it is because it feels like it? Do you think China became what it was because greedy corrupt officials took power? Vietnam? Even north korea is taking such steps.

It is not only difficult building socialism in one country, it's impossible. It's foolish to think otherwise.

No doubt a country existing in a predominantly capitalist world will have to make arrangements with under capitalist countries which would be less then ideal, for instance, it would have to mantain a military and so on, but that is just what captialist nations do - mantain a stronger military than is ideal and etc.

It wouldn't just have to maintain a military, it would have to open up it's borders for foreign business, trade, etc. Without these, the famine in Russia would have continued longer than it did in 1922.

I don't think there was ever a capitalist country that became something other than a third world country, that didn't engage in massive trade with other capitalist nations.

I also don't know of a socialist country that was able to exist without giving in to international pressure, and opening up markets, and the likes. If you really, deep down, believe building socialism is possible in a non-industrialized country, while constantly being under siege and sabotage, not to mention being held with pressure to adjust to the world market, you're living in a fantasy land. Think.

I don't also understand why being friends inevitably means that there will be a transfer of labour. So it isn't possible for a country with closed borders to be friendly with other nations e.g.north korea and china?

It's not about just being friendly. When I said being friendly, I meant opening up both diplomatic and trade relations. Which was of absolute necessity for Russia to survive even a month under the bolshevik government.

In short I think for such a bold idea, in which you explain why the soviet union did not work (and therefore any historical lessons about how communism should function) is on very shakey foundations

Not at all, several theoretically skilled Marxists agree with me, and perhaps Marx himself (he did, after all, say that if the revolution does not spread ot the industrialized countries, it is bound to failure and will end up right where it started from).

Perhaps it's you who needs to give this a bit of thinking, and re-evaluate your explanation as to how it occurred, while staying within the framework of materialist consistency. The evidence is undeniable, and unquestionable.

The problem, is that you're not seeing the bigger picture, it's easy to have your mindset when you think Russia was just this big, country of vast resources that was completely left alone after 1922 and could easily build socialism without anyone's help (there is absolutely no evidence to suggest this). Especially considering there wasn't a large proletarian population, therefore attempts to build the country with their rule would, unquestionably lead to even bigger problems (Managing large populations, and regions simply just through worker's councils does not work. (especially during times of war) This is something the Bolshevik's realized around 1918). If the revolution spread, on the other hand, I see no reason why the dictatorship of the proletariat wouldn't eventually end up in Russia, for the Bolshevik government would not only agree, they would be forced to succumb to international pressure, and would be able to build socialism with the help of the world's powers.

If capitalist countries will all unite to destroy socialism, why did they not do so, since it was clearly within their capacities.

They did destroy socialism, but in a much more intelligent manner. They forced Russia to succumb to imperialist pressure and open up to foreign business.

And, it wasn't clearly within their capacities, considering the Red Army crushed them and their white army stooges, and would do so again no doubt. Russia is one of the worst countries to invade.

Besides, one of the reasons the Bolsheviks had to form treaties with these powers (Japan, Germany, Britian, the U.S.) and form relations with them is because of the threat of being invaded. Without these trade agreements, surly it would have.

If the former is not required, why does having to engage in capitalist polikiting mean that socialism cannot necessarily be built - given that capitalist nations manage to develop while wasting money on their militarizes.

Where do you think they would get the funding to build such militaries? Do you think they would pull the resources out of their ass? Foreign trade, and diplomatic agreements were necessary to even build a military. By this time, socialism was dead.

Again, if you are succumbed to international pressure to adjust to the world market, you are, as a rule, already within the constraint of the capitalist mode of production.

runequester

5th February 2012, 16:36

daft punk

5th February 2012, 16:50

So? "Even" Trotsky was wrong about some things. By which I mean, I think Trotsky was wrong about most things from 1918 onwards.

Er, ok, name me the top things Trotsky was wrong on. Can't wait to hear this.

For the benefit of people reading this thread for the first time, the revolution collapsed in the period 1924-28 because it was isolated in a backward country. In later years it did advance quite fast due to the advantages of a planned economy, but inevitably, as Trotsky predicted, it died due to the fact that instead of a workers democracy it was run by a dictatorship, a bureaucratic elite. Planned economies cannot work properly under those conditions.

runequester

5th February 2012, 16:54

Er, ok, name me the top things Trotsky was wrong on. Can't wait to hear this.

For the benefit of people reading this thread for the first time, the revolution collapsed in the period 1924-28 because it was isolated in a backward country. In later years it did advance quite fast due to the advantages of a planned economy, but inevitably, as Trotsky predicted, it died due to the fact that instead of a workers democracy it was run by a dictatorship, a bureaucratic elite. Planned economies cannot work properly under those conditions.

Spreading the revolution died in 1921 on the Vistula.

What was the backup plan?

Blake's Baby

7th February 2012, 14:08

Er, ok, name me the top things Trotsky was wrong on. Can't wait to hear this...

Lying about, and betrayal of, the Makhnovists.
Militarisation of Labour.
Suppression of Kronstadt.
Continual support for the theory of the 'deformed workers' state'.

That a good enough start?

zimmerwald1915

8th February 2012, 22:19

Spreading the revolution died in 1921 on the Vistula.

What was the backup plan?
Selling guns to von Seekt.

GoddessCleoLover

8th February 2012, 22:34

Sadly, as early as 1921 the Russian Communist Party exercised dictatorship and terror over the working class at Kronstadt. Shortly thereafter, the Party moved against the Workers' Opposition and the Democratic Centralists at the 1921 Party Congress. From that time forward, the Party continued to usurp the role of the working class, substituting a dictatorship of the party for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Today, the world's most populous country is governed by the Chinese Communist Party, but the Party allows imperialist corporations such as Apple to exploit and degrade Chinese workers. The Soviet state stagnated and collapsed back into a frankly bourgeois state, while in China only the form of socialism remains, in substance international capital has its way there as well as in post-USSR Russia.

runequester

8th February 2012, 22:37

Selling guns to von Seekt.

By 1921, that's rather too late. The revolution in Germany was over, and things were settling down.

With the western powers still ready to aggressively intervene, there's not a lot of ways this outcome works out well. Russia was worn to the bone after the civil war and the russo-polish war.

Blake's Baby

8th February 2012, 23:58

wow.

Yes, you're right, I'm not sure there are many Left Communists that would substantially disagree with that analysis (brief as it is, but accurate in its essentials).

It's true - if the world revolution doesn't spread, there are no ways out. 'Exporting revolution' in an invading-Poland sort of way - out. Finding a method of 'peaceful co-exitence' - out. 'Hanging on' while militarising the entire economy to cope with industrial backwardness and constant military threat - well, we saw where that led, that's out too, because the proletariat's own party turned its guns (and the Cheka) on the proletariat.

The deals the Bolsheviks made with Germany and Turkey, the massive failures of CI policy in Britain and China, and into the 1930s in Spain and elsewhere, allowed for the repression and in many cases massacre of communists and workers. These were not made 'for the world revolution', they were made for the foreign policy aims of the Russian state.

By the early-mid '20s (pick a date; in terms of events in Russia - banning of fractions? suppression of Kronstadt? expulsion of Miasnikov? expulsion of Trotsky? In terms of events internationally - failure of German revolution in 1919? suppression of Hungarian Soviet Republic? rise of fascism in Italy? debacle of the General Strike in Britain? acceptance by the CI of 'socialism in one country'? massacre of the Shanghai Commune?) the road to revolution was dead. By 1921 I don't think everything was definitively over but the counter-revolution was on the rise both inside and outside Russia, and had made some important victories. By the end of 1927 the counter-revolution had triumphed both in Russia and most of the rest of the world, which had entered a pretty nightmarish counter-revolution leading to the atrocities of WWII.

commieathighnoon

9th February 2012, 00:39

I myself am divided on the infamous Soviet question, how exactly it should be characterized and dealt with politically as well as theoretically.

I am not so sure 'capitalism' is a useful description but I have heard some interesting theories...

From my econ background it seems to me there were substantial social contradictions, and a real quandary of labor productivity and quality control in production throughout. My understanding was the USSR and Eastern Bloc had not done a good job absorbing the new 'lean manufacturing' and information and high-technology innovations in capitalist production. Does anyone know more about this?

daft punk

13th February 2012, 17:27

Spreading the revolution died in 1921 on the Vistula.

What was the backup plan?

No idea what vistula is, wiki says a river in Poland. What are you on about?

Trotsky did not say the revolution died in 1921 he said 1925-ish.

What was the backup plan? You mean what would he have done?

That's an easy one. Trotsky wrote it all down you see, in articles like this

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/cover2.jpg

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1927/opposition/index.htm

if you read it you will see it fits exactly with all the stuff Lenin was recommending.

daft punk

13th February 2012, 17:46

Lying about, and betrayal of, the Makhnovists.
Militarisation of Labour.
Suppression of Kronstadt.
Continual support for the theory of the 'deformed workers' state'.

That a good enough start?

1. What lies and betrayal? Please be more specific. I am not a mind reader.

2. What militarisation of labour? In the trade union disputes Trotsky's initial proposal was essentially the NEP, ie to end war communism. This was rejected, the economy was in a blind alley, things were desperate, so he said, ok, if we are gonna keep war communism, let's do it properly. He considered the USSR to be a workers state, and in a workers state, workers should have nothing to fear from the state, and so should not need independent trade unions. In the end his original idea was taken up. Btw, there was already 'militarisation of labour' to some degree. And Trotsky's proposals would have given the unions a bigger role in planning.

3. Kronstad had to be supressed. If it wasnt, the British could have fired on Petrograd. The whole thing was stirred up by the Whites and capitalist countries. Trotsky said put down your weapons. Not his fault if the mutineers refused. You cant let mutinies just take over willy nilly. In fact much of the suppression came from within Kronstadt itself. And on the Red Side, Workers Opposition joined in, straingt from the trade union debates!

4. deformed workers state, well, he said the USSR was a degenerated one. This was a good accurate description. It degenerated. Then it collapsed back to capitalism, as he predicted.

Sadly, as early as 1921 the Russian Communist Party exercised dictatorship and terror over the working class at Kronstadt. Shortly thereafter, the Party moved against the Workers' Opposition and the Democratic Centralists at the 1921 Party Congress. From that time forward, the Party continued to usurp the role of the working class, substituting a dictatorship of the party for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Today, the world's most populous country is governed by the Chinese Communist Party, but the Party allows imperialist corporations such as Apple to exploit and degrade Chinese workers. The Soviet state stagnated and collapsed back into a frankly bourgeois state, while in China only the form of socialism remains, in substance international capital has its way there as well as in post-USSR Russia.

They had to suppress Kronstadt, see above. Tbh, at the time, Kronstadt was not seen as a big deal. And some anarchists supported the suppression.

Omsk

13th February 2012, 18:17

No idea what vistula is, wiki says a river in Poland. What are you on about?

A thing called the Polish-Soviet war happened.

2. What militarisation of labour? In the trade union disputes Trotsky's initial proposal was essentially the NEP, ie to end war communism. This was rejected, the economy was in a blind alley, things were desperate, so he said, ok, if we are gonna keep war communism, let's do it properly. He considered the USSR to be a workers state, and in a workers state, workers should have nothing to fear from the state, and so should not need independent trade unions. In the end his original idea was taken up. Btw, there was already 'militarisation of labour' to some degree. And Trotsky's proposals would have given the unions a bigger role in planning.

Trotskys proposal was dangereous.

When Stalin requisitioned the grain of the south to feed the hungry population of the north, he had regard neither for the open market of capitalism nor for the principle of the future exchange of goods in communist society. He was doing what any State power would have had to do if it intended to survive, whether that State were a slave, feudal, capitalist, or socialist. The economics of War Communism were the economics of survival, and that they took on extreme forms of centralization of authority, applied measures of confiscation right and left, requisitioned without regard for the economic niceties of the market, is incidental.
At this period Stalin and Trotsky again found themselves in opposite camps. Flushed with enthusiasm for the growing discipline of the Red Army, Trotsky initiated the transformation of its regiments into military Labor Battalions. Again showing his characteristic lack of confidence in the workers, he proposed to militarize labor in industry and make the Trade Unions into governmental institutions which would effect the necessary discipline. He opposed the election of trade union officials and favored their appointment by the Government....
Lenin and Stalin together fought Trotsky's proposal. They insisted that the Trade Unions be voluntary and democratic, elect their officials, adopt methods of comradely persuasion and eschew the dictatorial practices of the military-minded.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 140

This instance [causing a huge eventual loss by refusing to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty] is enough to show the Trotsky had no comprehension of political realities. This was made clear again on later occasions. To quote only one instance, after the end of the Civil War Trotsky hit upon the idea of assisting the needed economic reconstruction by not demobilizing the Red Army but converting it into a labor force. He wanted to organize forced labor under military discipline on an altogether unprecedented scale. And this in a country already full of revolutionary anarchy! In his articles he declared that it was a bourgeois prejudice that regarded forced labor as economically inferior to free labor. If Trotsky's idea had been carried out, in all probability the Bolshevik regime would have been brought down....
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 125

Another thing concerning Trotsky and the role of managament:

Contrary to a myth of vulgar Trotskyism, he [Trotsky] did not advocate any "direct workers' control over industry," that is management by factory committees or works' councils. This form of management had failed in Russia shortly after the revolution, and Trotsky had ever since been a most determined advocate of one-man management and central control, arguing that management by factory committees would become possible only if and when the mass of producers became well-educated and imbued with a strong sense of social responsibility. He had also been absolutely opposed to the "anarcho-syndicalist" schemes of the Workers' Opposition for the transfer of industrial management to trade unions or "producers associations." He did not significantly alter these views when he found himself in Opposition and exile.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963, p. 101

3. Kronstad had to be supressed. If it wasnt, the British could have fired on Petrograd. The whole thing was stirred up by the Whites and capitalist countries. Trotsky said put down your weapons. Not his fault if the mutineers refused. You cant let mutinies just take over willy nilly. In fact much of the suppression came from within Kronstadt itself. And on the Red Side, Workers Opposition joined in, straingt from the trade union debates!

Can you give me concrete proof that the British would attack Petrograd?

A Marxist Historian

18th February 2012, 21:42

So? "Even" Trotsky was wrong about some things. By which I mean, I think Trotsky was wrong about most things from 1918 onwards.

I have always credited him with believing that it was impossible. If he thought it merely unlikely then he's even more wrong than I previously thought.

fiscal got it wrong, he thought it was quite impossible. Which didn't mean, of course, that one shouldn't try to move in the direction of socialism as much as was practicable. Perhaps this is the origin of fiscal's confusion on this.

As I hope has been amply demonstrated by the failures of the Soviet Union from 1919 onwards, that is a fundamentally wrong-headed approach based on the failure of the Bolsheviks to appreciate the relationship between party, class and state.

Revolution cannot be 'exported'. Look at what happened in Poland. The attempt to export the revolution (ie, invading a neighbouring country) was a total failure. Supporting revolutionary movements in neighbouring countries is one thing, invading them is something else.

Nonsense, of course revolutions can be exported, this has happened quite often in the history of revolution, sometimes quite successfully, sometimes not so much. Which doesn't resolve the question of whether it is a good idea.

Whenever revolutionary troops march in from the outside, there will be a petty bourgeois nationalist reaction. Whether this outweighs the benefits of spreading revolution is a purely tactical question, to be judged case by case.

In the case of Poland, this boiled down to a military question. If it had been militarily possible to defeat Pilsudski, then the benefits of spreading the revolution to Poland, a launch pad for coming to the aid of the revolution in Germany, would have greatly outweighed the damage caused by the inevitable Polish nationalist resentment of the petty bourgeoisie and the more backward sections of the working class.

So in short, invading Poland was a bad idea because it failed, which from a military point of view, given the extended supply lines, was predictable. Not for any other reason.

However, the new 'Soviet' state made all kinds of short-term and opportunistic deals with neighbouring countries too - the Rapallo Treaty for instance, or the deal with Ataturk - which resulted in the massacre of communists.

I fail to see how the Rapallo Treaty was problematic in any way, shape or form. A true triumph of Soviet diplomacy, which helped the USSR economically a lot, and was certainly nothing that discredited the USSR in the eyes of the German workers.

Ataturk is more complicated, given Ataturk's massacres of communists. But it did not in any way *cause* those massacres. If anything, it enabled Soviet diplomats in Istanbul to maybe get an ear from Ataturk in their attempts to get him to back off a little.

In principle, it was fully supportable, as Turkey was then under attack by the British in alliance with Greece. So it was a blow against British imperialism.

1 - there is no 'socialist economy', what it would have developed is a state-capitalist economy, because it would still be a state; it would have borders and external enemies and an army and an economy geared towards arms production and competition with capitalist states; it would also have, by necessity, an exploited working class to make all this possible. So yes, a larger, perhaps more efficient SuperSovietUnion may have developed but this would not be 'socialist', because socialism cannot be built until capitalism has been defeated;
2 - there are no problems inherent in planned production that are not also present in greater degree in unplanned production, so that's a non-argument.

So, you are saying that anywhere the workers take power, unless all the workers take power everywhere simultaneously, they inevitably will just be creating a new form of capitalism?

If that is true, I guess we should all just give up, because you are very unlikely ever to have simultaneous revolutions everywhere.

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

18th February 2012, 21:48

Compare the investment the capitalists made in fighting each other in ww1 and ww2, with the assistance they gave to the whites in the civil war. Doesn't bear comparison. It strikes me that since capitalist societies can manage to maintain a method of self defense and a functional society at the same time, that is the least a socialist society could expect.

If it isn't possible to have a socialist society that defends itself but doesn't oppress/impose more brutal requirements and exploitation apon the workers than the SU did then I have no idea why you would be a communist.

Of course the capitalists were limited in the assistance they could give to the Whites.

Firstly, because they had been devastated by WWI, with France and Germany in ruins, and a remarkably huge percentage of the population of England dead on the battlefield.

And secondly because they faced working class resistance! The French troops in Odessa mutinied, and the British intervention had to be dropped because of labor strikes against military aid to the Whites, shutting down ports and so forth.

And America was in an extremely isolationist mood, and sending US troops to Russia turned out to be enormously unpopular.

As for the USSR, people were starving and industry in ruins, given that backward, Tsarist Russia was, from the standpoint of culture and economics, one of the worst places you could think of to try to create a socialist republic all by yourself.

-M.H.-

Grenzer

18th February 2012, 22:12

1. What lies and betrayal? Please be more specific. I am not a mind reader.

Makhno and the Anarchists provided aid and cooperated with the Red Army to stop Denikin's advance. It's debatable that this aid was crucial in preventing the Bolshevik's defeat, but that's beside the point. In return for this aid, the Bolsheviks began spreading lies about the Makhnovists, such as rumors of sabotage and thievery of Red Army supplies. These were mostly unsubstantiated, and used as a pretext for the Bolsheviks to crush the Anarchists and take over the Free Territory.

2. What militarisation of labour? In the trade union disputes Trotsky's initial proposal was essentially the NEP, ie to end war communism. This was rejected, the economy was in a blind alley, things were desperate, so he said, ok, if we are gonna keep war communism, let's do it properly. He considered the USSR to be a workers state, and in a workers state, workers should have nothing to fear from the state, and so should not need independent trade unions. In the end his original idea was taken up. Btw, there was already 'militarisation of labour' to some degree. And Trotsky's proposals would have given the unions a bigger role in planning.

Sorry, I don't really know enough about the subject to say much.

3. Kronstad had to be supressed. If it wasnt, the British could have fired on Petrograd. The whole thing was stirred up by the Whites and capitalist countries. Trotsky said put down your weapons. Not his fault if the mutineers refused. You cant let mutinies just take over willy nilly. In fact much of the suppression came from within Kronstadt itself. And on the Red Side, Workers Opposition joined in, straingt from the trade union debates!

It was a genuine proletarian movement with some legitimate demands, it was completely unjustifiable to violently put it down.

4. deformed workers state, well, he said the USSR was a degenerated one. This was a good accurate description. It degenerated. Then it collapsed back to capitalism, as he predicted.

The problem with this is that it isn't correct. The Soviet Union wasn't a "Degenerated workers' state" "deformed workers' state" or whatever other bullshit term you want to use. The revolution degenerated directly into capitalism. The Soviet Union didn't have private property, but you don't need to in order to have a capitalist mode of production.

They had to suppress Kronstadt, see above. Tbh, at the time, Kronstadt was not seen as a big deal. And some anarchists supported the suppression.

Hmm.. anarchists supporting state suppression. You sure they were anarchists? Seems like a contradiction in terms. You are right about one thing though, they did have to suppress Kronstadt to solidify their dictatorship over the proletariat.

u.s.red

18th February 2012, 22:18

why did the soviet union collapse? why did the soviet union wither away and die?

1. the soviet union is the first major power in history to simply collapse without a military invasion.

2. marx and engels predicted that once there was longer any class left to suppress, the state would wither and die. Stalin killed off the entire capitalist class, most of the petty-bourgeoise class and a lot of socialists....after 1985 there was no class left to suppress. the soviet union then withered away and died.

However, Russia was still surrounded by capitalism, democratic socialism, welfare states, etc. Therefore, capitalist opportunists rushed into the vacuum. There is now a weird mix of state capitalism, gangster capitalism, state socialism, democratic socialism, etc.

Rooster

18th February 2012, 23:08

1. the soviet union is the first major power in history to simply collapse without a military invasion.

I'm not entirely sure how true this statement is any sense.

2. marx and engels predicted that once there was longer any class left to suppress, the state would wither and die. Stalin killed off the entire capitalist class, most of the petty-bourgeoise class and a lot of socialists....after 1985 there was no class left to suppress. the soviet union then withered away and died.

I also have no idea where you're going with this. Are you saying that since no more classes existed in the USSR then that's why the state of the USSR... withered away and died? If there was no longer any capitalist class left to suppress then where did all of those capitalists come from?

However, Russia was still surrounded by capitalism, democratic socialism, welfare states, etc. Therefore, capitalist opportunists rushed into the vacuum. There is now a weird mix of state capitalism, gangster capitalism, state socialism, democratic socialism, etc.

Oh, I see... when all classes have withered away, other classes came in from the outside and managed to reinstall capitalism. Yeah... that makes perfect sense.

Blake's Baby

19th February 2012, 00:20

...

So, you are saying that anywhere the workers take power, unless all the workers take power everywhere simultaneously, they inevitably will just be creating a new form of capitalism?

If that is true, I guess we should all just give up, because you are very unlikely ever to have simultaneous revolutions everywhere.

-M.H.-

So, you are saying, socialism in one country is a good thing and Stalin was right?

Whenever someone starts an argument with 'so, you are saying...'...

Obviously if the workers don't take power simultaneously everywhere, they can never take power anywhere, oh yes, that totally logically follows you're so brilliant to see that that's where my whole thesis falls down, how unutterably clever... oh, no wait, it's shit.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution fails everywhere else, then it's inevitable that over time the revolutionary territory will succumb to a state-capitalist dictatorship. Know what? Socialism in one country is impossible.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution succeeds everywhere else pretty rapidly, then communism is the likely result, because the obstacles to it will merely be organisational.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution everywhere else takes a long time but succeeds, then the problems which will have inevitably built up in the original revolutionary territory will be rapidly fixed.

So somewhere between 'soon' and 'never' for the world revolution is the expected expiry date of our revolutionary territory. With the caveat that even after its 'sell by date' there's still a 'use by' date, when it can be salvaged by a 'late' extension of the revolution. That leaves a pretty big chasm I'd say in which your 'either simultaneous seizure of power or inevitable new capitalism' must tumble.

So, in your opinion, can a revolutionary territory survive as a revolutionary territory for ... oh I dunno, 70 years? Let's see, are there any claimed revolutionary territories that have survived that long... hmm, I can't think... oh, yeah I can remember one. Mexico. Mexico had a revolution in 1911 and in 1981 it was still Mexico, and still ruled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Do you think the 1981 Mexico was the same revolutionary territory that it was in 1911? Was it still a revolutionary force in the world? Don't be shy, tell us if you think a revolution in one territory can sustain itself for 70 years.

Or 1000 years.

Or 1 million years.

What's your magic number MH?

Bostana

19th February 2012, 00:42

The Soviet Union fell when they separated from Marxism-Lenism.

Khrushchev was instituting rightist economic policies inspired by Bukharin's later years, and replacing the idea of the multinational Soviet Motherland with Russian Nationalism and treating allied nations like colonies. And of course his demonetization of Stalin also included with it a demonetization of Marxism-Leninsim.

Khrushchev went a lot further than merely being critical of his mistakes. He routinely attacked Stalin as a person and some of the most disgusting suggestions about Stalin came from Khrushchev.
And within this narrative, he also attacked many of Stalin's positive Socialist policies, and justified his reversal away from Marxism-Leninism as getting away from the Stalin "Nightmare."

The day they started separating from the Marxism-Leninism s the day it started going down.

His policies reintroduced an emphasis on markets and steered the USSR towards state capitalism. He was a disciple of what is called the Right Opposition Group. These were people who believed in market Capitalism.
Khrushchev also allowed the illegal private economy o flourish. This became the main problem during the Brezhnev years, which saw basically total stagnation to flourish, and a huge growth in corruption. Meanwhile the party itself did nothing to combat this. Brezhnev himself was an open Russian Nationalist and led the USSR into and imperialistic was in Afghanistan and other Imperialistic meddling in trying to assert influence in non-socialist countries.
But obviously there is more to it than "Stalin did this, and Khrushchev did that" History is a story of materialist conditions, not of Great Men.
Things became so bad in the Brezhnev years because of the '77 recession, the illegal private sector controlled a huge part of the economy, especially in places like Kazakhstan. These mobsters and other Capitalists bribed Party officials to look the other way, and corruption reached to the very top.

It was an inability to accurtley respond to both internal and external problems and threats.

Post-1956 Party policies only aggravated these threats.

However Communism will never die.
As long as there is a Proletariat the Hear of Communism cannot be broken.

u.s.red

19th February 2012, 03:09

I'm not entirely sure how true this statement is any sense.

In any sense. Name any major world power in history which just collapsed.

I also have no idea where you're going with this. Are you saying that since no more classes existed in the USSR then that's why the state of the USSR... withered away and died? If there was no longer any capitalist class left to suppress then where did all of those capitalists come from?

From capital exported from the West. As in Jeffrey Sach's "shock treatment."

Oh, I see... when all classes have withered away, other classes came in from the outside and managed to reinstall capitalism. Yeah... that makes perfect sense.

That is why communism cannot succeed except internationally. Capitalism is like a cancer. It can be cut out locally, but it will still come back if it remains in the body.

This is also why "socialism in one country" will always fail, which is not to say that it should not be tried over and over again until socialism finally wins. Once enough of the world is socialist then capitalism will be unable to re-install itself.

A Marxist Historian

19th February 2012, 04:13

Makhno and the Anarchists provided aid and cooperated with the Red Army to stop Denikin's advance. It's debatable that this aid was crucial in preventing the Bolshevik's defeat, but that's beside the point. In return for this aid, the Bolsheviks began spreading lies about the Makhnovists, such as rumors of sabotage and thievery of Red Army supplies. These were mostly unsubstantiated, and used as a pretext for the Bolsheviks to crush the Anarchists and take over the Free Territory...

Mostly unsubstantiated, crap. Military goods shipments on rail lines through Makhno's territory got confiscated, even during the period Makhno was a Red Army commander, to say nothing of later. Makhno's mutiny in spring 1919 opened the front to Denikin's advance. It's true, that fall he did cooperate with the Bolsheviks vs. Denikin, and next year again vs. Wrangel. But his see sawing back and forth between supporting the Bolsheviks and fighting against them definitely sabotaged the fighting front a lot of the time.

And then of course there were the pogroms against Jews committed by Makhno's troops, which are thoroughly documented, just look at the article on that I posted to the articles section here on Revleft. And his secret police torturing and murdering Bolsheviks...

http://www.revleft.com/vb/makhno-file-t158083/index.html?t=158083

Hmm.. anarchists supporting state suppression. You sure they were anarchists? Seems like a contradiction in terms. You are right about one thing though, they did have to suppress Kronstadt to solidify their dictatorship over the proletariat.

Actually, most anarchists did support Kronstadt. You had quite a few anarchists, like Victor Serge and Bill Shatov, who had gone over to the Bolsheviks, but anarchists in anarchist organizations in Russia by and large did support the Kronstadt mutiny.

Unlike Makhno. Most organized Russian anarchists considered Makhno a bandit posing as an anarchist, not a real anarchist. They hated the Bolsheviks, and not a few of them didn't care too much about the Jewish pogroms, as too many of 'em thought all Jews were capitalists. But his dictatorial behavior and his secret police arresting anybody who disagreed with him didn't seem too cool to your average Russian anarchist, who were not usually too thrilled with militaristic dictatorial peasant guerilla leaders

It was only later in exile, after some anarchists on Makhno's staff like Voline wrote books defending him, that Russian anarchists changed their tune.

As for the real story on Kronstadt, why this counterrevolutionary mutiny had to be suppressed, here's a link, as to what actually the deal was.

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/59/kronstadt.html

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

19th February 2012, 04:27

So, you are saying, socialism in one country is a good thing and Stalin was right?

Whenever someone starts an argument with 'so, you are saying...'...

Obviously if the workers don't take power simultaneously everywhere, they can never take power anywhere, oh yes, that totally logically follows you're so brilliant to see that that's where my whole thesis falls down, how unutterably clever... oh, no wait, it's shit.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution fails everywhere else, then it's inevitable that over time the revolutionary territory will succumb to a state-capitalist dictatorship. Know what? Socialism in one country is impossible.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution succeeds everywhere else pretty rapidly, then communism is the likely result, because the obstacles to it will merely be organisational.

If the working class takes power in an area, and the revolution everywhere else takes a long time but succeeds, then the problems which will have inevitably built up in the original revolutionary territory will be rapidly fixed.

So somewhere between 'soon' and 'never' for the world revolution is the expected expiry date of our revolutionary territory. With the caveat that even after its 'sell by date' there's still a 'use by' date, when it can be salvaged by a 'late' extension of the revolution. That leaves a pretty big chasm I'd say in which your 'either simultaneous seizure of power or inevitable new capitalism' must tumble.

So, in your opinion, can a revolutionary territory survive as a revolutionary territory for ... oh I dunno, 70 years? Let's see, are there any claimed revolutionary territories that have survived that long... hmm, I can't think... oh, yeah I can remember one. Mexico. Mexico had a revolution in 1911 and in 1981 it was still Mexico, and still ruled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Do you think the 1981 Mexico was the same revolutionary territory that it was in 1911? Was it still a revolutionary force in the world? Don't be shy, tell us if you think a revolution in one territory can sustain itself for 70 years.

Or 1000 years.

Or 1 million years.

What's your magic number MH?

I don't believe in magic, I believe in class struggle.

Obviously, how long an isolated revolution can survive depends on how dedicated the working class is to its revolution, how good the leadership is, and all sorts of particular circumstances that vary from case to case, how much economic resources, whether the capitalist enemies are united against it or fighting among themselves, how good the economic planning is, how much support it has from workers elsewhere, etc. etc.

Or, putting it another way, it's a question of how the class struggle goes, domestically as well as abroad. Not something an astrologer can predict in advance.

Did the revolution in the USSR sustain itself for 70 years? Well, 72 actually, but after the first six, it degenerated bureaucratically. Rather longer than Trotsky expected, as the world-historic victory of the Soviet Union over Hitler fascism during WWII gave Stalinism a lot of undeserved credit in the eyes of the working class of the Soviet Union, and of much of the rest of the world as well. (Undeserved because of the responsibility of Stalin and his bureaucratds for all those disastrous early military defeats, the Hitler-Stalin pact etc.)

It wasn't really until the WWII generation of the Soviet working class retired that the Soviet Union collapsed.

You do realize, by the way, that all your nice Trotskyish bromides above, all true enough as far as they go, completely contradict what you said earlier, that, essentially, you'd have to have Communism Now the day after the revolution, or it's all just state capitalism?

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

19th February 2012, 04:30

In any sense. Name any major world power in history which just collapsed...

The Roman Empire. The Hapsburg Empire after WWI. Chiang Kai-Shek's regime in China after WWII.

And, of course, the USSR in 1991.

-M.H.-

Rooster

19th February 2012, 08:44

In any sense. Name any major world power in history which just collapsed.

Just because you can't name any doesn't mean it never happened.

From capital exported from the West. As in Jeffrey Sach's "shock treatment."

That is why communism cannot succeed except internationally. Capitalism is like a cancer. It can be cut out locally, but it will still come back if it remains in the body.

This is also why "socialism in one country" will always fail, which is not to say that it should not be tried over and over again until socialism finally wins. Once enough of the world is socialist then capitalism will be unable to re-install itself.

This is the most bizarre argument I've ever heard about the USSR falling. Are you saying that the USSR achieved socialism and that's why the state collapsed?

Valk0010

19th February 2012, 09:10

I think its demise was inherent in its design. Instead of worker's control of production it became under primarily stalin, top down overseer control of production, otherwise known as state capitalism. They had to do this because WW1 among other things destroyed the Russian working class.

robbo203

19th February 2012, 09:22

So, you are saying that anywhere the workers take power, unless all the workers take power everywhere simultaneously, they inevitably will just be creating a new form of capitalism?

If that is true, I guess we should all just give up, because you are very unlikely ever to have simultaneous revolutions everywhere.

-M.H.-

This is a completely wrong deduction. A new form of capitalism will inevitably be created as happened in the Soviet Union should it be the case that a majority of workers are still not socialist minded. That clearly applied in the case of Russia 1917. Not only was the Russian working class only a small fraction of the population - perhaps 10% - but overwhelmingly Russian workers were not socialist minded and Lenin himself free acknowleged this to be the case. For that reason alone socialism was simply not on the cards. By default, if not design, the Bolsheviks had to take on the administration of capitalism and, in the course of doing so, those who controlled the state became the new de facto capitalist ruling class with complete control over the disposal of the economic surplus

However if we assume the growth of a genuine socialist movement wanting to establish a non-market stateless alternative to capitalism in all its forms, the probability is that, should such a movement grow in one part of the world, it will almost axiomatically be growing elsewhere too. Ideas cannot be contained within national boundaries. Therefore the problem of coordinating the changeoever to a socialist society on a global scale will be far less daunting than is commonly supposed.

Blake's Baby

19th February 2012, 12:06

...

You do realize, by the way, that all your nice Trotskyish bromides above, all true enough as far as they go, completely contradict what you said earlier, that, essentially, you'd have to have Communism Now the day after the revolution, or it's all just state capitalism?

-M.H.-

Now, go on, instead of just asserting that I said it, why don't you quote me? Go on, go on, go on.

Oh, wait, you can't, because that's not what I said.

Man, you're so full of lies it makes me want to spit.

What I said was "socialism cannot be built until capitalism has been defeated".

Obviously, you disagree with that statement; hence my assertion earlier you're a Stalinist.

u.s.red

20th February 2012, 00:45

Just because you can't name any doesn't mean it never happened.

This is the most bizarre argument I've ever heard about the USSR falling. Are you saying that the USSR achieved socialism and that's why the state collapsed?

Its bizarreness doesn't make it less valid. That is exactly why the state failed. A state exists only because there is a class to be suppressed. Once that condition no longer exists, the state collapses, or as someone once said "withers away and dies."

No one could foresee what would happen when a world-power socialist (even a degraded one) state surrounded by hostile capitalism collapsed. Now we have some evidence of what happens.

GoddessCleoLover

20th February 2012, 00:50

u.s.red

20th February 2012, 01:32

I don't mean to be unkind, but the notion of the withering away of the state involves the empowerment of the working class, not the restoration of capitalism. The union did not wither away, it was replaced by a corrupt and incompetent bourgeois state; the Russian Federation.

Not only did the Soviet Union empower the working class, it partially destroyed the bourgeois class and drove the remnants underground.

A corrupt and incompetent bourgeois state (with the help of the West) was able to replace the Soviet state which had withered away and died. The Soviet state did not collapse in a vacuum, but the collapse did create a vacuum, into which a corrupt bourgeois state rushed.

A Marxist Historian

22nd February 2012, 10:21

This is a completely wrong deduction. A new form of capitalism will inevitably be created as happened in the Soviet Union should it be the case that a majority of workers are still not socialist minded. That clearly applied in the case of Russia 1917. Not only was the Russian working class only a small fraction of the population - perhaps 10% - but overwhelmingly Russian workers were not socialist minded and Lenin himself free acknowleged this to be the case. For that reason alone socialism was simply not on the cards. By default, if not design, the Bolsheviks had to take on the administration of capitalism and, in the course of doing so, those who controlled the state became the new de facto capitalist ruling class with complete control over the disposal of the economic surplus

However if we assume the growth of a genuine socialist movement wanting to establish a non-market stateless alternative to capitalism in all its forms, the probability is that, should such a movement grow in one part of the world, it will almost axiomatically be growing elsewhere too. Ideas cannot be contained within national boundaries. Therefore the problem of coordinating the changeoever to a socialist society on a global scale will be far less daunting than is commonly supposed.

Ah, a latter day Menshevik. Martov couldn't have put it better. Capitalism was inevitable, indeed maybe even desirable, as Russia just wasn't ready for socialism, which is something for the sweet by and by, not for right now. Well, that's pie in the sky.

Actually, Russian workers were just about as socialist minded as you could imagine. Even the peasants voted for something called the "Socialist Revolutionary Party," it was hardly their fault that it turned out to be neither socialist nor revolutionary.

The sad fact is that the world is about as ready for a socialist revolution now as it ever will be. Capitalist society is going into decline and disintegration in all the main economic centers. Only in China really is human society not in decline, and that is only because China is a noncapitalist country.

Ideologically, we can hope that workers in the future will be more accepting of socialist ideas than they are right now, as the ideological consequences of the collapse of the USSR slowly wash away.

But in material terms, capitalist society is rotten-ripe for revolution, and as decay advances will probably become less ripe for workers revolution, not more.

Countries and societies are very variegated, the pulses of political development never beat in unison. The idea that all workers everywhere will be ready for revolution at exactly the same time is utterly impossible.

-M.H.-

Rooster

22nd February 2012, 10:36

Its bizarreness doesn't make it less valid. That is exactly why the state failed. A state exists only because there is a class to be suppressed. Once that condition no longer exists, the state collapses, or as someone once said "withers away and dies."

No one could foresee what would happen when a world-power socialist (even a degraded one) state surrounded by hostile capitalism collapsed. Now we have some evidence of what happens.

You have got to be joking, Shirley. Outside agitators created the current Russian state? This doesn't even tally in with what marxist-leninists say. So who appointed all of these Russian capitalists? lol wait, how did western capitalists even accumulate capital in the USSR? Did they buy it from someone? Did they come in and invade with an army? Did they just say that they belong to someone else? Also, could you point out to me when there stopped being wage workers in the USSR?

A Marxist Historian

22nd February 2012, 10:41

Now, go on, instead of just asserting that I said it, why don't you quote me? Go on, go on, go on.

Oh, wait, you can't, because that's not what I said.

Man, you're so full of lies it makes me want to spit.

What I said was "socialism cannot be built until capitalism has been defeated".

Obviously, you disagree with that statement; hence my assertion earlier you're a Stalinist.

You want a quote? Ok, here you go, from earlier in the thread.

...
1 - there is no 'socialist economy', what it would have developed is a state-capitalist economy, because it would still be a state; it would have borders and external enemies and an army and an economy geared towards arms production and competition with capitalist states; it would also have, by necessity, an exploited working class to make all this possible...

So then the USSR was capitalist from Day One, presumably something to be fought against tooth and nail, just like all the anarchists and other anti-communists say.

So socialism can't be built till capitalism has been defeated? By which you mean worldwide, since you can't have socialism in one country?

Of course you can't have socialism in a single country, or a group of countries for that matter. A socialist society can only be constructed on a world basis.

But by your reasoning, obviously the workers shouldn't stage revolutions unless they can do them all at once, as otherwise all you get is more capitalism. Right?

Which is what I said, so you have no call to mutter about lying and whatnot.

A socialist society cannot be constructed except on a world basis. But meanwhile, the working class can overthrow capitalism wherever it can and rule as much of the world as possible, and work to move society in the direction of socialism as much as is practicable where this is successful.

-M.H.-

daft punk

22nd February 2012, 11:48

Trotskys proposal was dangereous.

When Stalin requisitioned the grain of the south to feed the hungry population of the north, he had regard neither for the open market of capitalism nor for the principle of the future exchange of goods in communist society. He was doing what any State power would have had to do if it intended to survive, whether that State were a slave, feudal, capitalist, or socialist. The economics of War Communism were the economics of survival, and that they took on extreme forms of centralization of authority, applied measures of confiscation right and left, requisitioned without regard for the economic niceties of the market, is incidental.
At this period Stalin and Trotsky again found themselves in opposite camps. Flushed with enthusiasm for the growing discipline of the Red Army, Trotsky initiated the transformation of its regiments into military Labor Battalions. Again showing his characteristic lack of confidence in the workers, he proposed to militarize labor in industry and make the Trade Unions into governmental institutions which would effect the necessary discipline. He opposed the election of trade union officials and favored their appointment by the Government....
Lenin and Stalin together fought Trotsky's proposal. They insisted that the Trade Unions be voluntary and democratic, elect their officials, adopt methods of comradely persuasion and eschew the dictatorial practices of the military-minded.
Murphy, John Thomas. Stalin, London, John Lane, 1945, p. 140

This instance [causing a huge eventual loss by refusing to sign the Brest-Litovsk Treaty] is enough to show the Trotsky had no comprehension of political realities. This was made clear again on later occasions. To quote only one instance, after the end of the Civil War Trotsky hit upon the idea of assisting the needed economic reconstruction by not demobilizing the Red Army but converting it into a labor force. He wanted to organize forced labor under military discipline on an altogether unprecedented scale. And this in a country already full of revolutionary anarchy! In his articles he declared that it was a bourgeois prejudice that regarded forced labor as economically inferior to free labor. If Trotsky's idea had been carried out, in all probability the Bolshevik regime would have been brought down....
Basseches, Nikolaus. Stalin. London, New York: Staples Press, 1952, p. 125

Another thing concerning Trotsky and the role of managament:

Contrary to a myth of vulgar Trotskyism, he [Trotsky] did not advocate any "direct workers' control over industry," that is management by factory committees or works' councils. This form of management had failed in Russia shortly after the revolution, and Trotsky had ever since been a most determined advocate of one-man management and central control, arguing that management by factory committees would become possible only if and when the mass of producers became well-educated and imbued with a strong sense of social responsibility. He had also been absolutely opposed to the "anarcho-syndicalist" schemes of the Workers' Opposition for the transfer of industrial management to trade unions or "producers associations." He did not significantly alter these views when he found himself in Opposition and exile.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast. London, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963, p. 101

I have already discussed this.

Pleas discuss what I wrote and dont just paste from your Big Book of Lies. Trotsky in fact later said that Lenin was right at the time. But as I say, the thing they ended up doing, the NEP, was Trotsky's original idea in the first place. In between, the economy went nowhere. All Trotsky wanted to do was get a quick start for a devastated economy in a blind alley. He was trying to get the railways rebuilt and so on.

Can you give me concrete proof that the British would attack Petrograd?
No. The British had given up fighting the Bolsheviks, but they were stirring it up in Kronstadt, and they might have attacked if the fortress was held by mutineers. Anyway, it was something i read ages ago but cant seem to find anything on now.

daft punk

22nd February 2012, 11:56

Makhno and the Anarchists provided aid and cooperated with the Red Army to stop Denikin's advance. It's debatable that this aid was crucial in preventing the Bolshevik's defeat, but that's beside the point. In return for this aid, the Bolsheviks began spreading lies about the Makhnovists, such as rumors of sabotage and thievery of Red Army supplies. These were mostly unsubstantiated, and used as a pretext for the Bolsheviks to crush the Anarchists and take over the Free Territory.

I think you need to read this
http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml

It was a genuine proletarian movement with some legitimate demands, it was completely unjustifiable to violently put it down.

No it wasnt. i dont have the inclination to write loads about Kronstadt, read some Trotskist sources to get the other point of view, eg this
http://www.marxist.com/kronstadt-trotsky-was-right.htm

The problem with this is that it isn't correct. The Soviet Union wasn't a "Degenerated workers' state" "deformed workers' state" or whatever other bullshit term you want to use. The revolution degenerated directly into capitalism. The Soviet Union didn't have private property, but you don't need to in order to have a capitalist mode of production.

The USSR was not capitalist, it was a planned economy. To call it capitalist is ludicrous. There were no capitalists, no private ownership of the means of production, none of that.

Hmm.. anarchists supporting state suppression. You sure they were anarchists? Seems like a contradiction in terms. You are right about one thing though, they did have to suppress Kronstadt to solidify their dictatorship over the proletariat.

Plenty of anarchists joined the Bolsheviks, the most famous was Victor Serge
who wrote Trotsky's biography with his widow.

wiki:

"Serge soon became disillusioned, and joined with Emma Goldman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman) and Alexander Berkman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Berkman) to complain about the way the Red Army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army) treated the sailors involved in the Kronstadt Uprising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_Uprising). He believed that, with more competent officials in charge of the negotiations, there could have been a settlement between the government and the sailors. However, Serge reluctantly sided with the Bolshevik Party on the Kronstadt rebellion, because, in his view, it better represented the interests of the workers, and the alternative was counter-revolution."

Blake's Baby

22nd February 2012, 13:58

You want a quote? Ok, here you go, from earlier in the thread...

...
1 - there is no 'socialist economy', what it would have developed is a state-capitalist economy, because it would still be a state; it would have borders and external enemies and an army and an economy geared towards arms production and competition with capitalist states; it would also have, by necessity, an exploited working class to make all this possible...

So then the USSR was capitalist from Day One...

The word 'developed' implies a process. Do you know of many political and/or economic process that 'develop' in the course of a single day? Really? You think that by the term 'developed ... a state-capitalist economy' I meant 'a state capitalist economy appeared on day one'?

So, I withdraw the accusation you're a liar, because it seems instead you're illiterate.

presumably something to be fought against tooth and nail, just like all the anarchists and other anti-communists say....

The 'presumably' is a bit worrying. I'm not sure what you presume or why, but if you mean to imply that the dictatorship of the proletariat adopting state-capitalist measures is something you would fight tootha nd nail, I'm happy to say we'll be on opposite sides of the barricades. I assume that the working class in a revolutionary territory will have to introduce state capitalist measures. Do I like them? No. Do I think that they're socialism? No. Might they keep people alive while the world civil war is being fought? Yes.

I'm going nowhere near 'anarchists and other anti-communists... want to fight against capitalism' which is the substance of what you're saying.

...So socialism can't be built till capitalism has been defeated? By which you mean worldwide, since you can't have socialism in one country?

He's got it, by George, I think he's got it!

...
Of course you can't have socialism in a single country, or a group of countries for that matter. A socialist society can only be constructed on a world basis...

Brilliant! We'll make a marxist, socialist and revolutionary of you yet!

...But by your reasoning, obviously the workers shouldn't stage revolutions unless they can do them all at once, as otherwise all you get is more capitalism. Right?

Which is what I said, so you have no call to mutter about lying and whatnot...

No. I think your 'obviously' is a bit like your earlier 'presumably'. What may be obvious to you, in your presumption, is by no means logical or coherent or even implied.

The (world) revolution is not a national affair. When the world economic crisis of international capitalism makes the international proletariat question the future that capitalism is offereing it, it starts to fight back against the effects of the crisis - whether that is manifesting itself economically, politically, militarily... the exact shape the crisis takes in any given territory will depend on a lot of factors. But it is the same crisis, and it's the same working class.

Some places will have revolutions before others. In some places the siezure of power may be quicker, in other places more difficult. The world revolution will take time.

Yes, revolutionary territories that are in advance of other still-revolting territories will necessarily have to administer capitalism until the rest of the world catches up. They can't have socialism, they can't abolish capitalism; what other choice is there? As Lenin put it, 'state capitalism managed in the interests of the working class'. There is no 'new economic form' that can fit into that process.

That doesn't mean that the revolution isn't worth it, 'because all you get is more capitalism'. It means it isn't worth it, if that's all you're ever going to get. So it's not worth aiming for 'a socialist country'. If the aim is not 'world revolution' then the endevour is pointless because a 'socialist country' is impossible.

A socialist society cannot be constructed except on a world basis. But meanwhile, the working class can overthrow capitalism wherever it can and rule as much of the world as possible, and work to move society in the direction of socialism as much as is practicable where this is successful.

I largely agree with that. The working class can't abolish capitalism in an isolated territory, but it can expropriate the capitalists and sieze political power and rule as much of the world as possible, and work to move society in the direction of socialism, while the working class in the still-capitalist territories is still in the process of trying to complete the revolution; what it can't do is survive, long term, in an isolated teerritory in a pseudo-revolutionary rump state bleating about how its acheived 'socialism'. It hasn't. Until capitalism is abolished (capitalism is a worldwide system and must be abolished worldwide) there is no socialism. There is only capitalism, free-market or governmental command makes no odds.

It may be administered in the one case by a revolutionary proletarian administration, but pretending that's what socialism is, is dangerous. Not saying you're actually doing that because yopu've also unequivocally said it's not socialism; but you haven't explained what it is, if you also think it's not capitalism.

A Marxist Historian

25th February 2012, 22:02

The word 'developed' implies a process. Do you know of many political and/or economic process that 'develop' in the course of a single day? Really? You think that by the term 'developed ... a state-capitalist economy' I meant 'a state capitalist economy appeared on day one'?

So, I withdraw the accusation you're a liar, because it seems instead you're illiterate.

The 'presumably' is a bit worrying. I'm not sure what you presume or why, but if you mean to imply that the dictatorship of the proletariat adopting state-capitalist measures is something you would fight tootha nd nail, I'm happy to say we'll be on opposite sides of the barricades. I assume that the working class in a revolutionary territory will have to introduce state capitalist measures. Do I like them? No. Do I think that they're socialism? No. Might they keep people alive while the world civil war is being fought? Yes.

I'm going nowhere near 'anarchists and other anti-communists... want to fight against capitalism' which is the substance of what you're saying.

He's got it, by George, I think he's got it!

Brilliant! We'll make a marxist, socialist and revolutionary of you yet!

No. I think your 'obviously' is a bit like your earlier 'presumably'. What may be obvious to you, in your presumption, is by no means logical or coherent or even implied.

The (world) revolution is not a national affair. When the world economic crisis of international capitalism makes the international proletariat question the future that capitalism is offereing it, it starts to fight back against the effects of the crisis - whether that is manifesting itself economically, politically, militarily... the exact shape the crisis takes in any given territory will depend on a lot of factors. But it is the same crisis, and it's the same working class.

Some places will have revolutions before others. In some places the siezure of power may be quicker, in other places more difficult. The world revolution will take time.

Yes, revolutionary territories that are in advance of other still-revolting territories will necessarily have to administer capitalism until the rest of the world catches up. They can't have socialism, they can't abolish capitalism; what other choice is there? As Lenin put it, 'state capitalism managed in the interests of the working class'. There is no 'new economic form' that can fit into that process.

That doesn't mean that the revolution isn't worth it, 'because all you get is more capitalism'. It means it isn't worth it, if that's all you're ever going to get. So it's not worth aiming for 'a socialist country'. If the aim is not 'world revolution' then the endevour is pointless because a 'socialist country' is impossible.

I largely agree with that. The working class can't abolish capitalism in an isolated territory, but it can expropriate the capitalists and sieze political power and rule as much of the world as possible, and work to move society in the direction of socialism, while the working class in the still-capitalist territories is still in the process of trying to complete the revolution; what it can't do is survive, long term, in an isolated teerritory in a pseudo-revolutionary rump state bleating about how its acheived 'socialism'. It hasn't. Until capitalism is abolished (capitalism is a worldwide system and must be abolished worldwide) there is no socialism. There is only capitalism, free-market or governmental command makes no odds.

It may be administered in the one case by a revolutionary proletarian administration, but pretending that's what socialism is, is dangerous. Not saying you're actually doing that because yopu've also unequivocally said it's not socialism; but you haven't explained what it is, if you also think it's not capitalism.

Ah! OK then, I misunderstood you, and you are not in fact chorusing together with all the anarchists and other anti-communists here on Revleft. Good!

Though, unless here I am being illiterate here, confusing you with somebody else, weren't you arguing in defense of the mostly-peasant-background Kronstadt rebel sailors, fighting for free trade and all that? Which by the way none of the "left communists" of the '20s, Bordiga etc., wanted anything to do with, they fully supported Sovet crushing of this objectively pro-capitalist insurrection. Or the Workers Opposition in the USSR, who enthusiastically participated personally in crushing the mutiny.

But I do find your concept of the workers building, first "state capitalism," and then socialism, highly peculiar and confusing. A confusion with a classic pedigree, it was the analysis of Zinoviev, now most usually associated with the Cliffites, who do indeed howl together with all the anti-communist wolves.

Lenin in his discussions of "state capitalism" made it quite clear that he was talking about concessions to private capitalism, to the kulaks, to the NEPmen, to favoring foreign investment if possible (it wasn't, the imperialists just didn't want to invest in the USSR under Lenin or even Stalin.) He wasn't talking about the main sector of the economy, the state sector, which I recall he always referred to as the "socialist sector" of mixed NEP economy.

-M.H.-

Blake's Baby

26th February 2012, 12:42

Ah! OK then, I misunderstood you, and you are not in fact chorusing together with all the anarchists and other anti-communists here on Revleft. Good!...

Oh, I fear you misunderstand me again, for if you lump 'anarchists and other anti-communists' together then you would firmly put me into that 'camp', or shall I say 'gulag', too.

...

Though, unless here I am being illiterate here, confusing you with somebody else, weren't you arguing in defense of the mostly-peasant-background Kronstadt rebel sailors...

That's a lie, or at least an untruth, but I'll assume it's ignorance on your part.

1-the majority of the Kronstatdt Soviet and local Bolshevil Party backed the sailors' demands;
2-the majority of the original sailors' committee was composed of sailors with long service records (the same sailors Trotsky had praised in 1917) who were involved in engineering and communications and other 'industrial' processes on the ships.

... fighting for free trade and all that?

The free trade that Lenin introduced with the NEP you mean?

... Which by the way none of the "left communists" of the '20s, Bordiga etc., wanted anything to do with, they fully supported Sovet crushing of this objectively pro-capitalist insurrection...

I think you're mistaking Bordiga for Bukharin. If you have info on Bordiga supporting the suppression of the Kronstadt Rising, I'd be interested to see it. The Bordigists - and indeed, the Italian Communist Left in general - were the most clear that relations of force should not exist between the working class.

... Or the Workers Opposition in the USSR, who enthusiastically participated personally in crushing the mutiny...

Yes, people can be wrong at one time and right at another. I once woke up thinking it was a Saturday, but later realised it was Sunday. What a crazy world we live in.

...But I do find your concept of the workers building, first "state capitalism," and then socialism, highly peculiar and confusing. A confusion with a classic pedigree, it was the analysis of Zinoviev, now most usually associated with the Cliffites, who do indeed howl together with all the anti-communist wolves...

And I find your belief that you can have something that is neither capitalism nor communism (world socialism) somewhat confusing, a confusion with a long pedigree, going back to the utopians. Luckily, Marxism disposes of that notion.

...Lenin in his discussions of "state capitalism" made it quite clear that he was talking about concessions to private capitalism, to the kulaks, to the NEPmen, to favoring foreign investment if possible (it wasn't, the imperialists just didn't want to invest in the USSR under Lenin or even Stalin.) He wasn't talking about the main sector of the economy, the state sector, which I recall he always referred to as the "socialist sector" of mixed NEP economy...

Because Lenin was wrong. That's not 'state socialism', there is no 'state socialism' as Engels and Wilhelm Liebknecht demonstrated in the 1880s and 1890s. '... state socialism is really state capitalism' as Leibknecht said.

robbo203

26th February 2012, 19:59

The USSR was not capitalist, it was a planned economy. To call it capitalist is ludicrous. There were no capitalists, no private ownership of the means of production, none of that.

Sigh. Groan. Here we go again. Repeat after me: "The USSR was NOT a planned economy". Say that several hundred times quietly to yourself and maybe, just maybe , by a process of osmosis, this might eventually penetrate through to your brain and, with any luck, rouse you from your dogmatic Trotskyist slumber

Why do some leftists go on and on about a friggin "planned economy"? It drives me up the wall, so it does. So lets try and deconstruct this silly slogan around which some have sought to build up such a ridiculous mystique

Look - every economy entails "planning" without exception. Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman's Free market dystopia is full to the brim with plans. Every entrepeneur makes plans. If you mean by a planned economy the elimination of all these many plans and their assimilation into one single giant mega plan - what is classically called "central planning" - then, sorry, but the Soviet economy was a long long way from that. There was a far greater degree of decentralised decisionmaking at the level of state enterprises (without which the SU would probably have collpsed much earlier) than is commonly supposed. Not only that, GOSPLANS "plans" were more or less a complete farce. No plan was ever strictly fulfilled . What happened was that the plan's targets were constantly changed to make it appear as if they had been successfully fulfilled. It was a PR job, in short. The economy was not guided by the plan; on the contrary, the plan was guided by the economy. It was NOT a planned economy

Then there is your clailm that there were "no capitalists, private pownership of the means of production". Actually, capitalism doesn't depend on private ownership of the means of production in the sense of individual capitalists owning personal equity. Here's Engels saying so (this quote makes the assorted Stalinists, MLs and Trots on this list squirm so I take a perverse pleasure in posting it again and again)

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

Note that phrase: " the capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. So state ownership is fully compatible with capitalism. Inwardly digest what this means!

As for theire being no capitalists in Russia, what rubbish! Of course there were. The Soviet capitalists were that class that effectively monopolised the means of production via their strangleohold on the state. "Ultimate control" and "de facto ownership" are the same thing!! The Red Fat Cats in the Soviet Union has absolute control over the disposal of the economic surplus just like their counterparts ion the West only the basis of ther control was somewhat different

Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime wrote a a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires" which proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success. And you say there were no capirtalists!!

In point of fact economic inequality in Russia grew enormously after the old Bolshevik policy of Uravnilovka, or income leveling was ignominiously abandoned under Lenin. He was, after all, an accomplished capitalist politician for whom capitalist "economic realism" was an imperative. As he put it in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work"): “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian

It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in Russia, the ratio between the lowest and highest wages steadily increased from 1:1.8 just after the Bolshevik Revolution to 1:40 in 1950 (Ossowski S, Patterson S, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1963, 116). John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both case, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf). According to Roy Medvedev (Khrushchev: The Years in Power ,Columbia University Press. 1976, 540), taking into account not only their inflated "salaries" but also the many privileges and perks enjoyed by the Soviet elite (who even had access to their own retail outlets stocking western goods and various other facilities from which the general public was physically excluded) the ratio between low and high earners was more like 1:100.

And you still reckon there were no capitalists?

A Marxist Historian

27th February 2012, 22:13

Trying to persuade oneself that the USSR wasn't a planned economy through self-hypnosis?

I hear it can work for getting off cigarettes.

Of course it was a planned economy. Pretty badly planned under Stalin and his successors however.

Sigh. Groan. Here we go again. Repeat after me: "The USSR was NOT a planned economy". Say that several hundred times quietly to yourself and maybe, just maybe , by a process of osmosis, this might eventually penetrate through to your brain and, with any luck, rouse you from your dogmatic Trotskyist slumber

Why do some leftists go on and on about a friggin "planned economy"? It drives me up the wall, so it does. So lets try and deconstruct this silly slogan around which some have sought to build up such a ridiculous mystique

Look - every economy entails "planning" without exception. Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman's Free market dystopia is full to the brim with plans. Every entrepeneur makes plans. If you mean by a planned economy the elimination of all these many plans and their assimilation into one single giant mega plan - what is classically called "central planning" - then, sorry, but the Soviet economy was a long long way from that. There was a far greater degree of decentralised decisionmaking at the level of state enterprises (without which the SU would probably have collpsed much earlier) than is commonly supposed. Not only that, GOSPLANS "plans" were more or less a complete farce. No plan was ever strictly fulfilled . What happened was that the plan's targets were constantly changed to make it appear as if they had been successfully fulfilled. It was a PR job, in short. The economy was not guided by the plan; on the contrary, the plan was guided by the economy. It was NOT a planned economy

So then capitalism is a planned economy too? Well, all this reminds me of the line from the poet, "the best plans of mice and men gang aft a'gley."

Of course capitalists make plans, everybody does. But a capitalist economy is not run my conscious human will and intention, but by the workings of the capitalist market place, the laws of supply and demand, Adam Smith etc.

This was simply not the case in the USSR. If anything, there should have been more attention to supply and demand, not less.

But it is simple fact that what was produced in a Soviet factory was determined by human beings, conscious choice and will, not the laws ofa capitalist economy Marx explained. Plans. And how they were implemented by bureaucrats at the local level, usually quite badly. Having a single comprehensive plan, by the way, is not particularly decisive either. The first central single plan for the USSR's economy wasn't adopted till 1928, there was never a single central plan when Lenin or Trotsky was in charge, rather that was something they, especially Trotsky, hoped could be done in the future.

Lenin was quite content with his plan for electrification of the USSR, the basis of his famous line that socialism equals electrification plus Soviets.

Not by the functioning of the laws of capitalism so well explained by Marx.

Did Soviet plans get changed on a day by day basis in the USSR to conform to practical realities? Yes, but not nearly enough. All too often, central planners set impossible goals.

Did bureaucrats falsify and fiddle with the plans at a local level to make it look like they fulfilled the plan goals when in fact they hadn't?

Yes. A risky occupation under Stalin, and a major reason why so many bureaucrats ended up getting shot or sent to Siberia.

All that proves is that Soviet planning under Stalin and his successors wasn't done very well, and that the bureaucracy needed to be overthrown by the workers in a political revolution. So what else is new?

Wasz the USSR utterly immune to real, practical, economic considerations, laws of supply and demand, etc.? Of course not, then it would have been a fullblown socialist society, something it was pretty far from, obviously.

But it was not regulated by the profit motive, unlike any capitalist society. "Profit" on the books in factory records was simply an accounting device, not a regulator, whose prime purpose really was to help the tops figure out which bureaucrats deserved promotion and which deserved to be fired.

Then there is your clailm that there were "no capitalists, private pownership of the means of production". Actually, capitalism doesn't depend on private ownership of the means of production in the sense of individual capitalists owning personal equity. Here's Engels saying so (this quote makes the assorted Stalinists, MLs and Trots on this list squirm so I take a perverse pleasure in posting it again and again)

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

Note that phrase: " the capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. So state ownership is fully compatible with capitalism. Inwardly digest what this means!

Sigh. As I have already dissected in this thread how you falsify what Engels was actually trying to say at some length, I won't repeat myself.

As for theire being no capitalists in Russia, what rubbish! Of course there were. The Soviet capitalists were that class that effectively monopolised the means of production via their strangleohold on the state. "Ultimate control" and "de facto ownership" are the same thing!! The Red Fat Cats in the Soviet Union has absolute control over the disposal of the economic surplus just like their counterparts ion the West only the basis of ther control was somewhat different

Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime wrote a a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires" which proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success. And you say there were no capirtalists!!

In point of fact economic inequality in Russia grew enormously after the old Bolshevik policy of Uravnilovka, or income leveling was ignominiously abandoned under Lenin. He was, after all, an accomplished capitalist politician for whom capitalist "economic realism" was an imperative. As he put it in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work"): “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian."

And he was absolutely right. Inexperienced workers trying to run factories themselves without the necessary scientific knowledge usually just weren't able to do so successfully. Engineering is something you have to study in college for years and get practical experience in over more years, to be any good at. And so the Bolsheviks had to offer them high pay, or they would just flee to the West, and the whole economy would collapse, which it came close to doing.

Why? Because you simply can't introduce socialism overnight, and not because the workers aren't up for it as an idea, in fact overnight socialism is exactly what huge number of Russian workers wanted. It just can't be done for practical reasons in a society as economically or culturally backward as Russia.

Or anywhere in fact, due to the division between mental and manual labor under capitalism.

Under NEP, the "spetsy" ran the factories, but had absolutely zero political power, and in fact Stalin demagogically had large numbers of them sent to prison or shot to get cheap popularity among workers who thought as you do.

It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in Russia, the ratio between the lowest and highest wages steadily increased from 1:1.8 just after the Bolshevik Revolution to 1:40 in 1950 (Ossowski S, Patterson S, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1963, 116). John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both case, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf). According to Roy Medvedev (Khrushchev: The Years in Power ,Columbia University Press. 1976, 540), taking into account not only their inflated "salaries" but also the many privileges and perks enjoyed by the Soviet elite (who even had access to their own retail outlets stocking western goods and various other facilities from which the general public was physically excluded) the ratio between low and high earners was more like 1:100.

And you still reckon there were no capitalists?

I don't trust the figures you get from bourgeois scholars trying to make the Soviet system look bad, or for that matter even from Medvedev, a social democrat.

If Medvedev really thinks that the special stores bureaucrats got to shop in resulted in income inequalities even vaguely resembling what you get in the USA, he was seriously delusional.

But in any case this is utterly unscientific and anti-Marxist. Membership in a class is determined by one's relationship to the means of production, not income level.

Russian bureaucrats, no matter how many privileges they got, did not own the factories they ran. They could be fired a moment's notice, couldn't buy or sell whatever share you imagine they owned of the social capital, couldn't pass it down to their kids in their wills, just plain had no legal rights under the Soviet system to their positions whatsoever.

In short, they were just fireable bureaucrats, not capitalists.

-M.H.-

Blake's Baby

27th February 2012, 23:37

So, if it wasn't capitalism, and it wasn't socialism, what was it MH?

Arlekino

28th February 2012, 00:21

A Marxist Historian

28th February 2012, 01:06

So, if it wasn't capitalism, and it wasn't socialism, what was it MH?

Transitional in between.

As you may recall, Marx at one point, Gotha Program, or was it the thing on the Paris Commune, says that there is a period in between capitalism and socialism, to which corresponds the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In fact, I assume you regard the D of the P as a valid concept, right?

Well, no such thing can exist in socialism, which is a classless society. And no such thing can exist under capitalism, where the bourgeoisie rules.

So if you don't think such a transitional society is a possibility, seems to me you have stuck yourself into a basic logical conundrum.

So what then is the diff between Stalinism and Leninism or Trotskyism? In a Stalinist society, the direction of motion is back to capitalism. In a healthy workers state led by a Marxist i.e. Leninist i.e. Trotskyist vanguard party of the working class, it's moving in the direction of socialism.

Got it?

-M.H.-

A Marxist Historian

28th February 2012, 01:10

You can talk high philosophy capitalism or socialism whom give a dam from workers point of view. Some days we used living in capitalism state sometimes in socialist state. If you go see doctor is free but corruption, education is free but we have to buy some text books. Simple answer would be capitalism as for individuals and government I would say was more socialist.

Well, there is plenty of corruption in capitalist medicine too. And believe me, nowadays if English, or American, students could go to Harvard or Oxford for free but would still have to buy their textbooks, they would be delighted, just ask any students you meet in London and they'll tell you that I'm sure.

So, even with all the problems in the USSR or wherever, it was a hell of a lot better than capitalism. And especially a hell of a lot better than Russian-style capitalism, as any Russian not a capitalist will tell you.

-M.H.-

robbo203

28th February 2012, 08:42

Trying to persuade oneself that the USSR wasn't a planned economy through self-hypnosis?

I hear it can work for getting off cigarettes.

Of course it was a planned economy. Pretty badly planned under Stalin and his successors however.

Our anti-marxist historian is at it again , tedious as ever, trying to square the circle in his usual fashion.

All economies involve planning - even the most free market version - so for the concept a "planned economy" to be meaningful it must mean something else than the fact of planning. That I suggest is the notion that the many plans be replaced by a single plan, meaning the interactions or linkages between the many plans are themsleves planned

This did not correspond to the situation in the Soviet Union. The state capitalist economy there was far more decentralised than is commonly supposed and the instruments of planning - GOSPLAN's plans - were more or less a farce, whose targets were constantly modified to fit changing econmomic realities. The Plan did not guide the economy; on the contrary the economy guided the Plan

Ergo the Soviet Union was not a "planned economy"

So then capitalism is a planned economy too? Well, all this reminds me of the line from the poet, "the best plans of mice and men gang aft a'gley."

Of course capitalists make plans, everybody does. But a capitalist economy is not run my conscious human will and intention, but by the workings of the capitalist market place, the laws of supply and demand, Adam Smith etc.

If you werent such a dullard you would have twigged that I am trying to say that there is no such thing as a planned economy in the above sense. Its a myth without substance and incapable of ever being realised. Even economies that claimed to be planned economies were not actually planned in an overall systemic sense. All economies necessarily involve degrees of decentralised decisionmaking. some more so than others, but none conform to, or are capable of conforming to , the ideal type of a planned economy referred to above.

But it was not regulated by the profit motive, unlike any capitalist society. "Profit" on the books in factory records was simply an accounting device, not a regulator, whose prime purpose really was to help the tops figure out which bureaucrats deserved promotion and which deserved to be fired.

Sigh. You repeat this idiotic dogma that profit was merely an accounting device, by flatly ignoring the overwhelming argument that this simply could not be the case. Your analysis is the superficial one of the bourgeois commentator who takes things at face value and never looks below the surface. Why did the "tops" need to figure out which bureaucrats deserved promotion and which deserved to be fired, as you put it. Answer - because this was tied to the undeniable fact that the state apparatus itself crucially depended on the extraction of surplus value not only for the purposes of capital accumulation (which Soviet industrialisation depended on) but to finance the whole apparatus of the state itself and of course the personal consumption of the state capitalist class itself. To that end it need to devise performance indicators

Why? Because you simply can't introduce socialism overnight, and not because the workers aren't up for it as an idea, in fact overnight socialism is exactly what huge number of Russian workers wanted. It just can't be done for practical reasons in a society as economically or culturally backward as Russia.

Really? Care to back up your claim that the "huge numbers of Russian workers" wanted a moneyless wageless stateless alternative to capitalism? Even Lenin himself admitted that the great majoriuty of workers were not socialist minded. This is to say nothing of the numerically much larger peasantry

I don't trust the figures you get from bourgeois scholars trying to make the Soviet system look bad, or for that matter even from Medvedev, a social democrat.

If Medvedev really thinks that the special stores bureaucrats got to shop in resulted in income inequalities even vaguely resembling what you get in the USA, he was seriously delusional.

But in any case this is utterly unscientific and anti-Marxist. Membership in a class is determined by one's relationship to the means of production, not income level.

Other than saying you dont "trust" the figures you get from bourgeois scholars. you dont have anything of substance with which to counter these figures, do you? They just happen to be very inconvenient from your point of view.

Medvedev is not saying the" special stores bureaucrats got to shop in resulted in income inequalities even vaguely resembling what you get in the USA". You should learn to read properly

Yes, class is determined by ones' relationship to the means of production and in the SU the relationship of the ruling state capitalist class to the means of production was totally different to that of the ordinary russian workers. You can hardly deny this. This class had absolute control over the disposal of economic surplus unlike the ordinary Russian workers. The overwhelming control that it exerted over the means of prpoduction by virtue of its absolute control over the state amounted to de facto ownership of those means by this class. Not as individual capitalists but as a collective capitalist class. Ultimate control over the means of production amounts to the same thing as de facto ownership

Nobody suggested class is "determined" by income but its is certainly true that income differences are a reliable indicator of class differences

Russian bureaucrats, no matter how many privileges they got, did not own the factories they ran. They could be fired a moment's notice, couldn't buy or sell whatever share you imagine they owned of the social capital, couldn't pass it down to their kids in their wills, just plain had no legal rights under the Soviet system to their positions whatsoever.

In short, they were just fireable bureaucrats, not capitalists.

-M.H.-

Yes and who could fire those who could fire these lower rung bureaucrats. Have you asked yourself that, eh? Power exists as a gradation. At some point logically we pass from one class into another. Its the same with western capitalism - there is a grey area betwern the capitalist class and the working class but we can neverthless still say there are those who are clearly capitalists and those who are clearly workers. Ditto the Soviet Union

The fact that members of the soviet state capitalist class had no legal rights to buy and sell means of proiduction as iundividual capitalist is utterly irrelevant! Capitalism does not require that such a right should exist

Marxists, unlike trotskyist idealists such as your self who set so much store on the legal superstrucuture of society and its codification of rights, argue that class exists as a material reality in the actual and undeniable differences in which individuals relate to the means of production within the economic sphere

Blake's Baby

28th February 2012, 09:32

Transitional in between.

As you may recall, Marx at one point, Gotha Program, or was it the thing on the Paris Commune, says that there is a period in between capitalism and socialism, to which corresponds the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In fact, I assume you regard the D of the P as a valid concept, right?

Well, no such thing can exist in socialism, which is a classless society...

With you so far.

... And no such thing can exist under capitalism, where the bourgeoisie rules...

Say what?

I think your definition of capitalism is a little skewed here MH.

England was a capitalist country in the 1500s, before the bourgeoisie held political power, because the economy was based on wage labour and commodity production.

Germany was a capitalist country in the 1880s, even though the bourgeoisise wasn't in power, it was a cabal of Junkers and the Hohenzollerns, because the economy was based on wage labour and commodity production.

Russia was a capitalist country in 1913 even though 'the bourgeoisie' was mostly French and German and the monarchy was mostly German and English, because the economy was based on wage labour and commodity production.

Wage labour and commodity production make an economy capitalist because the economic system doesn't always exactly correspond to the make-up of the ruling class (otherwise there would never be any need for revolution, all societies would just naturally grow into new forms imperceptably).

...So if you don't think such a transitional society is a possibility, seems to me you have stuck yourself into a basic logical conundrum...

I don't think a 'transitional society that is niether capitalism nor socialism' is possible.

But there's no logical conundrum. Once capitalism has been supressed then socialism can begin. A society in which 'capitalism is still being suppressed', but hasn't managed to do away with wage labour and commodity production, is capitalist.

...
So what then is the diff between Stalinism and Leninism or Trotskyism? ...

Well, I'm hesitant to answer because I fear we may be using the same terms for different things. But if you mean 'what's the differencve between the Soviet Union in 1919 and the Soviet Union in 1936?' let's say, then the answer is 'in 1919, things were heading in the direction of the revolutionary extension both inside and outside Russia; by 1936 the world revolution was dead and Russia had become an imperialist power'.

If you mean what are the differences between Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism today, probably the biggest difference would be 'numbers'. Stalinism is social democracy with bayonets. Trotskyism, as far as I'm aware, doesn't have any bayonets.

...In a Stalinist society, the direction of motion is back to capitalism...

I'd say that I can't think of a Stalinist society that ever escaped capitalism. By which I mean, no Stalinist (or any other) society escaped capitalism, because capitalism can only be transcended internationally.

... In a healthy workers state led by a Marxist i.e. Leninist i.e. Trotskyist vanguard party of the working class, it's moving in the direction of socialism...

In a revolutionary situation in a liberated territory that is surrounded by other territories in which the revolutionary wave is begining or continuing, the dynamic is towards socialism. There is no such thing as 'a healthy workers' state'. There is even less 'a healthy... state (of any kind) led by a ... party (of any kind)'. Not if by 'healthy' you mean healthy for the working class or the interests of humanity. You might mean 'healthy' as an organisation of class oppression of course, in which case Nazi Germany could be seen as 'healthy'

daft punk

29th February 2012, 09:33

Originally Posted by daft punk http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2365769#post2365769)

"The USSR was not capitalist, it was a planned economy. To call it capitalist is ludicrous. There were no capitalists, no private ownership of the means of production, none of that. "

Then there is your clailm that there were "no capitalists, private pownership of the means of production". Actually, capitalism doesn't depend on private ownership of the means of production in the sense of individual capitalists owning personal equity. Here's Engels saying so (this quote makes the assorted Stalinists, MLs and Trots on this list squirm so I take a perverse pleasure in posting it again and again)

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage workers - proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. Socialism Utopian and Scientific"

Note that phrase: " the capitalist relationship is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. So state ownership is fully compatible with capitalism. Inwardly digest what this means!

Yeah, state ownership in Pinochet's Chile or Thatcher's Britain was not the same as state ownership in the USSR. In the USSR there was no capitalist class wielding power.

As for theire being no capitalists in Russia, what rubbish! Of course there were. The Soviet capitalists were that class that effectively monopolised the means of production via their strangleohold on the state. "Ultimate control" and "de facto ownership" are the same thing!! The Red Fat Cats in the Soviet Union has absolute control over the disposal of the economic surplus just like their counterparts ion the West only the basis of ther control was somewhat different

A bureaucratic dictatorship which has taken hold over a workers state is not the same as a capitalist class.

In Russia, all you needed was a political revolution. The social revolution had already happened.

Reg Bishop, a supporter of the Soviet regime wrote a a pamphlet published in 1945 by the Russia Today Society (London) called "Soviet Millionaires" which proudly boasted of the existence of rouble millionaires there as an indicator of economic success. And you say there were no capirtalists!!

In point of fact economic inequality in Russia grew enormously after the old Bolshevik policy of Uravnilovka, or income leveling was ignominiously abandoned under Lenin. He was, after all, an accomplished capitalist politician for whom capitalist "economic realism" was an imperative.

Lenin was a capitalist politician. Right! :laugh:

As he put it in an address given in April 1918 (published as "The Soviets at Work"): “We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed a very high remuneration for the services of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian

Yeah, they had to live in the real world, Russia was backward and they needed the knowledge of the Tsar's specialists.

It was perhaps not surprising, therefore, that in Russia, the ratio between the lowest and highest wages steadily increased from 1:1.8 just after the Bolshevik Revolution to 1:40 in 1950 (Ossowski S, Patterson S, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Free Press of Glencoe, New York 1963, 116). John Fleming and John Micklewright in their paper "Income Distribution, Economic Systems and Transition" cite the work of researchers like Morrison who, using data from the 1970s, found that countries like Poland and the Soviet Union had relatively high levels of income inequality, registering gini coefficients of 0.31 in both case, which put them on a par with Canada (0.30) and the USA (0.34) ( http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/eps70.pdf). According to Roy Medvedev (Khrushchev: The Years in Power ,Columbia University Press. 1976, 540), taking into account not only their inflated "salaries" but also the many privileges and perks enjoyed by the Soviet elite (who even had access to their own retail outlets stocking western goods and various other facilities from which the general public was physically excluded) the ratio between low and high earners was more like 1:100.

And you still reckon there were no capitalists?

High wages does not make a capitalist class, a capitalist class owns the means of production.

robbo203

29th February 2012, 12:05

Yeah, state ownership in Pinochet's Chile or Thatcher's Britain was not the same as state ownership in the USSR. In the USSR there was no capitalist class wielding power. .

Chinese state capitalism is not the same as Soviet state capitalism either - read Ian Bremmer. There are varieties of state capitalism and the state capitaliist variant is itself only one ttpe of capitalism

There emphatically was a capitalist class wielding power in the Soviet Union. You can ignore the arguments I made to support this claim by sticking your head ostrich like in the sand but it does alter the fact that, in the Soviet Union, a small class of individuals exerted ultimate and absolute control over the means of production and that this ultimate control equates with de facto ownership. The capitalist class does not have to be constituted by individual capitalists enjoting de jure ownership private equity. This is a myth that only politically illitarate trotskyists, it seems, still cling to. Marx and Engels themselves long aho rejected this batty idea. If there is capitalism as there certainly was in the Soviet Union (becuase there was generalised wage labour) then ipso facto there has to be a capitalist class by inference. You can't have capitalism without a capitalist class

If you dont accept that then you are left with the utterly absurd and indefensible position that an ordinary worker had the same relationship to the means of production as am apparatchik. Thats demonstrably ridiculous

A bureaucratic dictatorship which has taken hold over a workers state is not the same as a capitalist class. .

The apparatchik class has the same basic de facto relationship to the means of production as their capitalist counterparts in the West. It was a capitalist dictatorship not a bureaucratic dictorship. A bureaucrat is a job decription not a class category. It cannot begin to describe why one class has so much more political and economic power than the rest of society

Lenin was a capitalist politician. Right! :laugh:

Correct. He oversaw a state capitalist regime. That makes him a capitalist politician QED

High wages does not make a capitalist class, a capitalist class owns the means of production.

The high wages were just a verbalistic formula behind which the the state capitalist class concealed and appropriated their share of their surplus value for personal cpnsumption. In the West, CEOs likewise employ a verbalistic formula to conceal their appropriation of the surplus value. The average compensation package of CEO for the top 500 corporations in the US is19 million dollars. That puts most of these CEOs within the ranks of nthe capitalist class despite themn getting "paid".

You also need to bear in mind that the state capitaliost not only got much higher "wages" but typically multiple "wages" and this is to say nothing of payment in kind - free Dachas, holidays, chauffeur driven limos and what not. Even in Stalin's era there were Soviet Millionaires. How can you possibly maintain there were no capitalists?

Granted income per se does not determine class but it is a pretty reliable indicator of class differentiation. And in the Soviet Union income differences were massive

daft punk

29th February 2012, 12:11

daft punk

29th February 2012, 12:16

He oversaw a state capitalist regime. That makes him a capitalist politician QED

Lenin, 1922

"On the question of state capitalism, I think that generally our press and our Party make the mistake of dropping into intellectualism, into liberalism; we philosophise about how state capitalism is to be interpreted, and look into old books. But in those old books you will not find what we are discussing; they deal with the state capitalism that exists under capitalism. Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on thissubject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it. That is why we must overcome the difficulty entirely by ourselves. And if we make a general mental survey of our press and see what has been written about state capitalism, as I tried to do when I was preparing this report, we shall be convinced that it is missing the target, that it is looking in an entirely wrong direction. The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yot got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state."

Blake's Baby

29th February 2012, 20:09

robbo203

29th February 2012, 20:29

Lenin, 1922

"On the question of state capitalism, I think that generally our press and our Party make the mistake of dropping into intellectualism, into liberalism; we philosophise about how state capitalism is to be interpreted, and look into old books. But in those old books you will not find what we are discussing; they deal with the state capitalism that exists under capitalism. Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on thissubject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it. That is why we must overcome the difficulty entirely by ourselves. And if we make a general mental survey of our press and see what has been written about state capitalism, as I tried to do when I was preparing this report, we shall be convinced that it is missing the target, that it is looking in an entirely wrong direction. The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yot got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state."

Yeah, spoken like a true bloody politician. "Proletarian state", my arse. "A state that screwed the Russian proletariat" would be more to the point

Lenin is one of the most muddled and confused political writers one is likely to encounter. The passage you provide above illustrates this very well (though I could multiply this example many times)

I mean what are we to make of this crap: "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " What the fu...???? Whatever stuff he was smoking when he wrote this utter tripe it must have been pretty potent. Dont you get it? State capitalism is still capitalism and you can only administer capitalisml in one way - in the interests of capital. You just can't have "state capitalism under communism"

Then there's this: Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rail. So according to Lenin's over fertile imagination Russia society was not capitalist anymore yet capitalism still exists "State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain" . J.M.Keynes said something similar about restraining capitalism and look where thatgot him

Or how about this: "the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. He cant even make up his friggin mind whether he is talking about the vanguard or the working class as a whole. As for the state being the workers, one could write reams about this particular idiocy but I will resist the temptation

Lenin is one of the most overrated and mediocre of political commentators. On so many things he was so way off beam and clearly out of touch with reality. I just cannot understand why some on the left continue to regard his as some kind of political guru.

Rooster

29th February 2012, 21:14

Let me ask you a question. Suppose the purge had never happened. Suppose the masses had demanded democratic socialism. Suppose they had formed a new party based on democratic socialism. Suppose they rose up against Stalin's regime.

What would it have taken to achieve their aim?

Possibly, you know, the proletariat learning how to exercise state control, controlling what was made and what wasn't, what resources went where, like what Lenin was talking about with the dictatorship of the proletariat before the revolution, and maybe, you know, that might have been a good thing... they could have avoided the whole capitalist restoration and the excesses of following administrations... I don't think this would have taken much considering that the proletariat was learning how to do it with the soviet (and capitalist production); a form of governance that was dismissed by Lenin.

daft punk

1st March 2012, 13:22

'State capitalism under communism'.

Well, there you go. Either 1-Lenin was a god, and could create things out of their opposites through sheer revolutionary will power and frowning; or 2-Lenin was a man, who sometimes got things wrong.

There was no communism, capitalism had not been suppressed internationally, and therefore Russia still existed in a capitalist system. Therefore 'state capitalism under communism' is doubly oxymoronic as it means 'state capitalism under communism in capitalism'.

Or, more sensibly, at least in the early days of the Soviet Republic, capitalism overseen by the working class's representatives.

Later on of course it was capitalism not overseen by the working class's representatives.

So... capitalism.

You are right, and you are wrong. There was communism and there wasn't. Obviously Russia did not have anything like a communist economy. But it had a government who were communists, attempting to take a backward country in the direction of communism.

Have you heard this quote from Marx?

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things."

Marx, German Ideology

So what Lenin meant is this, this is the communism he talked about, a process that had been started by a movement, not a finished article.

It was not a state capitalist economy, state capitalism was a phenomenon, a tool, something the Bolsheviks had to do in the transition to socialism. What Lenin wanted to see was state industries competing against capitalist ones and outperforming them. Socialism has to prove itself. Socialism needs industry, and state capitalism was a means to build it.

Later on it was not capitalism, because the Stalinist regime did not directly own the means of production at all. It was a deformed workers state.

Yeah, spoken like a true bloody politician. "Proletarian state", my arse. "A state that screwed the Russian proletariat" would be more to the point

In what way did the state screw the workers before 1924?

Lenin is one of the most muddled and confused political writers one is likely to encounter. The passage you provide above illustrates this very well (though I could multiply this example many times)

Please explain

I mean what are we to make of this crap: "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " What the fu...???? Whatever stuff he was smoking when he wrote this utter tripe it must have been pretty potent. Dont you get it? State capitalism is still capitalism and you can only administer capitalisml in one way - in the interests of capital. You just can't have "state capitalism under communism"

You are talking nonsense, see above. Lenin was administering state capital against the interests of capital if you bother to go to the link and read further. Capital was the enemy he was trying to suppress.

Then there's this: Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rail. So according to Lenin's over fertile imagination Russia society was not capitalist anymore yet capitalism still exists "State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain" . J.M.Keynes said something similar about restraining capitalism and look where thatgot him

There were different forms of state capitalism Lenin was on about. I'm not convinced you know the actual details. Some were state owned companies, but operating for profit in order to drive efficiency. There was some private capitalism, what Lenin wanted to do there was regulate and tax the fuckers. Finally he wanted to subsidise co-operatives for the poor peasants, as a sort of backdoor route to socialism. These could then get some mechanisation and so on, something your average poor peasant couldn't even dream of.

Or how about this: "the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. He cant even make up his friggin mind whether he is talking about the vanguard or the working class as a whole. As for the state being the workers, one could write reams about this particular idiocy but I will resist the temptation

No. The working class, a tiny proportion of the overall population, is the vanguard.
Please, write reams. Enlighten us.

Lenin is one of the most overrated and mediocre of political commentators. On so many things he was so way off beam and clearly out of touch with reality. I just cannot understand why some on the left continue to regard his as some kind of political guru.
Commentators, revolutionary leaders, same thing I guess. Not. Some on the left, like all the Trots. ie most socialists. Even a lot of anarchists joined the Bolsheviks and the Red Army etc.

Possibly, you know, the proletariat learning how to exercise state control, controlling what was made and what wasn't, what resources went where, like what Lenin was talking about with the dictatorship of the proletariat before the revolution, and maybe, you know, that might have been a good thing... they could have avoided the whole capitalist restoration and the excesses of following administrations... I don't think this would have taken much considering that the proletariat was learning how to do it with the soviet (and capitalist production); a form of governance that was dismissed by Lenin.

shh! Don't tell them the answers! Lol!

Althusser

1st March 2012, 14:06

I think that's because the Soviet people lost morality and faith in God or some higher purpose,whatever you wish.Especially during Stalin's reign of terror.
:laugh: GOD!

Althusser

1st March 2012, 14:07

Blake's Baby

1st March 2012, 20:45

What difference would it have made? The German Revolution was over by 1921. Germany had a revolution. It failed. The Russian Revolution died as a result. By 1927 and the massacre of the Shanghai Soviet, the world revolution was over. What Trotsky did post 1924 was therefore pretty much irrelevant to the process of the world revolution.

robbo203

1st March 2012, 23:15

In what way did the state screw the workers before 1924?

Read Simon Pirani's Revolution in Retreat or this http://www.revolutioninretreat.com/article906.pdf. Long before 1924, anti worker measures were being put in place as the emerging state capitalist system consolidated itself. Lenin obsessed about one-man management and the need for industrial discipline and in October 1921 he instructed the Russian workers as follows:

Get down to business all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them, Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running an economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. (Collected Works, Vol. 33 page 72).

One shouldnt forget either Trotsky with his "militarisation of labour" programme. But read the Pirani article for a fuller explanation of how the Russian workers got screwed under the Bolshevik state

You are talking nonsense, see above. Lenin was administering state capital against the interests of capital if you bother to go to the link and read further. Capital was the enemy he was trying to suppress.

How am I talking nonsense!?? I said Lenin's remark - "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " - was utter tipe and so it was. How can you possibly defend such an inanity. How on earth can you have state capitalism under communism. Do you think you can?

Your comment that Lenin was administering state capital against the interests of capital is incoherent and illogica, l It was emphatically not Capital per se that "was the enemy he was trying to suppress" - how could it be if lenin supported state capital - but private capital

There were different forms of state capitalism Lenin was on about. I'm not convinced you know the actual details. Some were state owned companies, but operating for profit in order to drive efficiency. There was some private capitalism, what Lenin wanted to do there was regulate and tax the fuckers. Finally he wanted to subsidise co-operatives for the poor peasants, as a sort of backdoor route to socialism. These could then get some mechanisation and so on, something your average poor peasant couldn't even dream of.

I am fully aware that there are different forms of state capitalism - this is something I have pointed out several times in this list before. Modern day chinese state capitalism, for example is quite different to Soviet state capitalism in its heyday. However all forms of state capitalism are still capitalistic and have nothing to do with socialism. Nor canthey lead to socialism

No. The working class, a tiny proportion of the overall population, is the vanguard.

No youve misread what Lenin wrote. His words were the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. He is talking about a section of the workers - the "advanced section" - which he called the vanguard. So he is saying 1) the state is "the workers" (as a whole) AND 2) the state is the vanguard of the worker (meaning workers not in the vanguard are not part of the state by such reasoning). Another example of Lenin's muddleheadedness

daft punk

2nd March 2012, 09:02

Does anyone here think that if Trotsky took over aftrer Lenin's death, Germany would have had a proletarian revolution after WWI, since Trotsky and Lenin were for world communism and Stalin was a "socialism in one country" douche? I can definitely imagine Trotsky supporting a communist revolution in Germany, pushing the same revenge tactics as Hitler did, but without the white nationalist garbage. :thumbup:
There was a revolution during 1923, just before Lenin's death. Stalin was opposed to it. Trotsky wanted it to go ahead, but he was blocked from going there by Kamenev and co. In the end the revolution was called off because it didnt get the support of the SPD.

This was a bad move an it discredited the CP.

daft punk

2nd March 2012, 09:04

Blake's Baby

2nd March 2012, 17:21

By 1923 the revolutionary potential of the German proletariat was in sharp decline after 5 years of battles with SPD and 2 failed revolutions.

I'm not forgetting that Stalin (and the KMT, which Mao was still a member of) were responsible for the Shanghai Massacre, though you seem to be forgetting that the Shanghai Soviet was the last defeat of the revolutionary wave. Even if Trotsky had been in charge I think it unlikely that the decline fom 1921 onwards would have been significantly altered by changing the head of the Russian state-capitalist machine. 'Great Men of History' is a somewhat bourgeois theory.

daft punk

2nd March 2012, 17:23

Read Simon Pirani's Revolution in Retreat or this http://www.revolutioninretreat.com/article906.pdf. Long before 1924, anti worker measures were being put in place as the emerging state capitalist system consolidated itself. Lenin obsessed about one-man management and the need for industrial discipline and in October 1921 he instructed the Russian workers as follows:

Get down to business all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them, Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running an economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. (Collected Works, Vol. 33 page 72).

So? The economy was virtually nothing, destroyed by WW1 and civil war, backward to start with. The working class were a tiny proportion of the population. Most people couldnt read or write. Do you think Lenin should have been turning water into wine? He secured power on behalf of the workers but he couldnt just conjure up and advanced economy, let alone a socialist one, overnight.

In what way does this show that the state was screwing the workers?

One shouldnt forget either Trotsky with his "militarisation of labour" programme. But read the Pirani article for a fuller explanation of how the Russian workers got screwed under the Bolshevik state

You are gonna have to provide quotes to entice me or its just linkwarz.

And what about Trotsky? His proposal was based on his assumption that the USSR was a workers state. Originally he had proposed an end to war communism and a temporary market for peasants. This was rejected at the time. A year later it was adopted as the NEP. In the meantime his view was ok, if we are gonna keep war communism, lets do it properly. What do workers need independent trade unions for in a workers state? However Lenin judged that the mood of the country would not accept this. All Trotsky was trying to do was to kick start industrialisation, which was desperately needed. The railways were broken. There was a famine.

What should he have been proposing? Industrial armies are described in the Communist Manifesto, and already existed in Russia. It's hardly a far fetched thing for him to propose. The Red Army was being demobbed. Why not just use it to build the railways and electrification and so on? Also I think he viewed that unions incorporated into the state could play a role in planning and decision making.

Originally Posted by robbo203 http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2372749#post2372749)
"I mean what are we to make of this crap: "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " What the fu...???? Whatever stuff he was smoking when he wrote this utter tripe it must have been pretty potent. Dont you get it? State capitalism is still capitalism and you can only administer capitalisml in one way - in the interests of capital. You just can't have "state capitalism under communism" "

" You are talking nonsense, see above. Lenin was administering state capital against the interests of capital if you bother to go to the link and read further. Capital was the enemy he was trying to suppress. "

How am I talking nonsense!?? I said Lenin's remark - "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " - was utter tipe and so it was. How can you possibly defend such an inanity. How on earth can you have state capitalism under communism. Do you think you can?

Your comment that Lenin was administering state capital against the interests of capital is incoherent and illogica, l It was emphatically not Capital per se that "was the enemy he was trying to suppress" - how could it be if lenin supported state capital - but private capital

You are wrong. Lenin:

"Permit me to say this to you without exaggeration, because in this respect it is really “the last and decisive battle”, not against international capitalism—against that we shall yet have many “last and decisive battles”—but against Russian capitalism, against the capitalism that is growing out of the small peasant economy, the capitalism that is fostered by the latter. Here we shall have a fight on our hands in thc immediate future, and the date of it cannot be fixed exactly. Here the “last and decisive battle” is impending; here there are no political or any other flanking movements that we can undertake, because this is a test in competition with private capital. Either we pass this test in competition with private capital, or we fail completely."

Tell me this, have you actually read the entire speech? Dont be like the Stalinists and just live out of a pile of quotes.

I can play quote warz from the same source:

"The capitalists are operating along side us. They are operating like robbers; they make profit; but they know how to do things."

"During the past year we showed quite clearly that we cannot run the economy. That is the fun damental lesson. Either we prove the opposite in the coming year, or Soviet power will not be able to exist. And the greatest danger is that not everybody realises this. "

"The mixed companies that we have begun to form, in which private capitalists, Russian and foreign, and Communists participate, provide one of the means by which we can learn to organise competition properly and show that we are no less able to establish a link with the peasant economy than the capitalists; that we can meet its requirements; that we can help the peasant make progress even at his present level, in spite of his backwardness; for it is impossible to change him in a brief span of time."

"And so, comrades, if we do away with at least this elementary ignorance we shall achieve a tremendous victory."

Do me a favour. If you are gonna quote Lenin's speech, read it in full, and then you will have a proper understanding of the situation and what he was trying to accomplish. In a nutshell, the only people who had a clue how to run the economy and get things done were the capitalists, so there was no way to run the economy without them at that time. Lenin wanted communists to learn from them, so as to be able to later manage without them.

I am fully aware that there are different forms of state capitalism - this is something I have pointed out several times in this list before. Modern day chinese state capitalism, for example is quite different to Soviet state capitalism in its heyday. However all forms of state capitalism are still capitalistic and have nothing to do with socialism. Nor canthey lead to socialism

No youve misread what Lenin wrote. His words were the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. He is talking about a section of the workers - the "advanced section" - which he called the vanguard. So he is saying 1) the state is "the workers" (as a whole) AND 2) the state is the vanguard of the worker (meaning workers not in the vanguard are not part of the state by such reasoning). Another example of Lenin's muddleheadedness

The working class is the vanguard. The Petrograd workers were the vanguard of the vanguard. The Bolsheviks were the vanguard of the vanguard of the vanguard, also known as the vanguard for simplicity.

From the same speech:

"Never before in history has there been a situation in which the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political power and had state capitalism existing along side it. "

Please read the whole speech! Yes he used words in slightly different ways, nothing wrong with that. All is clear if you read them in context instead of quote mining. Ok I do that with Stalin but he talked utter shite and every word he said was a lie. http://www.revleft.com/vb/images/icons/icon12.gif

daft punk

2nd March 2012, 17:33

By 1923 the revolutionary potential of the German proletariat was in sharp decline after 5 years of battles with SPD and 2 failed revolutions.

There was a pretty good chance of a successful revolution according to Trotsky, and lets be honest, he is the only person who has practical experience of predicting and leading one. I cant rattle off facts and figures. Even if it had failed, better to try and narrowly fail that just bottle it and call it off.

I'm not forgetting that Stalin (and the KMT, which Mao was still a member of) were responsible for the Shanghai Massacre, though you seem to be forgetting that the Shanghai Soviet was the last defeat of the revolutionary wave. Even if Trotsky had been in charge I think it unlikely that the decline fom 1921 onwards would have been significantly altered by changing the head of the Russian state-capitalist machine. 'Great Men of History' is a somewhat bourgeois theory.
I am not forgetting anything, although it's not something I know inside out off the top of my head.

Great man is bourgeois but dialectics is Marxist and in revolutions the SUBJECTIVE FACTOR IS KEY.

Do you know that they banned the formation of Soviets?

You obviously know that Trotsky had been slating Stalin's disastrous class collaboration policy for two years or more. You obviously know that Stalin promoted the KMT and ordered the CCP to join it.

And you know that later the KMT massacred tens of thousands of workers and communists. In fact later they killed a million. And yet Stalin STILL backed the KMT, right up to 1948 wham Mao beat them.

So therefore you know that by, say, 1936, Stalin's intention was to appease the west and stop socialism.

Am I right? Just establishing where we are at.

Re Germany, as I say Trotsky wanted to go there to lead a revolution. It was something he knew a bit about.

robbo203

2nd March 2012, 20:22

So? The economy was virtually nothing, destroyed by WW1 and civil war, backward to start with. The working class were a tiny proportion of the population. Most people couldnt read or write. Do you think Lenin should have been turning water into wine? He secured power on behalf of the workers but he couldnt just conjure up and advanced economy, let alone a socialist one, overnight.

Get this straight - you cannot secure power on behalf of the workers. Its simply not possible. Only the workers can secure their self emancipation - not some self appointed vanguard. This is basic Marxism. Anyone who strives to secure power on behalf of the workers will INEVITABLY end up on the side of capital against the interests of workers

Do I think Lenin should, or could , have turned water into wine? Of couse not. There was only one way for the Bolsheviks to go and that was to develop Russian capitalism. It is idealists like yourself who seem to think the Bolsheviks were , or could have been, something other than what the circumstances required them to be - the harbingers of state-run capitalism. So it is not me you should be addressing this question to but you youself. I have absolutely no illusions about what Lenin or the Bolsheviks did or could have done and Im certainly not going to put myself in a position of advising what they "should" have done - like some government consultant or other. I am simpy stating the facts as I see it.

In what way does this show that the state was screwing the workers?

On November 29th, 1920, Bolshevik state passed any industrial concern employing over 10 workers was to be promptly nationalised. This marked a significant shift towards a state capitalist economy. Capitalism necessitates the accumulation of capital out of surplus value and this is precisely the same under state capitalism as it is under free market capitalism. This imperative expresses itself as a constant downward pressure on workers wages and conditions and the ability of workers to resist such a downward pressure is quite closely tied to their ability to organise independently .

This, if you bothered to read the Pirani article, is precisely what the Bolshevik state sought to crush and undermine. That was the point of my reference to Lenin's obsession with one-man management, the elimination of the Factory Committees, the abolition of independent trade unions and so on which obviously didnt register with you at all. These were some of the means with which to facilitate the screwing of Russian workers in order to step up their rate of exploitation at the hands of state capital. Which they needed to do from their point of view precisely to develop the economy as you pointed out.

You are gonna have to provide quotes to entice me or its just linkwarz.

And what about Trotsky? His proposal was based on his assumption that the USSR was a workers state. Originally he had proposed an end to war communism and a temporary market for peasants. This was rejected at the time. A year later it was adopted as the NEP. In the meantime his view was ok, if we are gonna keep war communism, lets do it properly. What do workers need independent trade unions for in a workers state? However Lenin judged that the mood of the country would not accept this. All Trotsky was trying to do was to kick start industrialisation, which was desperately needed. The railways were broken. There was a famine.

Come of it! Becuase Trotsky thought the Russia was a so called "workers state" this justifies the repression of workers, eh? What sort of argument is this? It reminds me of the same kind of perverse logic with which Edward Heath sought to justify his wage freeze policy in the UK back in the 1970s. The UK was going through a bad patch therefore we all had to "tighten our belts". Would you have gone along with Heath's argument? No? Well then why go along with Trostky's self serving nonsense , cracking down on strikers and "slackers.?

See , your problem is that you simply accept unthinkingly the dogma that the Russia was a so called workers state and everything else follows from that. Because Trostky said it was therefore "it was". So you will jump through hoops to justify the unjustifable. Workers dont need to stike when they allegedly own and control the economy themselves. Ergo , anyone who wants to go on strike "must" be some kind of bourgeois saboteur - an enemy of your so called workers state. Why should workers strike against themselves, afterall

This is the kind of pathetic rationalisation with which Trotsky and co sought to push through a viciously anti-working class programme and yet even today there are mugs like you - no doubt, well intentioned mugs- who think this is all perfectly excusable and all perfectly plausible . And indeed it must seem so if you take the side of (state) capital against wage labour, if your business is about developing state capitalism and Lenin made no bones about the fact that was exactly what he saw his business as being. His crime was to attempt to associate this with the socialist cause

You are wrong. Lenin:

"Permit me to say this to you without exaggeration, because in this respect it is really “the last and decisive battle”, not against international capitalism—against that we shall yet have many “last and decisive battles”—but against Russian capitalism, against the capitalism that is growing out of the small peasant economy, the capitalism that is fostered by the latter. Here we shall have a fight on our hands in thc immediate future, and the date of it cannot be fixed exactly. Here the “last and decisive battle” is impending; here there are no political or any other flanking movements that we can undertake, because this is a test in competition with private capital. Either we pass this test in competition with private capital, or we fail completely."

As I keep on pointing out to you and you keep on ignoring, when Lenin is talking about "capitalism" he is talking about a particular version of capitalism to which he professed opposition. He was NOT opposed to capitalism per se. He was a fervant advocate of another form of capitalism - state capitalism - as well you know. He was a state capitalist revolutionary, not a socialist. His abandonment of socialism was like the German Social Democrats abandonment of their revolutionary maximum programme under the influence of people like Bernstein and, as you will know, the Bolsheviks orginated form the same kind of milieu springing from the Russian Social Democratic Party which split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks

Which leads me to enquire - how does the above quote prove me "wrong". Go back to my earlier post . What I said was this:

I said Lenin's remark - "Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism " - was utter tipe and so it was. How can you possibly defend such an inanity. How on earth can you have state capitalism under communism. Do you think you can?

The above quote from Lenin doesn't even mention communism. Are you in the habit of just throwing in the odd quote regardless in the (vain) hope that it will distract attention form your evident inability to answer a direct question.

My direct question to you again is "how does it make sense to talk of state capitalism under communism ". Perhaps, you might finally get round to answering this question instead of constantly evading it

The working class is the vanguard. The Petrograd workers were the vanguard of the vanguard. The Bolsheviks were the vanguard of the vanguard of the vanguard, also known as the vanguard for simplicity.

From the same speech:

"Never before in history has there been a situation in which the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political power and had state capitalism existing along side it. "

Please read the whole speech! Yes he used words in slightly different ways, nothing wrong with that. All is clear if you read them in context instead of quote mining. Ok I do that with Stalin but he talked utter shite and every word he said was a lie. http://www.revleft.com/vb/images/icons/icon12.gif

Once again you are evading my point . Here's what I said:

No youve misread what Lenin wrote. His words were the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. He is talking about a section of the workers - the "advanced section" - which he called the vanguard. So he is saying 1) the state is "the workers" (as a whole) AND 2) the state is the vanguard of the worker (meaning workers not in the vanguard are not part of the state by such reasoning). Another example of Lenin's muddleheadedness

Yes I know that Lenin sometimes referred to the proletariat as the vanguard but sometimes he also referred to the vanguard as only a section of the proletariat and therefore one that excluded most of the proletariat

You dont seem to have to have understood the significance of this point , have you?