Socialism/Communism in space

[Heretek]

So I dug up one other old thread, but it looked like it only wished to touch upon colonization in general. But my question has more to do with the recurring theme of Mars revolting against tyrannical earth and becoming a socialist society (see Kim Stanley Robinson's books, especially the one with the date title, Red Faction games disregarding some of the third and all of the last, genres of internet art, etc.). So I'm curious, assuming that a colony in space becomes totally self sustained and declares independence and wins their war, if socialism would be viable in their society. If not, how would this sort of thing be achievable, if at all. For the the base I'm assuming that earth is still capitslistic, FTL doesn't exist, and mars (or wherever) isn't fully terraformed (if that matters), but doesn't require constant earth resources. I'm curious as to the take on alterations to that as well, so feel free to alter it to how you see it as viable, or why not. Just be sure to say what changed.

[John Nada]

Well in theory, they may well have all that is necessary to construct socialism in one planet. If there's extraterrestrials that have achieve full communism now, I don't think, without any possible substantive interaction with imperialist-capitalist Earth, this changes their current mode of production. It's a closed system. However, according to a certain theorist faced with a similar problem:
Can the victory of Socialism in one country be regarded as final if this country is encircled by capitalism, and if it is not fully guaranteed against the danger of intervention and restoration?

Clearly, it cannot, This is the position in regard to the question of the victory of Socialism in one country.

It follows that this question contains two different problems :

1. The problem of the internal relations in our country, i.e., the problem of overcoming our own bourgeoisie and building complete Socialism; and

2. The problem of the external relations of our country, i.e., the problem of completely ensuring our country against the dangers of military intervention and restoration.

We have already solved the first problem, for our bourgeoisie has already been liquidated and Socialism has already been built in the main. This is what we call the victory of Socialism, or, to be more exact, the victory of Socialist Construction in one country.

We could say that this victory is final if our country were situated on an island and if it were not surrounded by numerous capitalist countries. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm Okay so according to the guy most associated with socialism in one country, Communist Mars has basically built socialism in the main. Presumably the Martian bourgeoisie been eliminated as a class, and the Martian proletariat's cool with the Martian peasantry. First problem solved, it's good.:cool: It's not just some island isolated from imperialism, but a different planet!

However,
But as we are not living on an island but "in a system of States," a considerable number of which are hostile to the land of Socialism and create the danger of intervention and restoration, we say openly and honestly that the victory of Socialism in our country is not yet final.

But from this it follows that the second problem is not yet solved and that it has yet to be solved.

More than that : the second problem cannot be solved in the way that we solved the first problem, i.e., solely by the efforts of our country.

The second problem can be solved only by combining the serious efforts of the international proletariat with the still more serious efforts of the whole of our Soviet people.Something new happens.:unsure: This isn't like aliens in another solar system hundreds of light years away. The workers on Imperial Earth are still oppressed! There's still an imperialist-capitalist Earth-wide system! The solar system contains two opposing systems. So it'll either be socialism dominating the solar system, or imperialism. Only one will survive. Sure, it might take awhile for any attack, but the risk of the Earthling bourgeoisie restoring capitalism, either by invasion or by supporting counterrevolution from within, remains.:ohmy:

Another thing is this colony, faced with new material conditions never before experienced, could develop some entirely different mode of production we can't even think of a name yet. It's a hostile planet not yet terraformed. The productive forces are going to be qualitatively different than anything on Earth. Agriculture for example, has no free land laying about to steal from other peoples only to pollute and deplete. Hell you can't even go outside without any support from others.

The dire conditions cause a dynamic to develop between the members of the community. Maybe there's no division of labor, no social stratification? Maybe new ones arise? The Martian community, still carrying the imprint of imperialist-capitalist earth, still retains some aspects of it afterwards. Perhaps a new class system arises, the more skilled experts' kids take on a hereditary role with privileges. And the less skilled take on a subordinate role. To mediate this and solidify their rule, a state is erected. A belief system arises justifying it. Custom and culture develop around the base of this space colony's mode of production. It might not be capitalism, but due to material conditions, a new class and state society arises!:(

What I wonder, what happens if there's sentient life on Mars? How would that change things? If humans are at communism, but they're still at feudalism, this must mean the situation changes, right?

[Antiochus]

This is predicated on so many factors, even as a mental exercise it is mostly useless. For starters, human economic systems are predicated upon biological "certainties" that apply to humans. For example, Feudalism could never have 'sprung up' if humans could not digest vegetables. It would not be far fetched to find an alien race that, for example, can live entirely upon idk iron or sulfur, which may or may not be abundant in their home planet. In such a situation, I don't see how feudalism could 'arise'.

That being said, "galactic" socialism in the form of a colony, could only ever be capitalist if the home planet is such. Colonies tend to have a more 'progressive' outlook than their parent civilization, at least in the realm of feudalism------>capitalism for the reason that colonies tended to have much lower population densities (making feudal organization more or less pointless).

[Guardia Rossa]

This is an interesting theoretic exercise, but my poor knowledge on the matter won't let me emit an opinion, the only thing I can do is to bump this thread.

[Heretek]

To be clear, I'm not trying to advocate socialism in one country. But I'm curious mostly as to if these two different societies existing would allow one (our martians), to achieve socialism. I'm making the jump here to this possibility because the new society is self-sufficient in the sense of resources (how is another question), and as space travel as it exists is untenable for speed, earth and mars live in literal vacuum from each other. Of course in this scenario I'd advocate for the liberation of earth as well. However, while the two could certainly influence each other to some degree (occasionally angry letters, whatever), I'm implying that the two become two separate societies. Of course they already are, in the traditional sense, but now I'm speaking of something along the lines of socialism for all of society. It just so happens that it isn't all of human life. An inverse scenario could be just as entertainable. Earth goes com, and some old far flung colony in some asteroid or planet or wherever is still some other form of production (feudalism, capitalism/imperialism). The same thing I'm trying to get at, an all of society is communist, just not the entire species.

I can also see this scenario turning into a perpetual state of warfare where both sides have no particular reason to stop. Communists want to liberate the imperial society, and the imperials want to "liberate" the communist society. Imperials don't just blast the other because they hope to exploit the remains (also hold their society together), and the communists don't want to kill all of their fellow workers.

Feel free to make it doomsday like if you want, though, if you can back up the justification.

[Heretek]

And pardon the double post, I'm curious if communist society developing on two different planets would lead to their cooperation, or competition. I personally say cooperation, it seem the most logical and efficient, but I'm not sure everyone would share this sentiment. Say something like trotskyists overtake the earth, and stalinists take mars. Ridiculous of these two, but this is one of the most confrontational areas in recent history. Another one could be anarchists in one, and some other communist tendency on the other (left-coms, trotskyists, etc., pick your favorite).

[Blake's Baby]

If it's self sufficient, then yes it can be socialism. We think socialism is a world-wide system because capitalism is a world-wide system. There aren't two distinct and discrete capitalist metropoles, say one round the US and one round China, that have no interaction. If there were, it would be possible to posit 'socialism in one hemisphere'. It is the 'whole system' that is, or isn't socialist.

So, yes, in theory if there were two autarchic systems, then one or other could become socialist, they would not have to both be socialist.

They would have a massive disadvantage over a single socialist system though. They would have to be on the lookout for external enemies possibly nearly as technologically advanced as themselves.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

It's also worth mentioning, I think, that when we mean self-sufficient, we do mean self-sufficient - any good that the population of Mars wants should be produced on Mars, if Mars alone is to be socialist. But if Mars can barely scrape by independently, being able to produce the bare necessities of human biological existence while it has to import certain "luxuries" from Earth, that's not going to work, either. I don't think it would be possible for Mars to be really independent from Earth for a long time after colonisation.

[tuwix]

So I dug up one other old thread, but it looked like it only wished to touch upon colonization in general. But my question has more to do with the recurring theme of Mars revolting against tyrannical earth and becoming a socialist society (see Kim Stanley Robinson's books, especially the one with the date title, Red Faction games disregarding some of the third and all of the last, genres of internet art, etc.). So I'm curious, assuming that a colony in space becomes totally self sustained and declares independence and wins their war, if socialism would be viable in their society. If not, how would this sort of thing be achievable, if at all. For the the base I'm assuming that earth is still capitslistic, FTL doesn't exist, and mars (or wherever) isn't fully terraformed (if that matters), but doesn't require constant earth resources. I'm curious as to the take on alterations to that as well, so feel free to alter it to how you see it as viable, or why not. Just be sure to say what changed.

It's obvious that Mars could be socialist as whole planet. It could be communist as well. If societies of gatherers and hunters are called primitive communism, then why Mars couldn't be? And I will go further: Now Mars is communist, because there is no private property there. :)