Any defense to "Socialism in one country"?

[Red Star Rising]

Now, I'm no Stalinist, I'm just wondering how Stalin, his supporters and any historians have attempted to justify the theory of Socialism being constructed in the USSR alone. So if anyone knows anything about this I would much appreciate it :)

[RedKobra]

As I understood it the Stalinist position is that revolutions don't conveniently occur punctually around the world. So when a state is pregnant with revolution what do you do? Do you say, 'Oh, well it would have been nice but I guess we can't do it because no one else is,' or do you seize the country when the oppertunity arises and hold it, consolidate the DotP, set a solid revolutionary example and wait for others to rise in support no matter how long that takes.

The Trotsky deviation was more about whether you should go chasing the revolution around the world, not resting on our laurels. Stalin, allegedly, believed that enough Russian blood had been spilled and the nation was exhausted from war and so essentially agreed not to ferment revolution in the rest of the world if the rest of the world agreed to end its campaign of civil war.

[Art Vandelay]

The Trotsky deviation was more about whether you should go chasing the revolution around the world, not resting on our laurels.

There was no 'Trotsky deviation,' he held a position consistent with Marxist orthodoxy. And no he didn't advocate 'chasing the revolution around the world.' His position was unconditional defense of the workers state and to support, through whatever means possible/necessary, incipient revolutions in other countries.

[Mr. Piccolo]

Mostly pragmatism, I think. I am not sure if the Soviet Union could have effectively helped to spread revolution before the end of the Second World War. Defeating the Whites and their foreign allies was a monumental task in itself.

Concentrating on industrialization as Stalin did was probably the right move. I doubt that the Soviet Union could have withstood the invasion of Nazi Germany and its allies or another Western capitalist intervention without the development of its industrial base under Stalin in the interwar period.

After World War II, when the Soviet Union was in a much stronger position, it did aid other revolutionary struggles, primarily in the Third World.

[RedKobra]

There was no 'Trotsky deviation,' he held a position consistent with Marxist orthodoxy. And no he didn't advocate 'chasing the revolution around the world.' His position was unconditional defense of the workers state and to support, through whatever means possible/necessary, incipient revolutions in other countries.

Trotskyism was a deviation and no it was not orthodox. Let's be clear when you talk about supporting incipient revolutions you're talking about the battered people of Russia spilling yet more blood on the international stage, all of this after WWI & the Civil Wars. Also what incipient revolutions are you talking about? The German revolution had been sabotaged from within and had failed.The British revolution had faltered with the arrival of the Labour Party. The French were not in ferment. Italian Communism had been ripping itself apart for years and was in no position, with Soviet assistance or not to assume power. The only one I can think of is Spain, and the USSR declared itself for the Republicans.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Any defense of it is hopelessly cynical. The jacobins knew in the 1790s that spreading revolution with armed missionaries from within a 'fortress' was a pointless exercise to begin with, and we can look at the fruits of the USSR's labor and despair at all the good that intentionally mis-reading history accomplished.

[Art Vandelay]

Trotskyism was a deviation and no it was not orthodox. Let's be clear when you talk about supporting incipient revolutions you're talking about the battered people of Russia spilling yet more blood on the international stage, all of this after WWI & the Civil Wars. Also what incipient revolutions are you talking about? The German revolution had been sabotaged from within and had failed.The British revolution had faltered with the arrival of the Labour Party. The French were not in ferment. Italian Communism had been ripping itself apart for years and was in no position, with Soviet assistance or not to assume power. The only one I can think of is Spain, and the USSR declared itself for the Republicans.

We're not talking about 'Trotskyism' as a tendency within Marxism. The question was about socialism in one country and you stated that when it came to that matter, Trotsky's stance was a 'deviation' and he favored 'chasing revolution' around the globe. Both of those statements are demonstratably false and quite clearly so to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of the history of the revolution and the basic tenents of Marxism.

Now you may disagree with Marxist orthodoxy when it comes to the question of whether or not socialism is possible within the confines of a state - in which case I'd suggest reevaluating your politics - but Trotsky's stance on the matter was the same as Marx, Engels, and Lenin's.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The image of trotsky as a reckless fool looking to waste the gains of the revolution by chasing it into other countries is actually based in stalinist propaganda, not reality.

[Sewer Socialist]

I think, while concentrating on the "in one country" aspect, we're neglecting an important aspect of SOIC - the Socialism. There are a huge number of topics here debating the nature of the Soviet Union - a workers' state, socialism, state capitalism, bureaucratic collectivism...?

The defense of the "socialism" of the Soviet Union rests on the claim that there is no capitalist class, and that the surplus value is managed by the Workers' State, regardless of the existence of wage labour and commodity production. Stalin also wrote a piece saying that a dialectical analysis needs to analyze the direction the economy is heading in. According to him, the Soviet Union was heading towards socialism, and so, dialectically speaking, it was socialist.

[contracycle]

Any defense of it is hopelessly cynical. The jacobins knew in the 1790s that spreading revolution with armed missionaries from within a 'fortress' was a pointless exercise to begin with, and we can look at the fruits of the USSR's labor and despair at all the good that intentionally mis-reading history accomplished.

And yet, today, all the remaining monarchies are 'constitutional' in one form or another, no fucker would dare to declare 'l'etat c'est moi'. Fact is we live in a non-monarchic world because of the FrenchRev.

'Armed missionaries' may not have been the agent of change specifically, although Napoleon conquering most of Europe probably drove the point home.

And thus there is indeed a defence of 'socialism in one country'; not in the sense that it can be socialist in the full and proper sense, but in that its existence, and sheer continued existence, is an implicit critique and counter-argument to the status quo. And in that regard it's not a trivial question, because a local socialist revolution may have to be defended against all comers indefinitely. How you manage that without a supra-national network to fall back on is a tricky question.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Uh no there are still absolute monarchies in the world and there are 'constitutional monarchies' that are in fact not very constitutional. As to why that is the case well, that's a very peculiar 'marxist analysis' you are wielding but if you're in here defending sioc it makes sense I guess. The counter point provided by the USSR to the rest of the world is still with us today even if it is not, "there is no other alternative". The goal of the revolution was not to create a new bourgeois state as if it were some backup plan, much less a dozen other bourgeois states. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the USSR's pudding tastes like the bland shit I can buy anywhere else. Dustbin of history etc. etc. etc.

Poor Taste: I think we're all taking it for granted that SOIC contained no socialism, the fact that only 2 fairly new posters have shown up to try and defend it illustrates that we've managed to dump most of our stalinists over the last few years here. Praise Eris