Need some help with an essay I'm doing.....again

[Red Star Rising]

So I'm doing an essay on Marxism and Stalinism for a school project that needs to be 5-6,000 words or so. I have asked a few questions on this forum but right now I have hit a bit of a brick wall with this. The title (which I have shared here before) can be anything of my choosing so if there are any suggestions for changes to it I would welcome them:

"WOULD KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS CONSIDER THE SOVIET UNION BETWEEN 1920-1953 A BETRAYAL OF COMMUNISM?" (Sorry for the Caps)

What I need now are some good pointers for how to make a logical, reasoned critique of Stalinism and the soviet union from a Marxist perspective. Where should I start and what direction should go in. Many thanks.

[Creative Destruction]

I'd start here:

http://www.amazon.com/Marxist-Humanist-Theory-State-Capitalism-Raya-Dunayevskaya/dp/0914441302 (google around for the title to download or see if your library has it)

Here's an, essentially, shorter introduction for the book:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1941/ussr-capitalist.htm

[Vogel]

There is a primary source book written about the Russian revolution called 10 Days That Shook the World, by John Reed. He was a socialist journalist who was in Russia at the time.

Also, I find this analysis of the USSR's history to be very logical, well detailed, and actually uses Marx's own theories. The fellow giving the analysis is also very entertaining to watch, great speaker, and has been a Marxian economist for his entire adult life (He is 72 btw, an intelligent man by any person's standards).

vimeo.com/39724516 for the video specifically about the USSR.

rdwolff.com/content/marxian-class-analysis-theory-and-practice-online-course

If you like, this is the entire course on class analysis (5 videos in total, the one about the USSR is the 3rd).

Hope it turns out great :)

[Tim Cornelis]

Your title is your central research question, which is straightforward. I'd choose something more flashy:

Marx & The Soviet Union (title): An inquiry into Marx's position on Stalinism (subtitle). Or whatever. Something like that. Maybe 'Marx & Stalin': 'an inquiry into the diverging relation between the socialism of Marx and the Soviet Union'.

I think I said this before. Start with Engels and Marx's description of socialism.

For instance:

"Products made in a society of more or less separate private producers, and therefore in the first place private products. These private products, however, become commodities only when they are made, not for consumption by their producers, but for consumption by others, that is, for social consumption; they enter into social consumption through exchange. The private producers are therefore socially interconnected, constitute a society."

"From the moment when society enters into possession of the means of production and uses them in direct association for production, the labour of each individual, however varied its specifically useful character may be, becomes at the start and directly social labour. The quantity of social labour contained in a product need not then be established in a roundabout way; daily experience shows in a direct way how much of it is required on the average. Society can simply calculate how many hours of labour are contained in a steam-engine, a bushel of wheat of the last harvest, or a hundred square yards of cloth of a certain quality. It could therefore never occur to it still to express the quantities of labour put into the products, quantities which it will then know directly and in their absolute amounts, in a third product, in a measure which, besides, is only relative, fluctuating, inadequate, though formerly unavoidable for lack of a better one, rather than express them in their natural, adequate and absolute measure, time. Just as little as it would occur to chemical science still to express atomic weight in a roundabout way, relatively, by means of the hydrogen atom, if it were able to express them absolutely, in their adequate measure, namely in actual weights, in billionths or quadrillionths of a gramme. Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted “value”. *15

The concept of value is the most general and therefore the most comprehensive expression of the economic conditions of commodity production. Consequently, this concept contains the germ, not only of money, but also of all the more developed forms of the production and exchange of commodities. The fact that value is the expression of the social labour contained in the privately produced products itself creates the possibility of a difference arising between this social labour and the private labour contained in these same products."

Thus, the existence of commodity production and the sale and buying of labour-power contradict Marx's and Engel's ideas on what post-capitalism would look like.

[Red Star Rising]

Thanks for the replies, now, I have sorted out a definition of Marxism and am in the process of explaining it. Does anyone have any ideas for how I should structure the main bulk of the essay? What, do you think, are the main points of contradiction between Marxism and Stalinism? (Keeping in mind that I have a limited word count, so I think about five main sections + a conclusion is enough).

[Red Star Rising]

Your title is your central research question, which is straightforward. I'd choose something more flashy:

Marx & The Soviet Union (title): An inquiry into Marx's position on Stalinism (subtitle). Or whatever. Something like that. Maybe 'Marx & Stalin': 'an inquiry into the diverging relation between the socialism of Marx and the Soviet Union'.

Yeah, I also have to do a presentation so a less wordy title might be a good idea. Something like "From Marx to Stalin: An inquiry into the application of Marxism in the Soviet Union between 1920 and 1953." would work better.


"Products made in a society of more or less separate private producers, and therefore in the first place private products. These private products, however, become commodities only when they are made, not for consumption by their producers, but for consumption by others, that is, for social consumption; they enter into social consumption through exchange. The private producers are therefore socially interconnected, constitute a society."

"From the moment when society enters into possession of the means of production and uses them in direct association for production, the labour of each individual, however varied its specifically useful character may be, becomes at the start and directly social labour. The quantity of social labour contained in a product need not then be established in a roundabout way; daily experience shows in a direct way how much of it is required on the average. Society can simply calculate how many hours of labour are contained in a steam-engine, a bushel of wheat of the last harvest, or a hundred square yards of cloth of a certain quality. It could therefore never occur to it still to express the quantities of labour put into the products, quantities which it will then know directly and in their absolute amounts, in a third product, in a measure which, besides, is only relative, fluctuating, inadequate, though formerly unavoidable for lack of a better one, rather than express them in their natural, adequate and absolute measure, time. Just as little as it would occur to chemical science still to express atomic weight in a roundabout way, relatively, by means of the hydrogen atom, if it were able to express them absolutely, in their adequate measure, namely in actual weights, in billionths or quadrillionths of a gramme. Hence, on the assumptions we made above, society will not assign values to products. It will not express the simple fact that the hundred square yards of cloth have required for their production, say, a thousand hours of labour in the oblique and meaningless way, stating that they have the value of a thousand hours of labour. It is true that even then it will still be necessary for society to know how much labour each article of consumption requires for its production. It will have to arrange its plan of production in accordance with its means of production, which include, in particular, its labour-powers. The useful effects of the various articles of consumption, compared with one another and with the quantities of labour required for their production, will in the end determine the plan. People will be able to manage everything very simply, without the intervention of much-vaunted “value”. *15

The concept of value is the most general and therefore the most comprehensive expression of the economic conditions of commodity production. Consequently, this concept contains the germ, not only of money, but also of all the more developed forms of the production and exchange of commodities. The fact that value is the expression of the social labour contained in the privately produced products itself creates the possibility of a difference arising between this social labour and the private labour contained in these same products."

Thus, the existence of commodity production and the sale and buying of labour-power contradict Marx's and Engel's ideas on what post-capitalism would look like.

Where exactly did Marx and Engels say this? (so I can include it in my sources).

[piet11111]

Well the basic points that need to be adressed would be.

to what extent there was workers control in the USSR.

How internationalist the USSR was and how this affected the revolutions in other country's like spain italy germany china.

WW2 dealings with the allies like wrecking the italian and greek workers movements after facism was overthrown.

[Red Star Rising]

OK so I think the main areas of discussion that can be brought up are:

1) The concept of Socialism in one country and nationalism within the Soviet Union.
2) State control vs worker control.
3) The extent to which capital accumulation was abolished.
4) The extent to which class still existed.
5) Democracy vs bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.

Can anybody think of any other points that could be brought up?