What happened?

[U.S.S.R]

Hi, just wondering peoples views on why the Soviet Union and in turn all 'Communist' countries became what they did; repressive, party controled nations. What Im really asking is where and why this happened? Thanks in advance

[Blake's Baby]

Because the revolution failed.

What alternatives do you see? 'Why did this happen?' implies 'why didn't something else happen?' - what do you think the 'something else' might be? If you can get towards that it wil also begin to answer the question why what happened did happen.

'Why didn't Russia move towards socialism?' for instance would suggest the answer that socialism in one country is impossible, so the answer then is 'because the rest of the world didn't 'go socialist'.' Thus, the failure of the revolution in Russia is linked to the failure of the world revolution.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Because the revolution failed.

What alternatives do you see? 'Why did this happen?' implies 'why didn't something else happen?' - what do you think the 'something else' might be? If you can get towards that it wil also begin to answer the question why what happened did happen.

'Why didn't Russia move towards socialism?' for instance would suggest the answer that socialism in one country is impossible, so the answer then is 'because the rest of the world didn't 'go socialist'.' Thus, the failure of the revolution in Russia is linked to the failure of the world revolution.
Pretty-much this. Russia as it was then was still coming out of pseudo-feudalism and into capitalism. The proletariat were a minority - a very militant minority, but a minority nonetheless.

The movement's failure to spread through industrialised Europe spelt death for the revolution (Germany's communist uprising being crushed by the now corrupted and bourgeois SPD is a prime example of this).
I mean just think about it; we're talking about a backwards, isolated country with extremely aggressive and dangerous neighbours on every side of it and an increasingly reactionary peasantry. It was only a matter of time before shit got shitter.

[Blake's Baby]

... Russia as it was then was still coming out of pseudo-feudalism and into capitalism. The proletariat were a minority - a very militant minority, but a minority nonetheless... we're talking about a backwards, isolated country with extremely aggressive and dangerous neighbours on every side of it and an increasingly reactionary peasantry. It was only a matter of time before shit got shitter.

While you're saying you agree with me, I disagree with all of this assessment.

Firstly, it's factually inaccurate. The Russian Empire had the 5th largest economy in the world in 1913, ahead of Japan, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain... everywhere except Britain, Germany, USA and France. It had been heavily capitalised from the 1880s, had the biggest - and some of the most modern - factories in the world, was a major producer of heavy engineering (especially armaments) and had a huge railway network. Massive country with lots of peasants yes, but not 'semi-fuedal' and 'backwards'.

Secondly it's irrelevant I'd argue, in terms of the international extension of the revolution. Play the 'what didn't happen' scenario - if Russia hadn't been 'semi-feudal' and 'backwards' could it have achieved socialism? No, socialism in one country is impossible, even if it's an advanced country. So the relative backwardness (or not) is irrelevant.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

While you're saying you agree with me, I disagree with all of this assessment.

Firstly, it's factually inaccurate. The Russian Empire had the 5th largest economy in the world in 1913, ahead of Japan, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain... everywhere except Britain, Germany, USA and France. It had been heavily capitalised from the 1880s, had the biggest - and some of the most modern - factories in the world, was a major producer of heavy engineering (especially armaments) and had a huge railway network. Massive country with lots of peasants yes, but not 'semi-fuedal' and 'backwards'.

Is this so? Golly, I'm going to go and get myself a hammer! For some reason, I'd always pictured Russia as technologically behind at that time. Books that I've read from the 1900s refer to it sometimes as 'barbarous' or something. I dunno.


Secondly it's irrelevant I'd argue, in terms of the international extension of the revolution. Play the 'what didn't happen' scenario - if Russia hadn't been 'semi-feudal' and 'backwards' could it have achieved socialism? No, socialism in one country is impossible, even if it's an advanced country. So the relative backwardness (or not) is irrelevant.Well, you could sort of argue that they could've stayed closer to an international perspective in this case, at least. The socialism in one Country stuff only appeared about a decade or two after the SU's creation (if I'm not horribly mistaken once again? :lol:).

[Blake's Baby]

Is this so? Golly, I'm going to go and get myself a hammer! For some reason, I'd always pictured Russia as technologically behind at that time. Books that I've read from the 1900s refer to it sometimes as 'barbarous' or something. I dunno...

You'll get pleanty of people here arguing that Russia was indeed backward and feudal, but it seems to me that's ignoring what was there and instead trying to find a justification that puts all the blame on material factors - 'Russia wasn't ready' - which a) means that if Russia had been ready, socialism would have been possible, and b) means that both Stalin and the Mensheviks were right (it's all about national development of production, not the international development of class struggle).



...
Well, you could sort of argue that they could've stayed closer to an international perspective in this case, at least...

How?


... The socialism in one Country stuff only appeared about a decade or two after the SU's creation (if I'm not horribly mistaken once again? :lol:).

That's right, but it was a theory to justify the current situation. The revolution had failed. The leadership in Russia needed an ideological cover for their abandonment of the world revolution, and a turn towards building up Russia as a competeing world power. It's no accident that Stalin adopted Trotsky's industrialisation policy at the same as he threw Trotsky and his supporters out of the party, and had the USSR join the Den of Thieves/League of Nations shortly after expelling all the oppositionists from the CI.

[Catma]

So then, are you saying that the key factor that necessitates international revolution is... what? A lack of external enemies for the nascent socialist system?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Hi, just wondering peoples views on why the Soviet Union and in turn all 'Communist' countries became what they did; repressive, party controled nations. What Im really asking is where and why this happened? Thanks in advance

Lots of factors: imperialist blockade and sabotage, invasion, famines, dealing with counter-revolutionaries (civil conflict) with attempting to build socialism, and everything it entails, while possessing little of what is needed. As revolutions in other countries fail to take hold, and revisionist policies of the suppressed bourgeois influenced Communist Party members takes hold, things deteriorate rather quickly; radical policies are gradually abandoned for the sake of survival and the revolution becomes besieged, the worker's state deformed, and eventually capitalist restoration.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

So then, are you saying that the key factor that necessitates international revolution is... what? A lack of external enemies for the nascent socialist system?

Not a lack of enemies but simply that the revolution spread to other nations so that no revolutionary state is left alone to fend for itself while dealing with their enemies.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Failure of the workers' revolution to spread to more advanced industrial countries doomed the Russian Revolution just as Lenin feared would be the case. IMO Lenin also erred in allowing the rise of a single party dictatorship. Was the USSR ever really a workers' state?

[Marxaveli]

I think both BB and Choler are correct. You can't have SIOC, but you also can't build a nation and socialism at the same time. Russia might have been relatively developed compared to most of the world at the time, but compared to the USA, Germany, England and France, it was at least a century behind in terms of industrialization - that's alot.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

IMO Lenin also erred in allowing the rise of a single party dictatorship. Was the USSR ever really a workers' state?

Essentially you are saying that had Lenin allowed other parties to rule alongside the Bolsheviks than Russia would have been socialist or socialistic?

[Marxaveli]

Failure of the workers' revolution to spread to more advanced industrial countries doomed the Russian Revolution just as Lenin feared would be the case. IMO Lenin also erred in allowing the rise of a single party dictatorship. Was the USSR ever really a workers' state?

For a very short time, perhaps - about 2 years. Around from sometime in 1918 to the NEP I'd say?

[GoddessCleoLover]

IMO the USSR would not have been socialistic even if other workers' parties had been legal. Constructing socialism or communism in a single country is a revision of basic principles of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

In response to Rosa's Dream/Marxaveli, I don't believe that Russia was any more a workers' state under War Communism than it was under NEP.

[Blake's Baby]

So then, are you saying that the key factor that necessitates international revolution is... what? A lack of external enemies for the nascent socialist system?

This is like the arguments I have with Anarchists.

No, you've got it backwards. The 'necessity' for world revolution isn't 'so the socialist state has no external enemies'. That's like arguing that the only point of chosing to be a whale is if you like swimming.

Rrevolution is international. Without extension, revolutions die. In one place, revolutions die. They must expand because the struggle between the capitalist state (all capitalisms, all states) and the revolution is a struggle to the death. If capitalism stabilises, the revolution has died.

While states and capitalism exist, while property exists, while classes exist, socialism doesn't. Socialism is impossible until capitalism has been defeated. That means, defeated worldwide.


I think both BB and Choler are correct. You can't have SIOC, but you also can't build a nation and socialism at the same time. Russia might have been relatively developed compared to most of the world at the time, but compared to the USA, Germany, England and France, it was at least a century behind in terms of industrialization - that's alot.

But it was ahead of Japan (who beat them in the 1905 war) and it must then have been ahead of Austria-Hungary (who were beating them in WWI). 'Only' the fifth biggest economy in the world is not like Bolivia or something. It's pretty major. Yes, there was a large peasant majority. There was also at the same time a large peasant majority in France and a significant peasantry in the US at that point, wasn't there? Agri-business didn't really dominate in the US until the 1920s as I recall. I don't think 'building a nation' is realy the point, and I don't remember anyone claiming that there shouldn't be a revolution in France or the US in the early 20th because they weren't 'developed' enough.

To complain that Russia wasn't economically developed enough implies 1-that local factors weigh more heavily than international factors (local development is the key not 'stages' or 'phases' of world capitalist development);
2-that the Mensheviks were right that the only stage Russia could enter was the bourgeois-democratic phase of capital consolidation and 'nation-building';
3-that Lenin was wrong to insist that the important factor was the international dimension of capitalism and the beginings of imperialism as capitalism's modus operandi;
4-that the war was an aberation in a normal cycle of capitalist accumulation based on continued expansion.

I don't think any of these things are true.

This all relies on massive hindsight. 'Of course we know there shouldn't have been a revolution in Russia, how could an isolated agrarian Russia just emerging from feudalism have implemented socialism on its own?' asks our patronising pseudo-student of history.

Err, it can't, no-one intended it to. It wasn't a perfect exacution of a stupid idea, it was a botched execution of a brilliant idea. No-one expected there not to be a revolution in Germany.

[Marxaveli]

This is like the arguments I have with Anarchists.

No, you've got it backwards. The 'necessity' for world revolution isn't 'so the socialist state has no external enemies'. That's like arguing that the only point of chosing to be a whale is if you like swimming.

Rrevolution is international. Without extension, revolutions die. In one place, revolutions die. They must expand because the struggle between the capitalist state (all capitalisms, all states) and the revolution is a struggle to the death. If capitalism stabilises, the revolution has died.

While states and capitalism exist, while property exists, while classes exist, socialism doesn't. Socialism is impossible until capitalism has been defeated. That means, defeated worldwide.



But it was ahead of Japan (who beat them in the 1905 war) and it must then have been ahead of Austria-Hungary (who were beating them in WWI). 'Only' the fifth biggest economy in the world is not like Bolivia or something. It's pretty major. Yes, there was a large peasant majority. There was also at the same time a large peasant majority in France and a significant peasantry in the US at that point, wasn't there? Agri-business didn't really dominate in the US until the 1920s as I recall. I don't think 'building a nation' is realy the point, and I don't remember anyone claiming that there shouldn't be a revolution in France or the US in the early 20th because they weren't 'developed' enough.

To complain that Russia wasn't economically developed enough implies 1-that local factors weigh more heavily than international factors (local development is the key not 'stages' or 'phases' of world capitalist development);
2-that the Mensheviks were right that the only stage Russia could enter was the bourgeois-democratic phase of capital consolidation and 'nation-building';
3-that Lenin was wrong to insist that the important factor was the international dimension of capitalism and the beginings of imperialism as capitalism's modus operandi;
4-that the war was an aberation in a normal cycle of capitalist accumulation based on continued expansion.

I don't think any of these things are true.

This all relies on massive hindsight. 'Of course we know there shouldn't have been a revolution in Russia, how could an isolated agrarian Russia just emerging from feudalism have implemented socialism on its own?' asks our patronising pseudo-student of history.

Err, it can't, no-one intended it to. It wasn't a perfect exacution of a stupid idea, it was a botched execution of a brilliant idea. No-one expected there not to be a revolution in Germany.

I don't think they are true either. But on your first point of international factors vs local factors, I think the two kind of go hand in hand in a way. To build socialism, you need the resources do you not? Also, without a strong proletarian class, how can you achieve socialism? You can't skip stages of historical development :lol: The way I view it is that if the German Revolution had been a success, I think building socialism in Russia would have been possible even though it was still largely agrarian. It seems logical to me that advanced capitalist nations that have successful revolutions can assist lesser developed or 3rd-world nations to build socialism, but without them, they seem doomed and I think that has been a big factor in why socialism has failed to materialize for the most part, because they live in a hostile and global capitalist society, and lack the resources to create a socialist organization of society. Indeed, socialism is a brilliant idea, but there are material prerequisites for it to be able to be developed IMO.

[hetz]

It's a pretty absurd thing to say that Tzarist Russia wasn't backwards.
Lenin wrote a lot on its backwardness.

[Let's Get Free]

Most people say the failure of the revolution was the product things like civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse and the isolation and backwardness of Russia and not Bolshevik ideology. Bolshevik authoritarianism, then, was forced upon the party by difficult objective circumstances.

I'm not really impressed by this argument. Bolshevik ideology played its part, creating social structures (a new state and centralized economic organisations) which not only disempowered the masses but also made the objective circumstances being faced much worse.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think they are true either. But on your first point of international factors vs local factors, I think the two kind of go hand in hand in a way. To build socialism, you need the resources do you not? Also, without a strong proletarian class, how can you achieve socialism? You can't skip stages of historical development :lol: ...

No country is individually ready for socialism. Therefore the individual level of development in any particular country is not the issue.

If you need two pieces of bread to make a sandwich, you can't make a sandwich with just one piece of breead. It might be very nice bread, it might have seeds on it, it might be made out of magic bran hand-futtled by unicorns, and no matter, you can't make a sandwich out of it.

Socialism will be worldwide. So what if the Democratic Republic of Congo isn't advanced enough for socialism - no-one's trying to build socialism in Democratic Republic of Congo alone. Likewise, so what if Russia's not developed enough for socialism alone? It doesn't matter. No-one was trying to build socialism there.

Capitalism was historically developed enough for socialism at the beginning of the 20th century. Not 'for socialism to develop in Russia alone', but 'for socialism to develop'. You can't have socialism without previously having industrialisation and a proletariat. You don't think that industrial slaughter of WWI proved that capitalism had developed production and the proletariat enough to turn all that production to human ends? I do.




...
The way I view it is that if the German Revolution had been a success, I think building socialism in Russia would have been possible even though it was still largely agrarian. It seems logical to me that advanced capitalist nations that have successful revolutions can assist lesser developed or 3rd-world nations to build socialism, but without them, they seem doomed and I think that has been a big factor in why socialism has failed to materialize for the most part, because they live in a hostile and global capitalist society, and lack the resources to create a socialist organization of society. Indeed, socialism is a brilliant idea, but there are material prerequisites for it to be able to be developed IMO.

Of course there are, the most important is not being isolated in one country.

If the revolution had happened in Germany instead of Russia, would Germany be a little model socialist state in Zentraleurope, surrounded by hostle capitalist powers? Of course not, it would still have been crushed or bankrupted by the capitalists. The 'advanceed' countries need the 'third world' countries in building socialism just as the 'third world' countries need the 'advanced' countries. It's a co-operative endeavour.

Fuck the notion of 'building socialism in Russia'. By the time we get round to building socialism, 'Russia' will have ceased to exist, as will 'Germany' 'America' and 'Swaziland'.


It's a pretty absurd thing to say that Tzarist Russia wasn't backwards.
Lenin wrote a lot on its backwardness.

Lenin also praised Kautsky, spent time believing that consciousness came to the working class from the intelligensia, and declared that 'those of us of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of the coming revolution' 34 days before the striking workers of Petrograd forced the Tsar's abdication. Please understand, he didn't always know what he was talking about. I've already said it was a vast country with a large peasant majority. But you must accept that it had some of the biggest concentrations of proletarians in the world. The Putilov Works in Petrograd had 40,000 workers (it was Russia's main armaments factory) and was the world's largest in 1917. That's just a fact, that you can't pretend didn't happen. Russia had been rapidly capitalising (with the help of French and German money, under state direction) since the 1880s. You can't pretend it hadn't.


Most people say the failure of the revolution was the product things like civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse and the isolation and backwardness of Russia and not Bolshevik ideology. Bolshevik authoritarianism, then, was forced upon the party by difficult objective circumstances.

I'm not really impressed by this argument. Bolshevik ideology played its part, creating social structures (a new state and centralized economic organisations) which not only disempowered the masses but also made the objective circumstances being faced much worse.

Do you think Russia could have moved towards communism had the Bolsheviks' 'ideology' been different? Do you think it's a question of 'policy'? Then you believe Stalin was right, it is just about finding the right way to go and you can have socialism in one country.

If, on the other hand, you don't think it was or is possible to move towards communism in an isolated state, then the factor that would have made socialism possible is breaking the isolation, ie world revolution.

The Bolsheviks' policies may have shaped the decline but they didn't cause it, the decline was inevitable in an isolated revolutionary territory. How could it not be? To believe otherwise means to believe that an isolated territory can move to socialism on its own.

[Let's Get Free]

No
The Bolsheviks' policies may have shaped the decline but they didn't cause it, the decline was inevitable in an isolated revolutionary territory. How could it not be? To believe otherwise means to believe that an isolated territory can move to socialism on its own.

True, that's why I said it simply made the objective circumstances being faced much worse than they already were.

[hetz]

Lenin also praised Kautsky, spent time believing that consciousness came to the working class from the intelligensia, and declared that 'those of us of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of the coming revolution' 34 days before the striking workers of Petrograd forced the Tsar's abdication. Please understand, he didn't always know what he was talking about. I've already said it was a vast country with a large peasant majority. But you must accept that it had some of the biggest concentrations of proletarians in the world. The Putilov Works in Petrograd had 40,000 workers (it was Russia's main armaments factory) and was the world's largest in 1917. That's just a fact, that you can't pretend didn't happen. Russia had been rapidly capitalising (with the help of French and German money, under state direction) since the 1880s. You can't pretend it hadn't.Yeah but I'm talking the about obvious facts about Russia Lenin ( and many others, it's just that Lenin was the first that came to my mind ) pointed out.
Yeah, the proletariat was very concentrated in Russia, much more than in any other country.
That's one of the things that greatly helped the revolution there.
But these facts don't change the general picture of the horrible backwardness of the country.
I mean pretty much every historian points out that Tzarist Russia was depressingly undeveloped. Russia was still rather underveloped even in 1940, after all these great achievements in industrialization.



Russia had been rapidly capitalising (with the help of French and German money, under state direction) since the 1880s.It did, but all that was of course very uneven. For example Russia didn't have any chemical industry ( for fertilizers ) worth mentioning until the 30s.

[Blake's Baby]

No-one's saying that the advanced and modern and massive capitalist developments weren't surrounded by a vast country with a huge peasant majority. But, on the other hand, going on about how backwards it was doesn't acknowledge that it was the 5th biggest world economy nor that in some sectors (eg heavy engineering) it competed on a world stage. It was economically very uneven as you said - it wasn't all underdeveloped, which is what 'backwards' implies.

[hetz]

But, on the other hand, going on about how backwards it was doesn't acknowledge that it was the 5th biggest world economy nor that in some sectors (eg heavy engineering) it competed on a world stage.
I never disagreed with these facts. Still it doesn't change the fact that Russia was horribly backwards.
For example India is among the top 10 economies in the world. Yet, as we know, it's a very undeveloped country.



It was economically very uneven as you said - it wasn't all underdeveloped, which is what 'backwards' implies. Well India has also got some cool factories and advanced military industry ( they're even building carriers now ), still, the starvation there is even worse than in most places in Africa.

Anyway, the biggest problem with Russia, as Lenin said ( and he became obsessed with that especially towards his later years ) was "cultural backwardness" ( a term often used by the Bolsheviks ): illiteracy and low education, bureaucratic habits ( to quote the man himself ) and such.

[Blake's Baby]

OK; I certainly agree that there were masses of illiterate people straight off the land, who had very narrow cultural horizons, but then again, look at the USA and tell me that's not also the case in some parts there even now. Is the USA 'backward'? If so, can you explain what 'forward' or 'advanced' or whatever might mean?

[hetz]

Back then the US had a stronger workers movement. The Bolsheviks immediate hope was the victory of revolution in Western Europe, which, as they said, was much more developed than Russia and whose working class was thought to be capable of overthrowing capitalism.

[Blake's Baby]

I know this. I know the Bolsheviks wanted a European revolution, because they knew without it the revolution was doomed in Russia. They were right. It wasn't because German or Danish or Greek or French workers were 'more advanced' it was because Germany, France and Britain were three of the major economies, and it was thought that a successful revolution in those countries would mean that everywhere would have a revolution. In other words, the success of the revolution in Russia was dependent on the world revolution, and the success of the world revolution was dependent on the German revolution - not on the development of society in Russia, nor on the internal policies of the Bolsheviks.

Yes, the Bolsheviks' policies (and indeed huge glaring errors) regarding Germany contribiuted to the failure of the revolution. But they'd barely got going f***ing up the revolution in Russia by the time they'd cocked up the German revolution (with some help from the U/SPD oppositionists, Leibknecht etc).

[l'Enfermé]

Yes, the Bolsheviks' policies (and indeed huge glaring errors) regarding Germany contribiuted to the failure of the revolution. But they'd barely got going f***ing up the revolution in Russia by the time they'd cocked up the German revolution (with some help from the U/SPD oppositionists, Leibknecht etc).
What exactly are you saying? I don't understand your meaning comrade.

[Blake's Baby]

1 - the Bolsheviks made many errors, before and after October;
2 - so did many others, including Kautsky and Leibknecht;
3 - the errors of the Bolsheviks included (but were not limited to) failure to see that Stalin's policy on national self-determination would be a disaster, and some of these errors had a negative effect on the course of the revolution in Germany;
4 - when the Bolsheviks began to make these errors that adversely affected the course of the revolution in Germany, they had not yet presided over the destruction of the revolution in Russia.

[Amandla]

Cos power corrupts