State capitalism

[Lokomotive293]

I don't want this to turn into a huge tendency war, because I realize there are probably already hundreds of threads like this, I'd just like to learn.
I've heard that a lot of people, especially on revleft, claim the Soviet Union and other states I would call socialist were/are in fact "state capitalist". Now, I have three questions for those who support said theory:

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I don't want this to turn into a huge tendency war, because I realize there are probably already hundreds of threads like this, I'd just like to learn.
I've heard that a lot of people, especially on revleft, claim the Soviet Union and other states I would call socialist were/are in fact "state capitalist". Now, I have three questions for those who support said theory:

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

1. Well, "State-Capitalism" is a term most people use to describe state ownership of the MoP and not only capitalist relations at the workplace, but when the working class is not truly the complete ruling class yet. Lenin writes in 1922: "If we could achieve State Capitalism within a few months, this would be a step ahead towards socialism" (It's not an exact quite, but i believe qute a precise paraphrase), and defines socialism as "Socialism is merely State-Monopolist-Capitalism made to function in the interest of the working class", and he sees a "higher-stage of socialism" as the Soviets, worker councils, having all Power.
So State-Capitalism only differs to Capitalism/Imperialism depending on which party controls the State and which class that party represents in the class struggle for power within that economy (Capital vs. Proletariat).

2. In the case of the USSR, which i refer to as State Capitalism, it obviously still had capitalist relations at the workplace and minimal workers control over the surplus that they themselves at that enterprise produced, besides the collective farms in which there truly was a communist class organisation.

3. A Socialist state would have workers being the ruling class, meaning all workers decide about all the surplus that they produce, and would have a value based exchange system such as labor vouchers, instead of money (which USSR had money btw...)

[roy]

1. state capitalism differs from regular capitalism in that the state fulfills the role of the capitalist class

2. the SU was capitalist because workers were exploited and didn't have control over MoP. it functioned as a capitalist state, trading with other capitalist states, integrated into the global economy.

3. i don't think it's possible for a socialist state to exist in a capitalist world. if such a thing did exist, it would have to be in a time of wider revolution. workers would control the workplace and the gov't, the state apparatus would be used to suppress class enemies, whatever. the whole idea is extremely problematic, though.

[Manic Impressive]

Why do we think that Russia was state capitalist well firstly because Lenin said it was.

"We know all about Socialism, but we do not know how to organise on a large scale, how to manage distribution, and so on. The old Bolshevik leaders have not taught us these things, and this is not to the credit of our party. We have yet to go through this course and we say: Even if a man is a scoundrel of the deepest dye, if he is a merchant, experienced in organising production and distribution on a large scale, we must learn from him; if we do not learn from these people we shall never achieve Socialism, and the revolution will never get beyond the present stage. Socialism can only be reached by the development of State Capitalism the careful organisation of finance, control and discipline among the workers. Without this there is no Socialism."

"Until the workers have learned to organise on a large scale they are not Socialists, nor builders of a Socialist structure of society, and will not acquire the necessary knowledge for the establishment of the new world order. The path of organisation is a long one, and the tasks of Socialist constructive work require strenuous and continuous effort, with a corresponding knowledge which we do not sufficiently possess. It is hardly to be expected that the even more developed following generation will accomplish a complete transition into Socialism."

The Soviet Union had money, markets and classes. The capitalist mode of production was still in place. You will obviously say b..but the workers controlled the state. Did they?

"Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members of the right to vote at the Congress of the party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to assure the homogeneous unity of the Communists So that in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom."
So out of 180,000,000 only 500,000 had a say and then most of those were refused a vote.
You really have to do some mental gymnastics to call that socialism and when you do socialism becomes just another empty phrase devoid of it's original meaning. You phrase the question as if it was our opinion. It's not our opinion, opinions don't matter, all that matters is what is factual.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

State-capitalism is different from "regular" capitalism because the means of production is centralized in the state.


2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

Generalized commodity production existed, wage labor existed, workers alienated from the means of production existed, etc. etc.


3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

There is not such thing as a socialist state, but if you are talking about the transition stage to a classless and stateless society, I would say the workers would control the means of production through the soviet and party organs.

[Grenzer]

Manic, you keep posting the same Lenin quotes out of context, and you clearly know little of Lenin's actual political doctrines. I do not mean this in a hostile manner, and I suggest you should read several documents such as "Left Wing" Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality, The Tax in Kind, and his report to the second All-Russia Congress of Political Education departments for further information on the issue of state capitalism. No one has ever denied that the capitalist mode of production was abolished in the sense that the law of value no longer applied, which is what you seem to be trying to claim that Lenin and the Bolsheviks have said.

What your complaints ultimately boil down to is an issue of semantics. Lenin felt that Marx's distinction between socialism and communism was needlessly vague. He defined socialism as state-capitalism "turned to the benefit of the people". In plain terms, this means a system in which state plays the role of the capitalist, but private property and the bourgeoisie as a class have been eliminated under the dictatorship of the proletariat with the abolition of the commodity production as one of the end goals. I would agree with others that this is a poor definition of socialism, but the issue at hand is whether they were building socialism in the sense that the class interests of the proletariat were being carried forward with the abolition of capitalism as the goal. The only alternative would be the spontaneous abolition of capitalism, which is utopian and impossible, putting one more squarely in the category of the utopian anarchists than Marxists. The alternative to Bolshevism would have been liberal capitalism under bourgeois dictatorship, or more likely a quasi-fascist military dictatorship under the likes of Kornilov. Anti-Bolshevism is anti-communism, and indeed, many of your arguments that aren't focused on semantics seem to echo anti-communists and right-wingers, unfortunately. We should strive to make a critical analysis rather than just repeat the party line.

All I've seen is some shallow anti-Lenin rhetoric without much substance focusing on semantics and terminology, rather than the essence of class interests, which is what is important.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

To add to Ghost Bebel's post, the state-capitalist system Lenin set up was absolutely necessary for Russia, a backwards and mainly peasant country, to industrialize and modernize. (This same problem obviously would not be seen in some country like the United States or Britain, but would appear in what is commonly called third world countries).

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Brosa, you might wish to reconsider your "thinking about the International Communist Current." They are very hostile to any suggestion that state capitalism can be progressive.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

^^^ Brosa, you might wish to reconsider your "thinking about the International Communist Current." They are very hostile to any suggestion that state capitalism can be progressive.

Yeah, I have noticed that. I don't think it can be progressive for nations already industrialized, but it is almost of absolute necessity for "third-world" nations.

[Grenzer]

^^^ Brosa, you might wish to reconsider your "thinking about the International Communist Current." They are very hostile to any suggestion that state capitalism can be progressive.

Indeed, I was surprised to see that a self-described left communist would thank my post, considering it is a defense of the NEP.

What exactly is their stance on this anyway? I would imagine it's similar to the Trotskyist "Permanent Revolution", which I think is flawed on several counts. So far, no one has yet to give a coherent, detailed explanation as to how the capitalist stage of development can actually be skipped in under-industrialized countries.. just some vague mumbling about how "capitalism as an international system is ready to be replaced with socialism". The entirety of historical experience tells us that the capitalist mode of production in which the law of value is the rule, cannot be skipped. It is needed to develop the productive forces to a certain extent and transform the peasantry into proletarians. Only capitalism can do this on a large, systematic scale when the proletariat is a demographic minority. As you have pointed out, the capitalist phase of development cannot be skipped, but bourgeois class rule can be.

Trotsky also believed that the productive forces in the "third world" could not be developed by capitalism to the degree that there were on par with Western capitalist societies. This too, along with many of his other proclamations, has fallen flat its face.

[Manic Impressive]

Manic, you keep posting the same Lenin quotes out of context, and you clearly know little of Lenin's actual political doctrines. I do not mean this in a hostile manner, and I suggest you should read several documents such as "Left Wing" Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality, The Tax in Kind, and his report to the second All-Russia Congress of Political Education departments for further information on the issue of state capitalism. No one has ever denied that the capitalist mode of production was abolished in the sense that the law of value no longer applied, which is what you seem to be trying to claim that Lenin and the Bolsheviks have said.
Fuck off you condescending prick the sum total of you're theoretical knowledge could be written on the back of a postage stamp. I don't mean that in a hostile manner. Do you seriously think I haven't read those? If you concede that the capitalist mode of production was still in operation in the Soviet Union as many claim it was not then you concede that it was state capitalist. Call state capitalism socialist if you like, call the French socialist party socialist if you like call the British Labour party socialist they all claim socialism but it is not the Marxian definition and not in the interests of the working class.


What your complaints ultimately boil down to is an issue of semantics. Lenin felt that Marx's distinction between socialism and communism was needlessly vague.
Marx made no distinction, there's your first mistake.


He defined socialism as state-capitalism "turned to the benefit of the people".
agreed, but then again so many other capitalists have done the same does that make them all correct?


In plain terms, this means a system in which state plays the role of the capitalist, but private property and the bourgeoisie as a class have been eliminated under the dictatorship of the proletariat with the abolition of the commodity production as one of the end goals. I would agree with others that this is a poor definition of socialism, but the issue at hand is whether they were building socialism in the sense that the class interests of the proletariat were being carried forward with the abolition of capitalism as the goal.
No it's not the question is was the soviet union state capitalist, in which you have just agreed with me and said yes it was.


The only alternative would be the spontaneous abolition of capitalism, which is utopian and impossible,
Read socialism scientific and utopian for the marxist definition of utopian. You are currently using the bourgeois definition. The major themes are trying to institute socialism on behalf of the working class and trying to make capitalism work in the interests of the working class.


putting one more squarely in the category of the utopian anarchists than Marxists. The alternative to Bolshevism would have been liberal capitalism under bourgeois dictatorship, or more likely a quasi-fascist military dictatorship under the likes of Kornilov.
Russia needed a capitalist revolution in order to industrialize, it got one.


Anti-Bolshevism is anti-communism, and indeed, many of your arguments that aren't focused on semantics seem to echo anti-communists and right-wingers, unfortunately. We should strive to make a critical analysis rather than just repeat the party line.
Bolshevism is anti-communism, it's anti-marxism and it's anti-working class an anachronistic relic of a failed attempt at utopianism. Please please lets make a critical analysis instead of following the party line if everyone actually did that there would be no Leninists left.


All I've seen is some shallow anti-Lenin rhetoric without much substance focusing on semantics and terminology, rather than the essence of class interests, which is what is important.
All I've seen is a flame attempt blinded by an almost pseudo-religous adherence to the dogma of the Bolsheviks. Can capitalism work in the interests of the working class?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah, I have noticed that. I don't think it can be progressive for nations already industrialized, but it is almost of absolute necessity for "third-world" nations.

Actually, it can still be progressive for nations already industrialized. I'll explain below:


Can [state] capitalism work in the interests of the working class?

There's no case of permanent capitalist nationalizations whereby real wages for the new state employees have gone down. This is what I've always argued against the likes of Boffy's Blog's cooperativism.

[Manic Impressive]

There's no case of permanent capitalist nationalizations whereby real wages for the new state employees have gone down.
Whoopie!!! I get to have 80% of the value of my labour exploited instead of 90%. Thank you [state] Capitalism that's just what I always wanted!!!

[Die Neue Zeit]

At least it's a more political way of saying your exaggeration, as opposed to parochial wage increases through union activity.

[Mutual Aid]

I don't want this to turn into a huge tendency war, because I realize there are probably already hundreds of threads like this, I'd just like to learn.
I've heard that a lot of people, especially on revleft, claim the Soviet Union and other states I would call socialist were/are in fact "state capitalist". Now, I have three questions for those who support said theory:

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

I definitely support "said theory" and respect your openness to varied opinions. I will try to be succinct in my response as possible.

1) In the name of already existing worker control of production and in opposition to the position put in The State and Revolution, the Bolsheviks imposed a violent coercive dictatorial state control over the workers and peasants, whereby surplus value (to use Marxist terminology) was expropriated by said state apparatus mainly in the form of wage-labour (subsequently supplemented by the brutal use of slave labour in the 'gulag' system). That is, the government of the USSR was the sole capitalist monopoly. Alternatively, as you know, "regular" capitalism tends to exploit wage-slaves as so-called "free labour" by private capital supported by state coercion - although not exclusively (as in the case of so-called "nationalised" industry, often conducted on behalf of the capitalist class in the name of social-democracy and Keynesian policy), or slave labour in the case of regimes such as Nazism or in 'Myanmar').

2) As described in (1), the USSR State apparatus owned and controlled the means of production and extracted the surplus value produced of its industrial and agricultural "labour army" "according to plan" (as stipulated by Marx and Engels). Hence, as argued in 1871, the State and the socialist principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is mutually exclusive, i.e., the institution of a ruling caste as a substitute for self-emancipation of the 'proletariat' ensured the continuance of the pivot of capitalist relations, wage-labour and commodity production.

3) In contemporary terms, it would be foolhardy to tell people of the future how to organise their lives in a non-exploitative way to ensure freedom and economic equality. However, this much seems clear to me: (a) the system of money needs to be replaced by the distribution of products based on need (i.e., the well-being of all), thereby ending commodity relations and wage labour; (b) the autonomy of producers and communities needs to be protected (through the arming of the population), with relations based on federative equality and the abolition of authority (as exemplified historically by free soviets); and (c) possession of land and means of production need to be based on usufruct [or possession by the user(s)] as the foundation of social ownership. Hence, the concept "socialist state" is an oxymoron.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There's no case of permanent capitalist nationalizations whereby real wages for the new state employees have gone down. This is what I've always argued against the likes of Boffy's Blog's cooperativism.

'Permanent capitalist nationalisations' are flawed on two fronts.

Firstly, they are ends in themselves. They provide a false-solution in that, as wages rise, class consciousness subsides and a class-collaborationist sort of corporatism rises, as happened in the UK in the post-war years.

Secondly, permanent capitalist nationalisations, because of the first point, always turn into semi-permanent capitalist nationalisations when the Keynesian utopian ideal breaks down. Capitalism abides by the law of diminishing returns. If, in the medium-run, wages have risen, this will eat into the capitalists' surplus. All that will happen is that they will then pass the cost increases onto consumers by increasing the exchange price, and thus the real wages do not actually increase.

To say there's no case where your lovely little Keynesian ideal hasn't resulted in rampant inflation (i.e. a drop in real wages) and, ultimately, a return to rampant financial capitalism (in the form of today's neo-liberalism) is dis-ingenuous in the extreme.

Why don't you actually argue for Socialism for once? What are you even doing on a revolutionary Socialist forum, when all you do is argue for a slight shift to the left? Petty reformist!

[Lucretia]

I don't want this to turn into a huge tendency war, because I realize there are probably already hundreds of threads like this, I'd just like to learn.
I've heard that a lot of people, especially on revleft, claim the Soviet Union and other states I would call socialist were/are in fact "state capitalist". Now, I have three questions for those who support said theory:

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

Pick up Tony Cliff's "State Capitalism in Russian," and Hobson and Tabor's "Trotskyism and the Dilemma of Socialism."

The basic argument is that capitalism is a form of production in which one class has monopolized possession of the productive resources, but is unable to coerce directly specific workers into utilizing those means of production, such that a degree of de facto contractual freedom between owners and workers exists. The capitalist class uses its control over the means of production to extract the maximum amount of surplus value/labor from the workers in order to compete/keep pace with rival units of capital that are similarly trying to maximize exploitation of their workers. As capital concentrates, and small business evolve into larger multi-divisional or sometimes multi-industrial-sector economic units, complete with internal planning, the process of capitalist exploitation coincides with the development of a bureaucratic capitalist class that attempts to use its planning capabilities to compete effectively with rival units of capital.

The USSR, it is said, was an extreme example of this phenomenon -- one that was only able to develop the way it did because of the degeneration of a revolution that had already consolidated control of the means of production into the hands of a central agency -- the Soviet state. Once the state slipped from the control of society, the workers in particular, it became a capitalist class society where the bureaucracy came to play the role of capitalist enterprise managers responding to the dictates of the law of value as they competed with rivals states and economic formations.

[Die Neue Zeit]

'Permanent capitalist nationalisations' are flawed on two fronts.

Firstly, they are ends in themselves. They provide a false-solution in that, as wages rise, class consciousness subsides and a class-collaborationist sort of corporatism rises, as happened in the UK in the post-war years.

The same can be said about the result of many reform struggles. What's your Luxemburgist point? :glare:


Secondly, permanent capitalist nationalisations, because of the first point, always turn into semi-permanent capitalist nationalisations when the Keynesian utopian ideal breaks down. Capitalism abides by the law of diminishing returns. If, in the medium-run, wages have risen, this will eat into the capitalists' surplus. All that will happen is that they will then pass the cost increases onto consumers by increasing the exchange price, and thus the real wages do not actually increase.

To say there's no case where your lovely little Keynesian ideal hasn't resulted in rampant inflation (i.e. a drop in real wages) and, ultimately, a return to rampant financial capitalism (in the form of today's neo-liberalism) is dis-ingenuous in the extreme.

Why don't you actually argue for Socialism for once? What are you even doing on a revolutionary Socialist forum, when all you do is argue for a slight shift to the left? Petty reformist!

Given that you've read my economics posts in the past, you of all people should know that I'm against economic reforms that are on the shallow basis of what you call "Keynesianism." The economic school I'm referring to purely on the level of minimum programs would advocate more aggressive deficit spending, and privatizing in the midst of a recession is seen by this school as sheer madness.

The crude and tiresome canard of cost increases and price increases is the same one used in neoliberal and Austrian discourse on whatever bare bones they have for their "labour economics."

As for your last question, re-read some stuff on minimum programs and maximum programs, will you?

[JAM]

No it's not the question is was the soviet union state capitalist, in which you have just agreed with me and said yes it was.


If Lenin defined NEP as state capitalism how can a full planned economy be state capitalist as well since the two economic models are different?

This can only mean one of two things: Lenin was wrong defining NEP as state capitalism or you're wrong defining a full planned economy as state capitalism.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Yeah, I have noticed that. I don't think it can be progressive for nations already industrialized, but it is almost of absolute necessity for "third-world" nations.

State-Capitalism as a transition phase is not "progressive" to change the foundations of an economy (i.e. from agricultural to agricultural-industrial or to industrialised economy) in already industrialised societies, but it is indeed very helpful to squeeze the experience and management knowledge out of the very very secretive current capitalist class.
So in the transition period there definitely needs to be a state-capitalist type of transition where the most conscious organised workers threaten the overthrown and now expropriated bourgeoisie with either helping them in managing things and educating workers on managing and distributing production or taking the short way out...

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

If Lenin defined NEP as state capitalism how can a full planned economy be state capitalist as well since the two economic models are different?

This can only mean one of two things: Lenin was wrong defining NEP as state capitalism or you're wrong defining a full planned economy as state capitalism.

Well, more precisely, i guess we could all agree that the USSR under Stalin turned from a "State-Capitalism" under Lenin to a "State-Monopolist-Capitalism..." and after Stalin back to a liberalised, market and semi-profit driven form of STAMOKAP to a later form of State-Capitalism and after its dissolution to what-ever-the-fuck-the-jungle-of-Russia-is-today, call it (state)Capitalism if you will.

[Geiseric]

State Monopolist Capitalism? Establishing a monopoly is the goal of a planned economy, only instead of aggrivating current economic contradictions with the market, it allows for the monopoly to fix prices to the betterment of the population. All of the profit went back into making things that people needed, like schools, railways, and industrial investments, instead of being re-invested to increase an individual peasant's wealth, which is what the N.E.P. was.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Syd, there are two ends in the spectrum of state monopoly capitalism: one that operates with market prices between state enterprises, and another that operates on the basis of central planning (whether computerized or manual-directive).

I honestly don't think that Lenin had any idea of the kind of manual-directive planning that was to be implemented from 1929-1965.

[Geiseric]

Market prices between state enterprises? So there is more than one state, let's say oil manufacturing company, and they compete with eachother to get lowest prices? Is that what existed in the U.S.S.R? For example were there several different "companies," of tractor manufacturers? Or were they all simply "State tractor manufacturers"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Market prices between state enterprises? So there is more than one state, let's say oil manufacturing company, and they compete with eachother to get lowest prices? Is that what existed in the U.S.S.R? For example were there several different "companies," of tractor manufacturers? Or were they all simply "State tractor manufacturers"?

No, that's what would have happened had Lenin fully realized his version of State-Capitalist Monopoly.

Whatever competition existed was more like monopolistic competition in microeconomics. After the 1965 reform, market pricing and the competition between regional state enterprises were more pronounced. The State Committee on Prices had a range of prices for various products, depending on the region. So if a manufacturer of tractors wanted parts, he'd select from whatever list he had of state enterprises making said parts, each operating in a different region. The initial prices were misleading, because lots of bargaining and connections were involved. So in a given region, there was a monopoly, but across multiple regions, there were limited forms of competition.

[Geiseric]

There was limited form of competition, however if that defines capitalism than one could say that competition between feudal lords to produce the most food would also of been state capitalism as well, correct? My only problem is that "state capitalism," can be used to describe so many things, from the New Deal to Saddam Hussein's working of the Iraqi oil industry, and the Planned Economy was a huge step foward from that in terms of state control, so I think the fSU deserves its own category. The state rose out of the revolution, thus the planned economy and technically the N.E.P. were unavoidable and progressive if looked at in comparison to what the Whites or Capitalists would have done with Russia.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hey, I used to subscribe to the "State Capitalist!" argument myself! :)

As WCOP implied, there were four distinct economic systems in play: NEP (Lenin), "socialist primitive accumulation" (Stalin), directive planning minus "socialist primitive accumulation" (Khrushchev), and a combination of indicative planning, "socialist profit," etc. (Brezhnev)

[JAM]

Well, more precisely, i guess we could all agree that the USSR under Stalin turned from a "State-Capitalism" under Lenin to a "State-Monopolist-Capitalism..." and after Stalin back to a liberalised, market and semi-profit driven form of STAMOKAP to a later form of State-Capitalism and after its dissolution to what-ever-the-fuck-the-jungle-of-Russia-is-today, call it (state)Capitalism if you will.

I know that there is a Marxist concept of State Monopolist Capitalism. Here the term refers to an environment where the state intervenes in the economy to protect large monopolistic businesses from competition by smaller firms.

I also know that there is a neo-trotskist concept of State Monopolist Capitalism which defines Soviet-type economies as State Monopolist Capitalism and makes no distinction between the planned economies and the market ones when there is obviously differences between both.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I know that there is a Marxist concept of State Monopolist Capitalism. Here the term refers to an environment where the state intervenes in the economy to protect large monopolistic businesses from competition by smaller firms.

I also know that there is a neo-trotskist concept of State Monopolist Capitalism which defines Soviet-type economies as State Monopolist Capitalism and makes no distinction between the planned economies and the market ones when there is obviously differences between both.

Semantically, what's the difference between state monopoly capitalism and state-capitalist monopoly, anyway? :confused:

[JAM]

Semantically, what's the difference between state monopoly capitalism and state-capitalist monopoly, anyway? :confused:

Who said to you there is one?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well, there's the state protecting private monopolies, but then there's also the state taking over the monopolies while still operating on market prices.

[JAM]

Well, there's the state protecting private monopolies, but then there's also the state taking over the monopolies while still operating on market prices.

But the monopolies remain private? Because one thing is using the state to protect private interests and other thing is the state protecting the public interest.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the first case, yes.

[JAM]

In the first case, yes.

That was my point. So, there is a difference between them.

[revhope]

A good book to read concerning the development of state capitalism following the Russian revolution of 1917 is Walter Daums The Life and Death of Stalinism. He makes the point that where the law of value operates there you have capitalism. The role of the transitional period followng a succesful workers revolution is to take steps to abolish the law of value. For a whole variety of reasons instead of abolishing the law of value what occured in Russia post NEP was a strengthening of the law of value.

I would say read the book I may have misinterpreted it but I do think it's one of the better Trotskyist works on the subject.

[A Marxist Historian]

Indeed, I was surprised to see that a self-described left communist would thank my post, considering it is a defense of the NEP.

What exactly is their stance on this anyway? I would imagine it's similar to the Trotskyist "Permanent Revolution", which I think is flawed on several counts. So far, no one has yet to give a coherent, detailed explanation as to how the capitalist stage of development can actually be skipped in under-industrialized countries.. just some vague mumbling about how "capitalism as an international system is ready to be replaced with socialism". The entirety of historical experience tells us that the capitalist mode of production in which the law of value is the rule, cannot be skipped. It is needed to develop the productive forces to a certain extent and transform the peasantry into proletarians. Only capitalism can do this on a large, systematic scale when the proletariat is a demographic minority. As you have pointed out, the capitalist phase of development cannot be skipped, but bourgeois class rule can be.

Trotsky also believed that the productive forces in the "third world" could not be developed by capitalism to the degree that there were on par with Western capitalist societies. This too, along with many of his other proclamations, has fallen flat its face.

The law of value did not in fact dominate the Soviet economy during the NEP period. Rather what you saw was conflict between the law of planning and the law of value, the two contradictory laws struggling between each other in this transitional economy. Well analysed by Bolshevik laeder and Marxist theoretician Preobrazhensky, whose "The New Economics" you ought to study. This struggle reflecting the continuing conflict between the working class and the capitalist class, whether domestic or foreign, in a society in transition in between capitalism and socialism.

And this is what you will have in general when the working class seizes power in a single country, especially but not only an economically backward one, before the whole world goes socialist.

It is not true that agriculture can only be collectivized "under capitalism." This was not the case in either the USSR or China, so this is simply demonstrably wrong.

And Trotsky has, so far at least, been proven absolutely right when he argued that, in the era of imperialism, that no Third World country could develop to the level of one of the imperial powers. The last country to make that transition was Japan, and that basically happened in the 19th century (Meiji restoration etc.). Proven when Japan beat Tsarist Russia in 1905. Since then, there is absolutely no country (I am not speaking of the occasional little enclave like Hong Kong, but countries) that has made it into the imperial ring.

In fact, a century ago, as imperialism was still getting under way, it looked as if a few Latin American countries, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, were at least making it to the level of some of the poorer European countries.

Not any more!

Anyone who thinks that Brazil or India or even China for that matter has reached a level of social development anywhere near that of the USA or Germany or France or Sweden or Japan is deluded.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

A good book to read concerning the development of state capitalism following the Russian revolution of 1917 is Walter Daums The Life and Death of Stalinism. He makes the point that where the law of value operates there you have capitalism. The role of the transitional period followng a succesful workers revolution is to take steps to abolish the law of value. For a whole variety of reasons instead of abolishing the law of value what occured in Russia post NEP was a strengthening of the law of value.

I would say read the book I may have misinterpreted it but I do think it's one of the better Trotskyist works on the subject.

You have definitely misinterpreted it.

According to Daum, the USSR was a workers state until the Great Terror of the late 1930s. I should hope he doesn't make an argument like the above, as the law of value was just as operative, no more and no less so, before the Great Terror as after it. Or, for that matter, when Lenin was still alive too. So that's not even good "Tony Cliffism."

I've always thought Daum was rather incoherent, but I don't think he is that incoherent!

-M.H.-

[Peoples' War]

State capitalism was a measure used by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to progress the nation toward socialism.

Tell me, ultra-lefts, what does a Dictatorship of the proletariat economy look like? Quote Marx please.

Stalin had managed to work state capitalism to achieve socialism in the USSR. State capitalism had did it's deed, and socialism was finally complete.

All these Trots arguing about t their "degenerated Workers state" amongst themselves and with ultra-lefts is sad.

The USSR was SOCIALIST. The same with China, and Cuba. Romania. Albania.

[Revolution starts with U]

Tell me, ultra-lefts, what does a Dictatorship of the proletariat economy look like? Quote Marx please.

Marxism is a way of analyzing societies, not an ideology. Try again.

[JAM]

State capitalism was a measure used by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to progress the nation toward socialism.

How can you progress toward socialism when your basis aren't socialist?


Tell me, ultra-lefts, what does a Dictatorship of the proletariat economy look like? Quote Marx please.

I hope you don't mind that I quote Engels: "Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."


Stalin had managed to work state capitalism to achieve socialism in the USSR. State capitalism had did it's deed, and socialism was finally complete.

"Stalin had...", "Lenin did...". One of the reasons why I moved away from ML was because of this highly concentration and divination of some figures (Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, etc), crediting all the achievements to them instead of focusing on the people who endured the most terrible sacrifices at the hands of those men. Socialism shouldn't be about individuals but rather the collective.


All these Trots arguing about t their "degenerated Workers state" amongst themselves and with ultra-lefts is sad.

Actually, the sad thing here is seeing Leninists arguing amongst themselves about their "degenerated Workers State".


The USSR was SOCIALIST. The same with China, and Cuba. Romania. Albania.

Even when I was committed to ML I never considered Cuba, China or Romania socialist or even close to that.

[Luís Henrique]

I don't want this to turn into a huge tendency war, because I realize there are probably already hundreds of threads like this, I'd just like to learn.
I've heard that a lot of people, especially on revleft, claim the Soviet Union and other states I would call socialist were/are in fact "state capitalist". Now, I have three questions for those who support said theory:

1) What is "state capitalism" and how does it differ from "regular" capitalism/imperialism?

2) In what way was the Soviet Union capitalist?

3) How would a socialist state look like in your opinion, as opposed to what you call "state capitalist"?

I think "state capitalism" is a conflation between two very different things.

On one hand, capitalism - like in the United States, Germany, or Japan (or India or Brazil, for that matter) - depends on an increasing role of the State, as an instrument of the bourgeoisie, to take decisions and direct the activities of the ruling class. This role becomes more clear in situations of crisis, particularly during war, where the bourgeois State often interferes in the internal affairs of private companies, in order to subordinate production to its military needs. This is what is commonly called "State capitalism" in proper Marxist theory.

On the other hand, the term is used - quite imprecisely, I believe - to denote States that would consider themselves "socialist", in transition towards a classless society, and in which the interference of the State in economic issues is seen, not as a temporary "necessary evil", but as a (the) fundamental instrument to subordinate the capitalist class and economic activity to the supposed ruling role of the working class. This "theory" seems to rely into the idea that the State being the only (juridical) proprietor of means of production, it is somehow the "only capitalist" in such States.

Historically, there is a theoretical sliding from one meaning to another, apparently centered in Lenin's propagandistic simplifications about socialism (socialism = "State capitalism" + "the power of the soviets"), in which practical slogans used to mobilise people are confused with theoretical assessments of a much more complex reality.

There is a fundamental miscomprehension in such conflation. Capitalism cannot dispense with economic competition; capital can only exist as an amorphous sum of individual, competing capitals. A society with "only one capitalist", whatever it is, is no longer a capitalist society in any meaningful way. Evidently, theories of a "State capitalism" in the former SU (China, Vietnam, wherever) miss the basic point that the supposed "State property of all means of productions" in such countries has never been anything else than a juridical fiction, the individual companies (that were supposedly property of one sole entity - the "socialist State" acting as a proxy of the proletariat, so that in the end the property of means of production would belong to the working class) actually competing against each others like in any vulgar (non State-) capitalist economy, only in nastier forms because the "normal" market practices were suppressed without their material foundation being erradicated.

Luís Henrique