What could the USSR have been?

[Jack Daniels]

This is just an inquiry to the people using this sight. If you could flip a switch and the Soviet Union would still be here today, would you do it? What do you think it would have turned into if it had survives till now? Would you consider it a good or bad thing?

[Blake's Baby]

It was a bad thing in 1991, not sure why it would be better now.

But what is now is bad too.

To put it another way, decadent capitalism doesn't depend for its characteristics on the existence or non-existence of the Soviet Union.

If I could flip a switch and bring back class struggle of the levels of 1917-21, then yes I'd definitely do that.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

if marxism tells us anything its that, if russia as it is today had the levels of class struggle it did in the revolution, then the chances of a successful revolution would be great, given that russia now has a highly developed capitalist system which is actually thanks to its revolution.

it wasn't intended but the russian revolution ultimately led to an advanced capitalist system. in qualitative and quantitative terms, the russian revolution represented the same mechanism for economic and social change as the industrial revolution in britain, for example, albeit faster and through a more centralized mode of production.

certain aspects of the social system were probably more preferable to what stands in their place today in russia, such as social housing for example, but reminiscing about the past and trying to reinstall old systems isn't revolutionary. revolutions move forwards, not backwards

[Red_Banner]

Well if the August Coup didn't happen, we'd have the Union of Sovereign Republics.
Although probably not as pro-socialist as we'd like them to, most of the Soviet Republics would still be united and have a common military instead of today's impotent CIS.

And if the Russian Congress was sucessful in kicking Boris Yeltsin out of office in 1993, we'd still have a Russia that was legally pro-socialist and may have turned Russia back in the right(left :)) direction.

[Blake's Baby]

I hate the assertion that Russia needed an industrial/bourgeois revolution in the early 20th. It's never backed up by any analysis.

Russia was the 5th biggest world economy in 1913. In fact the data I just looked at suggeted that in 1913, it had a bigger economy than the UK. It had the biggest factory in the world in 1917, the Putilov Works that employed 40,000 people. Russia had massive conentrations of proletarians; the factories in Russia included some of the most developed in the world. The state had really been pushing the industrialisation of Russia since the 1880s. It's true that this wasn't done by a local bourgeoisie but by foreign investors backed by the state - but this made Russia an absolutely essential part of international capitalist development.

The fact that this was in a largely peasant country is completely insignificant, unless one thinks that 'socialism in one country' is possible. No country is ever ready for socialism on its own, so it doesn't matter about the relative size of the peasantry. Russia was more developed economically than the world average in 1913; so, if 'the world' was ripe for socialism in 1913, Russia was more so (in so far as any particular place is, which I repeat is 'not at all').

So yeah, I reject the notion that 'underdevelopment' was any kind of significant factor in... anything.

[Dave B]

Actually we did this on libcom recently; and I gave Blakes baby a mention even.

http://libcom.org/forums/history/russia-1917-backwards-30082013

As comes out in the thread 1913 Russia was a very backward and even the most economically backward country, according to Lenin.

And he was correct according to the Maddison’s 1913 GNP (per capita) historical statistics

Russsia’s gross national product per capita or the productivity of labour, which is what matters to Marxist/communist theory, was well below the world average.

NB; all the usual suspects of those economically and developmentally ripe for socialism eg USA, Britain, Germany, France, Switzerland etc are all at the top of the GNP (per capita) list; and Russia is nowhere and well below Mexico.

The statistically spurious, GNP total list, has China, Russia and India, the paragons of backwardness near the top.

Russia was the 5th largest national economy because it had one of the largest populations.

[Blake's Baby]

And it's still not relevant unless you believe in socialism in one country.

Now, I know you think that the SPGB was mistaken in forming in the early 20th, which is fair enough, it's logically consistent with the view that the world wasn't 'ready for socialism'; but as you think it is now, what relevance does what you've posted have to anything?

Either you're trying to prove Stalin was right, or you're trying to prove Lenin and Trotsky were wrong. By what does it matter if they were wrong in 1917, if you've already admitted that they're right now (ie, the world is 'ready for socialism')?

[Jack Daniels]

I know it's not good to look at the past and say what if, I was just seeing what you guys thought about it.also I meant as if Russia was alive today, as it's state in the 1960~ 1975.

[RedMaterialist]

I know it's not good to look at the past and say what if, I was just seeing what you guys thought about it.also I meant as if Russia was alive today, as it's state in the 1960~ 1975.

The Soviet Union had no choice but to collapse. The bourgeois within the Soviet Union had been completely driven out. The only class left was the working class and a rotten bureaucracy. A state only exists as a suppressing class.

[boiler]

I think if the Soviet Union was still around today it would be something like China.

[Crabbensmasher]

Eh, there are so many variables to take into account with this one. Is it assuming glasnost and perestroika came into effect already or not? Even if they didn't, I'm sure they would've caved to market liberalization at this point.

And I'm sorry, but I really can't picture the SU surviving if Gorbachev continued his policies. At that point, it was like a teetering house of cards. Any sort of political liberalizing was certain to ignite dissent. By then, people weren't blissfully ignorant. They knew the problems their country had, and they knew the government was trying to hide them.

That's my take on it. I think it's the 'general' explanation of things at that point. I'd like to see some different perspectives of the final years though