State Capitalism or Deformed Workers State? [Archive]

Five Year Plan

27th January 2014, 17:23

It was neither. It was its own product of failed revolution. Calling it 'state capitalism' not only misunderstands what the Soviet Union was, but also what normal capitalism is. And the 'degenerated workers state' has the caveat that it begs the question 'when does it become so degenerated that it qualitatively became something else?', although there are more problems with it.

Below is a video by Hillel Ticktin which gives his own explanation regarding the subject:

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Now this is a position I don't see any logic in. As tedious as the debate is between those who call the USSR socialist, those who call it fully capitalist, and those who call it a society in transit between the two, they all at least understand that a society with a highly advanced division of labor can only result in a capitalist ruling class whose economic hegemony is premised on commodity production and exchange, a proletarian ruling class premised on collective attempts by workers to introduce democratic planning into society, or no ruling class at all as a result of the introduction of full egalitarian planning by producers. In other words, they understand that the question is one of whether a society is capitalist or some point along the process of the proletariat transcending capitalism.

A person who wants to argue that there is developing a new mode of production (e.g., bureaucratic collectivism), or a non-mode of production, rejects this idea. Ticktin, whose writings I am only passingly familiar with, seems to fall into the second, non-mode category. Without delving too deeply into detail, I do recall that the a basic problem with Ticktin's writings was his simultaneous insistence on the existence of an array of discernible contradictions in the heart of the Soviet economy, with his insistence that these contradictions were not constitutive of any kind of mode of production, much less the persistence of remnants of a capitalist tendencies. He wants to identify tensions within the society that were conducive to economic breakdown, but then also disavow the importance of analyzing those contradictions in the context of any laws of motion, as if the Soviet Union were a non-capitalist lifeboat being tossed about aimlessly and randomly in a turbulent capitalist sea. But how do you have contradictions without delineating a set of definite outcomes or tendencies in which those contradictions can resolve (i.e., socialism or capitalism)?

Once you begin to analyze the possible set of outcomes, you can clearly see that any modern-day industrial social formation must exist at some point along that continuum, with any one formation's behavior resulting from contradictions arising from its location on that continuum. No formation can exist outside of that continuum, as a non-mode of production.

ToxicAcidRed

27th January 2014, 19:18

It was capitalism.
State Capitalism perhaps, but definitely not Free Enterprise. In Pure Capitalism, everything is privatized. Whereas in the CCCP, most principle industries were nationalized. If the USSR was Pure capitalist, it's economy would have been growing instead of being stagnant (albeit at the expense of the proletariat).

The Soviet Union had grown to a size large enough to the point where it became cumbersome to continue state planning. The massive and intricate Soviet economy became too large to manage by state planners, who were unwilling to enable more autonomy at mid-managerial level to remain responsive down to a localized level. This resulted in failed economic policies (failure to respond timely to continuous changes), while thwarting innovation. Managers commonly fudged numbers to show that quotas and goals were being met.

Just a quick question, what do you guys think the USSR was, a deformed workers state as put forward by Trotsky or state capitalism? or both?

I think Trotsky may have been right up till WW2, but after the grown of the USSR after WW2 it might have formed far more towards state capitalism.

It's just an interesting question for me since I'm a former member of the Socialist Party of England and Wales who said it was a deformed workers state where as the Socialist Workers Party said it was state capitalism.

Thanks comrades
State Capitalism, which favored the government and authorities more than anything. The USSR was not in any way Pure Capitalism.

Tim Cornelis

27th January 2014, 19:29

Trotsky put forth the idea that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state, not a deformed workers' state, which was an idea that was invented by Trotskyists in the Fourth International after World War 2, and therefore also way after his death.

I have a much similar view to you, that Trotksy was correct at first in identifying it as a degenerated workers' state, but that he failed to see its turn to capitalism in the end years of his life.

At what point did the USSR substantially change when it stopped being a degenerated workers' state and became capitalist?

Per Levy

27th January 2014, 19:50

motion denied

27th January 2014, 19:52

it was statecapitalist and with it was a capitalist state. the SU was part of the capitalist world market, workers were exploited, commodity production was a thing(a big thing) and the list goes on and on and on. to see it anything being capitalism is a folly imo.

waiting for geiseric to defend the degenerated workers state like only he can.

"you're ignoring the 10 planks of communism as seen on the Manifesto"

ToxicAcidRed

27th January 2014, 19:54

it was statecapitalist and with it was a capitalist state. the SU was part of the capitalist world market, workers were exploited, commodity production was a thing(a big thing) and the list goes on and on and on. to see it anything being capitalism is a folly imo.

waiting for geiseric to defend the degenerated workers state like only he can.
"you're ignoring the 10 planks of communism as seen on the Manifesto"
Apparently the 10 planks from the Manifesto are no longer apart of Marxism (according to Marx of course). What would be say, the 10 Planks of Communism now?

Art Vandelay

27th January 2014, 21:33

At what point did the USSR substantially change when it stopped being a degenerated workers' state and became capitalist?

I believe link upholds the line that the purges in the 30's were the final nail in the revolution's coffin, marking its full degeneration.

Conversely, when do you believe that the genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, established in 17', was displaced? I think that is ultimately a much more interesting question.

Laughingasylum

27th January 2014, 21:38

Five Year Plan

27th January 2014, 21:52

Sorry, I should have said 'degenerated workers' state' not deformed.
I only say it changed cause before WW2 and before Trotsky's death the USSR was pretty much Russia but afterwards had grown and taken over other countries. These countries hadn't had a a workers revolution but had the Soviet rule forced upon them.
I could be wrong tho. ;)

So when Russian annexed Georgia in 1920 and incorporated it into the Russian state, without Georgia having had an indigenous workers' revolution, this meant that Russia was capitalist?

Tim Cornelis

27th January 2014, 22:02

I believe link upholds the line that the purges in the 30's were the final nail in the revolution's coffin, marking its full degeneration.

Well that's silly, that doesn't change the underlying social relationships.

Conversely, when do you believe that the genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, established in 17', was displaced? I think that is ultimately a much more interesting question.

1918.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

27th January 2014, 23:00

I believe link upholds the line that the purges in the 30's were the final nail in the revolution's coffin, marking its full degeneration.

Conversely, when do you believe that the genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, established in 17', was displaced? I think that is ultimately a much more interesting question.
Well that's silly, [the purges in the '30s didn't] change the underlying social relationships.

[The genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was "displaced" in] 1918.

I think part of what's problematic about this framing is that it posits workers' power as monolithic, and functioning something like the imaginary sovereignty of states ("level" and functioning "evenly" within given borders). The problem is that power doesn't look, in reality, like it does on typical political map, with sovreignties extending in uniform colour until they collide at a border with another. This applies even more so when we approach the question in temporal terms. Trying to pinpoint when exactly workers' power became "degenerated" is a bit like trying to point out when feudalism became capitalism.
Suppose we have a block of ice called workers' power, and we sit and watch it melt. We can certainly tell when we've got a block of ice, and we can certainly tell when we've got a puddle, but what about in between the two? Do we no longer have a block of ice when 50%+1 of the mass is puddle? Of course not, and yet, certainly, we do have a puddle.

Five Year Plan

27th January 2014, 23:09

I think part of what's problematic about this framing is that it posits workers' power as monolithic, and functioning something like the imaginary sovereignty of states ("level" and functioning "evenly" within given borders). The problem is that power doesn't look, in reality, like it does on typical political map, with sovreignties extending in uniform colour until they collide at a border with another. This applies even more so when we approach the question in temporal terms. Trying to pinpoint when exactly workers' power became "degenerated" is a bit like trying to point out when feudalism became capitalism.
Suppose we have a block of ice called workers' power, and we sit and watch it melt. We can certainly tell when we've got a block of ice, and we can certainly tell when we've got a puddle, but what about in between the two? Do we no longer have a block of ice when 50%+1 of the mass is puddle? Of course not, and yet, certainly, we do have a puddle.

If were just a matter of pinpointing an exact moment amidst a chaos of unorganized and scattered events, things would be difficult. Marxists tend to follow Marx in talking about state power being an instrument of one class at a time, not a power-sharing communal institution with a multitude of exploiting classes divvying up power amicably and equitably. This "framing" means that identifying the crushing of workers' power, or of capitalist power, entails identifying a top-to-bottom restructuring of the state and how the state relates to class processes. I think the problem with saying that the counter-revolution occurred in 1918 is that no state was smashed at the time. The same government and state (and "bodies of armed men") that had been in charge immediately after October was the same government and state that was in charge in 1919. The incidence of formal democratic procedures changed, obviously, but that's different than an overthrow of state power or the class basis of the state.

Art Vandelay

28th January 2014, 15:07

Well that's silly, that doesn't change the underlying social relationships.
Well I can assure you the theory is much more complicated than the purges happened, so that was the counter-revolution. The theory is associated with the LRP and is layed out in their book 'The Life and Death of Stalinism,' but given the fact that I haven't read the book yet, I won't pretend to be able to give a 'nuts and bolts' breakdown of the theory.

1918.
See the problem I generally have with this analysis, is it reaks of fetishizing form over content. Anyways, just some rambling comments on the matter:

The premise that counter-revolution happened sometime in the 1920's (or 1918), 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

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 degenerating 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.

The struggle for socialism will consist of a prolonged period of workers states active and coordinated struggle against class alien forces. During a period of civil war, as the Bolsheviks faced following October, the reliance on soviets as the primary vehicle for military and tactical decision making, becomes an impediment, it robs the revolution of its strength due to the fetishization of the tactic of decentralization.

Whether or not the USSR was a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat, is not a moral question, or of whether or not the actions of the Bolsheviks are palatable. It is a question of whether or not they continued to have a proletarian class character. After the decimation of the ranks of the Proletariat during the civil war, the Worker’s Opposition's call for new elections in the soviets, was insanity. The Russian proletariat, relatively small, had only been able to seize state power with the temporary ally of the peasantry, to have fresh elections following the civil war, would of merely watered down the influence of the already small industrial proletariat.

If were just a matter of pinpointing an exact moment amidst a chaos of unorganized and scattered events, things would be difficult. Marxists tend to follow Marx in talking about state power being an instrument of one class at a time, not a power-sharing communal institution with a multitude of exploiting classes divvying up power amicably and equitably. This "framing" means that identifying the crushing of workers' power, or of capitalist power, entails identifying a top-to-bottom restructuring of the state and how the state relates to class processes. I think the problem with saying that the counter-revolution occurred in 1918 is that no state was smashed at the time. The same government and state (and "bodies of armed men") that had been in charge immediately after October was the same government and state that was in charge in 1919. The incidence of formal democratic procedures changed, obviously, but that's different than an overthrow of state power or the class basis of the state.

Indeed, which is why I think this analysis is quite symptomatic of the fetishization of form over content.

Tim Cornelis

28th January 2014, 15:27

Art Vandelay

28th January 2014, 15:40

I already replied to that, if I remember correctly.
You could be right, I've definitely have had similar discussions on the board before.

You say "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" and this is exactly a criticism of the argument that degeneration or whatever happened post-1922 when there were no such open or violent expressions of class antagonisms, whereas pre-1922 there were countless strikes, sabotages, uprisings, and rebellions against the Bolsheviks' suspension of soviet-rule and abolishing of factory committees in favour of wage-labour and one-man management.

There were indeed open and violent expressions of class antagonisms post-22'. An example would be precisely during the purges of the 30's when the final and vestigial remnants of the LO (which had carried forth the only remaining proletarian elements within the Bolshevik party) were exiled and murdered. These open and violent expressions of class antagonisms pre-22' were, in my opinion, symptomatic of class alien forces rising against the proletarian dictatorship; as I said, content needs to be analyzed over form and the ban on the soviets was not a counter-revolution. Having said that, however, I certainly respect your opinion and assume I won't be very successful, even with a cogent political argument, at changing your mind on conclusions you've come to independently.

Brutus

28th January 2014, 16:36

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 degenerating and decaying proletarian dictatorship.
But the DotP is worker-managed capitalism, so the above is total bollocks due to the law of value not being abolished. There is no transition: socialism is the state of affairs that supersedes capitalism, because the law of value can only be abolished through production for need (i.e. socialism).

Art Vandelay

28th January 2014, 16:57

But the DotP is worker-managed capitalism,

So capitalism can be wielded by the proletariat to suit its own purposes, in your estimation?

The problem with claiming that the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, is it makes note of the fact that the state represents proletarian class interests, however still remains capitalist in nature. The problem is twofold, (1) capitalism cannot be wielded in the interests of the proletariat and here lies a contradiction in your narrative and (2) it fails to take into account that the state itself is an economic mechanism and this 2nd point is extremely important. The USSR bore the hallmarks of a society in transition. The USSR was in no proper sense of the term capitalist, if we are to take the capital Marx describes seriously, but rather had both elements of the beginning stages of the establishment of a socialist economy (NPE), as well as aspects of capitalism (commodity production, etc.). If the mode of production under the dictatorship of the proletariat is capitalist, then it isn't a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Furthermore, there are more issues with this narrative that you put forth. If a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the USSR, at what point in time did it qualitatively change into something else entirely, into something which represented class alien interests? Surely this qualitative change couldn't of happened overnight (it would of needed to of been comprised of many quantitative changes, until a change in quality of the class nature of the USSR, took place). So unless one thinks that the class nature of the USSR changed instantaneously, they are already supporting a form of the theory of the degenerated workers state, whether or not they wish to admit it. The genuine dictatorship of the proletariat which was established in the USSR was, for a number of reasons, slowly decaying and degenerating. Whether or not the workers state degenerated, is really not even up for discussion.

There is no transition

No transition? I wasn't aware that Marxists supported the notion of the immediate and instantaneous development of socialism. The struggle for socialism will consist of a prolonged period of workers states active and coordinated struggle against class alien forces, if that's not a transition than I don't know what is.

so the above is total bollocks due to the law of value not being abolished. There is no transition: socialism is the state of affairs that supersedes capitalism, because the law of value can only be abolished through production for need (i.e. socialism).

The only thing that is bollocks is this narrow minded view of what constitutes capitalism upheld by many on this site who simply go around spouting the same line over and over again, which this simply sounds like a regurgitated version of to be honest. 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, etc. In other words, there were enough quantitative changes in the USSR, to produce a change in quality.

Five Year Plan

28th January 2014, 17:02

But the DotP is worker-managed capitalism, so the above is total bollocks due to the law of value not being abolished. There is no transition: socialism is the state of affairs that supersedes capitalism, because the law of value can only be abolished through production for need (i.e. socialism).

If there is no transition, when in the process of workers supposedly "managing capitalism" do they decide to introduce socialism all at once?

Five Year Plan

28th January 2014, 17:09

I already replied to that, if I remember correctly. You say "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" and this is exactly a criticism of the argument that degeneration or whatever happened post-1922 when there were no such open or violent expressions of class antagonisms, whereas pre-1922 there were countless strikes, sabotages, uprisings, and rebellions against the Bolsheviks' suspension of soviet-rule and abolishing of factory committees in favour of wage-labour and one-man management.

I doubt there is a way for me to say this without sounding condescending, but how much post-1922 Soviet history are you familiar with? Kevin Murphy's "Revolution and Counter-Revolution," Jeffrey Rossman's "Worker Resistance Under Stalin" all talk about open and sometimes violent clashes, many of them taking the form of strikes, between workers and the Soviet state in the 1920s and early 1930s. And of course, the most violent episode in Soviet history was indeed the Great Purges of the 1930s, when mass operations, combined with a total restructuring of the state, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Soviet citizens. That massive upheaval makes anything that occurred between 1918 and 1920 look minor by comparison. There's a reason it was called the Great Terror.

Remus Bleys

28th January 2014, 17:10

yeah brutus wasn't arguing that capitalism can be harnessed for worker's interest. So criticizing that is like when an anarchist criticizes the dotp "what do you think people are benefitted from the state?" Of course we don't want a state, and the state is not harnessed in the true interests of "humanity" or whatever (if you genuinely believe that then how can you be a socialist? socialism is stateless) just as capitalism isn't harnessed in the interests of the workers. No one argued that it was in the interests of the workers, its just that because of the realization that Socialism in One Country is impossible (and if you don't believe it again you're not a socialist but a stalinist) we realize that their is no possible alternative, unless you think that the proletariat of some country lives in a vacuum.
edit: i was just explaining the concept. Im not going to involve myself in this thread any further. Arguing with trotskyists is a waste of time, and threads like this are extremely redundant. I've done this before, I don't really want to go through this asinine thread again and watch with frustration how, lets just say, certain posters don't seem to get anything through their heads and instead put words in your mouth. I'm probably not going to read anything in the thread further than this post.
double edit: i attempted to break my earlier statement. 9mm did my compare and contrast with the argument anarchists use against the state really go over your head that bad? lol. Did my compare and contrast with SioC really not set in? See, this is why I'm not going to involve myself in this thread.

Art Vandelay

28th January 2014, 17:42

yeah brutus wasn't arguing that capitalism can be harnessed for worker's interest.

I inferred it from his post, it seemed to me to be the only logical deduction to be made from the content of what he said. I think brutus is more than capable of clarifying for himself, if he feels like what he was saying wasn't being properly understood. This is what he said:

But the DotP is worker-managed capitalism.

The dotp, is be its very definition, the expression of the class interests of the proletariat; in its very essence, the concept is the proletariat (through the institution of the state) organizing itself to achieve its class interests, primarily its main interest, which is to achieve the self-destruction of itself as a socio-economic class. So if the dotp is capitalist in nature, as brutus said, then the only conclusion is that the proletariat can successfully wield capitalism in its own interests. A notion I highly disagree with.

So criticizing that is like when an anarchist criticizes the dotp "what do you think people are benefitted from the state?" Of course we don't want a state, and the state is not harnessed in the true interests of "humanity" or whatever (if you genuinely believe that then how can you be a socialist? socialism is stateless)

This first part I'm not even sure what it was supposed to mean or how to respond to it, but the second part seems confused. No one was arguing that the state can be wielded or 'harnessed' in the 'true interests of humanity,' but that the state is wielded for proletarian class interests. The state is the institution through which a socio-economic class imposes its hegemony on society, no one in this thread has suggested otherwise. Maybe TGDU somewhat did, but certainly not aufheben or I.

just as capitalism isn't harnessed in the interests of the workers.

But if the dotp is capitalist in nature, than that is precisely what this analysis claims. What other conclusion can we draw? The dotp is capitalist, but capitalism cannot be harnessed for proletarian class interests? So how could it possibly be the dotp then? There is a huge contradiction in this line of thought that is hardly ever grappled with.

No one argued that it was in the interests of the workers, its just that because of the realization that Socialism in One Country is impossible (and if you don't believe it again you're not a socialist but a stalinist) we realize that their is no possible alternative, unless you think that the proletariat of some country lives in a vacuum.

Aufheben's tendency is set to Trotskyist and I'm a member of the CWI, you aren't discussing things with anyone who supports the notion that socialism in one country is a possibility, that was not the line of argumentation being put forth whatsoever.

Five Year Plan

28th January 2014, 17:42

yeah brutus wasn't arguing that capitalism can be harnessed for worker's interest. So criticizing that is like when an anarchist criticizes the dotp "what do you think people are benefitted from the state?" Of course we don't want a state, and the state is not harnessed in the true interests of "humanity" or whatever (if you genuinely believe that then how can you be a socialist? socialism is stateless) just as capitalism isn't harnessed in the interests of the workers. No one argued that it was in the interests of the workers, its just that because of the realization that Socialism in One Country is impossible (and if you don't believe it again you're not a socialist but a stalinist) we realize that their is no possible alternative, unless you think that the proletariat of some country lives in a vacuum.

My question didn't relate to the idea that workers can manage capitalism. It related to the idea that workers will manage capitalism as a way for socialism to supersede it, without that supersession entailing a transitioning process.

Since he thanked your post, he obviously saw my question, but just chooses to ignore it, which is disappointing for somebody who makes such sweeping proclamations about one of the fundamental topics of revolutionary politics. I think such proclamations carry some burden of responsibility for people to explain what they mean. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Brutus

28th January 2014, 17:46

Since he thanked your post, he obviously saw my question, but just chooses to ignore it, which is disappointing for somebody who makes such sweeping proclamations about one of the fundamental topics of revolutionary politics. I think such proclamations carry some burden of responsibility for people to explain what they mean. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

I'll defend my position later. Don't feel too good currently.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

30th January 2014, 14:29

If were just a matter of pinpointing an exact moment amidst a chaos of unorganized and scattered events, things would be difficult. Marxists tend to follow Marx in talking about state power being an instrument of one class at a time, not a power-sharing communal institution with a multitude of exploiting classes divvying up power amicably and equitably.

OK, but you're still imagining "state power" to be for all intents and purposes absolute, whereas, in the midst of a war, it absolutely isn't. Even assuming that the Bolshevik state was authentically proletarian, it clearly lacked a territorial monopoly on law and violence. Further, it wasn't the sole site of the revolution, which had a territorial and social scope that was by no means encompassed by state power.

This "framing" means that identifying the crushing of workers' power, or of capitalist power, entails identifying a top-to-bottom restructuring of the state and how the state relates to class processes. I think the problem with saying that the counter-revolution occurred in 1918 is that no state was smashed at the time. The same government and state (and "bodies of armed men") that had been in charge immediately after October was the same government and state that was in charge in 1919.

Of course, during that period, there was no effective sovereignty period. We can't really talk about the character of the state-as-such because it is still in the process of constituting itself. I agree, for this reason, that it seems strange to locate counter-revolution in 1918 - the cards are hardly finished being dealt, let alone played. I think it's also important to note, in this context, the (failed) Hungarian and Bavarian Soviet Republics, which were part of the same revolutionary wave, and whose defeat is important in contextualizing what went down in Russia.
Anyway, when the dust begins to clear, we find a state that is distinctly not an expression of workers' power, but, rather, of Bolshevik power. The government that has formally taken power in 1917 (though, in real terms, this power is by no means effective territorial sovereignty!) may be the same faces 3, 5, or however many years later, but its coming-into-being as sovereign (quantitative change) comes to its qualitative conclusion: something we can all agree, it seems, that is not workers' power.

Five Year Plan

30th January 2014, 17:28

OK, but you're still imagining "state power" to be for all intents and purposes absolute, whereas, in the midst of a war, it absolutely isn't. Even assuming that the Bolshevik state was authentically proletarian, it clearly lacked a territorial monopoly on law and violence. Further, it wasn't the sole site of the revolution, which had a territorial and social scope that was by no means encompassed by state power.

I am not sure what you mean exactly when you criticize me for talking about "state power" being "absolute." It sounds, though, like you are intending to refer to the way in which state power had not been fully consolidated throughout Russia for a number of years following October. That's true enough, but what conclusion are you drawing from this? That there was dual power? What did this dual power consist of? A burgeoning workers' state supported by the Soviets, and a state capitalist state being pushed by Lenin?

The problem with this interpretation is that the Soviets' power was established in the form of, through democratic support of, Lenin and the Bolsheviks. That supported dwindled in time, certainly. But that decline in support meant that a workers' state was degenerating from within, which is an entirely different case than competing geographic centers of state power operating on a different class basis (dual power). Linksradical wants to argue that the decline in support, evidenced in a movement away from democratic forms, indicated a counter-revolution of that state. I have expressed my criticism of this idea.

Anyway, when the dust begins to clear, we find a state that is distinctly not an expression of workers' power, but, rather, of Bolshevik power. The government that has formally taken power in 1917 (though, in real terms, this power is by no means effective territorial sovereignty!) may be the same faces 3, 5, or however many years later, but its coming-into-being as sovereign (quantitative change) comes to its qualitative conclusion: something we can all agree, it seems, that is not workers' power.

Marxists categorize states on the basis of the class that wields power through the state's machinery. This is a bit trickier than seeing who is out on the streets dancing and cheering for a particular regime, or who is and is not allowed to vote. Such surface appearances can lead to some disastrous conclusions if used to draw conclusions about the class basis of the state. The US didn't suddenly become a dictatorship of the proletariat just because US workers have right to vote, and exercise that right with some frequency, any more than Hoxha's staged rallies and celebrations indicate that Albania was a socialist paradise.

What matters in determining which class wields state power is how a state is configured to behave in terms of class processes. This is a related, but analytically distinct question, from how workers are capitalists feel about this or that ruling party or policy. Sometimes state power and institutions are geared toward primarily benefiting a certain class, while at the same time suppressing the direct political expression of that class. The term for these states is Bonapartist, and the term for their political suppression of the ruling class is "substitutionism." These are states where the surface appearances of who is ruling a state very much contradict who is, in fact, in control over the apparatus through how that state acquires its power in relation to class processes (which constitute the basis of any state).

In case of exploitative class states, substitutionism isn't such a big deal. In fact, it's quite normal. The bourgeoisie can still exploit workers even if it isn't setting policy, as long as that policy protects capitalist property relations. In the case of a workers' state, substitutionism creates a sharper contradiction than it does under other states, since it is founded upon workers' revolutionary agency and carries the purpose of actively engaging workers more and more in the process of taking direct political power in order to enlarge their role in collective self-governance. This contradiction, which embodies the very essence of the workers' state, is why substitutionism or indeed the existence of any workers' state is a balancing act that must either resolve itself in counter-revolution or in the advance to international socialism. However sharp the contradiction, though, it still happens. Indeed, the very form of a workers' state (rather than a stateless communist society) implies the necessity of some political powers being wielded by a centralized and bureaucratic authority to the exclusion of having all these functions of governance devolve onto loose collectivities of undifferentiated 'people' (or workers) at a local level.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2014, 20:14

State Capitalism perhaps, but definitely not Free Enterprise. In Pure Capitalism, everything is privatized. Whereas in the CCCP, most principle industries were nationalized. If the USSR was Pure capitalist, it's economy would have been growing instead of being stagnant (albeit at the expense of the proletariat).

The Soviet Union had grown to a size large enough to the point where it became cumbersome to continue state planning. The massive and intricate Soviet economy became too large to manage by state planners, who were unwilling to enable more autonomy at mid-managerial level to remain responsive down to a localized level. This resulted in failed economic policies (failure to respond timely to continuous changes), while thwarting innovation. Managers commonly fudged numbers to show that quotas and goals were being met.

State Capitalism, which favored the government and authorities more than anything. The USSR was not in any way Pure Capitalism.

Are you an 'anarcho-capitalist'? I don't know any Anarchists who think that the USSR was anything other than capitalist, and I don't know any Anarchists who would regard state management of the economy of any other country as being other than capitalist.

ToxicAcidRed

30th January 2014, 22:44

Are you an 'anarcho-capitalist'? I don't know any Anarchists who think that the USSR was anything other than capitalist, and I don't know any Anarchists who would regard state management of the economy of any other country as being other than capitalist.
The USSR was in fact State Capitalist (Lenin even admitted so in his writings) but it was in no way Free Enterprise.

#FF0000

30th January 2014, 22:49

I think the use of the term "Pure capitalism" is what confused people here, ToxicAcidRed. I think it's more accurate to use the term "Laissez-Faire Capitalism".

Blake's Baby

30th January 2014, 22:49

The USSR was in fact State Capitalist (Lenin even admitted so in his writings) but it was in no way Free Enterprise.

'In fact' being 'state capitalist' does not mean that it wasn't 'capitalist'.

So, the Soviet Union was capitalist, yes?

'Free Enterprise' does not equate to the totality of 'capitalism'.

Sperm-Doll Setsuna

30th January 2014, 22:58

'In fact' being 'state capitalist' does not mean that it wasn't 'capitalist'.

So, the Soviet Union was capitalist, yes?

'Free Enterprise' does not equate to the totality of 'capitalism'.

'Free Enterprise', in reality, is an empty political slogan, it should be added. It does not reflect any sort of economic reality; nor is there such a thing as 'pure capitalism', this is just lolbertarian posturing.

Blake's Baby

30th January 2014, 23:15

That was my suspicion. They didn't give an answer to the question 'are you an anarcho-capitalist'?' even though I thought it was pretty straightforward.

Equating state control of the economy with anything other than 'capitalism' is always suspect in my book. OK, you expect it from Stalinists, but from 'Anarchists' it tends to imply 'an-caps'. Odd how much 'an-caps' and Stalinists agree with each other.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

30th January 2014, 23:46

Five Year Plan

31st January 2014, 18:26

Hillel Ticktin is wrong, it's that simple. Anyone who understands what Marx talks about, should understand that Ticktin is a loon. Law of value people, law of fucking value....it matters.

"Read Marx. The law of value still operated, so there was capitalism. You are an imbecile if you don't see this." <---- Is this all you say in every thread that talks about the Soviet Union? I didn't find it a particularly useful contribution the first time I saw it, and I certainly haven't changed my mind the intervening fifty times you've said it, either.

Dave B

31st January 2014, 19:18

It wasn’t just Lenin who described Bolshevik Russia as state capitalism, from 1918-1923.

Trotsky himself did in 1922;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm

as did all the “best authorities on the communist doctrine” at the time.

As Pavel Nikolayevich Milyukov the leader of the Russian Bourgious Kadet party noted in 1922;

However, according to the best authorities on the communist doctrine, it was not communism. It was "State capitalism."

Milyukov had read Lenin’s stuff and freely quoted from Lenin.

We need a theory from Trotsyists on how Russia went from state capitalism under Lenin and Trotsky to an ‘implicitly’ non state capitalist “degenerate workers state” under Stalin.

Dave B

31st January 2014, 19:58

PAUL MILIUKOV was quite savvy and up to speed and is well worth a read for the opinion of the ‘other side’. The Kadets were in fact quite liberal and a tad left of centre by today’s standards and despised the “whites” as reactionary shits.

THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM.

We have seen the origin of Bolshevism and we now
know its aims, both in internal and in external policy.
We know that in their internal policy the Bolsheviks
never intended to introduce real communism in Russia
and were satisfied with "State Capitalism/' for which
they are even ready to substitute "State Control," if
only they can get a new lease of life at the price of
this concession. We also know that their chief interest
has been centered in their foreign policy, as their only
aim has always been to bring about a world revolution.

What is the result of the long experiment which has
lasted for four full years? The Utopian dreams have
gradually receded to the background, while realistic
tactics has been becoming an aim for and in itself. The
achievement of the World Revolution has had to be
postponed. Now the Bolsheviks are reaching the point
when — in one way or another — they will be forced
formally to repudiate their experiment in "incomplete"
communism. The "dictatorship of the proletariat"
will be the last thing they will concede, and this is
practically the only thing they really achieved — if you
pass over "the proletariat" part of it and explain the
"dictatorship" as a survival of old autocratic methods,
in their crudest medieval form, of a rule by direct vio-
lence.

188

THE DECLINE OF BOLSHEVISM 189

Of course, the Bolsheviks themselves explain their
utter failure by that unforeseen circumstance that the
world proletariat was too slow to follow their example.
No communist State, they argue, can exist in the midst
of the capitalist States. With the same reason some
sectarians finally admitted that no "sons of God" can
carry on their paradisic existence among the "sons of
evil." The argument is poor because it begs the ques-
tion, whether sons of God can exist at all in this world
of sin.

The real explanation of the Bolshevist failure is, of
course, much simpler than that. No human society
that consumes without producing can exist. Bol-
shevism has only succeeded in building a huge machine
of bureaucracy and warfare while at the same time it
has destroyed all incentive for industry and trade and
has had to live on the natural produce of an equally
ruined agriculture. History knows one single…

http://archive.org/stream/russiatodaytomor00mili/russiatodaytomor00mili_djvu.txt

Brotto RÃ¼hle

1st February 2014, 19:40

"Read Marx. The law of value still operated, so there was capitalism. You are an imbecile if you don't see this." <---- Is this all you say in every thread that talks about the Soviet Union? I didn't find it a particularly useful contribution the first time I saw it, and I certainly haven't changed my mind the intervening fifty times you've said it, either.

"It is sometimes asked whether the law of value exists and operates in our country, under the socialist system. Yes, it does exist and does operate. Wherever commodities and commodity production exist, there the law of value must also exist." - Stalin...with still a better understanding of Marx than you...which is horrible, considering his understanding is atrocious.

As we understand from Marx, the law of value is a specific entity of the capitalist mode of production. Do you need anything else, are you still not convinced?

Which variety of Trot are you again? The "The transitional mode of production just means that both the capitalist and socialist exists side by side!" or the "The transitional mode of production is a unique mode!!"??

RedMaterialist

1st February 2014, 21:50

When Lenin mentioned "state-capitalism" he was talking about the NEP and arguing that state ownership of the "commanding heights" of the economy would be necessary during the transition to socialism, and that small business capitalism would be allowed to produce consumer goods, etc.

Another way to describe this is "market socialism," which is what the Chinese are using now. The Chinese state owns the gigantic industries, banking, transportation, energy production and while small industry builds IPhones and makes blue jeans It's true that the petit-bourgeois can get extremely rich, pollute rivers and exploit workers, but the question, though, is whether market socialism or state-capitalism is a transition to communism or a regression to capitalism.

I don't think the value question is really an issue. Under capitalism the working class (and before them, slaves and serfs) produces surplus value. The capitalists appropriate this value for themselves. In socialism, it is the state which appropriates the value and distributes and invests it according to a social plan. This is what made it possible for the Communist Party in the Soviet Union to create an industrial power in two decades.

It's also made it possible for China to become a world economic power in 30 yrs.

Market socialism is also working in Vietnam. The Vietnamese people have pulled themselves out of extreme poverty after defeating the most powerful military in history. I recall watching old videos of the Vietnamese in the 60s during the American War (that's what the Vietnamese call it.) They were mostly very thin and short. Today if you watch videos or live TV of the Vietnamese it is remarkable how much weight and height they have added.

I see the same thing here with immigrants from Mexico and Central America. They are usually shorter and less physically developed than Americans. But their children are just as developed as American children. (Fast food and bovine growth hormone, I guess.)

An exception, I think, is North Korea. If the economic planning is done by hereditary insanity, then that is what you get.

Tim Cornelis

1st February 2014, 21:58

^
RedMaterialist, by that logic the Congo Free State was socialist. And Iran, and Belarus, and India, and Saudi Arabia, and...

RedMaterialist

1st February 2014, 22:34

^
RedMaterialist, by that logic the Congo Free State was socialist. And Iran, and Belarus, and India, and Saudi Arabia, and...

Not socialist, but market-socialist or national socialist. Hitler and Stalin have definitely given national socialism a bad name. But, what is socialism in one country, but national socialism? Hitler, of course, was a national capitalist.

I didnt' think the Indian state owned much of anything, except a few nuclear weapons.

Sinister Intents

1st February 2014, 22:37

Not socialist, but market-socialist or national socialist. Hitler and Stalin have definitely given national socialism a bad name. But, what is socialism in one country, but national socialism? Hitler, of course, was a national capitalist.

Perhaps I'm over thinking this, but do you honestly think that national socialism is socialism in anyway? Nazism is national socialism! It in no way is any form of socialism whatsoever. It's fascism plain and simple. Hitler was a National Socialist, look at the NSDAP, thats the National Socialist German Worker's Party, and in no fucking way are they socialist.

Tim Cornelis

1st February 2014, 22:42

Not socialist, but market-socialist or national socialist. Hitler and Stalin have definitely given national socialism a bad name. But, what is socialism in one country, but national socialism? Hitler, of course, was a national capitalist.

Yeah but that has nothing to do with what I said. The Congo Free State was socialist according to your logic: state monopoly on all trade and production. Do you agree with this?

It's mind boggling how you can consider contemporary Vietnam or China socialist. You have no understanding of socialist theory whatsoever. Honestly, I don't have the patience to explain how wrong you are. I've tried doing it before, and it's like talking to a brick wall. Educate yourself, you are not a materialist notwithstanding your name.

RedMaterialist

1st February 2014, 22:44

Perhaps I'm over thinking this, but do you honestly think that national socialism is socialism in anyway? Nazism is national socialism! It in no way is any form of socialism whatsoever. It's fascism plain and simple. Hitler was a National Socialist, look at the NSDAP, thats the National Socialist German Worker's Party, and in no fucking way are they socialist.

German National Socialism obviously wasn't socialism in any sense, which is why Hitler started murdering socialists and communists as soon as he got in power.

You're confusing the name of something which what it actually is.

Sinister Intents

1st February 2014, 22:46

German National Socialism obviously wasn't socialism in any sense, which is why Hitler started murdering socialists and communists as soon as he got in power.

You're confusing the name of something which what it actually is.

The national socialists were always anticommunist and antisocialist I'm pretty sure. What am I confusing at all?

RedMaterialist

1st February 2014, 22:47

Yeah but that has nothing to do with what I said. The Congo Free State was socialist according to your logic: state monopoly on all trade and production. Do you agree with this?

It's mind boggling how you can consider contemporary Vietnam or China socialist. You have no understanding of socialist theory whatsoever. Honestly, I don't have the patience to explain how wrong you are. I've tried doing it before, and it's like talking to a brick wall. Educate yourself, you are not a materialist notwithstanding your name.

I said they were market socialists, or state-capitalists, if you like. State ownership of the means of production is socialist. See Marx, Communist Manifesto. The Congo Free State was a colony.

Sinister Intents

1st February 2014, 22:48

I said they were market socialists, or state-capitalists, if you like. State ownership of the means of production is socialist. See Marx, Communist Manifesto.

The Communist Manifesto is early Marx. State ownership is not socialist, socialism cannot have a state.

RedMaterialist

1st February 2014, 22:51

The Communist Manifesto is early Marx. State ownership is not socialist, socialism cannot have a state.

Fully developed socialism will not have a state.

Sinister Intents

1st February 2014, 22:56

Fully developed socialism will not have a state.

"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State." Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution.

Yeah, yeah got that, I'm not a Leninist. Used to like Leninism though.

Tim Cornelis

1st February 2014, 23:21

I didnt' think the Indian state owned much of anything, except a few nuclear weapons.

Then your thinking is wrong. Iran, India, Saudi Arabia's commanding heights are all state owned, or were at some point in history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India#Pre-liberalisation_period_.281947.E2.80.931991.29

Indian economic policy after independence was influenced by the colonial experience, which was seen by Indian leaders as exploitative, and by those leaders' exposure to British social democracy as well as the progress achieved by the planned economy of the Soviet Union.[56] Domestic policy tended towards protectionism, with a strong emphasis on import substitution industrialisation, economic interventionism, a large public sector, business regulation, and central planning,[60] while trade and foreign investment policies were relatively liberal.[61] Five-Year Plans of India resembled central planning in the Soviet Union. Steel, mining, machine tools, telecommunications, insurance, and power plants, among other industries, were effectively nationalised in the mid-1950s.[62]

I said they were market socialists, or state-capitalists, if you like.

Then be clear about your terminology. Also, properly, it's called a socialist market economy, not market socialism.

State ownership of the means of production is socialist.

Ok, so the police, military, post office, are socialist? Slave societies were socialist? You're unbelievably dense.

See Marx, Communist Manifesto.

I doubt you've ever read any Marxist literature.

The Congo Free State was a colony.

No it wasn't. It was an independent state. Congo became a colony in 1908. And regardless, according to your logic, the Congo Free State was socialist, since its economy was entirely state owned and controlled.

Five Year Plan

2nd February 2014, 01:07

As we understand from Marx, the law of value is a specific entity of the capitalist mode of production. Do you need anything else, are you still not convinced?

As we understand from Marx? Where do you see from Marx that the law of value is specific to capitalism? Do you even know what the law of value is, and how it has multiple dimensions, only some of which manifest themselves under capitalism proper?

Engels, who must not have understood Marx's ideas at all, was very clear on how the law of value applies outside of the capitalist mode of production:

Marx’s law of value applies universally, as much as any economic laws do apply, for the entire period of simple commodity production, i.e. up to the time at which this undergoes a modification by the onset of the capitalist form of production. . . . Thus the Marxian law of value has a universal economic validity for an era lasting from the beginning of the exchange that transforms products into commodities down to the fifteenth century of our epoch. But commodity exchange dates from a time before any written history, going back to at least 3500 B.C. in Egypt, and 4000 B.C. or maybe even 6000 B.C. in Babylon; thus the law of value prevailed for a period of some five to seven millennia. (Capital Vol. 3, p. 1037)Your statement, in contrast, claims that capitalism existed in ancient hunter-gatherer societies, where the law of value did apply in an elementary form when commodity exchange took place. But feel free to keep parroting your substance-free talking point in every thread that remotely touches on the Soviet Union.

Tim Cornelis

2nd February 2014, 01:46

Your statement, in contrast, claims that capitalism existed in ancient hunter-gatherer societies, where the law of value did apply in an elementary form when commodity exchange took place.

What? Hunter-gatherers didn't exchange commodities.

Five Year Plan

2nd February 2014, 01:54

What? Hunter-gatherers didn't exchange commodities.

Of course they did, according to the law of value, per what Engels said in the quote I provided. But does that make them capitalist? According to Rae Spiegel, it does.

cantwealljustgetalong

2nd February 2014, 03:29

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 03:49

Ok, so the police, military, post office, are socialist? Slave societies were socialist? You're unbelievably dense.

I doubt you've ever read any Marxist literature.

"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."

No it wasn't. It was an independent state. Congo became a colony in 1908. And regardless, according to your logic, the Congo Free State was socialist, since its economy was entirely state owned and controlled.

The Congo Free State was entirely owned by King Leopold of Belgium.

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 04:01

The national socialists were always anticommunist and antisocialist I'm pretty sure. What am I confusing at all?

Well, if they were anti-socialists why did they call themselves National Socialists? The Nazis were always anti-communist and anti-Bolshevik; but Hitler always claimed he was a "socialist."

Marx described Hitler's kind of socialism perfectly in the Communist Manifesto, in the section "German or True Socialism." :

"It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of this model man, it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature."

That Marx was able to describe this "socialism" 75 yrs before the Nazis came to power is just another example of his genius.

Psycho P and the Freight Train

2nd February 2014, 05:01

There is a lot of pretentious intellectualism in this thread. Not that I am discouraging intellectualism, but to an extent, it just gets ridiculous. Many of these terms are arbitrary and have multiple meanings depending on who you even ask. I think the fact that leftists argue over such petty nonsense is asinine.

That being said, if I have to choose between those two terms, I would say it was a deformed workers' state. You people make the claim that "oh the USSR was never a workers' state so how could it be deformed?" Well, I'm pretty sure a revolution in which councils of WORKERS dominated by a communist party led an uprising, only to begin immediate nationalization of industry and programs aimed at distributing supplies to everyone….. I would certainly call that a workers' state. Some of you are a little too….. conceptualist. As in, you think that if there isn't a simultaneous worldwide revolution in which money is IMMEDIATELY abolished, it is not a workers' movement. The fact is, that line of thinking will never ever ever get anything accomplished. The USSR had a lot of failures but it also had a lot of successes and it did start out as a workers' revolution and a workers' state. Certain leaders in the USSR led to its failure, but nevertheless it started out as a great experiment in socialism.

cantwealljustgetalong

2nd February 2014, 10:16

There is a lot of pretentious intellectualism in this thread. Not that I am discouraging intellectualism, but to an extent, it just gets ridiculous. Many of these terms are arbitrary and have multiple meanings depending on who you even ask. I think the fact that leftists argue over such petty nonsense is asinine.

That being said, if I have to choose between those two terms, I would say it was a deformed workers' state.

I mostly agree that people often take theoretical differences too seriously, especially (but not exclusively) on the internet. But frustration with theoretical debates does not absolve one of getting their theory straight, and your post reflects your (seemingly willful) inattention to detail. I hope you'll reconsider your approach.

What you go on to describe in your post, a government that starts out as a worker's state that becomes corrupt later, is a 'degenerated' worker's state and not a 'deformed' worker's state. That may sound like a 'conceptualist' nitpick, but the two words demarcate two commonly agreed upon, concrete governments of different origin even if they end up looking the same. As explained earlier in the thread, 'degenerated' was used by Trotsky to explain the situation you describe in Russia. Later Trotskyists used the concept of the 'deformed' worker's state, as in born 'degenerated' without ever being a true worker's state, as a means of defending China, North Korea, Cuba, and every other dictatorship with red flag window dressing.

Blake's Baby

2nd February 2014, 11:59

"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."

And what do you think this set of actions is for, RedShifted?

Is it a) to establish 'teh communizmz';
or to b) establish the revolutionary power of the workers in one area?

And to which period in history do you think these actions are intended to apply, RedShifted?

Were they a) written in the period when capitalism was still developing and intended to apply to that period;
or b) were they written when capitalism was developing and intended to apply for all time as Marx & Engels had stolen a crystal ball from a Gypsy fortune-teller?

I'll give you a clue. By 1880, Marx and Engels had already said that the measures proposed in 1847 - the '10 planks' that you quote - had become obsolete, as capitalism itself had already carried most of them out.

Of course, you can argue that this justifies Marx and that capitalism is communism and even that we are now living in communism if you wish; but you've departed so far from a marxist analysis of the world that you couldn't even see it with a radio-telescope.

Tim Cornelis

2nd February 2014, 13:12

10 planks

I anticipated this. No wonder you think Sweden is progressing toward socialism. I'm just going to give up.

The Congo Free State was entirely owned by King Leopold of Belgium.

Yeah, so? The Congo Free State's economy was entirely state owned and controlled, with quotas for production and no private trade by producers permitted. A monopoly on trade and production of commodities by the state, i.e. socialism in your warped mind.

Five Year Plan

2nd February 2014, 16:43

The point is not whether the law of value regulated any exchange at all throughout history, but whether it is the dominant way of regulating economic activity. Replacing production for exchange-value with production for use-value in a large-scale coordinated world economy, and replacing universal social discipline by the law of value with rational democratic planning, is the entire point of the socialist transitional project. I think it's hard to get around Rae's conclusion, even if you take Russia to have been a degenerated workers' state, which I increasingly do.

The law of value cannot regulate economic activity without having a class of individuals whose economic reproduction depends upon extracting the maximum amount of surplus from the direct producers. That is how the law of value acts as the mechanism of social "planning." We call this class of individuals "capitalists." And without them, you have commodity production and "the law of value," but not capitalism.

Trotskyists like me argue that when workers smash the bourgeois state, and replace it with a state of their own that proceeds to nationalize industry under its own authority, you obviously continue to have commodity production and value operating within the economy as a result of the continuing economic anarchy and (hopefully shrinking) sections of the economy that are not yet being democratically planned. But you no longer have a capitalist class. Instead, the people in the highest positions of authority within the workers' state are people whose reproduction, by definition, depends upon the revolutionary agency of the workers, and not the continual renewal of maximized exploitation, in the same way that a feudal lord who pays wages seasonally to a few additional hired hands might be engaging in commodity exchanges, but still depends for his reproduction on extracting agricultural rent from his serfs.

To pretend that there is no difference between a workers' state and a bourgeois state is to pretend either that a state is not at its core an economic institution (in which case you are making the same error as libertarians who think that the state is some kind of corrupter of capitalism); or it is to dismiss the distinction the between a capitalist state founded up and geared toward propping up capitalist exploitation, and a workers' state founded upon workers' revolutionary desire to smash capitalism.

Either mistake basically dismisses the October Revolution as a step sideways, a mistake I can't see how any serious Marxist could be prepared to make.

Sinister Intents

2nd February 2014, 17:02

Well, if they were anti-socialists why did they call themselves National Socialists? The Nazis were always anti-communist and anti-Bolshevik; but Hitler always claimed he was a "socialist."

They used socialist rhetoric against the working class, and workers thought it would benefit them, but fascism is corporatism taken to it's fucking extreme. Fascism does not equal socialism in any way, and national socialism is fascism no matter how you fucking cut it, I used to like nazi fucking bullshit. Don't piss me off.

Marx described Hitler's kind of socialism perfectly in the Communist Manifesto, in the section "German or True Socialism." :

1000 times no. The Commust Manifesto is early Marx, have you even fucking read Marx, have you read Capital? I somehow don't think you did, it's a long careful read. Marx's Capital is tantamount to socialism.

"It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of this model man, it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature."

I'm beginning to get the feeling you don't belong here. Why the fuck are you using Marx's works to justify national socialism when it in no way is fucking socialism?

That Marx was able to describe this "socialism" 75 yrs before the Nazis came to power is just another example of his genius.

Do you seriously think the fucking Nazi's were socialist and that Hitler was some kind of fucking socialist?

National Socialism (http://www.cracked.com/funny-2976-national-socialism/)
Nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism)

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 17:19

They used socialist rhetoric against the working class, and workers thought it would benefit them, but fascism is corporatism taken to it's fucking extreme. Fascism does not equal socialism in any way, and national socialism is fascism no matter how you fucking cut it, I used to like nazi fucking bullshit. Don't piss me off.

1000 times no. The Commust Manifesto is early Marx, have you even fucking read Marx, have you read Capital? I somehow don't think you did, it's a long careful read. Marx's Capital is tantamount to socialism.

I'm beginning to get the feeling you don't belong here. Why the fuck are you using Marx's works to justify national socialism when it in no way is fucking socialism?

Do you seriously think the fucking Nazi's were socialist and that Hitler was some kind of fucking socialist?

National Socialism (http://www.cracked.com/funny-2976-national-socialism/)
Nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism)

Hitler was a socialist in name only, exactly as Marx described "the exact contrary of its real character"...is it really so hard to understand? Hitler was a fascist, not a socialist, he was "directly opposing the 'brutal tendency of communism." Hitler, the fascists and his capitalist allies invaded Russia to destroy communism, again, exactly as Marx described.

Almost from the beginning of my reading this site I have found a lot of people here, for some reason, are unable to understand the clear, precise and revolutionary language Marx used. Why is this?

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 18:58

And what do you think this set of actions is for, RedShifted?

Is it a) to establish 'teh communizmz';
or to b) establish the revolutionary power of the workers in one area?

Either or both.

And to which period in history do you think these actions are intended to apply, RedShifted?

The period of history of the transition from capitalism to socialism.

Were they a) written in the period when capitalism was still developing and intended to apply to that period;
or b) were they written when capitalism was developing and intended to apply for all time as Marx & Engels had stolen a crystal ball from a Gypsy fortune-teller?

Capitalism has been developing since the 16th century and is still developing. Capitalism was a global, financial and industrial monolith in 1848, and controlled by capitalists in Europe. Marx made that clear in the Manifesto. Where in the 1872 preface did Marx say that capitalism has now finally developed and we should abandon the 10 "planks."

I'll give you a clue. By 1880, Marx and Engels had already said that the measures proposed in 1847 - the '10 planks' that you quote - had become obsolete, as capitalism itself had already carried most of them out.

Where does Marx say that?

Here is what Marx actually said in 1872 about the 1848 Communist Manifesto:

"However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Association, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated."

It is clear Marx thought that after a revolution, the working class cannot merely take hold of the existing state-machinery, but would have to create an entirely new state. Once the working class begins to function as a state then all bourgeois relations would be destroyed, such as private property ownership of any kind. It would be logical to conclude that it's not necessary for the proletariat to take over the large industries because they already hold power over those industries by view of their control over the state.

Facing completely new historical, political, and economic conditions, Lenin and the Bolsheviks created a new state. Their first act, after the Civil War, was to nationalize all production; they tried to implement the 10 "planks" of Section II of the Manifesto by applying them to the whole economy. But Marx never said everything should become state-owned, only the major industries. Lenin later changed policy under the "commanding heights of the economy," plan. Stalin disagreed with this (as did many of the Communist Party) and we know the results.

The revolution first succeeded in Russia, a country in which capitalism had not fully developed. The conditions for the implementation of socialism were different from 1848 and 1880 in Western Europe, so it's not surprising that the Bolsheviks used different strategies to move toward socialism.

As far as the welfare state, such as in Sweden, it is clear, except to the wild-eyed purists, that a workers' revolution is not imminent. So why should schemes like national health insurance, national pension plans, minimum wage, worker participation (in some cases 50%) on boards of directors of large corporations, union representation in the workplace (rapidly diminishing in the U.S.), etc.? All of these things are characteristics of socialism, they are not fully developed socialism. These things retain capitalist characteristics, such as being based on wage-labor, unequal pay for unequal labor, as shown by Marx in the Gotha Program.

Where are the socialists and communists working to improve the condition of the working class and demonstrating to the working class the class conditions of the welfare state? They are invisible because they believe they only give of their pure souls for the the purity of socialism.

It's no wonder people like you pissed Lenin off so much. Juvenile disorder indeed. What next? Your'e going to the next Spanish revolution, have your socialist feelings hurt and then write childish, juvenile books about the evils of communism?

They ought to have an "Orwellian Tendency."

Of course, you can argue that this justifies Marx and that capitalism is communism and even that we are now living in communism if you wish; but you've departed so far from a marxist analysis of the world that you couldn't even see it with a radio-telescope.

History justifies and validates Marx. Communism cannot come into existence until after the successful socialist revolution, destruction of the capitalist class, and after only the working class remains as a class. Then the state will wither and die.

During that transition socialism will retain some characteristics of capitalism. In other words, it will not be pure socialism. This impurity enrages the purity of essence of the Holy Family of The Pure Juvenile Communists.

Socialism may be able to finally overcome capitalism. Whether it will be able to overcome the righteous, the perfectly correct and perfectly idiotic ideological doctrine of the True Believers is another question.

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 19:00

I'm beginning to get the feeling you don't belong here.

National Socialism (http://www.cracked.com/funny-2976-national-socialism/)
Nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism)

Ah! A purge trial...Didn't Stalin think Trotsky was a fascist/Nazi sympathizer?

RedMaterialist

2nd February 2014, 21:32

Sinister Intents

2nd February 2014, 21:36

State ownership of the means of production is CAPITALISM!!! In 1848, a certain Karl Marx advocated the state ownership of the means of production. We now know the secret of history: Karl Marx was a CAPITALIST!!! (Cue Psycho music.

He advocated for that in the Communist Manifesto. Have you read Capital? I've read a good deal of the first volume and feel I should read it again. I wouldn't say he was a capitalist in any sense.

Queen Mab

2nd February 2014, 21:36

In 1848, a certain Karl Marx advocated the state ownership of the means of production

...so that capitalism could be fully developed to make socialism possible. Kinda like what Lenin said they had to do in Russia. Hence the implementation of the 10 planks.

Tim Cornelis

2nd February 2014, 22:24

State ownership of the means of production is CAPITALISM!!! In 1848, a certain Karl Marx advocated the state ownership of the means of production. We now know the secret of history: Karl Marx was a CAPITALIST!!! (Cue Psycho music.

I'm just going to say it: you are an unbelievable dumb ass.

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. The capitalist relation is not done away with.”

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/video-the-incoherence-of-transitional-society.html

The 10 planks of communism are indeed fully compatible with capitalism.

RedMaterialist

3rd February 2014, 00:46

The 10 planks of communism are indeed fully compatible with capitalism.

I'm going to say it now, you're a revisionist weasel.

From Vol II, Capital:

"The fact that the social capital is equal to the sum of the individual capitals (including the joint-stock capital or the state capital, so far as governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc., perform the function of industrial capitalists)..."

All this means is that the total social capital includes any capital of the state when it functions as a capitalist. To say that this proves that the Soviet Union was a capitalist is a stretch, to say the least.

When Marx wrote the Manifesto preface in 1872, it was clear that the English state was taking over more of the means of production, railways, for instance. And this means that Marx and Engels abandoned that part of the Manifesto? And therefore, Russia, a partly feudal, partly industrialized society, should not have used the same economic methods which helped turned England into the dominant economic power in the world?

Hitler was a bloodthirsty, brutal, murderous anti-communist. He did everything he could to kill every communist in Russia. The soldiers at Stalingrad needed bullets, guns, and tanks, i.e. steel, lots of it. And you want to give them a revised copy of the Communist Manifesto?

I'm sorry. According to you there were no communists in Russia, only capitalists and workers.

RedMaterialist

3rd February 2014, 00:47

The 10 planks of communism are indeed fully compatible with capitalism.

So what's the problem? The Soviet Union was not only a state capitalist but also communist???

Blake's Baby

3rd February 2014, 08:08

The ten planks of the Manifesto are fully compatible with capitalism, by virtue of not being communism. They are a programme for the further development of capitalism, which in Europe in the 1840s was a necessary precondition of socialism. Now (and indeed in Europe, or particularly Germany in the 1870s) it is not necessary.

Tim Cornelis

3rd February 2014, 23:30

I'm going to say it now, you're a revisionist weasel.

From Vol II, Capital:

"The fact that the social capital is equal to the sum of the individual capitals (including the joint-stock capital or the state capital, so far as governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc., perform the function of industrial capitalists)..."

All this means is that the total social capital includes any capital of the state when it functions as a capitalist. To say that this proves that the Soviet Union was a capitalist is a stretch, to say the least.

When Marx wrote the Manifesto preface in 1872, it was clear that the English state was taking over more of the means of production, railways, for instance. And this means that Marx and Engels abandoned that part of the Manifesto? And therefore, Russia, a partly feudal, partly industrialized society, should not have used the same economic methods which helped turned England into the dominant economic power in the world?

Hitler was a bloodthirsty, brutal, murderous anti-communist. He did everything he could to kill every communist in Russia. The soldiers at Stalingrad needed bullets, guns, and tanks, i.e. steel, lots of it. And you want to give them a revised copy of the Communist Manifesto?

I'm sorry. According to you there were no communists in Russia, only capitalists and workers.

No you idiot, you are saying state ownership = socialism, which it clearly isn't. Jesus Chris.

Geiseric

4th February 2014, 06:37

Thank you for making my point ahead of my response. I'd choose a kick in the balls rather than argue this for the rest of my life with objectively anti communists.

Geiseric

4th February 2014, 06:38

Blake's Baby

4th February 2014, 08:02

Thank you for making my point ahead of my response. I'd choose a kick in the balls rather than argue this for the rest of my life with objectively anti communists.

Yup because capitalism is socialism and British Rail was a Trotskyist utopia. 'Gub'mint = socialism! Gub'mint = socialism!' You utter fucking Obama-loving, Tea Party moron.

Blake's Baby

4th February 2014, 08:03

Whoops, double post caused by splenetic rage early in the morning.

Geiseric

5th February 2014, 02:57

Yup because capitalism is socialism and British Rail was a Trotskyist utopia. 'Gub'mint = socialism! Gub'mint = socialism!' You utter fucking Obama-loving, Tea Party moron.

You're the one who put up a false dichotomy here, not me. Have fun being insignificant for the rest of your life as I struggle to win things people need such as a living wage and education. You and the sparts who share your criticism of my groups actions will not be thrown into the dustbin of history, because you're already in it, facing a sad denial of the absolute bankruptcy of your ideas. The only difference between you and them is that they defend pedophiles.

Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist

5th February 2014, 03:23

You're the one who put up a false dichotomy here, not me. Have fun being insignificant for the rest of your life as I struggle to win things people need such as a living wage and education. You and the sparts who share your criticism of my groups actions will not be thrown into the dustbin of history, because you're already in it, facing a sad denial of the absolute bankruptcy of your ideas. The only difference between you and them is that they defend pedophiles.

So your groups has been around since 1991 right? That means they are about 23 years old right? The RSDLP came to be after merging a few sects of 20-100 people in 1898 and around 1916 their membership numbered in the ten thousands and beyond. So where is the Bolshevik-Leninist section of the Fourth International vanguard of the proletariat in America?

What's that you say, there is none even after twenty years? Is that because the praxis of your group has nothing to do with the historical praxis of the Bolsheviks? Or maybe its because you're entire idea of party building is inherently flawed and doesn't belong to the 21st century.

Geiseric

5th February 2014, 03:56

So your groups has been around since 1991 right? That means they are about 23 years old right? The RSDLP came to be after merging a few sects of 20-100 people in 1898 and around 1916 their membership numbered in the ten thousands and beyond. So where is the Bolshevik-Leninist section of the Fourth International vanguard of the proletariat in America?

What's that you say, there is none even after twenty years? Is that because the praxis of your group has nothing to do with the historical praxis of the Bolsheviks? Or maybe its because you're entire idea of party building is inherently flawed and doesn't belong to the 21st century.

Those people were already active in organizing unions for years. The best recent example of the success of our program has been the workers party of Algeria. The leadership conference alone numbered 3000 delegates from inside and outside the country. Louisa Hannoune is poised to win the presidency she should of won during the last election. I'm part of the same international as that group which I hold in as high regard as the Russian revolutionaries would of been viewed by European communists. They are the working class anti imperialists that I will support whereas you support Ghadaffi and Assad, mass murderers of people I hold in higher regard than the petty Marxists on this forum.

Considering the labor movement in the US is at the lowest point we've seen in a hundred years, it's obvious Stalinist and Maoist political parties which have had dominance since the 1940s are bunk. I'm surprised you'd even raise this point given the farce that is the communist movement has been since the original politics of bolshevism were strangled by people you adhere as revolutionaries, in purges you think are justified.

Five Year Plan

5th February 2014, 04:58

Brotto RÃ¼hle

7th February 2014, 01:35

As we understand from Marx? Where do you see from Marx that the law of value is specific to capitalism? Do you even know what the law of value is, and how it has multiple dimensions, only some of which manifest themselves under capitalism proper?

Engels, who must not have understood Marx's ideas at all, was very clear on how the law of value applies outside of the capitalist mode of production:

Your statement, in contrast, claims that capitalism existed in ancient hunter-gatherer societies, where the law of value did apply in an elementary form when commodity exchange took place. But feel free to keep parroting your substance-free talking point in every thread that remotely touches on the Soviet Union.

Been busy with moving and working. I'll respond in the next couple days.

cantwealljustgetalong

7th February 2014, 04:11

The law of value cannot regulate economic activity without having a class of individuals whose economic reproduction depends upon extracting the maximum amount of surplus from the direct producers. That is how the law of value acts as the mechanism of social "planning." We call this class of individuals "capitalists." And without them, you have commodity production and "the law of value," but not capitalism.
this is just dogma: position without argument. why does the law of value all of a sudden not apply when you don't have a formally recognized capitalist class? if whatever supposed non-capitalist actor is still coerced into expanding the productive forces though the capital valorization process, don't those making the decisions become the 'capitalists', even in a public form of surplus appropriation? is the private property form really what makes capitalism? if you can assert yes to this question without argument, I can assert no with the same support. we're just talking past each other. please address the argument.

To pretend that there is no difference between a workers' state and a bourgeois state is to pretend either that a state is not at its core an economic institution (in which case you are making the same error as libertarians who think that the state is some kind of corrupter of capitalism); or it is to dismiss the distinction the between a capitalist state founded up and geared toward propping up capitalist exploitation, and a workers' state founded upon workers' revolutionary desire to smash capitalism.
to pretend the class content of the state is identical to a mode of production is a worse error. a worker's state can only do so much isolated from the world, and from the the forces of production necessary to build socialism. the Bolsheviks knew they were doomed without the success of at least one major power in the revolutionary wave. to say building the forces of production necessary for socialism through state capitalism is a step sideways is just putting words in my mouth. you don't want to recognize the compatibility between a worker's state and state-capitalism.

Five Year Plan

7th February 2014, 05:38

this is just dogma: position without argument. why does the law of value all of a sudden not apply when you don't have a formally recognized capitalist class?

If it's dogma, it's dogma you clearly didn't understand at all before attempting a critique. The person I was arguing against said that the law of value only (and all of a sudden) applied under capitalism. I cited Engels' argument as support for my claim that the law of value applies to all commodity exchange, even that taking place outside of capitalism.

if whatever supposed non-capitalist actor is still coerced into expanding the productive forces though the capital valorization process, don't those making the decisions become the 'capitalists', even in a public form of surplus appropriation? is the private property form really what makes capitalism? if you can assert yes to this question without argument, I can assert no with the same support. we're just talking past each other. please address the argument.I never said the private property form is necessary for the existence of capitalism. You seem to be reading into my arguments a lot of assumptions that just don't exist. If you have an economic actor who is in charge of productive property, and has an economic interest in using it to accumulate by perpetually reproducing the subjection of labor power to the dictates of accumulation, that economic actor is, by definition, a capitalist who is participating in a capitalist mode of production.

to pretend the class content of the state is identical to a mode of production is a worse error. a worker's state can only do so much isolated from the world, and from the the forces of production necessary to build socialism. the Bolsheviks knew they were doomed without the success of at least one major power in the revolutionary wave. to say building the forces of production necessary for socialism through state capitalism is a step sideways is just putting words in my mouth. you don't want to recognize the compatibility between a worker's state and state-capitalism.Once more I have no idea where you think I am "pretending the class content of the state is identical to a mode of production." As I have said repeatedly in multiple threads on this forum, there have been social formations all throughout history where one mode of production is preponderant, but where another underpins the class basis of the state.

What determined the class basis of the Soviet state, which had nationalized virtually all productive property by the early 1930s, was whether those in control of productive property were a capitalist class or a caste of the working class charged with fulfilling whatever remaining bourgeois accumulative tasks remained to be performed as the world revolution hung in the balance.