Is the degenerated workers' state and state capitalism compatible?

[Jacob Cliff]

Not to be too reliant on entangling phraseology, but is it coherent to accept the USSR as having a state capitalist economy while also having degenerated from a worker's state to a bureaucratized worker's state? It seems the theory of the degenerated worker's state doesn't effect much of the economic structure of soviet society; just political.

IMHO, Trotsky's rebuttal of the USSR as state capitalist was rather weak – it just said (and correct me if I'm wrong), in simple terms, "since we have expropriated the capitalists, there is no more capitalism." I know Trots tend to see the Soviet economy as transitional between capitalism and socialism, but could that transition be qualified as state capitalist? Was it not Lenin who commented that "State capitalism would be a tremendous step forward," and Engels who pointed out that capitalist conditions are "brought to a head" in state ownership?
Sorry if this is a little convoluted but this has been on my mind for a while.

[Jacob Cliff]

In short, I'm asking this: is state capitalism the road in between capitalism and socialism? Engels commented that state ownership is not the solution, but within it is contained the technical perquisites for constructing socialism – that it does not do away with capitalist relations, but brings it to a head.
If state capitalism is the transitional economy, is it still rational to claim the USSR was a degenerated worker's state? Or do these somehow conflict?

[Spectre of Spartacism]

You are mashing together the type of state and the features of the economy, when they are two separate things.

A workers' state rules over a society that is transitioning to socialism but hasn't achieved it, meaning there are aspects of capitalism that remain like the existence of classes. The transition has occurred because the capitalist class that had control over the state has been expropriated by a revolutionary party of the working class opposing capitalism.

Lenin did not understand state capitalism to mean the same thing as people who claim the USSR was state capitalist.

[Jacob Cliff]

You are mashing together the type of state and the features of the economy, when they are two separate things.

A workers' state rules over a society that is transitioning to socialism but hasn't achieved it, meaning there are aspects of capitalism that remain like the existence of classes. The transition has occurred because the capitalist class that had control over the state has been expropriated by a revolutionary party of the working class opposing capitalism.

Lenin did not understand state capitalism to mean the same thing as people who claim the USSR was state capitalist.
I know quite well the type of state and economic features of the economy; I am well aware of that. I'm asking if the economy a transitional regime would preside over would be classified as "state capitalist."

And Lenin referred to socialism as "state capitalism made to benefit the whole people" – what did he mean here?

[Spectre of Spartacism]

I know quite well the type of state and economic features of the economy; I am well aware of that. I'm asking if the economy a transitional regime would preside over would be classified as "state capitalist."

It depends on how you define the term. People assign it different meanings.


And Lenin referred to socialism as "state capitalism made to benefit the whole people" – what did he mean here?

What do you think he meant?

[Jacob Cliff]

It depends on how you define the term. People assign it different meanings.



What do you think he meant?
I don't know what Lenin meant; I've heard Marxists like Wolff say that state ownership in the transitional regime is state capitalist, and that Lenin in that quote was confirming this. I've also heard other Marxists say he was only referencing the NEP.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

I don't know what Lenin meant; I've heard Marxists like Wolff say that state ownership in the transitional regime is state capitalist, and that Lenin in that quote was confirming this. I've also heard other Marxists say he was only referencing the NEP.

I think this post by Xhar Xhar is illuminating: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2845882&postcount=41

State ownership under a workers' state is not capitalist in that it the state managers are not capitalists. State capitalism as Lenin talked about it was different than that idea.

[RedWorker]

State ownership under a workers' state is not capitalist in that it the state managers are not capitalists. State capitalism as Lenin talked about it was different than that idea.

First of all, the USSR after Stalin's takeover was hardly a "workers' state". The description of bourgeois society ruled by a political bureaucracy fits much more.

Secondly, what does it matter that the state managers are not capitalists? After all, Marx said in a note that the bourgeoisie is nothing but a representative of some actual mechanisms - presumably, mechanisms that are still valid even if the bourgeoisie cannot be said to exist as a social class.

You're saying that the only thing that makes the USSR not "state capitalist" is that the managers weren't capitalists? Well, state capitalist theorists don't argue that they were.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

First of all, the USSR after Stalin's takeover was hardly a "workers' state". The description of bourgeois society ruled by a political bureaucracy fits much more.

Secondly, what does it matter that the state managers are not capitalists? After all, Marx said in a note that the bourgeoisie is nothing but a representative of some actual mechanisms - presumably, mechanisms that are still valid even if the bourgeoisie cannot be said to exist as a social class.

The question matters enough for MarxianSocialist to ask it. I answered it as best I could. If you want to have a debate about whether the Soviet Union was a workers' state, it would probably be best to start another thread devoted to that topic, so that people in this thread have the space to address and discuss the question MarxianSocialist asked.


You're saying that the only thing that makes the USSR not "state capitalist" is that the managers weren't capitalists? Well, state capitalist theorists don't argue that they were.

This is incorrect.

[ñángara]

In short, I'm asking this: is state capitalism the road in between capitalism and socialism? Engels commented that state ownership is not the solution, but within it is contained the technical perquisites for constructing socialism – that it does not do away with capitalist relations, but brings it to a head.
If state capitalism is the transitional economy, is it still rational to claim the USSR was a degenerated worker's state? Or do these somehow conflict?
Marx said in his comments about Thomas Münzer that the revolution in backward countries just generates State capitalism. Lenin was too enthusiastic with his "State capitalism for the good of all" and it is logical that Trotsky called it a "degenerated workers state" since he was a main actor of the Russian revolution and the private property has been taken away from the hands of the bourgeoisie. He didn't realize that now it was the State which played the roll of the capitalists.

[Dave B]

V. I. Lenin
SESSION OF THE ALL-RUSSIA C.E.C.
APRIL 29, 1918 [before NEP]



What is state capitalism under Soviet power? To achieve state capitalism at the present time means putting into effect the accounting and control that the capitalist classes carried out. We see a sample of state capitalism in Germany. We know that Germany has proved superior to us. But if you reflect even slightly on what it would mean if the foundations of such state capitalism were established in Russia, Soviet Russia, everyone who is not out of his senses and has not stuffed his head with fragments of book learning, would have to say that state capitalism would be our salvation.
I said that state capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia, the transition to full socialism would he easy, would be within our grasp, because state capitalism is something centralised, calculated, controlled and socialised, and that is exactly what we lack:


http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SAR18.html

ie soviet state capitalism was going to be modeled on the and seminal 'classic' German state capitalism.


Leon Trotsky
The Position of the Republic and the Tasks of Young Workers

(Report tothe 5th All-Russian Congress of the Russian Communist League of Youth 1922)





....this is explicable in part by an incomprehension of an expression frequently used by us, that we now have state capitalism. I shall not enter into an evaluation of this term; for in any case we need only to qualify what we understand by it. By state capitalism we all understood property belonging to the state which itself was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which exploited the working class. Our state undertakings operate along commercial lines based on the market. But who stands in power here? The working class. Herein lies the principled distinction of our state ‘capitalism’ in inverted commas from state capitalism without inverted commas.

What does this mean in perspective? Just this. The more state capitalism say, in Hohenzollern Germany, as it was, developed, the more powerfully the class of junkers and capitalists of Germany could hold down the working class. The more our ‘state capitalism’ develops the richer the work ing class will become, that is the firmer will become the foundation of socialism.


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

V. I. Lenin
Interview With Arthur Ransome
Manchester Guardian Correspondent
October 27 - November 5, 1922



How is it that although capitalism is the antithesis of communism, certain circumstances are assets from the two opposite viewpoints? It is because one possible way to proceed to communism is through state capitalism, provided the state is controlled by the working class. This is exactly the position in the “present case”.
The decline of heavy industry is a loss to us. The first profits obtained by the State Bank and the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Trade mark the beginning of an improvement in this field, too. The difficulties here are enormous; but the situation is by no means hopeless.

Let us proceed further. Is it possible that we are receding to something in the nature of a “feudal dictatorship"? It is utterly impossible, for although slowly, with interruptions, taking steps backward from time to time, we are still making progress along the path of state capitalism, a path that leads us forward to socialism and communism (which is the highest stage of socialism),

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm

[Fourth Internationalist]

Dave B,

Why do you use such an annoyingly large font for your posts? Can you just use the default font size please?

Sincerely,
everyone

[Pancakes Rühle]

The notion of a "degenerated workers state" is flawed from it's very conception, and assumes that the class can rule, while being ruled "from within". It rejects the Marxian concept of the state. Usually, it also accompanies a theory of "transitional economy" which is a ridiculous assertion.

It isn't compatible, because there is no such entity as a "degenerated workers' state". Either the working class is the ruling class, or it is not.

[Rafiq]

Conceiving the Soviet Union as either is to qualify the Soviet Union as a mode of production which was capable of reproducing itself in a matter that is sufficient unto itself. The question is not "What was the character of the Soviet Union", but "What was the Soviet Union turning into?" - the Soviet Union cannot be qualified, for it was a transitional political formation (to capitalism).

[Dave B]

Perhaps of interest is that in 1922 Lenin in a keynote state of the union address radically redefined ‘worker and proletarian’ to mean people who didn’t work in factories.

People who worked in factories, like myself and my parents, and in particular people who worked in state capitalist factories or ‘socialised state enterprises that had to make a profit’ were reclassified as casual elements.

People who didn’t work in factories, and the ‘soviet’ 1%, were the Bolshevik party members and ‘classified’ as ‘real proletarians and workers’.

V. I. Lenin
Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.)[1] (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm#fw01)
March 27-April 2, 1922



Very often the word “workers” is taken to mean the factory proletariat. But it does not mean that at all. During the war people who were by no means proletarians went into the factories; they went into the factories to dodge the war. Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.



https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm


Role and Functions of the Trade Unions
Under The New Economic Policy
Decision Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.), January 12, 1922
V. I. Lenin



In particular, a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control, are now being permitted and are developing; on the other hand,



…. [ ie separately and operating alongside it ] ….


the socialised state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i. e., they are being re-organised on commercial lines, which, in view of the general cultural backwardness and exhaustion of the country, will, to a greater or lesser degree, inevitably give rise to the impression among the masses that there is an antagonism of interest between the management of the different enterprises and the workers employed in them.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/dec/30.htm

According to the post 1928? Trotskyist position it isn’t clear how or whether;


Bolshevism went from un-degenerate “workers” (Bolshevik party) state capitalism (eg Trotsky 1922?)

To;


(under Stalin?) an un-degenerate non state capitalist “workers” state?



Which then degenerated to a (of course-non state capitalist) degenerated workers state by 1933 onwards?

Mao of 1953 of course was more of an orthodox Leninist than a Stalinist and Trot revisionist.



THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION
OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE


September 7, 1953







he transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.

[ Hear, hear and hurrah for unrevised Leninism- and bollocks to Stalinist and Trot ‘utterly meaningless’ permanent revolution ]


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.
7. With approximately 3,800,000 workers and shop assistants, private industry and commerce are a big asset to the state and play a large part in the nation's economy and the people's livelihood. Not only do they provide the state with goods, but they can also accumulate capital and train cadres for the state.



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

[Dave B]

There is an antagonism of interest between the, 1%, state capitalist class Bolshevik party ("real workers and proletarians") management of the different, for profit, enterprises and the other non Bolshevik (redefined as an economic class) casual element class employed in the factories.

Quelle surprise!


Beat that Orwell!

[Rafiq]

People who worked in factories, like myself and my parents, and in particular people who worked in state capitalist factories or ‘socialised state enterprises that had to make a profit’ were reclassified as casual elements.

People who didn’t work in factories, and the ‘soviet’ 1%, were the Bolshevik party members and ‘classified’ as ‘real proletarians and workers’.

Lenin was not saying this of the situation in Russia in general, but that of 1922. I don't know how you jump to the conclusion that Lenin implies that the "Bolshevik party" constituted the proletariat. In fact, all we can salvage from what he claims:

During the war people who were by no means proletarians went into the factories; they went into the factories to dodge the war

Implies that what Lenin actually meant was that the actual proletariat were serving in the ranks of the Red Army, had perished and were decimated (Which is true!) by the civil war, and that the factory workers who had replaced them did not constitute a new proletariat. This was, in context, under the backdrop of a growing misplaced optimism that the new "factory workers" that were emerging constituted a new social basis for socialist consciousness. But Lenin was correct - these weren't proletarians at all, but a conglomeration of different elements.

Instead, Dave B attacks the straw man which presupposes conferring onto the idea of the "proletariat" some kind of essential moral category, where any idiot who wants to confer upon himself power can say "I'm the real proletariat".

[John Nada]

http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.htmlTo be fair, that was published in Vol. V.. Vol V. of Mao's works was published at the direction of the Central Committee led by Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping, right after the downfall of the Gang of Four. Hua Guofeng claimed that he "saved" it from being alter/destroyed by the Gang of Four. It may or may not be altered or fabricated, but the general theme is consistent with Hua and Deng's program of "building up productive forces"(and capitalist productive relations) and implementing market "reforms".