The Recovery of Degenerated States

[TheGodlessUtopian]

According to Trotskyist theory states such as the USSR,North Korea and China (among others) are classified as "deformed workers states." Usually in such states the conditions are so bleak that they either collapse or are carved up by competing imperialist powers.

Well, at this point is it even possible for such states to recover? For instance, how would states like China,and others, possibly recover and "become" actual workers states? I am not too keen on the theory so I wasn't sure if there was an answer which went beyond "revolution."

Use this thread to discuss this theory as applied to modern "deformed" states.

(Sorry if this is in an inappropriate forum.. there was three other forums I thought it might be well suited for as well).

[Zukunftsmusik]

Interesting question, that definitely opens for finding flaws in their theory. How does one de-degenerate a degenerated workers's state?

I've heard talk from trotskyists about "political revolutions" - that all that's necessary is a change of who holds power (meaning that the SU, for example, would have become "non-degenerated" if Trotsky held power).

As far as I'm familiar with the idea, it reeks of great man theories and non-materialist analysis.

[Martin Blank]

As I recall, only the USSR was classified by Trotsky as "degenerated", because it started out as a healthy workers' state. The "people's democracies" in eastern Europe, China, NK, Vietnam, etc., were distinguished from the USSR in the post-WWII Trotskyist movement by getting the label "deformed", because they were never healthy at their beginning. (Some Trotskyists also consider Cuba "deformed".) The solution for the USSR, according to Trotsky, was a political revolution -- a change in the state. The post-WWII Trotskyists adopted this position for the "deformed" states. That's pretty much all there is to it.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

As I recall, only the USSR was classified by Trotsky as "degenerated", because it started out as a healthy workers' state. The "people's democracies" in eastern Europe, China, NK, Vietnam, etc., were distinguished from the USSR in the post-WWII Trotskyist movement by getting the label "deformed", because they were never healthy at their beginning. (Some Trotskyists also consider Cuba "deformed".) The solution for the USSR, according to Trotsky, was a political revolution -- a change in the state. The post-WWII Trotskyists adopted this position for the "deformed" states. That's pretty much all there is to it.
I think that Trotsky also held that the USSR was only "degenerated worker's state" because the worker's state itself was made possible by an actual proletarian revolution. For me that seemed to be a key concept in his theory. I must admit that I'm rather skeptical of the "deformed worker's state" term in general. "Satellite state of a degenerated worker's state" seems more appropriate since North Korea, to my knowledge, has never had a proletarian revolution. Thus calling it a "worker's state" at all does not make sense to me, especially now that capitalism has been restored in Russia.

But perhaps I am missing something crucial here. If I am, please tell me. I only ask that you be nice about it.

[Martin Blank]

I think that Trotsky also held that the USSR was only "degenerated worker's state" because the worker's state itself was made possible by an actual proletarian revolution. For me that seemed to be a key concept in his theory. I must admit that I'm rather skeptical of the "deformed worker's state" term in general. "Satellite state of a degenerated worker's state" seems more appropriate since North Korea, to my knowledge, has never had a proletarian revolution. Thus calling it a "worker's state" at all does not make sense to me, especially now that capitalism has been restored in Russia.

Yes, you have it right. It was the fact that the USSR was originally the product of a workers' revolution that led him to see it as a "degenerated workers' state". The "deformed workers' state" theory came from the post-Trotsky, post-WWII Fourth International (International Secretariat). And, no, it wasn't a universally accepted theory. The French Trotskyist group that eventually became Lutte Ouvriere rejected the theory of "deformed workers' states" while also accepting the USSR as a "degenerated workers' state"; the Healyite International Committee of the Fourth International considered the "people's democracies", China, NK, etc., to be structurally assimilated to fit the USSR's needs (and Cuba to be only a petty-bourgeois nationalist, state-capitalist country).

[Sentinel]

In some Trotskyists theory, such as the CWI:s, the USSR that was is a classified as a degenerated workers state, as in having been an actual workers state and then degenerated. The others so called communist regimes such as the ones created in eastern Europe after WWII, were called 'deformed' workers states. Some other Trotskyists such as the followers of Tony Cliff (International Socialist Tendency and others) say that the USSR was 'state capitalist' instead.

By 'political revolution being enough' we mean that in a these countries, ones where the means of production are already nationalised but a bureaucracy and not the workers are in power, the toppling of the regime and empowering the workers is basically enough to create an actual workers state -- as opposed to capitalist states, where a social revolution which includes nationalisation of the means of production, also is needed. I hope this was helpful.

[Left Leanings]

I don't know whether these states are best categorized as deformed workers states with a bureaucracy, or state capitalist. But what I do know, is that they are not socialist.

So far as I can see, the only option the workers of these states have, is to overthrow their dictators, and hope for 'better luck next time'.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I don't know whether these states are best categorized as deformed workers states with a bureaucracy, or state capitalist. But what I do know, is that they are not socialist.

So far as I can see, the only option the workers of these states have, is to overthrow their dictators, and hope for 'better luck next time'.
Unfortunately, it seems increasingly likely that the imperialists will try to do it for them.

Cthulu and Sentinel, thanks for your responses. I think I understand the "deformed" term better now, even if I still have reservations.

[Aurora]

I've heard some suggest that Hungary 56 was an attempted political revolution but i don't really know much about the situation.

As to how a political revolution would work in a degenerated/deformed workers state i don't know, one of the factors which lead to the degeneration was the annihilation and exhaustion of the working class, in these conditions a political revolution is impossible as there is no force to carry it out, but i could see the working class being given a revolutionary impetus against the bureaucrats from a workers revolution in another country, like if the spanish revolution had been successful.
Historically this has been a bit of a problem because the Stalinist SU had a massive negative influence on revolutions in other countries and when out of necessity they transformed Eastern Europe they did it in their own degenerated image.

This is largely no longer the case anymore and if there is a successful revolution that creates a working soviet system i believe it would radicalise not only workers in capitalist countries but workers in Cuba and elsewhere.

[Left Leanings]

Unfortunately, it seems increasingly likely that the imperialists will try to do it for them.

Cthulu and Sentinel, thanks for your responses. I think I understand the "deformed" term better now, even if I still have reservations.

Yes, I fear the same.

[KurtFF8]

I've heard some suggest that Hungary 56 was an attempted political revolution but i don't really know much about the situation.

As to how a political revolution would work in a degenerated/deformed workers state i don't know, one of the factors which lead to the degeneration was the annihilation and exhaustion of the working class, in these conditions a political revolution is impossible as there is no force to carry it out, but i could see the working class being given a revolutionary impetus against the bureaucrats from a workers revolution in another country, like if the spanish revolution had been successful.
Historically this has been a bit of a problem because the Stalinist SU had a massive negative influence on revolutions in other countries and when out of necessity they transformed Eastern Europe they did it in their own degenerated image.

This is largely no longer the case anymore and if there is a successful revolution that creates a working soviet system i believe it would radicalise not only workers in capitalist countries but workers in Cuba and elsewhere.

Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 50s-60s are perhaps examples of what Trotskyists could deem attempts at political revolutions within socialist states.

Although the two examples are distinct in various ways (personally I think that the Prague Spring would be a better example than Hungary).

But both examples are also problematic and it seems that groups tend to argue based on caricatures of these events rather than any sort of in depth analysis.

[Q]

Aurora pointed to a big issue with the "political revolution" scheme: Who is going to carry it out? Not only did we have to counter exhaustion and demoralisation of the working class movement, but in states like the USSR we also had to tackle an all-pervasive bureaucratic apparatus that actively tried to manage all aspects of peoples lives. How can you organise even a strike if you don't know who of your colleagues is a KGB informant?

In this sense it was a good thing that the USSR collapsed as it gave people a change and room to learn to think for themselves once more. An unthinking proletariat cannot possibly be a potential ruling class and cannot challenge the existing order.

There is also a different point with the "political" versus "social" revolution dichotomy: All working class revolutions are political and change society and are thus social as well. All social revolutions likewise are political as well. Trying to split the two will only cause confusion I think and might fuel the economist conception of having a "social" revolution where we only take over the means of production, apparently without overthrowing the constitutional order.

The conception is of course based on the notion that the USSR already had a planned economy and, thus, that this needed to be preserved. With the information that we have today, I don't see how anyone can maintain the claim that the USSR economy was planned in any sense.

What the USSR had was a target economy, which is nothing like a rationally planned economy based on human need, but where arbitrary targets set by a bureaucracy are the main "building block". And indeed, this is what we saw in the USSR: Targets were zigzagged and a five year "plan" was never achieved according to its original targets.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Some questions that, in a way, touch the political vs social revolution-thing:

1. Is the bureaucracy considered a class?
(1.a. How are then their relation to the MoP?)
2. If yes: How can a proletarian revolution lead to the bureaucracy holding power?
3. If no: Why is it a problem that a worker's state is led by the bureaucracy -- or, why does that make the workers' state "degenerated"? Either the proletariat holds power or it doesn't, and if the bureaucracy isn't a class but a part of the proletariat, the proletariat would still hold power?

these might be noob-questions but hey

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

As I recall, only the USSR was classified by Trotsky as "degenerated", because it started out as a healthy workers' state. The "people's democracies" in eastern Europe, China, NK, Vietnam, etc., were distinguished from the USSR in the post-WWII Trotskyist movement by getting the label "deformed", because they were never healthy at their beginning. (Some Trotskyists also consider Cuba "deformed".) The solution for the USSR, according to Trotsky, was a political revolution -- a change in the state. The post-WWII Trotskyists adopted this position for the "deformed" states. That's pretty much all there is to it.
Okay, I know it sounds like nitpicking, but a political revolution is not a change of state, but a change of government. At least if you are using Lenin's "armed bodies of men defending certain property relations." The governing Stalinists must be removed, but the general property relations can remain much the same. Only after the political revolution various rights would be restored -- and a policy of revolutionary internationalism would be pursued.

[Geiseric]

Some questions that, in a way, touch the political vs social revolution-thing:

1. Is the bureaucracy considered a class?
(1.a. How are then their relation to the MoP?)
2. If yes: How can a proletarian revolution lead to the bureaucracy holding power?
3. If no: Why is it a problem that a worker's state is led by the bureaucracy -- or, why does that make the workers' state "degenerated"? Either the proletariat holds power or it doesn't, and if the bureaucracy isn't a class but a part of the proletariat, the proletariat would still hold power?

these might be noob-questions but hey

The Bureaucracy isn't a class any more than the State Apparatus and caste of intellectual workers (planners, intelligencia) are in Bourgeois countries. The workers managers exerted their un needed influence and struggled to maintain their position of authority at a time when modernising would have resulted in workers doing their jobs for them.

What matters is that reforms such as Nationalisation were forced from the revolution, which was even according to Marx the first step that Socialism should take. However there was a parasite on the U.S.S.R. that was leading and leeching off of it. Stalin and the Center Opposition supported the Bureaucracy.

[Geiseric]

Some questions that, in a way, touch the political vs social revolution-thing:

1. Is the bureaucracy considered a class?
(1.a. How are then their relation to the MoP?)
2. If yes: How can a proletarian revolution lead to the bureaucracy holding power?
3. If no: Why is it a problem that a worker's state is led by the bureaucracy -- or, why does that make the workers' state "degenerated"? Either the proletariat holds power or it doesn't, and if the bureaucracy isn't a class but a part of the proletariat, the proletariat would still hold power?

these might be noob-questions but hey

The Bureaucracy isn't a class any more than the State Apparatus and caste of intellectual workers (planners, intelligencia) are in Bourgeois countries. The workers managers exerted their un needed influence and struggled to maintain their position of authority at a time when modernising would have resulted in workers doing their jobs for them.

What matters is that reforms such as Nationalisation were forced from the revolution, which was even according to Marx the first step that Socialism should take. However there was a parasite on the U.S.S.R. that was leading and leeching off of it. Stalin and the Center Opposition supported the Bureaucracy.

[Grenzer]

By 'political revolution being enough' we mean that in a these countries, ones where the means of production are already nationalised but a bureaucracy and not the workers are in power, the toppling of the regime and empowering the workers is basically enough to create an actual workers state -- as opposed to capitalist states, where a social revolution which includes nationalisation of the means of production, also is needed. I hope this was helpful.

You really just highlighted one of my biggest issues with Trotskyism. The problem is that nationalism isn't, and never will be, the same thing as socialization. It's the socialization of the means of production which is needed for socialism, not nationalization. All you guys pay attention to is de jure ownership when that's not really the most important issue. It's not different from saying there is no qualitative change between a capitalist country and a socialist one, as the only different is the amount of state owned property, within the opinion of the Trots. Also, it seems to be implicitly supporting that you can have the economic basis for socialism within a single country, which is also false. If anything, the opposite is true: you can have a proletarian dictatorship within a single country, but not a socialist economy.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Aurora pointed to a big issue with the "political revolution" scheme: Who is going to carry it out? Not only did we have to counter exhaustion and demoralisation of the working class movement, but in states like the USSR we also had to tackle an all-pervasive bureaucratic apparatus that actively tried to manage all aspects of peoples lives. How can you organise even a strike if you don't know who of your colleagues is a KGB informant?

In this sense it was a good thing that the USSR collapsed as it gave people a change and room to learn to think for themselves once more. An unthinking proletariat cannot possibly be a potential ruling class and cannot challenge the existing order.

There is also a different point with the "political" versus "social" revolution dichotomy: All working class revolutions are political and change society and are thus social as well. All social revolutions likewise are political as well. Trying to split the two will only cause confusion I think and might fuel the economist conception of having a "social" revolution where we only take over the means of production, apparently without overthrowing the constitutional order.

The conception is of course based on the notion that the USSR already had a planned economy and, thus, that this needed to be preserved. With the information that we have today, I don't see how anyone can maintain the claim that the USSR economy was planned in any sense.

What the USSR had was a target economy, which is nothing like a rationally planned economy based on human need, but where arbitrary targets set by a bureaucracy are the main "building block". And indeed, this is what we saw in the USSR: Targets were zigzagged and a five year "plan" was never achieved according to its original targets.
I beg to differ. I think you are missing the point about the USSR. It had a planned collectivized economy. There was no private property, as such. If you want an example of what political revolution might look like, Hungary in 1956 is a good example. Stalinist bureaucrats are not a class -- and frankly have no particular place in the larger picture. That they were able to last so long in the USSR is a testament, among other things, to just how powerful the fundamentals of a planned collectivized economy could be. That the planning sucked, and that there were all kinds of bureaucratic abuses and that it existed in the context of a world capitalist market (not to mention the deprivations of the Civil War and WWII) and still made tremendous economic gains, speaks to this. And the catastrophic fall in living standard that came after the counter revolution in 1991 should also give a clue.

[Q]

I beg to differ. I think you are missing the point about the USSR. It had a planned collectivized economy. There was no private property, as such. If you want an example of what political revolution might look like Hungary in 1956 is a good example. Stalinist bureaucrats are not a class -- and frankly have no particular place in the larger picture. That they were able to last so long in the USSR is a testament, among other things, to just how powerful the fundamentals of a planned collectivized economy could be. That the planning sucked, and that there were all kinds of bureaucratic abuses and that it existed in the context of a world capitalist market (not to mention the deprivations of the Civil War and WWII) and still made tremendous economic gains, speaks to this. And the catastrophic fall in living standard that came after the counter revolution in 1991 should not be treated in such a cavalier fashion.
In turn I beg to differ. I agree that the bureaucrats didn't form a class and I also concur that the dramatic collapse of society after the USSR collapsed wasn't exactly something to hope for. However, a planned economy is certainly not something I would characterize the USSR as. I think Hillel Ticktin makes a compelling argument in this direction, I posted a video on the subject (http://www.revleft.com/vb/russiai-theories-soviet-t168685/index.html) here and basically the first 1/3 of the video he explains why it wasn't planned.

While historical, I think this question is important as it would base our proposals of how a socialist planned economy might look like in the future and I rather not go for the "don't give me a TV from the end of the month" version.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You really just highlighted one of my biggest issues with Trotskyism. The problem is that nationalism isn't, and never will be, the same thing as socialization. It's the socialization of the means of production which is needed for socialism, not nationalization. All you guys pay attention to is de jure ownership when that's not really the most important issue. It's not different from saying there is no qualitative change between a capitalist country and a socialist one, as the only different is the amount of state owned property, within the opinion of the Trots. Also, it seems to be implicitly supporting that you can have the economic basis for socialism within a single country, which is also false. If anything, the opposite is true: you can have a proletarian dictatorship within a single country, but not a socialist economy.
At some point quantity becomes quality here. When the bourgeoisie is expropriated and capitalism no longer exists, this is not a quantitative difference. And it isn't Britain or some "social democratic" country that we are talking about. You don't think Cuba and Sweden under the SP are qualitatively different?

Of course, Trotskyists agree that you cannot have socialism in one country but you can have the d of the p.

[A Marxist Historian]

According to Trotskyist theory states such as the USSR,North Korea and China (among others) are classified as "deformed workers states." Usually in such states the conditions are so bleak that they either collapse or are carved up by competing imperialist powers.

Well, at this point is it even possible for such states to recover? For instance, how would states like China,and others, possibly recover and "become" actual workers states? I am not too keen on the theory so I wasn't sure if there was an answer which went beyond "revolution."

Use this thread to discuss this theory as applied to modern "deformed" states.

(Sorry if this is in an inappropriate forum.. there was three other forums I thought it might be well suited for as well).

Why, sure. By way of a political revolution, overthrowing the Stalinist bureaucracy, turning them into healthy workers states.

This came close to happening in Hungary in 1956, according to most Trotskyists, and various tendencies have seen other mounting political revolutions, which failed, at other moments.

Thus for example the Spartacists, whom I support, saw the popular insurrectionary movement in China in 1989 (not the petty-bourgeois students in Tienanmen Square so much as the general working class insurgency going on all over China, as such a possible incipient political revolution.

And of course the explosion in East Germany after the fall of the Wall, in which the Spartacists themselves participated, which they saw then and see now as something that could easily have turned into a working class political revolution, had it not been sidetracked into the absorption of East Germany by capitalist West Germany.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

I think that Trotsky also held that the USSR was only "degenerated worker's state" because the worker's state itself was made possible by an actual proletarian revolution. For me that seemed to be a key concept in his theory. I must admit that I'm rather skeptical of the "deformed worker's state" term in general. "Satellite state of a degenerated worker's state" seems more appropriate since North Korea, to my knowledge, has never had a proletarian revolution. Thus calling it a "worker's state" at all does not make sense to me, especially now that capitalism has been restored in Russia.

But perhaps I am missing something crucial here. If I am, please tell me. I only ask that you be nice about it.

North Korea is far from unique. Neither China, nor Cuba, nor Vietnam, nor Albania, nor Yugoslavia had anything that could meaningfully be called a "proletarian revolution." Nonetheless, they were or are all Stalinist states functionally equivalent to the USSR in every way that is really important.

Did this create theoretical difficulties for Trotskyists? You betcha.

One of the major reasons I support the Spartacists is that they were the ones who solved this question, firstly with their analysis of the Cuban Revolution, theoretically trickier than the others, as obviously the USSR had pretty much zip to do with the Cuban Revolution, as Fidel may not even have been a Marxist when he took power, much less a "Marxist-Leninist."

The Spartacist analyses of Cuba, China, Yugoslavia etc. are mostly all available on MIA, at

https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/icl-spartacists/

-M.H.-

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Yes, MH is quite right. Here is Trotsky's take on it:

It is not a question of substituting one ruling clique for another, but of changing the very methods of administering the economy and guiding the culture of the country. Bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a genuine freedom of elections, are necessary conditions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of Soviet parties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and a resurrection of the trade unions. The bringing of democracy into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. Expensive playthings—palaces of the Soviets, new theaters, show-off subways—will be crowded out in favor of workers’ dwellings. ‘Bourgeois norms of distribution’ will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist equality. Ranks will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe freely, criticize, make mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will be freed of their chains. And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism.”
—Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, 1936

[A Marxist Historian]

Aurora pointed to a big issue with the "political revolution" scheme: Who is going to carry it out? Not only did we have to counter exhaustion and demoralisation of the working class movement, but in states like the USSR we also had to tackle an all-pervasive bureaucratic apparatus that actively tried to manage all aspects of peoples lives. How can you organise even a strike if you don't know who of your colleagues is a KGB informant?

In this sense it was a good thing that the USSR collapsed as it gave people a change and room to learn to think for themselves once more. An unthinking proletariat cannot possibly be a potential ruling class and cannot challenge the existing order.

There is also a different point with the "political" versus "social" revolution dichotomy: All working class revolutions are political and change society and are thus social as well. All social revolutions likewise are political as well. Trying to split the two will only cause confusion I think and might fuel the economist conception of having a "social" revolution where we only take over the means of production, apparently without overthrowing the constitutional order.

The conception is of course based on the notion that the USSR already had a planned economy and, thus, that this needed to be preserved. With the information that we have today, I don't see how anyone can maintain the claim that the USSR economy was planned in any sense.

What the USSR had was a target economy, which is nothing like a rationally planned economy based on human need, but where arbitrary targets set by a bureaucracy are the main "building block". And indeed, this is what we saw in the USSR: Targets were zigzagged and a five year "plan" was never achieved according to its original targets.

By the 1980s, the USSR was awful far from "Stalinist totalitarianism." You probably had more ex-Panther and whatnot political prisoners in Reagan's jails than dissidents in Gorbachev's.

Actually, even most bourgeois historians have by now rejected the "totalitarian" label even for Stalin's USSR. Regimes like that of Stalin are ultimately more fragile than "democracies," not less, as when they topple, they topple explosively.

So Mussolini, the only politician ever I know of who actually *advocated* totalitarianism and called himself a totalitarian, ended up hanging from his heels, overthrown not by the Allies, but by Italian workers. And the South African apartheid regime, every bit as totalitarian if you were black as Stalin's Russia, is gone and won't come back.

Don't want to get into the economics here, we've got other threads for that, I'll just note that any notion that the toppling of the Soviet regime was anything other than disastrous is absurd.

There is no place in the world where the working class is more demoralized than in the ex-USSR. The collapse of the Russian workers revolution seems to have made workers all over the world think that socialism is a nice idea that can never work, and nowhere more so than in Russia.

And the toppling of the Soviet regime was humanly disastrous, with the male lifespan in the ex-USSR reduced by ten years, as people starved, froze or drank themselves to death literally by the millions. The population of Russia and Ukraine has dropped like a rock, through what some sociologists have been calling "economic autogenocide," by way of capitalist restoration.

And all over the world, leftists groups, parties and movements dissolved or became demoralized, or simply abandoned socialism. The working class retreated, class struggle slowed down. Even in the USA, Clinton abolished welfare. Only now, with the economic collapse of capitalism, do you even begin to have a working class recovery, and it is a working class recovery at a very primitive and defensive ideological level.

There is nothing whatsoever pretty about this picture. Rather than the collapse of the USSR making room for new ideas and new thinking about socialism, instead you have had a profound lack of imagination, and the idea spreading everywhere that capitalism is just something natural by human nature, that we just have to live with. Thus nobody in the Occupy movement even wants to come up with a program.

The motto of our era is Margaret Thatcher's line, "there is no alternative."

-M.H.-

[daft punk]

Interesting question, that definitely opens for finding flaws in their theory. How does one de-degenerate a degenerated workers's state?

I've heard talk from trotskyists about "political revolutions" - that all that's necessary is a change of who holds power (meaning that the SU, for example, would have become "non-degenerated" if Trotsky held power).

As far as I'm familiar with the idea, it reeks of great man theories and non-materialist analysis.

A political revolution in this instance is the masses kicking out the dictatorship and replacing it with demcratic workers control. It would have enabled the planned economies to function better and survive, plus it would have eliminated the inequality, the secrecy, the fear, all the things which gave these states a bad name in the west. It would have been a death blow to the western anti-Communist propaganda. It would therefore have made socialism much more attractive to the workers in the west. Plus it would have made the workers in the planned economies much more enthusiastic about their system. All this would mean that the socialist economies would overtake the capitalist ones, quickly leading to world socialism, the abolition of countries, states, money, poverty, inequality, war and hunger. By now we could have tackled global warming too. Instead we have war, hunger, recession, global warming, and the 'communist' states are on their last legs or gone, just as Trotsky predicted decades ago.

[daft punk]

I think that Trotsky also held that the USSR was only "degenerated worker's state" because the worker's state itself was made possible by an actual proletarian revolution. For me that seemed to be a key concept in his theory. I must admit that I'm rather skeptical of the "deformed worker's state" term in general. "Satellite state of a degenerated worker's state" seems more appropriate since North Korea, to my knowledge, has never had a proletarian revolution. Thus calling it a "worker's state" at all does not make sense to me, especially now that capitalism has been restored in Russia.

But perhaps I am missing something crucial here. If I am, please tell me. I only ask that you be nice about it.

Yes. Workers state has two meanings
1. The workers party in power - Russia 1917-24
2. A planned economy - Russia after forced collectivisation, the other countries similarly.

Socialism requires both at the same time and so has never existed.

[daft punk]

Hungary and Czechoslovakia in the 50s-60s are perhaps examples of what Trotskyists could deem attempts at political revolutions within socialist states.

Although the two examples are distinct in various ways (personally I think that the Prague Spring would be a better example than Hungary).

But both examples are also problematic and it seems that groups tend to argue based on caricatures of these events rather than any sort of in depth analysis.

Yes they were partial political revolution attempts. When you say problematic what you mean is your party supported the Russian tanks firing on the workers who wanted democratic rights etc.

[daft punk]

In this sense it was a good thing that the USSR collapsed as it gave people a change and room to learn to think for themselves once more. An unthinking proletariat cannot possibly be a potential ruling class and cannot challenge the existing order.

There is also a different point with the "political" versus "social" revolution dichotomy: All working class revolutions are political and change society and are thus social as well. All social revolutions likewise are political as well. Trying to split the two will only cause confusion I think and might fuel the economist conception of having a "social" revolution where we only take over the means of production, apparently without overthrowing the constitutional order.

The conception is of course based on the notion that the USSR already had a planned economy and, thus, that this needed to be preserved. With the information that we have today, I don't see how anyone can maintain the claim that the USSR economy was planned in any sense.

What the USSR had was a target economy, which is nothing like a rationally planned economy based on human need, but where arbitrary targets set by a bureaucracy are the main "building block". And indeed, this is what we saw in the USSR: Targets were zigzagged and a five year "plan" was never achieved according to its original targets.

I find it hard to believe that you can claim to be in the CWI and write this. These two statements are at odds with what the CWI believe:

" Many Marxists and even Trotskyists, completely losing their bearings, have reacted in a one-sided and therefore erroneous fashion. One section has implicitly accepted that ‘the game is up’, that the collapse of the Soviet Union and with it the planned economies has postponed to the indefinite future the struggle for socialism and the task of creating mass revolutionary parties. Another section is in ‘denial’ and cannot accept reality even when it strikes them on the nose. They stubbornly refute any suggestion that a social counter-revolution, the dismantling of the planned economy and its replacement by capitalism, has taken place in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The CWI, on the other hand, recognised in 1989-90 that capitalism was being restored and that the process has been largely completed in all the republics of the former USSR and in Eastern Europe. At the same time, we concluded that while this was a defeat for the world proletariat it was not the same kind of crushing social reverse and the change in world class relations that followed the triumphs of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. Its effects were primarily ideological in that it allowed the bourgeois to conduct an unbridled triumphalist campaign in favour of the ‘free market’, of capitalism, without having to look over their shoulder and for comparisons to be drawn with the economic achievements of the planned economies of the USSR, Eastern Europe, China and Cuba. This in turn undoubtedly had an effect on the broad consciousness of the working class. ‘Socialism’, as an ideal and also as a ‘practical possibility’ for providing the basics of existence particularly for the starving masses of Africa, Asia and Latin America, dimmed. This undoubtedly strengthened the bourgeoisie not just from an ideological point of view, but in its neo-liberal attacks on the working class world-wide."


http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/GlobalTurmoil/gt02_01.html

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The Bureaucracy isn't a class any more than the State Apparatus and caste of intellectual workers (planners, intelligencia) are in Bourgeois countries. The workers managers exerted their un needed influence and struggled to maintain their position of authority at a time when modernising would have resulted in workers doing their jobs for them.

What matters is that reforms such as Nationalisation were forced from the revolution, which was even according to Marx the first step that Socialism should take. However there was a parasite on the U.S.S.R. that was leading and leeching off of it. Stalin and the Center Opposition supported the Bureaucracy.

LOL. The individual party selected appropriator of the surplus not a State Capitalist? LOL, this is why Trotskyists are to me in a Degenerated Marxist State. I think it needs a "political revolution"...

[Q]

I find it hard to believe that you can claim to be in the CWI and write this.

Yawn. Get over it.

[daft punk]

I remember the late 1980s well. I was in the Militant, the biggest socialist party in the UK, and our line on Russia was that hopefully one day there would be a political revolution from below to create socialism. The Russian economy had gone from almost nothing, to not far behind America, growing faster in the 50s and 60s than any country in the world except Japan, which had been aided by America. Clear proof of the benefits of a planned economy. In the end the disadvantages of a dictatorship outweighed the advantages of planning and it ground to a halt. The dictators packed it in and traded their positions as a privileged elite for...positions as a privileged elite but with capitalism.

[A Marxist Historian]

LOL. The individual party selected appropriator of the surplus not a State Capitalist? LOL, this is why Trotskyists are to me in a Degenerated Marxist State. I think it needs a "political revolution"...

Except the bureaucrats didn't "appropriate" the surplus. They wanted to, that's why they by and large supported the collapse of the USSR, so that the means of production and the surplus generated therefrom became grabbable, and the social surplus could be salted away in Swiss bank accounts under Yeltsin.

If they had been able to "appropriate" the surplus, put it into the bank, invest it, pass it down to their kids, in short do what a capitalist does, then indeed it would have been a capitalist system.

Instead they could just leech off of it, drawing much too high legal wages and illegal or semi legal under the table privileges of all sort, away from the spotlight of the media. The Soviet system was not even stable enough to survive a free press.

Thus for example when East German workers found out for the first time about all of Honecker's privileges, and that his image of puritanical Communist austerity was a lie, this led to a dramatic collapse of his authority. Even Brezhnev had to keep his huge collection of sports cars a state secret.

Whereas in a genuinely capitalist system, like in the US, the capitalists glory in and boast about how rich they are. In fact the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons are the glory of the system.

-M.H.-

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Except the bureaucrats didn't "appropriate" the surplus. They wanted to, that's why they by and large supported the collapse of the USSR, so that the means of production and the surplus generated therefrom became grabbable, and the social surplus could be salted away in Swiss bank accounts under Yeltsin.

If they had been able to "appropriate" the surplus, put it into the bank, invest it, pass it down to their kids, in short do what a capitalist does, then indeed it would have been a capitalist system.

Instead they could just leech off of it, drawing much too high legal wages and illegal or semi legal under the table privileges of all sort, away from the spotlight of the media. The Soviet system was not even stable enough to survive a free press.

Thus for example when East German workers found out for the first time about all of Honecker's privileges, and that his image of puritanical Communist austerity was a lie, this led to a dramatic collapse of his authority. Even Brezhnev had to keep his huge collection of sports cars a state secret.

Whereas in a genuinely capitalist system, like in the US, the capitalists glory in and boast about how rich they are. In fact the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons are the glory of the system.

-M.H.-

No, the selected groups to decide about the (industrial) production of the enterprises in the USSR were precisely selected by the state, they were not the workers themselves.

"they [the workers] themselves appropriate this surplus either of the product or labor" Karl Marx, Das Kapital