State capitalism vs degenerated workers' state after the late 1930's the SU

[Fourth Internationalist]

Many communists, specifically Trotskyists, disagree on what the nature of the soviet union was after the late 1930's. Most Trotskyists believe that the soviet union became degenerated in 1924 until at least 1930's, where many split, either that it was state capitalist or that it continued as a degenerated workers' state. Those who are argue it was state capitalist say the state structure was changed and therefore required a social revolution. Could someone explain what that means by the transformation of the state structure? Those who argue it was a degenerated workers' state say that there needed to be a political, not social, revolution (because the state structure wasn't changed?) Also, some people who argue for the degenerated workers' state say that the SU wasn't capitalist. Don't workers' states have capitalist modes of production, a state capitalist one moving towards socialism/communism?

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[Old Bolshie]

I don't see any contradiction between the workers state (degenerated or not) and state capitalism. In fact, if we are talking about a workers state it implies the existence of a class society which is still capitalist. I already quoted Lenin recently in other threads where he recognizes the capitalist nature of the soviet economy.

The problem with USSR was that the old state machinery never got really smashed as Lenin recognized and the workers organs (the soviets) through which the Bolsheviks were able to trigger the October revolution began to die out. In the end we had a workers party (the Bolsheviks) running a bourgeois and bureaucratic state for the interests of the Russian proletariat.

The existence of this old state allowed the counter-revolution to come from within and it didn't happened overnight but it was a slowly process which went through the 1920's and ended up in the 1930's with the final destruction of the old revolutionary Bolshevik party and with the restoration of the autocratic rule now personified in the person of the secretary-general of the CPSU.

[tuwix]

But has Russia or the Soviet Union been ever workers' state?
IMHO, no. After revolution it was Lenin's dictatorship and then dictatorship of Stalin and Poliburos. But it was never the DotP.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Is there no one else who can contribute to this subject? :(

[Art Vandelay]

I'm on my phone at the moment, I'll write up a reply when I have proper internet access, in the next couple days. I uphold a form of the DWS theory.

[Hit The North]

A problem with the theory of DWS is that it is a description of the political relations but tells us nothing about the actual mode of production upon which those relations rest.

[G4b3n]

One can consider state capitalism to be a form of degeneration within the worker's state, they are not mutually exclusive.

I would argue that any so called "worker's state" is inherently degenerated because it simply puts the wage system under new management. The nature of the state is to defend those who benefit from its existence, be it the bourgeois or pseudo-socialist scum bags like Stalin and his minions.

I can recall a letter written to Stalin by a soviet peasant, If I recall correctly it went something like this.

"What you have is communism, what we have is stagnationism, starvationism, and misery."

[audiored]

For additional information google: Andrew Kliman - The Incoherence of 'Transitional Society' as a Marxian Concept

[Art Vandelay]

Okay sorry it took me so long to get around to this, but I've been dreading typing up a long reply. First off I think its important to point out that these types of questions (ones which define you politics to a certain extent) need to be answered independently, but at the same time some help along the way is important too. I'll try to just give you a bit of a run down on what I perceive, after my own research, reading, as well as discussions with people much more intelligent then myself, to have transpired post 1917 in the USSR.

The October revolution established a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat. From the outset, the success of the October revolution depended on international support. As early as 1910, Lenin made the following statement at 7th congress of the R.C.P. (B):


It is a lesson, because it is the absolute truth that without a German revolution we are doomed—perhaps not in Petrograd, not in Moscow, but in Vladivostok, in more remote places to which perhaps we shall have to retreat, and the distance to which is perhaps greater than the distance from Petrograd to Moscow. At all events, under all conceivable circumstances, if the German revolution does not come, we are doomed.

Between the isolation of the revolution, as well the results of the civil war, its almost impressive how long the Bolsheviks were able to stave off counter-revolution. The Russian Revolution was the most radical break in traditional property relations that the world has ever seen, it is not wonder why then, that it took a new theory to begin to properly analyze what happened in the USSR. The state-capitalist theory, as generally put forth by much of the communist left, falls short in a number of ways. (1) Capitalism is something specific, the 'capitalism' in the USSR did not have competing capital, production was not geared towards profit, the relationship between the bureaucrats (who did not own the means of production) was not the same as the bourgeoisie's. As comrade Fred stated in the 'Why was the USSR state-capitalist' thread, there were enough quantitative changes in the USSR, to produce a change in quality to the capitalism. (2) The premise that counter-revolution happened sometime in the 1920's, without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms, is adopting a position which is essentially reformism in reverse. Counter revolution does not come through bureaucratic maneuverings or in the shadows, it must come from the open eruption of class antagonisms. The change in quality to the class nature of the USSR could not of happened overnight, it was a quantitative degeneration, leading to a change in quality; this is why the theory of DWS is needed to have a proper understanding of what took place in the USSR.

So what was the USSR during the 20's-30's? Needless to say the USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition (it was neither state-capitalist, nor socialist). It was a slowly denigrating and decaying proletarian dictatorship. The October revolution established a Nationalized Planned Economy (one of the first necessary steps to the transition to socialism) while also carrying on elements of capitalist society (commodity production, etc). I think that the Russian Revolution can perhaps be best understood as a failed and aborted first attempt at socialism, which resulted in a sort of parasitic growth on the global capitalist system (neither truly capitalist, or socialist, but caught somewhere in between). So then the question becomes, when do the quantitative counter-revolutionary developments in the USSR, finally lead to a change in quality? When the final degenerative nail is put in the coffin of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is where you begin to see a split in the Trotskyist movement.

Some people continue to uphold the theory of the DWS, while others begin to abandon it, stating that capital succeeded in fully reintegrating the USSR into the global capitalist system. What this issue largely revolves around, is whether or not the USSR deserved unconditional military support. Now as I said before, counter-revolution is not something which can be carried out in the shadows, it necessarily must include open and violent expressions of class antagonisms. This is why it is of my opinion that the best candidate for the qualitative change in the class nature of the USSR is the purges in the 30's, in which the final and vestigial remnants of the LO, which had carried forth the only remaining elements of proletarian class interests in the party, were finally murdered and exiled.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Is there anyone who upholds that the USSR was a degenerated workers' state until the 1990's that could share their thoughts?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

As stated in one of my previous posts, I think the Soviet Union can be characterised as a degenerated workers' state from the late twenties to the Yeltsin coup. As for the purges in the thirties, I think their importance tends to be overstated - at the time of the Moscow trials, the prosecution of the Left Opposition had been going on for nearly a decade. Many of the victims, if not most, were themselves part of the same apparatus that had been hounding the LO - Bukharin, for example, Yagoda, Radek and so on.

Of course, that period also corresponds to major changes in the economic basis, the Ural-Siberian method, collectivisation, the five-year plans and so on. But all of these corresponded to a growth of the command, nationalised sector of the economy, further restrictions on the law of value and so on.

[RedMaterialist]

Is there anyone who upholds that the USSR was a degenerated workers' state until the 1990's that could share their thoughts?

How could a "degenerated" any kind of state have defeated Hitler, made the SU into a modern superpower, etc.?

The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. A dictatorship which had one goal: the elimination of the capitalist class in Russia. The dictator was J. Stalin. He succeeded in that goal. The problem for the state is that he succeeded too well. Once the capitalist class was destroyed the proletariat class, as a class, began to disappear. Until finally, there was no class left except that of the ineffective bureaucracy, led by Gorbachev. And in 1989 that class too disappeared and the Soviet state collapsed.

[Art Vandelay]

How could a "degenerated" any kind of state have defeated Hitler, made the SU into a modern superpower, etc.?

The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. A dictatorship which had one goal: the elimination of the capitalist class in Russia. The dictator was J. Stalin. He succeeded in that goal. The problem for the state is that he succeeded too well. Once the capitalist class was destroyed the proletariat class, as a class, began to disappear. Until finally, there was no class left except that of the ineffective bureaucracy, led by Gorbachev. And in 1989 that class too disappeared and the Soviet state collapsed.

Please don't post in threads in learning when you have no idea what you are talking about, it only muddies the waters.

[Brotto Rühle]

How could a "degenerated" any kind of state have defeated Hitler, made the SU into a modern superpower, etc.?

The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. A dictatorship which had one goal: the elimination of the capitalist class in Russia. The dictator was J. Stalin. He succeeded in that goal. The problem for the state is that he succeeded too well. Once the capitalist class was destroyed the proletariat class, as a class, began to disappear. Until finally, there was no class left except that of the ineffective bureaucracy, led by Gorbachev. And in 1989 that class too disappeared and the Soviet state collapsed.

This is the most glorious post in all of internet, communist-forum history.

Thank you...thank you so much.

On a serious note, the issue comes down to whether or not you agree with how Marx views capitalism. How he views class as based on the relations to the means of production, etc.

The anti-state caps disagree with Marx, and base class on what they view the intentions of a group to be.

[RedMaterialist]

Please don't post in threads in learning when you have no idea what you are talking about, it only muddies the waters.

Does this not quality as a flame and not deserve a "warning?"

If you cannot answer a post with an argument, then you should not post. For some reason this site tends to encourage people to use invective name calling instead of argument.

1. "no idea what you are talking about" ...this is not an argument.
2. you "muddy the waters"...this is not an argument

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]This is the most glorious post in all of internet, communist-forum history.

Thank you...thank you so much.

Considering that communist-forum history has been around only for about 10 years that is not surprising. What is surprising is the complete lack of class analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

By the way, snideness is not an argument.


On a serious note, the issue comes down to whether or not you agree with how Marx views capitalism. How he views class as based on the relations to the means of production, etc.

The anti-state caps disagree with Marx, and base class on what they view the intentions of a group to be.

Here is Marx on the state and class:

"Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another."

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

The intention of the capitalist class is to suppress the proletariat and make a profit off it. The intention of the proletariat is to suppress and destroy the capitalist class.

[G4b3n]

How could a "degenerated" any kind of state have defeated Hitler, made the SU into a modern superpower, etc.?

The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. A dictatorship which had one goal: the elimination of the capitalist class in Russia. The dictator was J. Stalin. He succeeded in that goal. The problem for the state is that he succeeded too well. Once the capitalist class was destroyed the proletariat class, as a class, began to disappear. Until finally, there was no class left except that of the ineffective bureaucracy, led by Gorbachev. And in 1989 that class too disappeared and the Soviet state collapsed.

The term "degenerated worker's state" has nothing to do with military power. It is about the class nature of the state. Do working people really hold the reins of political power? In Russia, this was certainly not the case. Working people had more influence in bourgeois states than that tyrannical hell hole. At least in western countries workers could strike and take other forms of action against the ruling elite (within limits of course), in Russia the ruling elite were considered to be inherently and unquestionably working in favor of the proletariat, any attempt to question this notion was met with a less than favorable response to say the least.

Your claim about the growing bureaucracy does hold some truth but it is misleading. There was certainly still a proletariat, do you think the bureaucrats were producing and distributing goods themselves? No, they simply managed the tyrannical system that kept the working class subjected to the interests of the ruling elite, which by that time was of an imperialist nature.

Soviet history is a perfect example of how we should NOT introduce communism.

[RedMaterialist]

Is there anyone who upholds that the USSR was a degenerated workers' state until the 1990's that could share their thoughts?

The Soviet Union became a "degenerated" workers' state only in the sense
its leader, Joseph Stalin, became a paranoid psychotic. Only a lunatic would have believed Trotsky and the old bolsheviks were a threat to socialism; or would not have realized that Hitler was preparing to attack the Soviet Union;

Still, with a psychotic leader the Soviet Union managed to emerge from WWII as a superpower. And this as a result of centralized planning which made possible the tanks and missiles which prevented the west from attacking.

I would say that the SU was a degenerated workers' state from 1925-1955, and a more or less successful workers' state until 1989.

[G4b3n]

This is the most glorious post in all of internet, communist-forum history.

Thank you...thank you so much.

On a serious note, the issue comes down to whether or not you agree with how Marx views capitalism. How he views class as based on the relations to the means of production, etc.

The anti-state caps disagree with Marx, and base class on what they view the intentions of a group to be.

You are implying that the two views that you have presented (pro state cap and anti-state cap) are mutually exclusive, when they are not.

I do not believe that Marx ever said that once that means of productions are nationalized, then the intentions of those in power are unquestionably pure, in fact, Marx intended for the proletariat to be in power and to express this power through democracy, not the Stalinist pseudo democracy in which people voted to simply show their approval for their masters regardless of whether they actually approved or not.

I dare you to prove to me that working people had any sort of political power in Stalinist Russia.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Does this not quality as a flame and not deserve a "warning?"

Well, with due respect, you confuse the dictatorship of a class with personal dictatorship, and you claim that a classless society had been achieved in the Soviet Union, despite the officially acknowledged existence of "nonantagonistic" classes, that the Soviet state withered away... as the tanks mobilised by Yeltsin rolled over Russia... and so on.

[RedMaterialist]

Working people had more influence in bourgeois states than that tyrannical hell hole.

The Russian people, through the leadership of the working class, had escaped the tyrannical hell hole of Tsarist feudalism, only to be confronted four years later by the hell of invasion from the west and a civil war, and then fifteen years later by the tyrannical hell of an invasion by Hitler. Bourgeois "influence" was not what the Russian people were interested in.



Soviet history is a perfect example of how we should NOT introduce communism.

Man makes his own history, but not as he chooses. Whether history will allow us to introduce communism peacefully or the way the Soviets did is still up to question.

[RedMaterialist]

This is the most glorious post in all of internet, communist-forum history.



As the historian, can you explain what happens to a state when there are no longer any exploiting or exploited classes? And no military invasion? Marx said it collapses, withers away and dies, in Engels' words.

No other major state in history has withered away and died. The Roman Empire, invaded and destroyed. The French monarchy, destroyed by revolution. British monarchy by civil war. British rule in America, by revolution. The slave states in the U.S., invaded and destroyed. Russian Tsar by revolution. Chinese Empire by revolution. Japanese Empire by invasion. German Third Reich by invasion. Incan Empire by invasion.

All of these revolutions, invasions, and civil wars were followed by the re-establishment of a new exploiting class. Except in one case: the Soviet Union. When the bureaucracy finally degenerated into Gorbachevism, the Soviet state collapsed. Who was Gorbachev going to exploit and suppress?

[G4b3n]

The Russian people, through the leadership of the working class, had escaped the tyrannical hell hole of Tsarist feudalism, only to be confronted four years later by the hell of invasion from the west and a civil war, and then fifteen years later by the tyrannical hell of an invasion by Hitler. Bourgeois "influence" was not what the Russian people were interested in.




Man makes his own history, but not as he chooses. Whether history will allow us to introduce communism peacefully or the way the Soviets did is still up to question.

You must have misunderstood me, I said nothing of "bourgeois influence". I was claiming that the workers in western states had more political power than in Russia. The October revolution was hardly even a revolution, it was more of a coupe. Now, prior to October, working people did have a considerable amount of de facto power through the soviets and the potential to carry out a revolution by the workers and for the workers, but Lenin did a good job of making that a thing of the past. Not to say that he didn't do a great deal of wonderful things for working people, I am not denying that, but as for insuring that worker's had power, that is a different story.

You also did not address any of my major points, such as the fact that the state of being "degenerated" as nothing to do with military power, yes, Hitler was defeated by a degenerated worker's state, that is exactly what happened.

I wasn't referencing whether or not we should introduce communism peacefully or violently, I was arguing that we assure that workers actually have political power.

[Fourth Internationalist]

The withering away of the Soviet state (which didn't occur, it was smashed by capitalist counter-revolution) has nothing to do with this. Start a thread on the subject and bring your craziness with you.

EDIT: Could a mod move all those posts to a different thread please? Thanks :)

[G4b3n]

As the historian, can you explain what happens to a state when there are no longer any exploiting or exploited classes? And no military invasion? Marx said it collapses, withers away and dies, in Engels' words.

No other major state in history has withered away and died. The Roman Empire, invaded and destroyed. The French monarchy, destroyed by revolution. British monarchy by civil war. British rule in America, by revolution. The slave states in the U.S., invaded and destroyed. Russian Tsar by revolution. Chinese Empire by revolution. Japanese Empire by invasion. German Third Reich by invasion. Incan Empire by invasion.

All of these revolutions, invasions, and civil wars were followed by the re-establishment of a new exploiting class. Except in one case: the Soviet Union. When the bureaucracy finally degenerated into Gorbachevism, the Soviet state collapsed. Who was Gorbachev going to exploit and suppress?

Max basically divided history into stages. We begin with primitive communal society, then through advancement, we end up in slave society (Greece, Rome, etc). This is where class antagonisms begin, between slave and master. Then we move into feudal society, which had a much more complex class nature though the primary antagonisms rest between the revolutionary bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. The bourgeoisie rises up in revolution and asserts itself as the ruling class. At this point in history, modern industry has begun to develop and the decaying classes of feudal society are being absorbed into the proletariat (keep in mind that natural quantitative change leads to qualitative change). Marx never argued that all states are to wither away and die, he explained his view of history very clearly, I have done a crude simplification but I am sure the picture is still there. Marx argued that only the revolutionary proletarian state was to wither away because the state is simply the the manifestation of political power and political power exists for the sole purpose of calming irreconcilable class antagonisms. Once these antagonisms disappear it is claimed that the functions of the state are reduced to simple administrative functions and therefore it "withers way". As an anarchist, I do not agree with this conclusion, but that is a topic for another thread.

Gorbachev said very clearly that his goal was dismantle authoritarian "communism" in its present form, he had not intentions of continuing the tradition. He did a Pizza Hut commercial for crying out loud.

[Rafiq]

Tyranny is exclusively a ruling class concept.

[bluemangroup]

IMHO the Soviet Union was "state-capitalist," esp. during the New Economic Policy (NEP), which was as Lenin himself acknowledged was a retreat from revolutionary socialist measures (if I recall from my readings of Robert C. Tucker's The Lenin Anthology) but the Five-year Plan arguably and again IMHO put the Soviet economy back onto a socialist footing.

Furthermore, I'd disagree with Trotsky and his analysis of a "deformed workers' state."

Its more complex then that IMHO; the process to build a socialist economy which began after October 1917 (through the formation of a national economic plan a la the Vesenkha, the creation of Committees of Poor Peasants in the countryside, nationalization of banks, etc.) temporarily was put on-hold by the Soviet Union's ensuing isolation from Europe and the rest of the world which culminated in considerable concessions to domestic and international markets (Lenin spoke about granting limited concessions to foreign capitalists in the early 1920's after the NEP's implementation).

Revolution would not occur outside of the Soviet Union's borders until the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 (Lenin had dealt with the 'national and colonial question,' esp. China, long before 1949), while Europe wouldn't see fundamental change until 1945 after Stalin's Red Army rolled into Eastern and Central Europe (and even then, Western Europe still had greater resources at it's disposal esp. with U.S. help throughout the Cold War)

The Soviet Union IMHO was a workers' state with a bureaucratic twist, and which had still not got rid of its old Czarist and bureaucratic ways (being as it was a new state and society built upon the old Czarist and/or bourgeois state and society)

I would add that revisionism after Stalin did eventually take hold, Stalin's own record not withstanding. (the Stalin era was and will continue to be controversial both offline and online)

This only compounded the USSR's myriad problems in the 1950's and throughout the Cold War (I'm a proponent that the USSR had become "social-imperialist" to an extent, esp. through its invasion of Afghanistan)

Other then that, I would say that there was a proletarian dictatorship in place in the 1920's and 1930's into the 1940's and early 1950's but which was severely handicapped by post-Stalin revisionism. Sure, that proletarian dictatorship was very much so flawed. But nonetheless it at least shows modern Marxists what not to do as well as what went right with the Soviet Union.

Just a few thoughts of mine which I've formulated over the years. :)

[CyM]

The theorists of state capitalism cannot actually explained what happened.

This supposed state capitalism is so different from what we understand as capitalism, that if we were to describe it as a form of capitalism, the word would cease to hold any useful meaning whatsoever.

Private property of the means of production was abolished, and the economy was nationalized. Capitalist trade was replaced by a state monopoly on foreign trade. In other words the fundamental features of capitalism: the private ownership of capital and the private hiring of labour to activate it, did not exist.

The cyclical crises of overproduction did not exist (oops, in our competition we invested too much, oops in our panic we fired too many). Instead, the entire economy was planned, not decided in an elemental competition of individual capitalists.

It is not possible to define that as capitalism without throwing out everything Marx wrote.

Furthermore, the claim that the working class was not economically in power because they were languishing in gulags and had lost political power is frankly childish utopianism. Nowhere in history is it written that an economically ruling class must have the political power in its hands in a democratic form. That is certainly preferable, cheaper, and a better guarantee of the flourishing of their society and economy. But the preferable outcome is not the only one.

The much of the capitalist class ended up in concentration camps under hitler. Bonaparte smashed his enemies and put them in jail. Moubarak jailed the Islamist capitalists and dominated the capitalists.

But economically, the jewish capitalist on his way to his final shower was a member of the ruling class.

[Fakeblock]

Furthermore, the claim that the working class was not economically in power because they were languishing in gulags and had lost political power is frankly childish utopianism. Nowhere in history is it written that an economically ruling class must have the political power in its hands in a democratic form. That is certainly preferable, cheaper, and a better guarantee of the flourishing of their society and economy. But the preferable outcome is not the only one.

Should the socialist theorists not explain how the working class held political and/or economic power in the Soviet Union? Surely there would be signs of some kind of mechanism that assures that the state is tied to the ruling class. I'm not saying that power corrupts, to be clear, but I'm not buying that there can exist some invisible bond that forever ties a class and the state.

[bluemangroup]

The theorists of state capitalism cannot actually explained what happened.

This supposed state capitalism is so different from what we understand as capitalism, that if we were to describe it as a form of capitalism, the word would cease to hold any useful meaning whatsoever.

Private property of the means of production was abolished, and the economy was nationalized. Capitalist trade was replaced by a state monopoly on foreign trade. In other words the fundamental features of capitalism: the private ownership of capital and the private hiring of labour to activate it, did not exist.

The cyclical crises of overproduction did not exist (oops, in our competition we invested too much, oops in our panic we fired too many). Instead, the entire economy was planned, not decided in an elemental competition of individual capitalists.

It is not possible to define that as capitalism without throwing out everything Marx wrote.

Furthermore, the claim that the working class was not economically in power because they were languishing in gulags and had lost political power is frankly childish utopianism. Nowhere in history is it written that an economically ruling class must have the political power in its hands in a democratic form. That is certainly preferable, cheaper, and a better guarantee of the flourishing of their society and economy. But the preferable outcome is not the only one.

The much of the capitalist class ended up in concentration camps under hitler. Bonaparte smashed his enemies and put them in jail. Moubarak jailed the Islamist capitalists and dominated the capitalists.

But economically, the jewish capitalist on his way to his final shower was a member of the ruling class.

Right now I'm reading Socialism In One Country Vol. 1 by E.H. Carr (a notable leftist historian whose 14 volume series on the Soviet Union is at my local library)

From a leftist perspective he outlines the USSR in the 1920's under the New Economic Policy and the Soviet Union following the implementation of a planned economy during and after 1928.

I would agree that the overarching Soviet economy was socialist, however flawed it may have been (as has already been stated above, even without workers' control over industry, which IMHO proved to be hugely inefficient, the economy lacked key capitalist characteristics after 1928)

The French Revolution of 1789 gave way to the flawed rule of the Jacobin revolutionaries and then to Napoleon's personal and imperialistic rule. Likewise, the American Revolution of 1776 was also deeply flawed as the history of U.S. trade unionism and workers' rights (or lack thereof) shows.

But these flaws and imperfections did not make bourgeois rule a failure. We currently are living in a world characterized by a global capitalist market system which is far from having been based on a failure.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 alternatively gave way to a socialist system of production, however flawed and imperfect and, seeing as to how the Russian Revolution was fairly recent (roughly a 100 years old now), it's not clear whether or not socialism actually failed. IMHO historical 20th century socialism-in-practice may have fallen far short of its initial (theoretical) goals but its fairly early to write 20th century socialism off as a complete failure.

With what the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China had at its disposal (that and modern Cuba, which has made remarkable progress despite an economic embargo), the two socialist societies did remarkably well in the course of 50-100 years of economic, political, and social development.


The October revolution was hardly even a revolution, it was more of a coup. Now, prior to October, working people did have a considerable amount of de facto power through the soviets and the potential to carry out a revolution by the workers and for the workers, but Lenin did a good job of making that a thing of the past. Not to say that he didn't do a great deal of wonderful things for working people, I am not denying that, but as for insuring that worker's had power, that is a different story.

As numerous historians have already documented (among those being Alexander Rabinowitch, Rex A. Wade, Orlando Figes [to an extent], etc.) the October Revolution was a popular insurrection and was a direct result of the failure of the Provisional Government to carry out the demands of the February Revolution (i.e peace, land, and bread) of the same year.

The Bolsheviks had gained majorities in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets (as well as numerous local district soviets), while the Bolshevik Party had also gained control over the Military Revolution Committee (MRC) which inevitably led radicalized workers, soldiers, and sailors against the Provisional Government in October.

The October Revolution, according to Alexander Rabinowitch (don't have the book with me at the moment, so I'm paraphrasing from memory) was neither a revolution or a coup; it contained elements of both, yet was distinctly a popular insurrection carried out by the Military Revolutionary Committee which under Bolshevik-dominance took it upon itself to defend the incoming Second All-Russian Soviet Congress (which was under threat after the Kornilov Affair from numerous different counterrevolutionary angles, that and a German conquest of Petrograd [Lenin said prior to the October Insurrection that an immediate insurrection was necessary to save Petrograd and thus the soviets])


I was arguing that we assure that workers actually have political power.

As CyM has already pointed out, the Soviet economy was clearly socialist as traditional capitalist elements did not exist after the end of the NEP. Under the NEP, yes, the Soviet Union was "state-capitalist" but even then there were elements of socialism in the economy (through the trade unions, the worker-peasant alliance, the communist party, the struggle with the Kulaks, etc.). Lenin himself if I remember correctly pointed out how NEP (as a strategic retreat from socialism) was not totally incompatible with socialism, the latter of which coexisted to a limited extent under the NEP and which assumed new forms after 1928.

However flawed the Five-year Plan and consequently socialism may have been is a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

[G4b3n]

Right now I'm reading Socialism In One Country Vol. 1 by E.H. Carr (a notable leftist historian whose 14 volume series on the Soviet Union is at my local library)

From a leftist perspective he outlines the USSR in the 1920's under the New Economic Policy and the Soviet Union following the implementation of a planned economy during and after 1928.

I would agree that the overarching Soviet economy was socialist, however flawed it may have been (as has already been stated above, even without workers' control over industry, which IMHO proved to be hugely inefficient, the economy lacked key capitalist characteristics after 1928)

The French Revolution of 1789 gave way to the flawed rule of the Jacobin revolutionaries and then to Napoleon's personal and imperialistic rule. Likewise, the American Revolution of 1776 was also deeply flawed as the history of U.S. trade unionism and workers' rights (or lack thereof) shows.

But these flaws and imperfections did not make bourgeois rule a failure. We currently are living in a world characterized by a global capitalist market system which is far from having been based on a failure.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 alternatively gave way to a socialist system of production, however flawed and imperfect and, seeing as to how the Russian Revolution was fairly recent (roughly a 100 years old now), it's not clear whether or not socialism actually failed. IMHO historical 20th century socialism-in-practice may have fallen far short of its initial (theoretical) goals but its fairly early to write 20th century socialism off as a complete failure.

With what the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China had at its disposal (that and modern Cuba, which has made remarkable progress despite an economic embargo), the two socialist societies did remarkably well in the course of 50-100 years of economic, political, and social development.



As numerous historians have already documented (among those being Alexander Rabinowitch, Rex A. Wade, Orlando Figes [to an extent], etc.) the October Revolution was a popular insurrection and was a direct result of the failure of the Provisional Government to carry out the demands of the February Revolution (i.e peace, land, and bread) of the same year.

The Bolsheviks had gained majorities in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets (as well as numerous local district soviets), while the Bolshevik Party had also gained control over the Military Revolution Committee (MRC) which inevitably led radicalized workers, soldiers, and sailors against the Provisional Government in October.

The October Revolution, according to Alexander Rabinowitch (don't have the book with me at the moment, so I'm paraphrasing from memory) was neither a revolution or a coup; it contained elements of both, yet was distinctly a popular insurrection carried out by the Military Revolutionary Committee which under Bolshevik-dominance took it upon itself to defend the incoming Second All-Russian Soviet Congress (which was under threat after the Kornilov Affair from numerous different counterrevolutionary angles, that and a German conquest of Petrograd [Lenin said prior to the October Insurrection that an immediate insurrection was necessary to save Petrograd and thus the soviets])



As CyM has already pointed out, the Soviet economy was clearly socialist as traditional capitalist elements did not exist after the end of the NEP. Under the NEP, yes, the Soviet Union was "state-capitalist" but even then there were elements of socialism in the economy (through the trade unions, the worker-peasant alliance, the communist party, the struggle with the Kulaks, etc.). Lenin himself if I remember correctly pointed out how NEP (as a strategic retreat from socialism) was not totally incompatible with socialism, the latter of which coexisted to a limited extent under the NEP and which assumed new forms after 1928.

However flawed the Five-year Plan and consequently socialism may have been is a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

Any sort of socialism that doesn't involve worker's control is not a desirable form. I want no part in that sort of "socialism".

[Fred]

The Soviet Union became a "degenerated" workers' state only in the sense
its leader, Joseph Stalin, became a paranoid psychotic. Only a lunatic would have believed Trotsky and the old bolsheviks were a threat to socialism; or would not have realized that Hitler was preparing to attack the Soviet Union;

Still, with a psychotic leader the Soviet Union managed to emerge from WWII as a superpower. And this as a result of centralized planning which made possible the tanks and missiles which prevented the west from attacking.

I would say that the SU was a degenerated workers' state from 1925-1955, and a more or less successful workers' state until 1989.

Comrade, you are on the right side of the class line here -- but you analysis is wanting. The USSR emerged as a world power in spite of Stalin -- because the planned collectivized economy was in fact, even with the devastations and depredations of WWI, WWII and the Russian Civil War, so superior that it tremendously benefited the proletariat of the USSR. Another argument, btw against the state cappers.

But the nature of the bureaucracy did not really change, qualitatively, from the late 20s until Yeltsin's coup. After Stalin, while certainly less sociopathic, it remained conservative, nationalistic and terrified of any threat from the left. This could also be said about the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Cuban deformed workers' states.

Trotskyists should base their analysis of the class nature of the USSR on material rather than ideological markers. It is very difficult to argue that the way society and production was organized in the USSR changed radically in the mid to late 30s toward capitalism of any stripe. If anything the trend was in the other direction.

Let's be fair -- it was no fun to defend Stalin in the late 30s. And of course Trotskyists never defended Stalin, but they did defend the USSR. There was a big split in the US section of the FI over this issue. It is documented in two books, both of which might be of interest, although if you don't know much about the history of the US left, it might be difficult to get through. The first is a collection of Trotsky's writings, In Defense of Marxism. The Second was written by James Cannon, a leader of the CPUSA who declared for the LO in 1928 with a small group that was expelled from the CP and went on to form the Socialist Workers Party in the US. I can't find that online -- here's the link to IDOM

http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/index.htm

[CyM]

Should the socialist theorists not explain how the working class held political and/or economic power in the Soviet Union? Surely there would be signs of some kind of mechanism that assures that the state is tied to the ruling class. I'm not saying that power corrupts, to be clear, but I'm not buying that there can exist some invisible bond that forever ties a class and the state.
Explain what bond ties the capitalists in the concentration camp with Hitler? Do you think any capitalist had control over his actions? Absolutely not, the man was completely beyond any control whatsoever, and any bourgeois that challenged him would've ended up shot or worse.

And yet, his rule was an expression of the rule of the bourgeoisie. Behind him lay the distorted collective interests of the capitalist class, expressed in a bonapartist way with a state that has raised itself high above and imposed its rule by the sword.

Why does such bonapartism occur? Because of a deadlock where the working class was not strong enough to overthrow the capitalist class (because of bad leadership), but strong enough to disrupt their rule. On the other hand, the bourgeois were not strong enough to decisively defeat the workers.

Trotsky says if you stick two forks in a cork at a perfectly balanced position, that cork will be able to balance on the head of a pin. In the same way, in normal periods, the state is the state of the ruling class economically and politically. But in such a deadlock, it balances on the different classes to become the arbiter in society, gains a relative independence and raises itself above the classes, imposing its rule by the sword. This is caeserism, absolutism, bonapartism, stalinism, in the different societies.

The working class was strong enough to take power, but not strong enough to finish off the world bourgeoisie and usher in socialism (there is s difference here, I'll get to it later). Economically, they brought in social ownership of the means of production and a collectively planned economy. This is the fundamental feature of the economic tasks of the working class, much as the fundamental feature of the bourgeois economic tasks is private property in the means of production.

But this is only the starting point of the transition to socialism. In Russia there was the additional task of converting the peasants, small property owners, into workers. Their existence constantly reintroduced capitalist relations on a small scale. This peasant majority was strong enough to be a serious threat once russia became isolated. So at first the bureaucracy was balancing between the kulaks and the workers. As one of stalin's men said to the peasants: "get rich!". Eventually the kulaks became a danger to the planned economy, and the bonapartist bureaucracy wiped them out.

But the working class was also not able to carry out the international revolution. And stalin manoeuvred between the international bourgeoisie and the proletariat. He maintained the worker's form of economy, but prevented any advance towards socialism.

No, socialism has not yet existed. Socialism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society, and cannot be achieved in any one country alone. It is also not possible without democratic planning. This is not a workers' form of economy, but a post-class form of economy. Quite different. The workers' form is nothing but a transition towards it.

An important question is whether a social revolution is necessary, or only a political one. Think about it, in a completely nationalized and planned economy, if the workers revolt, what would their demands be? Would it be for the privatization of the nationalized industries? Would that fundamental property basis change? Or would their demands be purely political in nature?

Well luckily, we don't need to think of this hypothetically. There were two major revolts in the stalinist states. Chekoslovakia and hungary. Both revolutions spontaneously arrived at nearly identical demands. The points demanded were not the end of planning, but the end of bureaucracy in the planned economy. They spontaneously arrived at Lenin's four points: election and right of recall of all officials, no official to be paid more than the average skilled worker, rotation of bureaucratic tasks, no army but an armed people. In other words, a political revolution against the bureaucracy without changing the social, economic basis.

The capitalists, on the other hand, would have needed to carry out a social, economic revolution. They would have needed mass privatization. In fact, they wouldn't even need to carry out much of a political change. Most of the bureaucracy would fit in comfortably sfter s capitalist counter revolution, just look at china.

In other words, the stalinists were a degenerated form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Much like bonapartism was for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Until they converted themselves into a new ruling class with the fall of the Berlin wall. A capitalist class resting on a privately owned economy.

[Fakeblock]

Explain what bond ties the capitalists in the concentration camp with Hitler? Do you think any capitalist had control over his actions? Absolutely not, the man was completely beyond any control whatsoever, and any bourgeois that challenged him would've ended up shot or worse.

And yet, his rule was an expression of the rule of the bourgeoisie. Behind him lay the distorted collective interests of the capitalist class, expressed in a bonapartist way with a state that has raised itself high above and imposed its rule by the sword.

Even in Nazi Germany, the bourgeoisie maintained power over the production process. Even in state-owned industries production functioned in a capitalistic manner. The state, as in all capitalist countries, was subjucated to the "will" of capital. However, in the USSR and co. (from the '20s onwards) I see no such control over neither the production nor politcal machinery by the proletariat. So, unless the working class had some eternal bond with the Soviet state, there shouldn't be any means for it to keep power.


Trotsky says if you stick two forks in a cork at a perfectly balanced position, that cork will be able to balance on the head of a pin. In the same way, in normal periods, the state is the state of the ruling class economically and politically. But in such a deadlock, it balances on the different classes to become the arbiter in society, gains a relative independence and raises itself above the classes, imposing its rule by the sword. This is caeserism, absolutism, bonapartism, stalinism, in the different societies.

If the state raises itself above the classes, can it be described as a workers' state though? I can't see an inbetween, either the working class holds political power or it doesn't.


The working class was strong enough to take power, but not strong enough to finish off the world bourgeoisie and usher in socialism (there is s difference here, I'll get to it later). Economically, they brought in social ownership of the means of production and a collectively planned economy. This is the fundamental feature of the economic tasks of the working class, much as the fundamental feature of the bourgeois economic tasks is private property in the means of production.

The fundamental task of the working class is to abolish all aspects of capitalist production, not just private ownership. I think the notion that state ownership is equal to social ownership can lead to some pretty ridiculous conclusions, like that there can exist a semi-socialist, semi-capitalist mixed economy.


No, socialism has not yet existed. Socialism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society, and cannot be achieved in any one country alone. It is also not possible without democratic planning. This is not a workers' form of economy, but a post-class form of economy. Quite different. The workers' form is nothing but a transition towards it.

Then I think socialists should be quite clear that the "workers' form" isn't a goal, but rather the means of reaching the final goal, whatever that may be. But if it is just a means of reaching a goal, could this transitional phase even be called a workers' economy? I would say no, as this economy isn't something the proletariat has interest in achieving, but more of a necessary evil. It's progressive only in so far as it serves its purpose of moving towards a "peoples' economy".


An important question is whether a social revolution is necessary, or only a political one. Think about it, in a completely nationalized and planned economy, if the workers revolt, what would their demands be? Would it be for the privatization of the nationalized industries? Would that fundamental property basis change? Or would their demands be purely political in nature?

Well luckily, we don't need to think of this hypothetically. There were two major revolts in the stalinist states. Chekoslovakia and hungary. Both revolutions spontaneously arrived at nearly identical demands. The points demanded were not the end of planning, but the end of bureaucracy in the planned economy. They spontaneously arrived at Lenin's four points: election and right of recall of all officials, no official to be paid more than the average skilled worker, rotation of bureaucratic tasks, no army but an armed people. In other words, a political revolution against the bureaucracy without changing the social, economic basis.

Demands radicalise over time. The political revolution would have been futile if it didn't restart, if you will, the process of transition (the social revolution). Radical measures would still have had to be taken if the USSR was to destroy all aspects of capitalist production (like wage-labour, commodity production etc.)


The capitalists, on the other hand, would have needed to carry out a social, economic revolution. They would have needed mass privatization. In fact, they wouldn't even need to carry out much of a political change. Most of the bureaucracy would fit in comfortably sfter s capitalist counter revolution, just look at china.

Which serves to reinforce the point that these states were far from workers' states. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a modified version of the capitalist bureaucracy. The working class destroys the bureaucracy and the standing army and replaces it with a state controlled by itself through its own organs of power. There can be no dictatorship of the proletariat without direct political or economic power in the hands of the proletariat.

[bluemangroup]

However, in the USSR and co. (from the '20s onwards) I see no such control over neither the production nor politcal machinery by the proletariat. So, unless the working class had some eternal bond with the Soviet state, there shouldn't be any means for it to keep power.The workers and peasants in the USSR were in theory as well as in practice in alliance with each other with a communist party serving as a class representative.

Civil war, famine, intervention, etc. created a situation wherein the Soviet leaders were forced to administer the vast state machinery under the conditions imposed by the New Economic Policy (NEP) and later the five-year plan.

As E.H. Carr pointed out in volume one of Socialism In One Country:


...on the one hand, only party extremists and doctrinaires now seriously thought in terms of further revolutionary action; the completion of revolution through "socialist construction" would consist of the consolidation and expansion of existing positions by orderly and peaceful means. the radicalism of revolutionary doctrine was succeeded by the conservatism of administrative empiricism.Ruling the nations, ruling the Soviet Union, was an infinitely more complex task then War Communism made it out to be. It was thought during the civil war that everything down from civilian life to the workplace could be militarized along with the already-militarized Red Army. But as Carr goes onto say, the four-to-five year long civil war made the Soviet rulers realize the impracticability of a constant wartime society. The people had endured too many hardships for too long for War Communism to be a realistic goal in the mid 1920's.

As such daily administration made Soviet conservatism possible as Soviet leaders sought to grapple with state-building (which was no easy task, before, during, or after the October Revolution) which necessitated a gradualist approach esp. towards the economy.


If the state raises itself above the classes, can it be described as a workers' state though? I can't see an inbetween, either the working class holds political power or it doesn't.Yet the Soviet state still saw such phenomenons as the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection (which Lenin had initially envisioned as a form of popular control over the nascent Soviet state), the later Stakhanovite movement in the 1930's, etc.

The Soviet state was forged in the heat of revolution and civil war; an arming of the whole people (i.e. the Red Guard) gave way to the Red Army, a state without a centralized bureaucracy (i.e. a state based on the soviets) gave way to just such a bureaucracy (which existed as early as 1918 in both party and soviet institutions at that time), etc.

As such the Soviet state was far from perfect (as nothing can be made perfect) while still retaining many elements of a workers' state (hence why even Trotsky saw the Soviet Union as a workers' state, although one that had been deformed).


Radical measures would still have had to be taken if the USSR was to destroy all aspects of capitalist production (like wage-labour, commodity production etc.)Under socialism, as Lenin pointed out in his The State And Revolution, inequality is still going to exist under socialism and thus wage-labor and commodity production will still exist as well under socialism.

Only until communism is achieved, what with its emphasis on there being no state and no classes, can survivals of capitalism be completely removed from society.

[RedMaterialist]

E[QUOTE]xplain what bond ties the capitalists in the concentration camp with Hitler? Do you think any capitalist had control over his actions?

They sold to Hitler the concrete, the barbed wire, the showers, the gas. They used the camp inmates for slave labor. They made enormous profits off the war and the concentration camps. After the got their money, like true capitalists, they didn't care what his actions were, as long as he continued to exterminate international bolshevism.

[CyM]

They sold to Hitler the concrete, the barbed wire, the showers, the gas. They used the camp inmates for slave labor. They made enormous profits off the war and the concentration camps. After the got their money, like true capitalists, they didn't care what his actions were, as long as he continued to exterminate international bolshevism.
They still had zero control over his actions, and yet he was the representative of their rule, and they remained the ruling class.

And in the same sense, the working class under stalinism received free education, free health care, full employment, cheap and plentiful housing, a periodic paid vacation at a cabin on the black sea, etc... They did not much care so long as the planned economy could provide a decent standard of living. Only when the economy was too big for bureaucratic control to function even at a heavy cost, did the working class begin to move. Up until then the heavy cost of corruption was still less than the rate of growth. When the economy reached zero growth, the whole system went into crisis.

And when it collapsed, we had the biggest peacetime collapse of economy in human history. How is that possible if this was only a sideways shift within the same system?


Even in Nazi Germany, the bourgeoisie maintained power over the production process. Even in state-owned industries production functioned in a capitalistic manner. The state, as in all capitalist countries, was subjucated to the "will" of capital. However, in the USSR and co. (from the '20s onwards) I see no such control over neither the production nor politcal machinery by the proletariat. So, unless the working class had some eternal bond with the Soviet state, there shouldn't be any means for it to keep power.
Look, this is ridiculous. When we say the capitalist class is the ruling class, it is clear that we do not mean that in the sense of being directly and mechanically in control. What we mean is that their interests are the ones upon which the economy is based, the property form is the form of their rule. An individual capitalist may have no direct power at all, may be in the opposition, may be in jail, may be in a concentration camp. But it does not matter, he remains a part of the ruling class, even if he is murdered by the state. And that state remains a "bourgeois state" even as it massacres thousands of bourgeois and the bourgeois live in fear of it, as is the case in bonapartist states if you're not on the "in".


If the state raises itself above the classes, can it be described as a workers' state though? I can't see an in between, either the working class holds political power or it doesn't.
By your definition, either the entire capitalist class holds political power or it doesn't. And so the possibility that a small band and their cronies would usurp the power from the rest of the class is ruled out. In otherwords, you define Fascism as not a form of political system resting on a capitalist economic system. You define Fascism as something different economically than capitalism.


The fundamental task of the working class is to abolish all aspects of capitalist production, not just private ownership. I think the notion that state ownership is equal to social ownership can lead to some pretty ridiculous conclusions, like that there can exist a semi-socialist, semi-capitalist mixed economy.
Right you are, but the chicken is not the egg. You are denying that they are related, because you don't like the fact that this egg has no wings. The Soviet economy was a transitional form, clearly not capitalist, because of the fundamental lack of private capital. But not yet socialist, though it could never have completed that without the world revolution. So what we had was not a socialist chicken, but an egg that had been born from the abolition of capitalism, and was beginning to go bad from the lack of an international revolution. But it was still an egg.


Then I think socialists should be quite clear that the "workers' form" isn't a goal, but rather the means of reaching the final goal, whatever that may be. But if it is just a means of reaching a goal, could this transitional phase even be called a workers' economy? I would say no, as this economy isn't something the proletariat has interest in achieving, but more of a necessary evil. It's progressive only in so far as it serves its purpose of moving towards a "peoples' economy".
That is precisely what a worker's state is. The dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary only until there is no more proletariat and no more state. No workers, no worker's state.



Demands radicalise over time. The political revolution would have been futile if it didn't restart, if you will, the process of transition (the social revolution). Radical measures would still have had to be taken if the USSR was to destroy all aspects of capitalist production (like wage-labour, commodity production etc.)
Not much, most would be political reforms. Keep in mind that without the international revolution, the soviet union could not abolish these things. For the most part, it would concern itself with purging the bureaucracy and returning democratic control, as well as turning outwards to foment revolution in Europe.


Which serves to reinforce the point that these states were far from workers' states. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a modified version of the capitalist bureaucracy. The working class destroys the bureaucracy and the standing army and replaces it with a state controlled by itself through its own organs of power. There can be no dictatorship of the proletariat without direct political or economic power in the hands of the proletariat.
Nothing in human history supports your idea that a class can only rule democratically. Every class in human history has had a small minority usurp the rule of the majority of that class when their economic system went into an insoluble crisis. Why should the first worker's state be any different? Why shouldn't there be a Napoleon Bonaparte of the working class?

Of course, the abolition of money, classes, and the state cannot occur under proletarian bonapartism, and the only way forward was to overthrow that bonapartism, but it is utopian to think the only possible outcome from the abolition of capitalism is democratic worker's rule. life interferes, and temporary mutations are created.

[RedMaterialist]

And when it collapsed, we had the biggest peacetime collapse of economy in human history. How is that possible if this was only a sideways shift within the same system?


We also had the first workers' revolutionary state in history 75 years before in the Soviet Union. The events of 1989 were not a sideways shift within the same system. It was the historically first collapse of a state because there was no other class than workers, just as Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted. (A sclerotic, barely functioning bureaucracy does not count as a class.)

However, it was the collapse of a single socialist state within a world wide capitalist state. The Russian people were immediately devoured by the capitalists. The same process is already happening in Cuba. It will happen in
China, Vietnam and other socialist countries unless they realize that the socialist revolution has to be world wide before it can be successful.

But, maybe all socialist countries have to go through the same historical process as the Soviet Union.

[RedMaterialist]

But it was still an egg.

The egg had hatched, but it was really an odd looking chicken, you might say it was a deformed, degenerated chicken, a new kind of chicken, a chicken that had mutated, a revolutionary chicken.


[/QUOTE]

[Fakeblock]

Look, this is ridiculous. When we say the capitalist class is the ruling class, it is clear that we do not mean that in the sense of being directly and mechanically in control. What we mean is that their interests are the ones upon which the economy is based, the property form is the form of their rule. An individual capitalist may have no direct power at all, may be in the opposition, may be in jail, may be in a concentration camp. But it does not matter, he remains a part of the ruling class, even if he is murdered by the state. And that state remains a "bourgeois state" even as it massacres thousands of bourgeois and the bourgeois live in fear of it, as is the case in bonapartist states if you're not on the "in".

I never claimed the Communist states weren't workers' states, because they killed individual workers. That would indeed be ridiculous, but tbh I don't see how you read that from my post. I'm saying that the proletariat as a class held neither political nor economic power and, as such, the Communist states could not be described as proletarian dictatorships.


By your definition, either the entire capitalist class holds political power or it doesn't. And so the possibility that a small band and their cronies would usurp the power from the rest of the class is ruled out. In otherwords, you define Fascism as not a form of political system resting on a capitalist economic system. You define Fascism as something different economically than capitalism.

No, I don't define fascism that way, but then again I don't think the fascist state raised itself above the capitalist class and ruled over it. If this were the case I wouldn't describe it as a bourgeois state. However, the fascist state didn't raise itself above and wasn't independent of classes. It took the form it did to protect capitalist social relations and was therefore ruled by the bourgeoisie.


Right you are, but the chicken is not the egg. You are denying that they are related, because you don't like the fact that this egg has no wings. The Soviet economy was a transitional form, clearly not capitalist, because of the fundamental lack of private capital. But not yet socialist, though it could never have completed that without the world revolution. So what we had was not a socialist chicken, but an egg that had been born from the abolition of capitalism, and was beginning to go bad from the lack of an international revolution. But it was still an egg.

Perhaps you are right. I'm not sure about my opinions on state-capitalism etc. However, I still don't see how "the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat" follows from "there was a lack of private capital".


That is precisely what a worker's state is. The dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary only until there is no more proletariat and no more state. No workers, no worker's state.

But can there be a workers' form of economy? Clearly a nationalised economy is only beneficial in transition and it's not in the interests of the workers to preserve it. The capitalist economy, on the other hand, could be described as a bourgeois form of economy, because the bourgeoisie needs to preserve it to preserve itself.


Not much, most would be political reforms. Keep in mind that without the international revolution, the soviet union could not abolish these things. For the most part, it would concern itself with purging the bureaucracy and returning democratic control, as well as turning outwards to foment revolution in Europe.

I suppose that's relative. I consider the the abolition of wage labour, commodity production and capital (be it nationalised or private) to be a pretty big deal. Surely the political revolution would be needed to start the process of this abolition, but the same could be said for the bourgeois states. It might be easier/quicker in a nationalised economy, just as it is easier/quicker when sectors of the economy are concentrated in a few corporations.


Nothing in human history supports your idea that a class can only rule democratically. Every class in human history has had a small minority usurp the rule of the majority of that class when their economic system went into an insoluble crisis. Why should the first worker's state be any different? Why shouldn't there be a Napoleon Bonaparte of the working class?

Of course, the abolition of money, classes, and the state cannot occur under proletarian bonapartism, and the only way forward was to overthrow that bonapartism, but it is utopian to think the only possible outcome from the abolition of capitalism is democratic worker's rule. life interferes, and temporary mutations are created.

I don't believe that a class can only rule democratically. What I do believe is that even a dictatorial (in the conventional sense) state, the state will have some kind of either political or economic connection to the class that rules it. For example, in capitalism the bourgeoisie (a) possesses ownership over the means of production, (b) can bribe state bureaucrats and politicians, (c) has members of its own class in possession of political power or (d) the state owns various sectors of the economy, but operates with bourgeois productive relations.

In the dotp the workers' can rule either through direct control of production (which is admittedly inefficient compared to state ownership) or direct control of the state that controls production. By that I don't mean the workers vote on everything the state does, but that the state is controlled by working class organisations such as soviets, a proletarian party, commune, militia etc. Whichever form the state takes it has to be ruled by the proletariat as a class for it to be a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Brotto Rühle]

From what I can tell, the anti-state caps do not view class as determined by relations to the means of production.

[CyM]

Redshifted, I will answer you in a later post, because what you are putting forward is a very different theory.

I never claimed the Communist states weren't workers' states, because they killed individual workers. That would indeed be ridiculous, but tbh I don't see how you read that from my post. I'm saying that the proletariat as a class held neither political nor economic power and, as such, the Communist states could not be described as proletarian dictatorships.
And I'm telling you the political rule of a small caste within the working class, office workers (bureaucrats), over the rest of the working class to the extent of sending their opponents to die, does not mean the abolition of the economic rule of the working class.


No, I don't define fascism that way, but then again I don't think the fascist state raised itself above the capitalist class and ruled over it. If this were the case I wouldn't describe it as a bourgeois state. However, the fascist state didn't raise itself above and wasn't independent of classes. It took the form it did to protect capitalist social relations and was therefore ruled by the bourgeoisie.
From Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:


The French bourgeoisie balked at the domination of the working proletariat; it has brought the lumpen proletariat to domination, with the Chief of the Society of December 10 at the head. The bourgeoisie kept France in breathless fear of the future terrors of red anarchy – Bonaparte discounted this future for it when, on December 4, he had the eminent bourgeois of the Boulevard Montmartre and the Boulevard des Italiens shot down at their windows by the drunken army of law and order. The bourgeoisie apotheosized the sword; the sword rules it. It destroyed the revolutionary press; its own press is destroyed. It placed popular meetings under police surveillance; its salons are placed under police supervision. It disbanded the democratic National Guard, its own National Guard is disbanded. It imposed a state of siege; a state of siege is imposed upon it. It supplanted the juries by military commissions; its juries are supplanted by military commissions. It subjected public education to the sway of the priests; the priests subject it to their own education. It jailed people without trial, it is being jailed without trial. It suppressed every stirring in society by means of state power; every stirring in its society is suppressed by means of state power. Out of enthusiasm for its moneybags it rebelled against its own politicians and literary men; its politicians and literary men are swept aside, but its moneybag is being plundered now that its mouth has been gagged and its pen broken. The bourgeoisie never tired of crying out to the revolution what St. Arsenius cried out to the Christians: “Fuge, tace, quiesce!” [“Flee, be silent, keep still!”] Bonaparte cries to the bourgeoisie: “Fuge, tace, quiesce!"
This is Bonapartism, a state that, by balancing between the classes, raises itself above society and gains a certain amount of independence. It is, of course, still based on the capitalist system in this case. It still defends the property form on which it was planted. But to claim that it is "controlled" by the ruling class is to miss the point of Bonapartism. It is an out of control state, a gang that dominates the bourgeoisie and kills them. It takes their property from them as it pleases, steals whenever it wishes, thereby harms them economically and perverts the regular functioning of that economy. And yet, it maintains their economic rule even though any concept that they are "in control" would be laughable. The way such a bonapartism would function on a proletarian base would be a bit different of course, but I'll get to that.


Perhaps you are right. I'm not sure about my opinions on state-capitalism etc. However, I still don't see how "the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat" follows from "there was a lack of private capital".
Without private capital, there is no such thing as capitalists.


But can there be a workers' form of economy? Clearly a nationalised economy is only beneficial in transition and it's not in the interests of the workers to preserve it. The capitalist economy, on the other hand, could be described as a bourgeois form of economy, because the bourgeoisie needs to preserve it to preserve itself.
But Marx already explained that the working class is the last revolutionary class particularly because it has no interest in preserving its rule. And yet it must rule to abolish capitalism and work towards its own abolition. The second chapter of the Communist Manifesto is very instructive on this:


We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

This is exactly what the October revolution was, the carrying out of the centralization in the hands of the state of all economic functions. Had this happened in several other countries as well, especially germany, we would now be living in an era without a state, and the second part of that programme would be completed.

Instead, the working class concentrated the economy in its hands through its state, but then failed in country after country to advance, thereby freezing at the first stage. That state then underwent a bonapartist degeneration and politically raised itself above the working class. Bonaparte was reborn in the person of Stalin.


I suppose that's relative. I consider the the abolition of wage labour, commodity production and capital (be it nationalised or private) to be a pretty big deal. Surely the political revolution would be needed to start the process of this abolition, but the same could be said for the bourgeois states. It might be easier/quicker in a nationalised economy, just as it is easier/quicker when sectors of the economy are concentrated in a few corporations.
The only way to move towards communism is to concentrate all productive property in the hands of the state, the armed working class, across the world. It's not just "easier", it is the fundamental first step of the communist programme. There is no other way, and you're trying to dodge that a proletarian revolution against the bureaucracy would have changed nothing in the actual social form of property. This is the decisive factor in deciding what was the USSR. What was its property form? Clearly not capitalist, and the fact that it coincides with the first step of the worker's rule during the transition to communism makes it a transitional economy.


I don't believe that a class can only rule democratically. What I do believe is that even a dictatorial (in the conventional sense) state, the state will have some kind of either political or economic connection to the class that rules it. For example, in capitalism the bourgeoisie (a) possesses ownership over the means of production, (b) can bribe state bureaucrats and politicians, (c) has members of its own class in possession of political power or (d) the state owns various sectors of the economy, but operates with bourgeois productive relations.
Ok, so now that I have established that bonaparte ruled over the capitalists politically, and it seems you more or less accept that, let's talk about how that would work in a worker's state.

So the workers take power, overthrow the capitalists, organize themselves into an armed force known as a state to impose their rule. They take all the property of the capitalist class into the hands of that state. They begin to plan the economy democratically and hope that soon their German brothers will show them how to go to socialism. So far so good, dictstorship of the proletariat, even if it is only begun in one country.

Then what? Invasion by 20 countries, civil war, famine, Germany fails its revolution, and what's more, the peasant majority are beginning to think it would be more profitable to let the cities starve in famine than give their grain at below market prices. So instead of fading away, the dictatorship has to be strengthened to save the revolution. To avoid starvation, the worker's state takes the grain. To fight the civil war, a massive war machine is built. All of these are necessary steps for survival, and anyone who tells you otherwise should be considered untrustworthy for when our revolution in modern times runs into difficult waters. Besides, they only have to hold out for a little longer while europe joins. Then these contradictions can be resolved and things can work more smoothly.

Nope. The revolution does not come and the problems only get worse. Meanwhile, there is a whole layer who are beginning to get used to a role in the state. Bureaucrats who are involved in planning a massive almost totally nationalized economy.

This bureaucracy rises on the basis of the contradiction between the proletariat and the petty bourgeois peasantry. It leans on one to control the other and vice versa. But this bonapartism is unlike any other. See, the workers do not own companies. They own all of industry through their state. So what happens when bonapartism arises, whereas in capitalism there are still individual capitalists operating individually on the market, the workers all work for the state they created. So yes, the workers have no direct control over the economy the way a capitalist has over one company. But how could they? If bonapartism arises in a planned economy, clearly the workers would not be involved in the plan.

So a proletarian bonapartist state would be more independent, more distant, than any previous form of bonapartism. But it does not change the fact that it is based on the abolition of private property, the socialization and planning of production. It remains based on the transitional economy, despite the lack of any check on its power.


In the dotp the workers' can rule either through direct control of production (which is admittedly inefficient compared to state ownership) or direct control of the state that controls production. By that I don't mean the workers vote on everything the state does, but that the state is controlled by working class organisations such as soviets, a proletarian party, commune, militia etc. Whichever form the state takes it has to be ruled by the proletariat as a class for it to be a dictatorship of the proletariat.
For it to be a healthy dictatorship of the proletariat, yes. For it to complete its tasks and then abolish the state, yes. But for it to exist as a dictatorship of the proletariat? No. Even Marx posed the possibility of a "red bureaucracy". If the workers take power, and establish their economic transitional form in the nationalized planned economy, and then their society enters into an insoluble crisis, bonapartism arises, just as in capitalist society. Only this bonapartism is more monstrous and uncontrolled than any other seen in human history, for even the healthy dictatorship of the proletariat concentrates all in the hands of the state.

[CyM]

The egg had hatched, but it was really an odd looking chicken, you might say it was a deformed, degenerated chicken, a new kind of chicken, a chicken that had mutated, a revolutionary chicken.
Comrade, my horrible analogy aside, the Soviet Union was not communism, and the state did not "whither away". That is not possible so long as money remains, even in a transitional form. Money can only lose its social function when we have an economy of superabundance and no one needs to keep count of how much society owes him. This is not possible on the economic basis of one country alone, even one as advanced as the USA, let alone one as backwards as Russia was.

The state did not whither away in Russia, it collapsed under the burden of the bureaucracy, who returned the country to capitalism and privatized the economy into their own hands. They converted themselves into a capitalist class when the wall fell. In China, they achieved this without the chaotic collapse of the USSR.

While we should defend the gains in the Soviet Union as a transitional step towards communism, we should not forget that the bureaucracy prevented its further development, sabotaged the world revolution, sent the economy into stagnation at the end, and then caused its collapse. In country after country, the break up of the deformed worker's states unleashed horrific national forces, slaughters led by the former bureaucrats themselves.

[CyM]

From what I can tell, the anti-state caps do not view class as determined by relations to the means of production.
What is the relation of a government functionary to the means of production? Does he own them?

[Jimmie Higgins]

The theorists of state capitalism cannot actually explained what happened.Actually I think it's the most consistant explaination and the only one which makes sense in explaining why the USSR collapsed too.



This supposed state capitalism is so different from what we understand as capitalism, that if we were to describe it as a form of capitalism, the word would cease to hold any useful meaning whatsoever.

Private property of the means of production was abolished, and the economy was nationalized. Capitalist trade was replaced by a state monopoly on foreign trade. In other words the fundamental features of capitalism: the private ownership of capital and the private hiring of labour to activate it, did not exist.

The cyclical crises of overproduction did not exist (oops, in our competition we invested too much, oops in our panic we fired too many). Instead, the entire economy was planned, not decided in an elemental competition of individual capitalists.

It is not possible to define that as capitalism without throwing out everything Marx wrote.
No I don't think it throws out anything that Marx wrote, capitalism can't be understood in the specific forms it takes, but in the relations, in the content. (The theory does reject some of Trotsky's later views... mostly because history did not play out according to his views of what the USSR was.)

The state capitalist view argues that the entire state acted like a firm but in a global market. The competition of capitalism did not exist within the USSR but played out internationally with Russia using political and sometimes military means as the way of expanding markets. Large capitalist firms have done this in other capitalist countries as well, but it's one industry's influence or centrality to the overall national economy that motivates this, rather than these being one and the same. Regular capitalist states also heavily nationalized in roughly the same era as the USSR was industrializing and instituted reforms in many places.

The lack of competition allowed for longer term planning, more stability, and the ability to accumulate faster in many ways. This much of this still goes for china - such as greater planning - even though its state-capitalism has taken on different features that are more recognizably "privite capitalism".

Most importantly, because I think the "worker's state" argument totally neglects this, is that the central feature of capitalism is that laboerers have no other means of securing their own living without the capitalists - this is the function of privite property. But in the USSR or other contries the MoP are in the hands of a state beurocracy and so labor is alienated from the labor process.


Furthermore, the claim that the working class was not economically in power because they were languishing in gulags and had lost political power is frankly childish utopianism. Nowhere in history is it written that an economically ruling class must have the political power in its hands in a democratic form. That is certainly preferable, cheaper, and a better guarantee of the flourishing of their society and economy. But the preferable outcome is not the only one.But political power and economic power are one entity in this case - so without political power, then there is no working class control of the means of production.

And while nothing is written in History... actually democracy is written in things said by Engels and Lenin interpreting what they thought was implied in Marx.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm also curious about how relevant other Trotskyists consider this question to be today? I think there are some definite conceptual implications to these various explainations, and it does have some immediate relevancy to an extent when talking about a couple countries today, but on the whole I don't think it's as much of a dividing line as it was in the past in a practical sense.

[Tim Cornelis]

What is the relation of a government functionary to the means of production? Does he own them?

The relations of production exist irrespective of the judicial expression of property relations, which can take a multitude of forms. The state owned the means of production and the bureaucracy managed it on their behalf. This is sufficient for capitalist relations to exist, as there is a proletarianised subsection of the population whom neither control nor own the conditions of their labour and thus rely on selling their labour-power to an employer (the state).



And I'm telling you the political rule of a small caste within the working class, office workers (bureaucrats), over the rest of the working class to the extent of sending their opponents to die, does not mean the abolition of the economic rule of the working class.

Economic power implies that workers controlled the conditions of their labour. This does not apply to the proletariat in the USSR. There was no workers' state as workers had no political or economic power.



Without private capital, there is no such thing as capitalists.

There was "private capital" in the sense that the proletariat sold their labour-power to an employer, produced commodities, and had surplus value extracted from them.


This is exactly what the October revolution was, the carrying out of the centralization in the hands of the state of all economic functions. Had this happened in several other countries as well, especially germany, we would now be living in an era without a state, and the second part of that programme would be completed.

Centralisation outside the reach (control) of the workers, and hence no workers' state.


What was its property form? Clearly not capitalist, and the fact that it coincides with the first step of the worker's rule during the transition to communism makes it a transitional economy.

Neither is true. There was no centralisation of productive forces in the hands of a workers' state and there was no transitional economy.


So the workers take power, overthrow the capitalists, organize themselves into an armed force known as a state to impose their rule. They take all the property of the capitalist class into the hands of that state. They begin to plan the economy democratically and hope that soon their German brothers will show them how to go to socialism. So far so good, dictstorship of the proletariat, even if it is only begun in one country.

The workers took power, and were subsequently stripped of their power with the abolition of organs of workers' power. There was no democratic planning either.



The state capitalist view argues that the entire state acted like a firm but in a global market. The competition of capitalism did not exist within the USSR but played out internationally with Russia using political and sometimes military means as the way of expanding markets. Large capitalist firms have done this in other capitalist countries as well, but it's one industry's influence or centrality to the overall national economy that motivates this, rather than these being one and the same. Regular capitalist states also heavily nationalized in roughly the same era as the USSR was industrializing and instituted reforms in many places.

There was competition of capitals through "socialist emulation" and exchange between enterprises within the Soviet Union.

[Fakeblock]

CyM, I agree with the concept of bonapartism, but I don't think it applies to the dictatorship of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie can maintain its economic power and even expand its economic power, while still being ruled over politically, as in the feudal era. The proletariat, on the other hand, needs political power to shape society in its interest. It can only rule economically through its own political organisations. A planned economy, in itself, has as much use to the proletariat as a social democratic "mixed economy". The state, if not ruled by the working class, just isn't a workers' state. I'm quite aware of the development that led to the degeneration of the USSR, but it doesn't necessarily support your conclusions.

So it doesn't follow that state monopoly equals proletarian political rule, especially when the proletariat is excluded from the organs of political power. The logic is circular - the state is proletarian, because industry is centralised in the proletarian state. So even if the state isn't in the hands of the proletariat, even if the state raises itself above classes, even if it actively hinders the spread of the international revolution and purges proletarian elements from its party, it's still a working-class state and should be supported by communists. For quite obvious reasons this logic is faulty.

And about the social vs. political revolution, the form of property will indeed have changed very much when put into the hands of the proletariat. Property in the hands of the proletariat is qualitatively different from property in the hands of the bureaucracy. If the bourgeois state nationalises an industry does it doesn't become social property, but quite regular state property? Your claim that there was/is a social form of property in the Communist states is based on an assumption that these are workers' states.

[TaylorS]

Redshifted, I will answer you in a later post, because what you are putting forward is a very different theory.

And I'm telling you the political rule of a small caste within the working class, office workers (bureaucrats), over the rest of the working class to the extent of sending their opponents to die, does not mean the abolition of the economic rule of the working class.


From Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte:


This is Bonapartism, a state that, by balancing between the classes, raises itself above society and gains a certain amount of independence. It is, of course, still based on the capitalist system in this case. It still defends the property form on which it was planted. But to claim that it is "controlled" by the ruling class is to miss the point of Bonapartism. It is an out of control state, a gang that dominates the bourgeoisie and kills them. It takes their property from them as it pleases, steals whenever it wishes, thereby harms them economically and perverts the regular functioning of that economy. And yet, it maintains their economic rule even though any concept that they are "in control" would be laughable. The way such a bonapartism would function on a proletarian base would be a bit different of course, but I'll get to that.


Without private capital, there is no such thing as capitalists.


But Marx already explained that the working class is the last revolutionary class particularly because it has no interest in preserving its rule. And yet it must rule to abolish capitalism and work towards its own abolition. The second chapter of the Communist Manifesto is very instructive on this:



This is exactly what the October revolution was, the carrying out of the centralization in the hands of the state of all economic functions. Had this happened in several other countries as well, especially germany, we would now be living in an era without a state, and the second part of that programme would be completed.

Instead, the working class concentrated the economy in its hands through its state, but then failed in country after country to advance, thereby freezing at the first stage. That state then underwent a bonapartist degeneration and politically raised itself above the working class. Bonaparte was reborn in the person of Stalin.


The only way to move towards communism is to concentrate all productive property in the hands of the state, the armed working class, across the world. It's not just "easier", it is the fundamental first step of the communist programme. There is no other way, and you're trying to dodge that a proletarian revolution against the bureaucracy would have changed nothing in the actual social form of property. This is the decisive factor in deciding what was the USSR. What was its property form? Clearly not capitalist, and the fact that it coincides with the first step of the worker's rule during the transition to communism makes it a transitional economy.


Ok, so now that I have established that bonaparte ruled over the capitalists politically, and it seems you more or less accept that, let's talk about how that would work in a worker's state.

So the workers take power, overthrow the capitalists, organize themselves into an armed force known as a state to impose their rule. They take all the property of the capitalist class into the hands of that state. They begin to plan the economy democratically and hope that soon their German brothers will show them how to go to socialism. So far so good, dictstorship of the proletariat, even if it is only begun in one country.

Then what? Invasion by 20 countries, civil war, famine, Germany fails its revolution, and what's more, the peasant majority are beginning to think it would be more profitable to let the cities starve in famine than give their grain at below market prices. So instead of fading away, the dictatorship has to be strengthened to save the revolution. To avoid starvation, the worker's state takes the grain. To fight the civil war, a massive war machine is built. All of these are necessary steps for survival, and anyone who tells you otherwise should be considered untrustworthy for when our revolution in modern times runs into difficult waters. Besides, they only have to hold out for a little longer while europe joins. Then these contradictions can be resolved and things can work more smoothly.

Nope. The revolution does not come and the problems only get worse. Meanwhile, there is a whole layer who are beginning to get used to a role in the state. Bureaucrats who are involved in planning a massive almost totally nationalized economy.

This bureaucracy rises on the basis of the contradiction between the proletariat and the petty bourgeois peasantry. It leans on one to control the other and vice versa. But this bonapartism is unlike any other. See, the workers do not own companies. They own all of industry through their state. So what happens when bonapartism arises, whereas in capitalism there are still individual capitalists operating individually on the market, the workers all work for the state they created. So yes, the workers have no direct control over the economy the way a capitalist has over one company. But how could they? If bonapartism arises in a planned economy, clearly the workers would not be involved in the plan.

So a proletarian bonapartist state would be more independent, more distant, than any previous form of bonapartism. But it does not change the fact that it is based on the abolition of private property, the socialization and planning of production. It remains based on the transitional economy, despite the lack of any check on its power.


For it to be a healthy dictatorship of the proletariat, yes. For it to complete its tasks and then abolish the state, yes. But for it to exist as a dictatorship of the proletariat? No. Even Marx posed the possibility of a "red bureaucracy". If the workers take power, and establish their economic transitional form in the nationalized planned economy, and then their society enters into an insoluble crisis, bonapartism arises, just as in capitalist society. Only this bonapartism is more monstrous and uncontrolled than any other seen in human history, for even the healthy dictatorship of the proletariat concentrates all in the hands of the state.

This is the best summary of what happened in the early USSR that I have ever read. Thank You! :thumbup1:

[Art Vandelay]

I'm also curious about how relevant other Trotskyists consider this question to be today? I think there are some definite conceptual implications to these various explainations, and it does have some immediate relevancy to an extent when talking about a couple countries today, but on the whole I don't think it's as much of a dividing line as it was in the past in a practical sense.

In my opinion, outside of Cuba, DPRK, etc..the question really isn't that important today (for the record I only uphold the USSR as a DWS and don't mess around with the 'deformed workers state' nonsense. I'd have no problem working in an organization with state-cap theorists, or hell even Ticktin's 'target economy theory'. Having said all that if the next wave of revolutionary movements is once again stifled by global capital, we will see a return of of this same issue, ie: does a 'workers state'm, however degenerated, deserve unconditional military support.

[Brotto Rühle]

In my opinion, outside of Cuba, DPRK, etc..the question really isn't that important today (for the record I only uphold the USSR as a DWS and don't mess around with the 'deformed workers state' nonsense. I'd have no problem working in an organization with state-cap theorists, or hell even Ticktin's 'target economy theory'. Having said all that if the next wave of revolutionary movements is once again stifled by global capital, we will see a return of of this same issue, ie: does a 'workers state'm, however degenerated, deserve unconditional military support.

No such thing exists as a "degenerated workers state".

[Art Vandelay]

No such thing exists as a "degenerated workers state".

How compelling.

[robbo203]

Without private capital, there is no such thing as capitalists.

.

No, what you are really trying to say here is that without private capital there is no such thing as private capitalists. I wouldnt disagree. But the capitalist class does not have to consist only of "private capitalists". Recruitment to this class does not have to be only via de jure legal entitlement to capital by individuals; it can also be through control over the state machine which enables the tiny minority who control the state machine to exercise de facto class ownership over the (state owned ) means of production - not as private capitalists but as members of the state capitalist class, not as indiviidals but collectively as a class


From a Marxist point of view it is one's de facto relationship to the means of production that determines one's class postion - not the judicial or legal aspects of society's superstructire. In fact, you cannot begin to understand why a capitalist class exists if you look only at the juridical or legal aspects of a given society. Nowhere in the world to my knowlege is the existence of a capitalist class acknowleged in property law - let alone safeguarded and upheld. All that is mentioned is the right of individuals to own capital in a de jure sense. Therefore if you are going to argue for the existence of a capitalist you have to transcend the de jure framework an analyse the situation on the ground from a de facto sociological perspective.

In the Soviet Union the nomenklatura demonstrably had a totally different relationship to the means of production compared to ordinary Russian workers. Ergo, they were on different sides of the class divide. The ultimate control the nomenklatuara exercised over the Soviet capitalist economy and the social product, was tantamount to class ownership . Actually, any meaningful definition of ownership MUST imply "ultimate control". If you ultimately control something. you own it - and vice versa



And you're wrong , you know. It is fully within the tradition of Marxian thought that capitalists can exist without de jure private capital.

Engels:

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

[RedMaterialist]

... the Soviet Union was not communism, and the state did not "whither away"....

The state did not whither away in Russia, it collapsed under the burden of the bureaucracy,

Communism, by definition, can not exist as a state or in a state. It is only after the state has ceased to exist that communism can begin to exist. Communism could actually have existed in the Soviet Union for a few days after the Soviet Union collapsed and before the new Russian state imposed its rule.

It is generally agreed that the Soviet Union suddenly (in historical terms) collapsed. But something collapses only if the internal structure begins to give way, wither, decay, etc. If a tree suddenly collapses without warning (and no one saw it coming except maybe Marx and Engels) then you can be sure that the roots had died and the internal structure had decayed, causing the collapse.

It is true that there was a complex bureaucracy ruling the SU. However, if the existence of such a bureaucracy meant the sudden collapse of a government then the U.S. would have collapsed long before the Soviet Union. There have been many states in history which have been ruled by a bureaucracy. None, as far as I know, has simply, without warning, just collapsed. The collapse of the SU, a world super-power, is an unprecedented event in world history. All other super powers have been destroyed by military force.

[robbo203]

For anyone who thinks, like CyM, that "Without private capital, there is no such thing as capitalists. here's an extract from an interesting peice by Andrew Kliman (which is worth reading in its totality)

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/category/alternatives-to-capital


Everyone is entitled to define socialism however he or she wishes––including Karl Marx. The notion that socialism equals state planning, ownership, and control was alien to Marx’s conception of socialism. More precisely, it was alien to his conception of what he called communist society, both its initial phase and its higher phase.

Let me first address the issue of state ownership and control.

Of course, Marx called for the abolition of private property. But what makes property private, in his view, is not individual ownership, but the separation of the direct producers, workers, from the property they produce. Thus, in the German Ideology, he and Frederick Engels noted that “ancient communal and State ownership … is still accompanied by slavery,” and they referred to the communal ownership of slaves as “communal private property” (emphasis added).

In volume 2 of Capital, Marx wrote, “The social capital is equal to the sum of the individual capitals (including … state capital, in so far as governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc. and function as industrial capitalists.” Similarly, in his notes on Adolph Wagner’s critique of Capital, Marx wrote that “[w]here the state itself is a capitalist producer, as in the exploitation of mines, forests, etc., its product is a ‘commodity’ and hence possesses the specific character of every other commodity.”

Most importantly, in volume 1 of Capital, he implicitly addressed the issue of what would happen if the state’s role as capitalist producer expanded to such a point that it completely crowded out other capitalists. He argued that the tendency toward monopoly, the process of centralization of capitals, “would reach its extreme limit … [i]n a given society … only when the entire social capital was united in the hands of either a single capitalist or a single capitalist company.” As Raya Dunayevskaya noted, Marx’s text implies that such a society “would remain capitalist[;] … this extreme development would in no way change the law of motion of that society.” Engels thus seems to have been stating Marx’s view as well as his own when he wrote, in Anti-Dühring,

“state ownership … does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. … The more [of them the state takes over], the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians.

[Geiseric]

I'm also curious about how relevant other Trotskyists consider this question to be today? I think there are some definite conceptual implications to these various explainations, and it does have some immediate relevancy to an extent when talking about a couple countries today, but on the whole I don't think it's as much of a dividing line as it was in the past in a practical sense.

The 4th International still upholds and teaches in its pamphlets the DWS theory. Because it is more consistent than the state capitalism theory. What major changes happened since the revolution? First you had the nationalization of the land, then state monopoly on foreign trade. Those things don't happen in capitalism, because there is no reason for the state to be the bourgeoisie.

In countries such as Prussia where "state capitalism" was first applied by marx, the bourgeois aristocrats in the state were using state funds to fund the military. Imagine the U.S. during the New Deal and the subsequent mobilization. That is what "State capitalism" means in its intended definition.

State capitalism wasn't working during the N.E.P. because the fSU's economy wasn't capable of make commodities for sale, they only made things with a high use value out of necessity since they were almost literally under siege all the time, such as tractors and oil derricks.

For example some factories in china make cigarette lighters, by the hundreds of thousands, and employ sweat shop workers, in order to sell the lighters. The fSU didn't really have anything produced other than weapons and military stuff since they were operating in what Trotsky called a "fortress of the revolution," with all the drawbacks that you can imagine with that metaphor.

[bluemangroup]

IMHO the USSR under the New Economic Policy was partially state-capitalist owing to the unique position the Soviet government found itself in by the early 1920's.

Chiefly, the Bolsheviks found themselves having to make considerable concessions to the peasantry and foreign capitalists alike which effectively recreated a market in the countryside. Kulaks-rich peasants-still dominated the villages for years under Soviet rule, who leveraged influence through the peasants' associations and other rural political bodies.

In his Class Struggles in the USSR, Vol. 2, Charles Bettelheim asserted that collectivization-the socialization of the land-was a necessary economic measure.

I agree, as IMHO the New Economic Policy was ineffective and inefficient and was bound to be replaced by a higher system (i.e. socialism) sooner rather then later.

I would also agree that a centrally-planned economy isn't/wasn't alien to socialism. Central-planning was marred by human errors and numerous flaws, yes, but was a viable alternative to free-market capitalism.

The Soviet Union was socialist from a practical point-of-view, all the more so after the implementation of the First Five-year Plan during and after 1928.