Does Marx's Theory of Fixed Stages Need Revision?

[William Hathaway]

In Crisis and Change Today Peter Knapp and Alan J. Spector suggest modifying Marx's theory of fixed stages, holding it partially responsible for the failure of attempts to build socialism. This will strike some Marxists as revisionist heresy, but their arguments are worth considering:




We think a fundamental, radical rethinking of Marx from within a Marxist perspective is needed if we are to learn from the past. Some people argue that all the failures to sustain socialism -- the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba, Venezuela, Poland, Chile, and many other places -- have the same form: one divides the process of change into several stages, a bourgeois-democratic stage, a nationalist stage, a "new democracy" stage, or whatever. This means that in the early stage, the concern need not be with real communism -- with the policies and structures which one needs in a truly noncapitalist society. And the reason for postponing all that is in order to make an alliance with various (capitalist) groups which would be hostile to a truly noncapitalist society. Thus, concessions of various kinds are made to them: nationalism, inequality, restricted private employment, etc. But these concession always become the tail that wags the dog.

The grandfather of all these stages is Marx's distinction between "socialism" and "communism," and we think that the attempt to maintain that distinction always fails. Recall that "socialism" was supposed to be a system which maintained the wage system and inequality while abolishing profits and maintaining a political state similar to the capitalist state, while establishing formal working class control of it. There are not many places where Marx uses this distinction, but there are some....

No doubt a revolutionary party can only abolish a wage system of unequal pay in the areas and institutions where it gains control and has highly committed mass support. Popular alternatives to state apparatuses have to be set up one at a time. However, it might be that setting up a whole system of unequal wages and state bureaucracies merely slows down and then stalls the process of convincing people to do without them. And what if the entire system involves convincing people that inequality is a positive good? That does not seem like a way to move to an egalitarian system. Some people say that more people can be convinced to get rid of profits than to get rid of inequality. It is an empirical question. In a sudden, structural shift -- depression, fascism, war, or revolution -- it might well be easier or no more difficult to convince people to get rid of inequality altogether. (266)

In the Soviet Union, in China, and in every other case where the working class has been able to gain power, we think power was retrieved by capitalists (now "managers," "bureaucrats," "experts," or new "elites") in the following generation. The fundamental elements of abolition of wages and abolition of the state were not maintained. Why?...

Within the middle of the hurricane of class struggle, we can understand the terrific pressure to give concessions and to succumb to short-term policies. But when this short-sightedness becomes institutionalized, Marxism has given way to another variety of capitalism. (270)

Some compromise is unavoidable. So the essential, dialectical question is: which compromises are realistic and which ones lead to abandoning the movement toward egalitarianism? The question is difficult because the people and policies which lead to reversing the whole thrust of movement will not announce themselves as such.... The people whose policies led to reversing the whole movement often did not realize that that is what they were doing. We think that the essential, logical, theoretical basis of concessions of principle is the conception of the process of change in terms of fixed stages. To retreat is not always a betrayal of principle. But to make retreat into a strategy -- to declare that inequality, nationalism, elitism, sexism, and selfishness are acceptable or desirable at a certain stage -- has led to the defeat of past Marxist movements. It is one thing to admit to being too weak to overcome certain aspects of capitalism, but it is another to conclude that the time is not ripe even to mount some kind of struggle against those policies. (271)

Knapp, P., Spector, A.J. (2011) Crisis and Change Today. (2nd ed.) Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.



Knapp and Spector's ideas are worthy of discussion. On the side of revising the theory is the fact that revolutionary momentum is very hard to restart once it has halted. Perhaps making the abolishment of the state an immediate priority rather than a distant goal would gain us the support of some anarchists, which could offset the increased bourgeois opposition. Perhaps the stages could be viewed as an emergency transition period of months rather than decades.

[Dodo]

I am not sure I understand what is meant by "fixed stages". Is it referring to history and transformation of modes of production or stages within a capitalist system?

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

"Marx and Engels never speculated on the detailed organization of a future 'socialist' or communist society. The key task for them was building a movement to overthrow capitalism". That makes your argument redundant with regards to Marx's ideas. I can confirm this from my reading of the Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology and so on. On the other hand, some adherents of Orthodox-Marxism and anything related (e.g. anything somewhat related to Lenin or Kautsky's official political ideologies) might find your presented argument, when properly recalibrated and targeted at the right people, a little disagreeable.

In other words, the argument you presented (but which is not yours, just in case you think I've made that error) is fit for some serious amendment. Once it challenges its own misconceptions it can be used to criticise what it's really meant to be targeting.

[tuwix]

We think a fundamental, radical rethinking of Marx from within a Marxist perspective is needed if we are to learn from the past. Some people argue that all the failures to sustain socialism -- the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba, Venezuela, Poland, Chile, and many other places -- have the same form: one divides the process of change into several stages, a bourgeois-democratic stage, a nationalist stage, a "new democracy" stage, or whatever.

This assumes that in those countries there were socialism, but it wasn't sustained. It's false assumption. The last time on those territories when there was any form socialism, it was time of the primitive communism, but those states haven't existed yet.

[Red Economist]

Knapp and Spector's ideas are worthy of discussion. On the side of revising the theory is the fact that revolutionary momentum is very hard to restart once it has halted. Perhaps making the abolishment of the state an immediate priority rather than a distant goal would gain us the support of some anarchists, which could offset the increased bourgeois opposition. Perhaps the stages could be viewed as an emergency transition period of months rather than decades.

According to Soviet Marxism-Leninism: The Decline of an Ideology by Alfred B. Evans, there was a discussion over the transition between socialism and communism in the USSR in the 1930's and what such changes would involve. It was stamped out by Stalin, so in a way this is reviving an issue that was never settled.

I think the idea of abolishing the state as an immediate goal is "impossible" because you still have to have someway of keeping the antagonistic relations between classes in socialism in check and prevent a counter-revolution, but this view does lend itself quite quickly to the "aggravation of the class struggle under socialism" theory by Stalin which justified mass repressions.
I suspect it might be a more specific question over what actually constitutes a 'worker's state' and what socioeconomic conditions are required for one to develop without the existential problem of bureaucracy under socialism/communism.


We think a fundamental, radical rethinking of Marx from within a Marxist perspective is needed if we are to learn from the past. Some people argue that all the failures to sustain socialism -- the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cuba, Venezuela, Poland, Chile, and many other places -- have the same form: one divides the process of change into several stages, a bourgeois-democratic stage, a nationalist stage, a "new democracy" stage, or whatever. This means that in the early stage, the concern need not be with real communism -- with the policies and structures which one needs in a truly noncapitalist society. And the reason for postponing all that is in order to make an alliance with various (capitalist) groups which would be hostile to a truly noncapitalist society. Thus, concessions of various kinds are made to them: nationalism, inequality, restricted private employment, etc. But these concession always become the tail that wags the dog.

This has clearly ultra-leftist leaning and makes a great point, but personally I think it may under-estimate the objective economic and technical limitations to overcome capitalist production relations in the early stages of socialism. You can't simply will communism into existence; you still need the support of non-capitalist groups (such as the petit bourgeoisie and peasantry) to have a 'working' economic system under socialism/communism as they play a role too. i.e. There are only so many people you can piss off. it cannot simply be a battle solely between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie even if this is the most fundamental conflict of capitalist society.


Some compromise is unavoidable. So the essential, dialectical question is: which compromises are realistic and which ones lead to abandoning the movement toward egalitarianism? The question is difficult because the people and policies which lead to reversing the whole thrust of movement will not announce themselves as such.... The people whose policies led to reversing the whole movement often did not realize that that is what they were doing. We think that the essential, logical, theoretical basis of concessions of principle is the conception of the process of change in terms of fixed stages. To retreat is not always a betrayal of principle. But to make retreat into a strategy -- to declare that inequality, nationalism, elitism, sexism, and selfishness are acceptable or desirable at a certain stage -- has led to the defeat of past Marxist movements. It is one thing to admit to being too weak to overcome certain aspects of capitalism, but it is another to conclude that the time is not ripe even to mount some kind of struggle against those policies.

Marxism is a bit 'odd' in the Far left in that it does not seek 'equality of outcome' (except maybe in the long-term) but wishes to abolish the inequality arising from the existence of social classes. There is scope for belief in 'inequality' under communism in Marxist thought; the problem of course is determining a difference between what inequalities are 'natural' and which ones are the product of class distinctions (and may therefore conceal the threat of communism being a new 'class' society).

[Luís Henrique]

As far as I am informed, Marx doesn't have a "Theory of Fixed Stages".

Luís Henrique

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

This assumes that in those countries there were socialism, but it wasn't sustained. It's false assumption. The last time on those territories when there was any form socialism, it was time of the primitive communism, but those states haven't existed yet.

To be fair, I think some, if not all, of the places mentioned have seen authentic socialism to varying degrees - though in all cases it was suppressed in short measure. Surely the free soviets in Russia and Ukraine, moments of the cultural revolution in China, some points of community control in Venezuela, etc., etc. have been fundamentally communist if falling short of Communism.

My point being, I think it's dangerous to see the state as the state sees the state - to imagine its sovereignty as absolute within its borders, and its character (in all cases neither socialist or communist) as fundamentally definitive of all relations within it. So, for example, we can look at the Venezuelan state and say, "OK, that's not socialist", but that doesn't necessarily mean we can't look at examples which appear ostensibly "within" Venezuela and say, "Oh, that's socialist."

[Slavoj Zizek's Balls]

It's clear that Marx didn't have a fixed theory of stages, so lets focus on re-arranging the argument to criticise Communist and Marxist theory which endorses fixed stages of socio-political-economic change.

[Dave B]

According to Lenin Marx did and it was writ through all his work;


Anyone interested in Marxism and in the experience of the international working-class movement would do well to pander over this! One rarely meets with such amazing ignorance of Marxism as that displayed by Mr. N. Rakitnikov and the Left Narodniks, except perhaps among bourgeois economists.

Can it be that Mr. Rakitnikov has not read Capital, or The Poverty of Philosophy, or The Communist Manifesto? If he has not, then it is pointless to talk about socialism. That will be a ridiculous waste of time.

If he has read them, then he ought to know that the fundamental idea running through all Marx’s works, an idea which since Marx has been confirmed in all countries, is that capitalism is progressive as compared with feudalism. …….Only anarchists or petty-bourgeois, who do not under stand the conditions of historical development


https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm

[Luís Henrique]

According to Lenin Marx did and it was writ through all his work;


https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm

Oh well,

first, Lenin is not the final authority in terms of Marx interpretation (hell, he didn't even have access to all Marx's writings, many of which were only published after his death);

second, realising that capitalism is progressive compared to feudalism isn't a "Theory of Fixed Stages";

third, the supposed "fixed stages" that this thread (or at least the OP; our threads might be in dire need of huge doses of ritalin) refers to aren't capitalism, feudalism, etc, but stages in the transition between capitalism and communism.

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

pander


I swear I'm not usually hyper-critical over language usage, but just wondering -- isn't this an incorrect use of the word 'pander' -- ? It looks like it should be 'ponder' instead....

[Dave B]

Well first I think Lenin was a gobshite and I hate him so if anything I don’t have a predisposition to exaggerate his interpretation of Marx.

Stagiesm for me, as a Marxist materialist theory, is the inevitability that the full development capitalism has to or will precede socialism/commumism.

Actually I have to confess a humanist moralist I have a prejudice against it.

There was of course a wide ranging historical set of ideas and theories re transition between capitalism and (full) communism.

They included Bernstienist reformism, Kautskyists and pre Kautskyists nationalisation of the means of production, imaginary gold money, state socialism, state capitalism and Deleonist/Bukharin labour vouchers and various fusions thereof etc.

Lenin’s model for what it matters was to reform state capitalism towards socialism which is what ‘building socialism’ meant.

There is another argument for passing from capitalism to socialism via syndicalism.


Are you a syndicalist?

[sellout]

<&quot;>As far as I am informed, Marx doesn't have a "Theory of Fixed Stages".</&quot;>

I second this. With the exception of Marx's basic chronological epochs based on a history of class warfare, in which we see the roots of the concept of the "pre-proletarian" peasantry, I'm not familiar with "fixed stages."

I'm also not at all familiar with Knapp or Spector, so I have nothing to say on them specifically, at least not beyond the excerpt provided. The excerpt sounds not well related to the thread topic, honestly (unless the thread topic is "I just read this book and want to talk about it"). The excerpt provided sounds less about "fixed stages" and more like a convoluted reference to the bit from the Manifesto wherein readers were instructed to first take up communism with their own nations as a stepping stone toward forming an international communism.

But I also come from a school that separates Theoretical Marx from Political Marx. With Theoretical Marx, we see Marx's breakdown of how capitalism works, its relationship with the State, its historical origins and trajectory, the principle of all history as class warfare and thus Marx's historical materialism (i.e. not Hegel's idealism, Renan's nationalism, or Spencer's Social Darwinism). All of these things are pretty basic analytical tools, but they aren't mandates for any action in particular. We can analytically classify a "class in itself," but that's about it.

With Political Marx, we have little more to go on than the mandate that "working men of the world unite." There's little to work with beyond the dual ambiguities that (1) ruling classes govern over subordinate classes through ideology (i.e. not mere violence) and (2) this problem will be solved through intellectual leadership (e.g. the Comintern) and an eventual "dictatorship of the proletariat." Thus it is via Political Marx that time has given us countless examples of countless different interpretations of and applications of Marxism. How should intellectuals lead? What is the role of media in this struggle? How can a "class in itself" be made into a "class for itself"? And what the hell is a "dictatorship of the proletariat"?

Going by the excerpt provided, I think that what Knapp and Spector are missing is the fact that the "socialist" or "communist" failures (Cuba, China, USSR, Argentina, etc) that everyone cites as proof of Marx's obsolescence failed not <i>as communist</i> but because they all went nationalistic, never breaking from the tribalisms, clientelisms, croniages, caciquismos and personality cults that transcend the political spectrum. None were willing to implode the State itself, because doing so would be both orthodox Marxism and naive.

If there is any temporal dynamic to any of this, I tend to think that any attempt to revise it should consider the role that technology has in giving space more priority than time.

[Lev Ulyanov]

Trotsky's Law of Combined Development already does much to dispute the theory of 'fixed stages' (which is not a Marxian but a Leninist, and to a certain degree, Engelsian concept). My view on this is that whilst the long-term pursuit should always be communism in its full form, short-term pursuits (and a revolution, in the scheme of things, is a short-term pursuit) should be aimed at specific goals - these goals are generally attributed to the "transitional society", or socialism in the Leninist sense. Things like the closed market, state exploitation rather than bourgeois exploitation, education, etc. are essential to the overthrow of the capitalist political economy. Since the economy is more basic, and conditions politics in the last instance, initial efforts should focus on the changing of political structures and, most crucially (as Gramsci points out) change of political hegemony. The change of the political aspects of capitalist society would correspond with the stage of socialism; when the final elements of capitalist economy, including commodity exchange and fetishism, the reserve army, etc. etc. are overthrown, that would be communism.

The law of combined development, amply proven by Trotsky through historical examples brought in A History of the Russian Revolution, means that the order in which these changes take place is not fixed - some may be skipped altogether. It is in this sense that the notion of "fixed stages" does not hold water. The Garbage Disposal Unit points out that you can have elements of communism within societies which are not communist; I would modify this statement. To my mind, communism is the final end, the 'end of history' as Hegel puts it - complete, not partial. Socialism is the process of transition to this end, not a definitive whole - it exists as separate elements which are individually identifiable.

[Dave B]

The orthodox interpretation of Marx’s theory was that a communist revolution depended on, as a precondition, the full development of capitalism.

And that was the common interpretation of non-Leninists like Kautsky and Otto Rühle from at least say 1905.

Eg


Otto Rühle, From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution, 1924



When the socialists in the Russian government, after the victory over tsarism, imagined that a phase of historical development could be skipped and socialism structurally realised, they had forgotten the ABC of Marxist knowledge according to which socialism can only be the outcome of an organic development which has capitalism developed to the limits of its maturity as its indispensable presupposition. They had to pay for this forgetfulness by a wide, troublesome and victim-strewn detour which brings them in a space of time to capitalism.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/ruhle/1924/revolution.htm

This was as clearly stated by Karl as it could be, even as regards Russia;

Works of Karl Marx 1874, Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy



Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people. And if it is to have any chance of victory, it must be able to do immediately as much for the peasants as the French bourgeoisie, mutatis mutandis, did in its revolution for the French peasants of that time. A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! But here Mr Bakunin's innermost thoughts emerge. He understands absolutely nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker (whether in the form of wage-labourer, peasant etc.), he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level [...] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm

The reasons are spread out in Marx’s works which are not that easily summarised in a post.

Later, or perhaps from 1905, if not before various political persuasions coming from different positions including, the Bakuninists, Bernstienists, Narodniks and of coarse Trotsky’s ‘pseudo-intellectual and utterly meaningless’ permanent revolution theory challenged that viewpoint.

As well as Kautsky himself perhaps with his;

(c) Socialist Money

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm

Lenin in fact, the pragmatic, did not actually break with his own stagiest theory when he saw the necessity of developing or reforming one party, non democratic [state] capitalism as the path to socialism.

Nor did Mao



The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.
1. In the last three years or so we have done some work on this, but as we were otherwise occupied, we didn't exert ourselves enough. From now on we should make a bigger effort.
2. With more than three years of experience behind us, we can say with certainty that accomplishing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce by means of state capitalism is a relatively sound policy and method.
3. The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme[1 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#en1)] should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. "Clearly understood" means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism. So far this has not been the case either with members of the Communist Party or with democratic personages. The present meeting[2 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#en2)] is being held to achieve that end.
4. Make steady progress and avoid being too hasty. It will take at least three to five years to lead the country's private industry and commerce basically onto the path of state capitalism, so there should be no cause for alarm or uneasiness.
5. Joint state-private management; orders placed by the state with private enterprises to process materials or manufacture goods, with the state providing all the raw materials and taking all the finished products; and similarly placed orders, with the state taking not all but

most of the finished products -- these are the three forms of state capitalism to be adopted in the case of private industry.
6. State capitalism can also be applied in the case of private commerce, which cannot possibly be dismissed by "excluding it". Here our experience is limited and further study is needed.



http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html

[Anderson]

That's lot of hotch-potch ! Uncle Sam will be happy to see ..........

[Raskilonikov]

The old paradigm of the "....dangerous class, the social scum ... the lowest layers of old society ....[as] a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue is where the revision needs to take place. The proletariat today itself is fighting hard for their very own private property, and we all know any form of private property is theft! The Workers, this class is not going to revolt when they covet the very same thing the bourgeois has. If any real revolution is going to take place in our life time it is going to come from the Lumpen: The Tramp, the Hobo, the Junkie, the Pimp, the Prostitute, the Poor, the Hungry, the Lonely, the Gay/Lesbian, Black/White/Brown/Yellow, the Depressed, the Criminal, the Con, the Ex-con, the Abused, the Murdering angst filled Adolescent/Teenager, the Immoral, the Unethical, the Angry, the Bullied, the Unattractive, the Uneducated, the Biker, the Unemployed, the Diseased, the Lumpen of all nations. Millions of us are chained in Plato's Cave, desperate to escape, but afraid of the unknown.
We have been found wanting with the only weapons we have left; our minds and our rage for equality that has been progressively decreasing as the Bourgeois stops sharing its food, makes our drugs more attractive, imprisons us, hold back life saving medicine, stigmatizes, stereotypes, spit at us. hates us and so on... We decree this day that we will fend off these wolves, peel off their sheep's clothing and unchain ourselves out-from-under a system that savagely eats their own children, regurgitates them, eats them again interpreting it all as progress, digesting every last nutrient we have for the sake of profit.

[Luís Henrique]

Stagiesm for me, as a Marxist materialist theory, is the inevitability that the full development capitalism has to or will precede socialism/commumism.

That is, of course, the main meaning of "stageism". It is in that sence that Stalinism or Menshevism are "stageist".

It is a false theory because there is no such thing as "full development of capitalism".


Are you a syndicalist?

What does "syndicalist" mean in this context? No, my political positions aren't "syndicalist"; yes, I am a trade unionist in the sence that I am part of a trade union, and of its directive bodies.

Much against my will, must I say.

Luís Henrique

[Dave B]

The Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.)1 (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1921/03/08.htm#1)
March 8 - 16, 1921



The point is that a number of nationalities, chiefly Tyurk—comprising about 25,000,000 people—have not been through, did not manage to go through, the period of industrial capitalism, and, therefore, have no industrial proletariat, or scarcely any; consequently, they will have to skip the stage of industrial capitalism and pass from the primitive forms of economy to the stage of Soviet economy.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1921/03/08.htm






V. I. LENINTWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL-DEMOCRACYIN THE DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION




(http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1921/03/08.htm)





Marxism has irrevocably broken with the ravings of the Narodniks and the anarchists to the effect that Russia, for instance, can avoid capitalist development, jump out of capitalism, or skip over it and proceed along some path other than the path of the class struggle on the basis and within the framework of this same capitalism.


page 44

All these principles of Marxism have been proved and explained over and over again in minute detail in general and with regard to Russia in particular. And from these principles it follows that the idea of seeking salvation for the working class in anything save the further development of capitalism is reactionary. In countries like Russia, the working class suffers not so much from capitalism as from the insufficient development of capitalism. The working class is therefore decidedly interested in the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.



The removal of all the remnants of the old order which are hampering the broad, free and rapid development of capitalism is of decided advantage to the working class. The bourgeois revolution is precisely a revolution that most resolutely sweeps away the survivals of the past, the remnants of serfdom (which include not only autocracy but monarchy as well) and most fully guarantees the broadest, freest and most rapid development of capitalism.
That is why a bourgeois revolution is in the highest degree advantageous to the proletariat. A bourgeois revolution is absolutely necessary in the interests of the proletariat. The more complete and determined, the more consistent the bourgeois revolution, the more assured will be the proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie for Socialism. Only those who are ignorant of the rudiments of scientific Socialism can regard this conclusion as new or strange, paradoxical. And from this conclusion, among other things, follows the thesis that, in a certain sense, a bourgeois revolution is more advantageous to the proletariat than to the bourgeoisie. This thesis is unquestionably correct in the following sense: it is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie to rely on certain remnants of the past as against the proletariat, for instance, on

page 45
the monarchy, the standing army, etc. It is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie if the bourgeois revolution does not too resolutel..........



http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TT05.html#c6

[Dave B]

1919 - Menshevik alternative economic policy

"On the basic tasks for restoring the economy"

Resolution of the RDSRP [Menshevik] faction, prepared for the 7th Congress of Soviets (December 1919)



http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/korolev/mensh-19-7-cong.htm

[RedMaterialist]

Isn't "stageism" in its broadest sense something like this?

Tribalism > Patriarchy > Slavery > Feudalism > Capitalism > Socialism-Communism. Marx never drew any clear boundaries between the stages, just that there was a materialist development from one stage to another.

And of the development from capitalism to communism, then

capitalism >national-capitalism, world-capitalism-imperialism (?), state-capitalism, national-socialism, state-socialism >

possible examples: 19th century Britain, France, U.S., early 20th century capitalism, Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, China (state capitalism) and western europe welfare state, state socialism.

[ckaihatsu]

Stalin's sounding like a Trotskyist and Lenin's sounding like a Stalinist -- (!)

[Dave B]

Broadly, Yes.

And as one system develops within another to later supplant it; as with capitalism in feudalism etc

However, 'the position', was that the last change would have to be revolutionary ie a catastrophic change because the developed means of production, ie capital, would have to be taken over in toto by the working class, as a democratic majority.

And would also have to mean the capitalist progressive destruction (economic conversion) of the ‘Proudhonist’ ‘petty bourgeoisie mode of production’ and the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ themselves ie the peasants, artisans and essentially the ‘self-employed’; along with their supposedly associated anti communist and anti collectivist ideology.

That is why it is necessary to have read;



…..read Capital, or The Poverty of Philosophy, or The Communist Manifesto? If he has not, then it is pointless to talk about socialism. That will be a ridiculous waste of time.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/jun/19.htm

Also in tandem to this the means of production and technology would need to have developed to a stage where;




………each to produce of his own accord as much as he can, the productivity of labour being so high and the quantity and variety of products so immense that everyone may be trusted to take what he needs..



http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm

There were particularly later a 1001 revisions to this ‘Marxist’ idea, and more than you can shake a stick at. Starting with the more benign like labour vouchers, actually an idea that Marx clearly didn’t like as in Grundrisse.

To Kautskyist socialist imaginary money, Bernstienism, Fabianism, state socialism, nationalisation, [total] Bolshevik State Capitalism and permanent revolution or Stalin’s soviet style economy.

Whether or not in a backward Feudal country.

Others thought, one way or another, that capitalism could be skipped in another way by forming trading federations of co-operative syndicates.

Which could be understood as intermediate ‘petty bourgeoisie mode of production’.

One such kind of movement originated in the 1840’s France which Karl went onto to attack after initial sympathy ie cabets Icarian movement.

Which was for setting up self sustaining communist colonies etc.


It was also the basis of the idea of Duhring as critiqued in Ante-Duhring.


It is possible that as capitalism progresses the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ can realise that their game is up and they are going nowhere but down and become communists.


I am attempting to just lay out the ideas, without prejudice.

[ckaihatsu]

It is possible that as capitalism progresses the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ can realise that their game is up and they are going nowhere but down and become communists.


In revolutionary terms how much of a 'swing state' would the petty bourgeois be, roughly?

My understanding -- and as evidenced by your words here -- is that revolutionaries don't need to take that middling layer into consideration, except as a possible knock-on effect from actual proletarian revolution.

[Dave B]

On the ‘petty bourgiousie’ I am trying to get across “the” idea, not necessarily my idea.

It is important to understand “the” idea if you want to try and make sense of Lenin etc and why the ‘Marxists’ hated the peasants.

To do that I am going to have to use hyperbole and stereotype; which does not reflect as it might seem any personal opinions.

The self employed peasant’s, artisan’s and shopkeeper’s ideology or mindset and aspirations, hopes and dreams are determined by their economic base or ‘what they do for a living’.

They don’t work co-operatively with each other or work with means of production that is not their personal property and over which as individuals they don’t have absolute control.

They pride themselves on the economic dependence of their productive private property and trade their produce with others if they can afford to pay for it.

That is their mission statement and they want to keep it that way; and in their little way they are as jealous of their ownership of the means of production as the big capitalists.

But when they find that they, like the handloom weavers, can’t compete economically with the big capitalists they get pissed off and smash machines and go on about things not being fare etc.

Well just before becoming catapulted into the class of the disposed wage slaves who they had reviled.

They can also actually become themselves, as they recognise, defacto wage slaves of particularly the big merchant and money capitalists.

Eg the small British dairy farmers being had over a barrel by the supermarkets.

Something similar that Karl commented on 100 years ago.


Without revolutionising the mode of production, it only worsens the condition of the direct producers, turns them into mere wage-workers and proletarians under conditions worse than those under the immediate control of capital, and appropriates their surplus-labour on the basis of the old mode of production. The same conditions exist in somewhat modified form in part of the London handicraft furniture industry. It is practised notably in the Tower Hamlets on a very large scale. The whole production is divided into very numerous separate branches of business independent of one another. One establishment makes only chairs, another only tables, a third only bureaus, etc. But these establishments themselves are run more or less like handicrafts by a single minor master and a few journeymen. Nevertheless, production is too large to work directly for private persons. The buyers are the owners of furniture stores. On Saturdays the master visits them and sells his product, the transaction being closed with as much haggling as in a pawnshop over a loan. The masters depend on this weekly sale, if for no other reason than to be able to buy raw materials for the following week and to pay out wages. Under these circumstances, they are really only middlemen between the merchant and their own labourers. The merchant is the actual capitalist who pockets the lion's share of the surplus-value.



http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch20.htm

They can also be up to their eyeballs in debt and become unsupervised wage workers being exploited and creating surplus value for their Monsanto seed creditors etc.

They may even be middleclass ex students being exploited twice; once by their immediate employer and second with the interest payments on their student loans.

Out of the ‘petty bourgiousie’ the artisans went down and became extinct first as what they produced could be reproduced more cheaply by expensive machines and the advantages of economies of scale.

That tended to affect the agricultural ‘petty bourgiousie’ less at first and indeed large scale agricultural capitalism is still a fairly new phenomena.

[Luís Henrique]

Stalin a Stageist????????????

Well, yes. Stalin was a stageist. But he was an opportunist more than a stageist, and would probably say things that seem anti-stageist if occasion and political expediency would require.

I am not sure who the "Tyurk" are or were, and how they would number 25,000,000 people, but Stalin was not operating in a vacuum. He was the heir of a revolution that claimed to have toppled capitalism; he couldn't simply go back and say that capitalism had to be built in Russia before socialism could be brought into the agenda.

Instead he had to conform with a different tale: that the capitalist stage of Russia's history was comprised between February (actually, March) and October (actually, November) 1917. That way he could maintain two different (and incompatible, but utterly necessary for his leadership) pieces of fiction: one, that Russia had already surpassed the capitalist mode of production, and two, that each other country in the world (except perhaps the central imperialist nations, where other tales were necessary) should undergo a bourgeois revolution first, and only after that seek a rupture with its national bourgeoisie.

That was pretty much the dogma within each and every Stalinist "Communist Party" in Latin America, Africa, or Asia.

To put it concisely, in a country like Brazil, we should, according to Stalinists,

1. have a bourgeois "democratic" revolution in alliance with the national, anti-imperialist, bourgeoisie;
2. then stage a coup and get rid of the national bourgeoisie;
3. then, through power state, we could probably "liberate" the national minories (probably, given the level of accuracy of Stalinist ethnography, some 25,000,000 Yanomami), from the burden of going from primitive socialism to modern communism via the intermediate stages of slavery, feudalism, and capitalism.

But #3 would only be possible because the national majority had gone from its alleged "semi-feudal" situation to socialism via a bourgeois revolution.

In practice, of course, the "national", "anti-imperialist" bourgeoisie much preferred an alliance with imperialism and latifundiaries against workers and peasants, than the other way round, which lead to the PCB's miserable and ridiculous defeat in 1964.

Which is the reason why Stalinist stageist strategy was a quite good recipe for disaster, here and elsewhere.


Is this Menshevik stageism?????

It seems a handful of tactical prescriptions intended to keep the economy minimally functioning, not a reasoning on the strategy needed to go from the present situation to communism, be it through stages or without stages. I don't see how it would lead to the conclusion that they were anti-stageists.

But actually, the Mensheviks, at least before the revolutionary situation, tended to think that Russia was already capitalist, and needed no bourgeois revolution at all (and so I may have been wrong in calling them stageists). This was generally tied to their insistence in an open, broad party. But I am not sure this was an actual reflection on strategy and/or economy, or an ad hoc justification of their organisational preferences, which were very much linked to their lack of resolve in the struggle against tsarism.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/ch03_j.htm

That's actually a quite good text, and it is worth quoting it in length:


It must be evident from the start that, if money is to be abolished, the only way to do so is to render superfluous the functions which money has hitherto fulfilled. Inflation, however, leaves these functions untouched; it only ruins the instrument with which they are fulfilled, and thus obstructs and disturbs the entire social life.

That's a pretty accurate description of "War Communism" and explains why it failed. Pity it was written by a philistine who supported imperialist war and counter revolution; if it was penned by someone more credible, it could perhaps have helped the situation in Russia.

But then I am just a "right communist", so what do I know... :grin:

Luís Henrique

[Vogelfrei]

Do not mean to dismiss all of those who attempted, adequately or otherwise to grasp and develop what is new in the crisis of capital before the collapse of the Stalinist bureaucracy but after all, it is all too easy for some (especially those who complain about the ‘inadequacies’ of Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, or even Marx and Engels as if they failed to make the impossible leap across two epochs!) to be all wise and knowing after the event. As a side note, this point reminds me of the German tragedy of 1933, when some of Trotsky’s supporters said ‘we warned you what was going to happen, you should have left the Comintern long ago,’ to which Trotsky replied ‘I’m sorry you are obviously clever than I and knew more than I did.’