Soviet failure: the war against socialism

[Red Clydesider]

I may have been reading the wrong books, but I find that the majority opinion on the failure of the Soviet Union is that it was due to the systemic weaknesses of communism. In that case I'm in the minority.

The Soviet Union failed very largely due to the implacable hostility of the Western powers - a war against socialism the lasted from the very beginning to the end of Soviet history.

First, the Russians had to suffer a continuation of the imperialist World War I, more years of conflict and punitive sanctions. The Soviet government was forced to centralise and become more militarised and authoritarian.

Second, the Nazi invasion was the most barbarous assault on any people in history. (I take Nazism to be an offshoot of 'mainstream' imperialism, its lunatic fringe.) The destruction of human life and economic resources was vast.

Finally, the Soviet Union was surrounded with nuclear armaments, and forced to divert precious resources into an arms race which it could never win.

Seen in this context, the Soviet bureaucracy, the nomenklatura, and the inefficiencies of the system, seem minor elements. To some extent they were caused by the fact that the Soviet Union was so embattled.

[Comrade Jacob]

I believe it was Khrushchev who implemented capitalist reforms that led to it's collapse, not Marxist-Leninism.

[scmarxist]

I could not have said it better myself. I have long believed the same thing. Add in the fact that the Soviet Union had to start from an almost feudal subsistance economy and you realize what they accomplished in a few short years.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

I believe it was Khrushchev who implemented capitalist reforms that led to it's collapse, not Marxist-Leninism.

And how then was he able to implement those reforms without much resistance, at least direct resistance?
How could one man do that in this great marxist-leninist state? Was the rest of the country not paying attention?
How can we account for that, if it wasn't for failures and shortcomings that were around before Khrushchev?

[Red Clydesider]

Khrushchev's reforms? Must read up on that again, but I doubt we can blame Khrushchev.

Here's a backup quote to my first post in the thread.

'Every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century - without exception - has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one was permitted to rise or fall on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home'.

- William Blum, Killing Hope: US military and CIA interventions since World War II, p. 20.

I would amend 'United States' to 'United States plus any other capitalist power that could get in on the act, including fascist powers'.

It wasn't only the Soviet Union that was hounded. That's to say, not only one-party communist states, but countries that had liberal democracy but made the mistake of electing even a moderate left-wing government, e.g. Chile, Guatemala, Mossadeq's Iran.

[Geiseric]

Stalin was the first person to use "peaceful coexistance" as a foreign policy outline.

[Ann Egg]

I think Soviet Russia being an authoritarian statist Leninist dictatorship shithole is the reason for "Soviet failure", but as I say this as a mere socialist.

[Red Clydesider]

Of course the Soviet system was flawed, but it can't be dismissed in simplistic terms as Ann Egg does. The healthcare system, for example, was flawed but provided pregnancy and maternity leave, extensive day-care facilities, and consultations free at the point of need. One of the best features of Soviet medical provision also happens to be one of the most important: GP response to calls for home visits were prompt, and GP and hospital responses to emergencies were very efficient.

Infant mortality on the eve of the Revolution had been about 270 per 1000 population. In 1985 it was 26 per 1000.

Often local clinics were very basic, and superior medical care could be got through bribery. Welfare benefits for the sick, as well as old age pensions, were inadequate. But, even in this bureaucratic state with its nomenklatura privileges, how much better could welfare provision have been were it not for the colossal cost of defence against the Western nuclear threat?

James.

[Sotionov]

Soviet union WAS a war against socialism, and it's failure was a small victory for socialism, which is worker and popular emancipation, not the establishment of the party/state bureaucracy are the new oppressing and exploiting class, which USSR was.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Of course the Soviet system was flawed, but it can't be dismissed in simplistic terms as Ann Egg does. The healthcare system, for example, was flawed but provided pregnancy and maternity leave, extensive day-care facilities, and consultations free at the point of need. One of the best features of Soviet medical provision also happens to be one of the most important: GP response to calls for home visits were prompt, and GP and hospital responses to emergencies were very efficient.

Infant mortality on the eve of the Revolution had been about 270 per 1000 population. In 1985 it was 26 per 1000.

Often local clinics were very basic, and superior medical care could be got through bribery. Welfare benefits for the sick, as well as old age pensions, were inadequate. But, even in this bureaucratic state with its nomenklatura privileges, how much better could welfare provision have been were it not for the colossal cost of defence against the Western nuclear threat?

James.
I guess it would depend on how socialism is defined. As I see it, socialism is the rule of the prolitariat, worker's power, their self emancipation and attempt to reorganize society to end class divisions and class rule - even its own ultimately.

On this level, an attempt at socialism didn't last long. This was in part due to conditions in Russia and hardships following the revolution, but there was a contested period of time where it was unclear if things could be salvaged or not. Ultimately this was settled with defeats of the revolutionary wave elsewhere in Europe which gave legitimacy to a different path for solving Russia's problems by modernizing the country and organizing this process through the state beurocracy. This also required taking counter revolutionary measures as the national project and the interests of a beurocratic class trumped worker's power.

The state capitalist USSR, in my view, then needed to try and compete militarily and economically with the capitalist powers and became a weaker rival power in regards to Europe and the u.s. they had some reforms as you mentioned and I'm sure that's better as a worker than not having them, but it's still not worker's power. And so when the international capitalist market began to move away from state capitalist institutions and industry in the us and Europe, they gained some flexibility and began to overtake Russia even more. This created openings for elites in Russia and other countries to push for similar breakups of their national industries. Also in terms of social problems, it's riskier for exploiting classes and the state to be basically one and the same since class anger can be centralized on one entity rather than separate movements against individual firms or state agencies.

[Sea]

Infant mortality on the eve of the Revolution had been about 270 per 1000 population. In 1985 it was 26 per 1000.In the United States at that time it was 11.6 per 1000. In the Soviet Union in 1950 it was 97.45, whereas in the United States in 1950 it was 30.46.

It's not just birth rate either. Of course living conditions in the Soviet Union were better than they were during the reign of the Czar. This does not go very far at all to give merit to the USSR, however. In 1950, better technology and greater medical knowledge was available than on the eve of the revolution. The fact still stands that the "socialism" of the Soviet Union was even worse at putting this knowledge and technology to use than the capitalism of the United States, and was from the period of war communism, to the fall of the Berlin wall, to the crashing end of the Soviet regime!

[G4b3n]

I would argue that the war on socialism was waged by the West and the soviet union, beginning with the victory of Stalin over the "left opposition". As Chomsky put it, both the soviets and the western bourgeois democracies called this miserable tyranny of forced collectivization and statist slaughter "socialism", and it is very hard to break away from the world's largest propaganda machines when they both agree, they simply agreed for different reasons.

[Popular Front of Judea]

The Soviet Union has been a historical corpse for now 21 years. If you wish to perform yet another autopsy on it that's your prerogative. From where I stand all I think that needs to be said is that Lenin and the Bolsheviks took a gamble -- and the Russian people lost. Lenin and the Bolsheviks wagered that revolution would occur in Germany and other developed industrial nations and in turn they would come to Russia's aid. It didn't happen. The socialist calvary never arrived. Everything followed from that.

As for me I am more interested in what lessons we have learned from the experience -- and if any of those are relevant to a developed capitalist country.

[fahadsul3man]

'systemic weaknesses of communism ' ??!!!! it was gorbachev's anti communist reforms that led to soviet union's demise , and other than that the sneaky tactic of usa to create fluctuations in the prices of oil caused stagnation , soviets were already 2 steps ahead of their counterparts in arms race so i doubt this was a factor , and the clueless people calling soviet union as weak rival .... a weak rival can create sphere of influence over half of the world ?? i think not

[goalkeeper]

This William Blum/Michael Parenti esque argument about "imperialists ruined it" isn't particularly convincing. It glosses over the real problems with the nature of, and contradictions within, the Soviet style economies of the 20th century.

[JAC0BIN]

I may have been reading the wrong books, but I find that the majority opinion on the failure of the Soviet Union is that it was due to the systemic weaknesses of communism. In that case I'm in the minority.

The Soviet Union failed very largely due to the implacable hostility of the Western powers - a war against socialism the lasted from the very beginning to the end of Soviet history.

First, the Russians had to suffer a continuation of the imperialist World War I, more years of conflict and punitive sanctions. The Soviet government was forced to centralise and become more militarised and authoritarian.

Second, the Nazi invasion was the most barbarous assault on any people in history. (I take Nazism to be an offshoot of 'mainstream' imperialism, its lunatic fringe.) The destruction of human life and economic resources was vast.

Finally, the Soviet Union was surrounded with nuclear armaments, and forced to divert precious resources into an arms race which it could never win.

Seen in this context, the Soviet bureaucracy, the nomenklatura, and the inefficiencies of the system, seem minor elements. To some extent they were caused by the fact that the Soviet Union was so embattled.

All good points, also in regards to #1, the USSR was besieged and sabotaged desperately by the capitalist powers at every economic turn. It was also not a ideal or 'prime' revolutionary territory, which is where the HUGE emphasis on the German revolution comes from. Once that failed to happen, it really was a turning point where the seed of stalin/trotsky was sowed. 'Revolutionary discipline' was required however, especially during times of crisis.

[Glitchcraft]

Soviet union WAS a war against socialism, and it's failure was a small victory for socialism, which is worker and popular emancipation, not the establishment of the party/state bureaucracy are the new oppressing and exploiting class, which USSR was.

If the USSR was a war against socialism does that mean the USA was waging a WAR against the WAR on socialism?

[Popular Front of Judea]

No the USA merely was engaged on another front in the War On Socialism.


If the USSR was a war against socialism does that mean the USA was waging a WAR against the WAR on socialism?

[Popular Front of Judea]

No the USA merely was engaged on another front in the War On Socialism. Working between them the threat of socialism from below was neutralized.


If the USSR was a war against socialism does that mean the USA was waging a WAR against the WAR on socialism?

[Jimmie Higgins]

If the USSR was a war against socialism does that mean the USA was waging a WAR against the WAR on socialism?Does WWII mean the US was fighting to defend socialism? No, and US hostility toward the USSR was a rivalry - they cut deals and had arrangements when it suited both nations, but also competed for influence. The US is still hostile to capitalist russia in the sense of competing for influence in that region.

[Red Clydesider]

I've been away, and need to catch up. Sorry, I probably won't be able to answer everyone.

Jimmie Higgins, I agree with your definition of socialism - workers' ownership and control of the economy. In industry, each productive unit would be run by a workers' board of management, who would appoint qualified - even innovative and imaginative - executives. The profits would be managed by the workers' representatives: shares of the profits to workers, tax remittances to central (socialist) government for investment in public services, re-investment in the industry.

Of course this is not how it was in the Soviet Union, but I think we've gone over the reasons for this already in this thread. Th Soviet Union became a centrally managed economy, state capitalist if you like, largely because a strong state was thought to be the only way to preserve the project against its many enemies. The outcome was, in the latter years, that Soviet citizens had a number of benefits - health services, a high standard of education, security of employment - but, as you say, 'It's still not workers' power'. It was a form of socialism, but the essential ingredient was missing - the real devolution of power to the workers.

I'll post one or two more replies as soon as I have time.

James.

[Red Clydesider]

On sabotage, mentioned by Jacobin, the Cold War certainly involved US attempts at sabotage within the Soviet Union. In the Reagan era, corrupt software, for example, was exported to the USSR, designed to cause breakdowns of various kinds. The worst of these was the oil pipeline explosion in Siberia in 1983. And there was serious infiltration of the Soviet system by CIA moles.

On World War Two - of course the US and UK were not defending socialism, but they were opportunistically allied with a socialist power to defeat a rival imperialism, which was extremely threatening to their own imperial interests. At that juncture the Nazis were seen as more dangerous than the communists - something many working people could have told them by 1933 or earlier.

James.

[Fred]

On sabotage, mentioned by Jacobin, the Cold War certainly involved US attempts at sabotage within the Soviet Union. In the Reagan era, corrupt software, for example, was exported to the USSR, designed to cause breakdowns of various kinds. The worst of these was the oil pipeline explosion in Siberia in 1983. And there was serious infiltration of the Soviet system by CIA moles.

On World War Two - of course the US and UK were not defending socialism, but they were opportunistically allied with a socialist power to defeat a rival imperialism, which was extremely threatening to their own imperial interests. At that juncture the Nazis were seen as more dangerous than the communists - something many working people could have told them by 1933 or earlier.

James.

To go one step further -- the US and UK did not give much support to the USSR. They were more than happy to see Germany and the Soviet Union beat the living shit out of each other. The Normandy invasion, was in part, a response to Soviet military successes in the east. It was the Red Army that broke Hitler's war machine.

The minimization of the incredible economic and social successes of the Soviet Union, in spite of it being led by a bureaucratic and nationalistic bunch of Stalinists that mismanaged the planned collectivized economy only underscores how superior the underlying structure was.

And you can't compare the US in 1919 to the USSR. And later comps falter as the US, if I recall, didn't lose 20 million people in WWII and have huge swathes of the country destroyed.

It might have something to do with my age -- I grew up during the Cold War, but I take a pretty jaundiced view to those that didn't or don't defend the USSR, or the PRC, Vietnam and Cuba, warts and all. Usually, it was a cover for reformist appetites. The logic goes like this: If the USA and USSR (or China, etc.) are qualitatively the same, capitalist, imperialist countries, then the US is actually superior because there are more nominal freedoms, such as freedom of the press. That's what Shachtman eventually came to, anyway.

[Red Clydesider]

Yes, the USSR should be defended. We're not blind to the atrocities of the Stalin era, or even to the inefficiencies of central economic planning. But it's remarkable how much survived the harsh history of the Soviet Union: health care, education, gender equality, full employment, cheap housing and utilities, etc. None of them perfect - but all recognisable as elements of socialism.

James.

[EdvardK]

Yes, the USSR should be defended. ... But it's remarkable how much survived the harsh history of the Soviet Union: health care, education, gender equality, full employment, cheap housing and utilities, etc. None of them perfect - but all recognisable as elements of socialism.

Would you say the same holds true for other socialist countries, such as SFRY?

[Skyhilist]

Any system that leaves room for a single individual or even a small group of individuals to ruin all "progress" after first or first few leaders die is fundamentally flawed. Certainly the SU was embattled but bureaucracy played no small role the SU's failures. Think of all the resources used to kill citizens with disagreements or deport people to labor camps or to force collectivization or to purge the old bolsheviks. This was a major waste and only made the citizens of the SU more internally hostile towards the supposedly socialist nation that was supposed to be helping them. Plus these decisions obviously weren't always acting as an accurate voice for the working class, so we can conclude that had the working class had influence over these decisions then such awful choices wouldn't have been made.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Damn I didn't realize just how socialist Europe was ...


Yes, the USSR should be defended. We're not blind to the atrocities of the Stalin era, or even to the inefficiencies of central economic planning. But it's remarkable how much survived the harsh history of the Soviet Union: health care, education, gender equality, full employment, cheap housing and utilities, etc. None of them perfect - but all recognisable as elements of socialism.

James.

[Fred]

Damn I didn't realize just how socialist Europe was ...

Uh, are you talking about a Europe in a parallel universe? No unemployment?

[Fred]

Any system that leaves room for a single individual or even a small group of individuals to ruin all "progress" after first or first few leaders die is fundamentally flawed. Certainly the SU was embattled but bureaucracy played no small role the SU's failures. Think of all the resources used to kill citizens with disagreements or deport people to labor camps or to force collectivization or to purge the old bolsheviks. This was a major waste and only made the citizens of the SU more internally hostile towards the supposedly socialist nation that was supposed to be helping them. Plus these decisions obviously weren't always acting as an accurate voice for the working class, so we can conclude that had the working class had influence over these decisions then such awful choices wouldn't have been made.

The point is that certain key gains of the Russian Revolution were not extinguished by the Stalinist bureaucracy (e.g., a planned collectivized economy). I make no apologies for the crimes of Stalin and his henchmen. The members of the Left Opposition were first imprisoned and then murdered. An entire generation of communists were slaughtered during the purges. Stalin didn't spring from nowhere -- the bureaucracy was an expression of the conservative elements in the USSR that were exhausted after the revolution and the civil war -- or in many cases were just happy to have the big landlords kicked out. Stalinism did not spring from a systemic problems so much as highly unfavorable historical circumstances. That being said, I don't think Stalinism was inevitable. In history, few things are.

[reb]

The revolution then, obviously failed because it did not spread world wide. At no point did the revolution in Russia manage to reach an escape velocity from earthly capitalist bonds. The result was that the state stepped in and began to manage the economy, which remained capitalist, in place of the bourgeoisie that were holding back the economic development. The problem was that it did not adjust itself to the changes of international capital like the other capitalist nations.

Just calling something socialist does not make it socialist. Socialist wage-labor is wage-labor, a socialist bank is still a bank, socialist primitive accumulation is actually just capitalist accumulation. When they said that the USSR based itself on Marx's Capital, they weren't wrong.