Collectivization in the Soviet Union.

[(A)]

So I am reading a bit on the Economy of the USSR to figure out some stuff but I cant seam to separate the good from the bad. Its all a muddy grey color that I am not a fan of. I like to try and get to the route of things.

My Libertarian boss brought up the famine in Russia and the failure of
Collectivization that he said was caused by socialism.

Now reading about the "Kulaks" I am confused as to what is true and what is false. The information I gleamed would make me think the famine was caused by a primitive form of Economic Terrorism by the hands of the Land owners who did not want to give up there lands. (The slaughter of over a hundred million heads of livestock)

At the same time tho there are references to some rather equally horrible acts at the hands of the soviet bureaucracy in dealing with the Kulaks and then insufficiency in the collectivized farms.

Is this a situation where BOTH sides played a hand in the famine or am I missing something. What does Revleft think?

<I am just reading on the web so the source is not great; hence the confusion>

[exeexe]

USSR wanted to buy products from the modern world like machines so they could get industrialized. But there was a price to pay and USSR decided it should be payed in grain or some other agricultural product. So they confiscated/collected a lot of grain and sold it to the rich western world.
Now im no expert on how grain production works but i think if you take all the grain then you cant grow grain again the next season because you need some seeds.
People were now starving but they were not beaten. So people tried to escape from the most farmine hit areas but USSR would have none of that. If people got out they could tell the world about the atrocities USSR were conducting on their own population. So instead of letting people escape from areas of farmine, people were hold back and trapped. And now people started to die in big numbers.

There is this famous picture (trigger)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/GolodomorKharkiv.jpg
What does it show?
It shows firstly that people dying in the street was the new normal and people had therefore stopped paying attention to it
It also shows that the trap wasnt in a small confined area like a concentration camp. but covered a huge area therefore people died in the street

[(A)]

From what I read the land (farm) owners resisted the change from the NEP to the first five year plan that would collectivize there private property. They not only refused to sell their food to the starving population but when threatened with collectivization they slaughtered one hundred million head of livestock. The USSR did not recover to the 1926 level of livestock till after the second world war.

Now on the other side of the coin the way Stalin handled this is still talked about when it comes to human rights abuses and is a prime example of why the USSR was a such a bad example of the Socialist idea.

[exeexe]

From what I read the land (farm) owners resisted the change from the NEP to the first five year plan that would collectivize there private property. They not only refused to sell their food to the starving population but when threatened with collectivization they slaughtered one hundred million head of livestock.

NEP didnt collectivized private property. It only nationalized big companies.


Accordingly, the 10th Party Congress in March 1921 introduced the measures of the New Economic Policy. These measures included the return of most agriculture, retail trade, and small-scale light industry (http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/340618/light-industry) to private ownership and management while the state retained control of heavy industry, transport, banking, and foreign trade.
http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/411387/New-Economic-Policy-NEP

Also it doesnt really matter what USSR did or what the landlords did because a big part of Ukraine were already collectivized by the anarchist in 1918 or so. But ofcourse this had to be killed so the Vanguard party could take the credit for the collectivisation. So USSR send in the red guard and killed not only the anarchists but also gave everything back to the landlords. The famine that happened years later is just a result of the vanguard party, like Lenin and Trotsky being counterrevolutionary.

If you wanna present a collectivization to your boss which did not cause a famine you can present to him the anarchist collectivization.

[bropasaran]

My Libertarian boss brought up the famine in Russia and the failure of
Collectivization that he said was caused by socialism.
There was nothing remotely like socialism in the USSR after 1917. Litmus test for socialism is- is there workers' control over production, or are workers bossed around? In USSR, the nomenklatura was the boss, a very brutal one. Lenin and Trotsky banned, persecuted and destroyed not only all socialists but even dissident movements within bolshevism that wanted a milder form of state-capitalism (meaning a system where the state apparatus is the main or sole capitalist above the working people). You should reject the misconception that USSR was socialist which is assumed in these kinds of arguments.

Proudhon wrote more then half a century before the USSR:

"We do not want to see the State confiscate the mines, canals and railways- that would be to add to monarchy, and more wage slavery."

Kropotkin wrote near the end of the 19th century:

"worship of the State, of authority and of State Socialism, which is in reality nothing but State Capitalism, triumphed in the ideas of a whole generation."

And earlier said how we "cannot look upon the coming revolution as a mere substitution ... of the State as the universal capitalist for the present capitalists."

Socialists have talked about what would be the consequences of establishing this kind of system many decades before it was first established. Bakunin:

"In reality it would be for the proletariat a barrack regime, where the standardized mass of men and women workers would wake, sleep, work and live to the beat of the drum; for the clever and the learned [it would be] a privilege of governing. At home it will be slavery, in foreign affairs a truceless war, ... unless these peoples resign themselves to submit to the yoke of an essentially bourgeois nation and a State all the more despotic because it will call itself the People's State."

"this – the organization and the rule of the new society by socialist savants – is the worst of all despotic governments! ... It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!"

[Brutus]

There was nothing remotely like socialism in the USSR after 1917. Litmus test for socialism is- is there workers' control over production, or are workers bossed around?

Socialism, though, is a classless, wage-less and stateless society. Therefore there was nothing remotely like socialism at any time in the USSR, or the entire world. Workers' control can still take place under capitalism, and will not end exploitation because it is Capital, rather than the bourgeois class, that is responsible for the exploitation of the proletariat. All workers' control means is that the working-class manages its own exploitation.

Litmus test for a bullshit post is: is the author Impossible?

[(A)]

NEP didnt collectivized private property. It only nationalized big companies.


I know; The change from the NEP to the five year plan is what lead to the situation arising.

Other than than thank you all for the help.
Are there any incites directly between the USSR and the "Kulaks"?

[bropasaran]

Socialism, though, is a classless, wage-less and stateless society. Therefore there was nothing remotely like socialism at any time in the USSR, or the entire world. Workers' control can still take place under capitalism, and will not end exploitation
First I want to address the starting theoretical points. If were to talk about socialism as a an economic system, there is nothing illogical in advocating a state socialism where the state is a parliamentary system of even a monarchy, as long in that kind of framework the state is to stay out of the economy so as to not establish itself as the boss of the workers or exploit them by rentiering or charging intrest. Also, historically socialists have advocated state socialism where the state was to be transformed into a (directly) democratic one, and it can be said that today some left-communists are exactly that kind of socialists.

Secondly, about the existance of socialism. The problem with thinking in this direction you are thinking in is that is assumes clear-cut definition of scope built into definitions of general terms, and there is no such thing, but it depends on the context and sometimes must be explicitly stated. Talking about "socialism" doesn't address the scope of it, it assumes something general, but doesn't necessarily imply neither it itself, let alone what kind of generality. Therefore, there can exist a socialist country or region, or to adress you third sentance- a socialist firm. Of course, socialists don't advocate establishment of some socialist firms, or establishement of some socialist regions, but advocate a socialist economy everywhere, but you have to realize that those two specifications ("entire economy", and "everywhere") are not encompassed in the term "socialism" per se; they can implied by context, that is- by intention of people using the term. This is a point of logic and rational discourse, we must accept the fact that there is nothing impossible with a situation where Irealand has a socialistic economy and Great Britain has a capitalistic one. Without acknowledging these facts of rational discourse we could end up with making false statmenents like "All workers' control means is that the working-class manages its own exploitation" which is false in multiple ways. That statement, along with the one:

"Workers' control can still take place under capitalism, and will not end exploitation because it is Capital, rather than the bourgeois class, that is responsible for the exploitation of the proletariat."

also shows that you don't seem to have any idea of what exploitation actually is. To give a straight-forward explation, exploitation is the extraction of "surplus value" from the workers, which can happen in two ways- in the sphere of production- by alienation of labor and/ or assumed alientation of it's produce, and in the sphere of circulation by extracting value in exchange for permission of use of anything that is accepted to be owned by the lessor.

Another point concerning this- if workers achieve control in a single firm and are not exploited in circulation- they in fact have ended exploitation- for that firm and themselves who are in it. Of course, as I have said- socialists don't advocate abolition of exploitation in this or that firm, but everywhere, but to assume that if exploitation is not abolished everywhere it is not abolished anywhere is the false dichotomy fallacy.

[consuming negativity]

Collectivisation was not a failure of socialism but a failure of Stalin and the rest of the central committee to strike a moderate position between a continuation of the NEP and a collectivisation which was necessary to meet the productive needs of the USSR. Lenin and the rightists were correct to recognize that the situations in the USSR at the time required a certain amount of leeway to the peasantry, particularly after they were devastated during the civil war. The NEP was a strategic retreat, in the words of Lenin, aimed at gaining peasant support and increasing production. However, by the late 1920's, more production was still needed. In Stalin's mind, this meant that the goals of the left opposition, among whom was Trotsky who had been expelled from the Party, were now a necessary step forward. And people like Bukharin who were still rightists bumped against Stalin for this which was later used to implicate them in the purges.

Practically speaking, the collectivisation was too much too quickly, and the peasantry felt as though they were being robbed. Understand, what constituted a kulak is not a specific term like bourgeoisie but is an ambiguous term to mean a subsistence farmer with a decent amount of livestock and land. Hence why so much of the livestock was slaughtered. Much of it belonged to kulaks. The resistance against collectivisation was not seen as Stalin as a failure of his policies, rather, he blamed it on the reaction of the kulaks and said they were being counter-revolutionary to oppose the party. His numbers did not match up to the ones he expected, and the disobedience of the peasants played against them, although he is right that they were partially responsible and also that they were hoarding grain to some extent. But collectivisation could have been accomplished without the slaughtering of livestock had the Bolsheviks played their cards better. At the end of the bloodshed, in which peasants were restricted in movement so that they could not go and get food (which is why it is viewed by many as a purposeful killing), the collectivisation was ultimately a victory, even if it was pyrrhic. It was accomplished and did lead to an increase in production. But that is about all that can be said about it which is good. It was a huge mismanagement which could have been prevented, which turned more or less into a mass killing by the end.

[exeexe]

Practically speaking, the collectivisation was too much too quickly, and the peasantry felt as though they were being robbed.
No it wasnt too quick they just didnt want to be collectivised by Moscow. It was too far away, too centralised and out of any control of the farmers.

[consuming negativity]

No it wasnt too quick they just didnt want to be collectivised by Moscow. It was too far away, too centralised and out of any control of the farmers.

Too far away? Heh. That it was too quick and that the peasants didn't have much of a say are essentially the same criticism if one takes into account that my belief is that a greater care should have been taken to get the peasants on board as much as possible, which would have taken time. Unfortunately, the USSR decided that time was more important than courting the peasantry. They may have been right, too. It is easy to criticize after the fact.

[Brutus]

First I want to address the starting theoretical points. If were to talk about socialism as a an economic system, there is nothing illogical in advocating a state socialism where the state is a parliamentary system of even a monarchy, as long in that kind of framework the state is to stay out of the economy so as to not establish itself as the boss of the workers or exploit them by rentiering or charging intrest. Also, historically socialists have advocated state socialism where the state was to be transformed into a (directly) democratic one, and it can be said that today some left-communists are exactly that kind of socialists.

Socialism is the set of conditions that result from the destruction of capitalism. If there still exists the law of value, Capital, generalised commodity production, and so on, then there is capitalism- not socialism- despite whether workers control the means of production. When the means of production are owned in common (not just by the people who work them) and production is organised in correspondence with a common, scientific plan according to need, then we will have socialism. Since everyone will have the same relations to the means of production, there will be no class.

Now, I would address the rest of your post but I'm a) on holiday b) drunk and c) tired. I'll respond to the rest in the morn.

[Five Year Plan]

First I want to address the starting theoretical points. If were to talk about socialism as a an economic system, there is nothing illogical in advocating a state socialism where the state is a parliamentary system of even a monarchy, as long in that kind of framework the state is to stay out of the economy so as to not establish itself as the boss of the workers or exploit them by rentiering or charging intrest.

Brutus might really be drunk, but I feel drunk after having read this. Socialism as an economic system under a monarchical state? And your tendnecy is "Bakuninist"? Oh my.


Also, historically socialists have advocated state socialism where the state was to be transformed into a (directly) democratic one, and it can be said that today some left-communists are exactly that kind of socialists.

Really? What are these "state socialist" societies you are describing? North Korea, by any chance?


Secondly, about the existance of socialism. The problem with thinking in this direction you are thinking in is that is assumes clear-cut definition of scope built into definitions of general terms, and there is no such thing, but it depends on the context and sometimes must be explicitly stated.

This sounds like a convoluted way of you saying you disagree with the idea that words have definitions that distinguish one word or concept from another. Is your problem with Brutus's definition of socialism? Well, then explain why his definition is wrong or inferior. Don't declare war on the very notion of definitions.


Talking about "socialism" doesn't address the scope of it, it assumes something general, but doesn't necessarily imply neither it itself, let alone what kind of generality.

Now I am beginning to wonder if you are drunk.


Therefore, there can exist a socialist country or region, or to adress you third sentance- a socialist firm.

What is your definition of socialism?


also shows that you don't seem to have any idea of what exploitation actually is. To give a straight-forward explation, exploitation is the extraction of "surplus value" from the workers, which can happen in two ways- in the sphere of production- by alienation of labor and/ or assumed alientation of it's produce, and in the sphere of circulation by extracting value in exchange for permission of use of anything that is accepted to be owned by the lessor.

Exploitation, the extraction of surplus value, does not happen in the sphere of circulation. The distribution of surplus value already extracted occurs in circulation. To claim otherwise is to propose that a circulation process itself creates surplus value, which is then extracted from the people who engage in the circulation process.

Give us an example of a circulation process that creates surplus value, please.

[Five Year Plan]

there is nothing illogical in advocating a state socialism where the state is a parliamentary system of even a monarchy

https://i.imgflip.com/a5q79.jpg

[bropasaran]

Socialism is the set of conditions that result from the destruction of capitalism. If there still exists the law of value, Capital, generalised commodity production, and so on, then there is capitalism- not socialism- despite whether workers control the means of production.
What is law of value?

There is no capital if there is no exploitation, being that capital is that property which is used to exploit people.

Commodity production is neither the same thing as capitalism nor is it necessarily connected to it- it is possible to have a non-capitalist system of general commodity production and it is possible to have a capitalist system without any commodity production.



When the means of production are owned in common (not just by the people who work them) and production is organised in correspondence with a common, scientific plan according to need, then we will have socialism. Since everyone will have the same relations to the means of production, there will be no class.
Not everyone would have the same relations to the means of production. The workers in factory would be the workers and the majority of the population would be the substitute 'boss', it would be the proverbial tyranny of majority people accuse us of advocating, which obviously some people do advocate. As Malatesta said- "Imposed communism would be the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive." and the most detestable tyranny that the human could conceive certainly cannot have anything to do with emancipation of the working people, which is socialism.


Brutus might really be drunk, but I feel drunk after having read this. Socialism as an economic system under a monarchical state?
Yes. If in that kind of framework the state is to stay out of the economy so as to not establish itself as the boss of the workers or exploit them by rentiering or charging intrest- that society would have a socialist economy. It would not be a socialist society, but it would be a society with a socialist economy.


Really? What are these "state socialist" societies you are describing? North Korea, by any chance?
Does NK have "socialism where the state is transformed into a (directly) democratic one"? It has neither socialism nor a directly democratic state.


This sounds like a convoluted way of you saying you disagree with the idea that words have definitions that distinguish one word or concept from another.
Yes, me pointing out that we shouldn't use terms as if they have in their definitions something they don't means that I think that words shouldn't have definitions that distinguish them among each other.


What is your definition of socialism?
If we take socialism as to refer only to the economic sphere then socialism (or a socialist economy) is the emancipation of labor(ers) by abolition of exploitation. If we take socialism to refer to society as a whole, then socialism (or socialist society) is the emancipation of the (working) people by abolition of oppression and exploitation.

Oppression is any established relation of hierarchy/ domination; exploitation is the extraction of "surplus value" from the workers, which can happen in two ways- in the sphere of production- by alienation of labor and/ or assumed alienation of it's produce, and in the sphere of circulation by extracting value in exchange for permission of use of anything that is accepted to be owned by the lessor.


Exploitation, the extraction of surplus value, does not happen in the sphere of circulation.
If we take the original socialist theory, as developed by the first socialist thinker- Thomas Hodgskin, then yes, it does. If we take the reformulated socialist theory of labor, as developed by Proudhon- then too, yes, it does.

If we take Marx as authoritative- we don't know, because he himself doesn't know, and says that this specific question is a "contradiction" in his "general formula of capital". According to interpretation of Engels, Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and Bukharin of Das Kapital- exploitation doesn't happen in circulation; according to interpretation of Michael Heinrich, Christopher J. Arthur and similar people, who interpret the terminology of Vol. 3 of Capital literally- then exploitation does happen in circulation. According to the first interpretation- rentiers and usurers are not exploiters, which is ludicrous; according to the second one- all traders are exploiters, which is equally ludicrous.