¿How democratic was the USSR?

[EL KAISER]

I know it was a dictatorship of the proletariat, but i'd like to know how democracy worked there. Who elected the leaers? who nominated them? How much participation did the masses have?

[IbelieveInanarchy]

Also very interested in this! :) Now just wait for Ismail to give us the most detailed explanation so characteristic of him.

[Blake's Baby]

Except it was only really the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat for about 3 months. Then it became the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of the RSDLP(Bolshevik).

There are reasons for this of course, that go far beyond any kind of 'Lenin (and/or Trotsky to taste) was a bad man' argument. But I think it's undeniable that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat turned into the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

There are reasons for this of course, that go far beyond any kind of 'Lenin (and/or Trotsky to taste) was a bad man' argument. But I think it's undeniable that the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat turned into the dictatorship of the party over the proletariat.

Would two of those reasons be the tremendous challenge of dealing with foreign intervention and also their governing a society which was majority non-worker (assuming we do not categorize peasants as workers)? Those seem like obvious causes for the degeneration of the revolution.

[Blake's Baby]

No, the main reason is that it stopped spreading. Socialism in one country is not possible; when a proletarian revolution is isolated, it inevitably dies. The intervention didn't help of course, but it only hastened the end, it didn't bring it about.

The number of peasants in Russia is only relevant if you think that it's possible to create a socialist society in an isolated country, as long as that country has a majority of workers. But it isn't.

[Comrade Bugaboo]

I know it was a dictatorship of the proletariat, but i'd like to know how democracy worked there. Who elected the leaers? who nominated them? How much participation did the masses have?

Technically there were elections to the soviets and more people could vote than during the Civil War. However, the Communist Party chose the candidate (there was only one possible candidate to vote for) and though people could vote against the candidate, almost nobody did for obvious reasons. A common practice was to write suggestions on the ballots and these were often taken into consideration when decisions were made. That was really the extent of popular political involvement.


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[Comrade Bugaboo]

Technically there were elections to the soviets and more people could vote than during the Civil War. However, the Communist Party chose the candidate (there was only one possible candidate to vote for) and though people could vote against the candidate, almost nobody did for obvious reasons. A common practice was to write suggestions on the ballots and these were often taken into consideration when decisions were made. That was really the extent of popular political involvement.


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I'll expand on the actual structure of the government from my understanding of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918. The soviets were elected by the workers and peasants. There were varying levels of Congresses of Soviets in which delegates were sent by lower Congresses of Soviets or soviets at the lowest level. The highest CoS and supreme power of the RSFSR was the All-Russia Congress of Soviets. It received delegates by the urban soviets and provincial CoSs with urban soviets receiving five times more delegates per capita than provincial CoS.

Each CoS appointed a Central Executive Committee to meet more regularly and open the CoS if needed. It reported its activities to the CoS for approval when it opened which could be as few as twice a year. The All-Russia Central Executive Committee was the supreme legislative and executive body of the RSFSR. People's Commissars were appointed to the Council of People's Commissars. Each PC led their respective commissariat and oversaw the daily functioning of the government with the ability to issue decrees and such. The CoPC reported directly to the All-Russia CEC. I believe each CoC had its own commissars.


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[(A)]

I'll expand on the actual structure of the government from my understanding of the RSFSR Constitution of 1918. The soviets were elected by the workers and peasants. There were varying levels of Congresses of Soviets in which delegates were sent by lower Congresses of Soviets or soviets at the lowest level. The highest CoS and supreme power of the RSFSR was the All-Russia Congress of Soviets. It received delegates by the urban soviets and provincial CoSs with urban soviets receiving five times more delegates per capita than provincial CoS.

Each CoS appointed a Central Executive Committee to meet more regularly and open the CoS if needed. It reported its activities to the CoS for approval when it opened which could be as few as twice a year. The All-Russia Central Executive Committee was the supreme legislative and executive body of the RSFSR. People's Commissars were appointed to the Council of People's Commissars. Each PC led their respective commissariat and oversaw the daily functioning of the government with the ability to issue decrees and such. The CoPC reported directly to the All-Russia CEC. I believe each CoC had its own commissars.


Reminds me of the modern liberal democracy's. To many useless and corrupt politicians who are supposed to represent the people but only represent the ruling class and the nationalist system.

[EL KAISER]

Reminds me of the modern liberal democracy's. To many useless and corrupt politicians who are supposed to represent the people but only represent the ruling class and the nationalist system.

Except in this case there was no ruling class (other than the working class, i mean)

[(A)]

Except in this case there was no ruling class (other than the working class, i mean)

Except that their was. The New ruling class was not capitalist but administrative. Party Elites who lived off of the labor of the working class and gained privileges from their position that the working class was not afforded. Who dictated who was to do what and revive what. A ruling class by the definition of the words ruling and class.

Any revolution that end with a new set of rulers is simply setting the stage for future revolution. Only Liberals could think a totalitarian party of professional politicians are working class.
Only a fool would misconstrue his bosses' interest as his own.

http://www.uciteljneznalica.org/upload/ebook/816_%C4%90ilas,%20Milovan,%20The%20New%20Class%20-%20An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Communist%20System,% 20Thames%20and%20Hudson,%201957.pdf

[Ismail]

Technically there were elections to the soviets and more people could vote than during the Civil War. However, the Communist Party chose the candidate (there was only one possible candidate to vote for) and though people could vote against the candidate, almost nobody did for obvious reasons. A common practice was to write suggestions on the ballots and these were often taken into consideration when decisions were made. That was really the extent of popular political involvement.First, there was one candidate on election day. This is not the case during the nomination process.

"What is not usually understood by foreign observers is that there is, at each election, not one election meeting, but (as often in the village elections) several successive election meetings for the same electoral unit, at which candidates are nominated, discussed and either successively eliminated or carried forward to the final meeting when the last vote is taken. This, the only decisive vote, is usually unanimous (or more strictly, what in England is called nemine contradicente), a fact which has often led to the inference that there has been no real exercise of choice by the electorate." (Webbs, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? Vol. I, 1935, p. 41.)

Second, "suggestions on the ballots" were indeed a method, but there was also a much more substantive one: mandating a deputy to do something. To quote one source, "Such mandates must command a majority of votes at an election meeting. Between 1973 and 1975, there were a total of 847,185 mandates. They were to do with conditions in schools, post-offices and hospitals, with repairs to public property, with street lighting and with supplies of materials. This puts a certain pressure on deputies and, if they are unable to implement these mandates, they may be 'recalled' by their electors. In practice, over 85 per cent of mandates are fulfilled within a two-year period." (David Lane, State and Politics in the USSR, 1985, pp. 185-186.)


Reminds me of the modern liberal democracy's. To many useless and corrupt politicians who are supposed to represent the people but only represent the ruling class and the nationalist system.To this I'll quote something I wrote elsewhere, "The Soviet deputy remained at his or her place of work after being elected and earned no special income from being a deputy, only being given paid leave from their jobs whenever they had to attend to their duties (e.g. attending a session of the legislature.) This meant that workers, farmers, doctors, teachers, or whomever else would not only remain in everyday contact with their constituents, but that deputies were able to ensure the implementation of laws they themselves passed."

For those wanting an explanation of how Soviet elections and government worked, there's a short PDF by an American author who lived in the USSR from 1969-1974, 1982-1986, and again in the 1990s: https://archive.org/details/WorkingVersusTalkingDemocracy

[Ismail]

Except that their was. The New ruling class was not capitalist but administrative. Party Elites who lived off of the labor of the working class and gained privileges from their position that the working class was not afforded. Who dictated who was to do what and revive what. A ruling class by the definition of the words ruling and class.

Any revolution that end with a new set of rulers is simply setting the stage for future revolution. Only Liberals could think a totalitarian party of professional politicians are working class.
Only a fool would misconstrue his bosses' interest as his own.

http://www.uciteljneznalica.org/upload/ebook/816_%C4%90ilas,%20Milovan,%20The%20New%20Class%20-%20An%20Analysis%20of%20the%20Communist%20System,% 20Thames%20and%20Hudson,%201957.pdfFirst off, Milovan Đilas (the author you link to) wrote that "Communism is a 19th-century relic and a prescription for disaster." He isn't much of an authority on what constitutes a class. In fact his book was championed by the very liberals you ostensibly criticize.

Second, you'd have to demonstrate that the "Party Elites" exploited the workers and peasants. You admit that they weren't capitalists, and obviously they weren't slaveowners or feudal nobility either, so how was the surplus product appropriated and how did the "Party Elites" actually own this product? After all, they owned no capital, land or means of production of their own.

As for privileges, I'll quote from a bourgeois work, There Is No Freedom Without Bread! by Constantine Pleshakov, 2009, pp. 60-61:

The world of luxury [Soviet and Eastern European officials] created for themselves was still a far cry from that of Imelda Marcos or John F. Kennedy and their wealth was not hereditary or even for life, because a leader ousted from power lost most of the material benefits the day he as sacked, and every person in Romania knew that the Ceaușescus' prosperity was exactly as lasting as the orchids they imported.

These were elites whose dacha furniture had metal tags nailed to it, so that when the person fell out with the leader or retired, an inventory team could count and account for every chair he left to his successor (in 2006 in the United States, a severance package for a "failed" chief executive of Home Depot was $210 million). Moguls drove around in Soviet-made Chaika limousines, their windows covered by arrogant curtains, but their children could not inherit them. Here, privileges were like fiefs and had no monetary backup: you lose power, you lose its spoils.

In 1968, the conqueror of Warsaw, Marshal Rokossovsky, diagnosed with terminal cancer, begged a doctor to send him to the subtropical Crimea on the Black Sea, to the Ministry of Defense dacha: "I know that I can die at any moment, please make my last year good." The doctor counterfeited the paperwork, and the retired war hero got clean bedsheets, free meals, and a room with a view. When one of the most powerful men in Bulgaria, a secretary of the party's Central Committee, had a fling, he asked a subordinate—in his case, a writer, for the secretary supervised arts and literature—to lend him his apartment for the night because he couldn't take his date to a hotel: the management would have reported him to his very own Central Committee, which would have been only too happy to shred him to pieces for "moral decadence." In principle, Eastern European elites were as shackled by the rules as were their subjects, and, doubtlessly, whispered the names of freedoms they would've wanted.

The greatest spymaster of Eastern Europe, Markus Wolf, chief of East German intelligence for thirty years, wrote in his memoir: "People who could leave the country were greatly envied by the population at large; travel fever was acute in this country of nontravelers. I had traveled less widely for pleasure than most middle-class American college students, which is something that Western commentators tend to forget when they talk about the lives of the members of the nomenklatura. For all my privileges, I had never visited the Prado, the British Museum, or the Louvre . . . I was privileged to have a fine apartment, a car and a driver, and pleasant holidays at the invitation of other secret services in the Eastern bloc. But these were always connected to my job and status; in the end, the wider world was sealed off to me, too."You make a jab at liberals and yet seem to make a big deal about privileges and income differentials, as if they determine classes (which is what a liberal would argue, hence their talk of the "middle-class" with a certain income and better access to education and other privileges due to living in the suburbs, etc.)

[(A)]

So you can quote from Bourgeoisie source but If I link the work of communist ex-member of office... that's to liberal?

I am not just talking about privileges; The USSR replaced the Feudal nobility or Capitalist entity's with Socialist states.
The relation between exploiter and exploited did not change.
All three having authority over the land that was used to extort the product of others labors and dominating production; alienating those workers from their work.

If the U.S. socialized industry but retained its democratic liberal republic it would mirror the U.S.S.R. in effect. The political system would maintain the exploitation of the working class; not for private profit but
for nation state and love of country!

National and totalitarian collectivism over and instead of direct worker control.

[Ismail]

So you can quote from Bourgeoisie source but If I link the work of communist ex-member of office... that's to liberal?First off, Đilas was not a communist. He started off a revisionist, and then ended up abandoning Marxism altogether as "utopian" and "catastrophic." He died a capitalist.

My point in quoting from bourgeois sources is to make specific points about these countries. I don't cite them as authorities on what constitutes classes or what type of society the USSR, GDR, etc. were.


I am not just talking about privileges; The USSR replaced the Feudal nobility or Capitalist entity's with Socialist states.
The relation between exploiter and exploited did not change.
All three having authority over the land that was used to extort the product of others labors and dominating production; alienating those workers from their work.Now you've gone from "the Party Elite" being a class to the state itself standing-in for classes. Feudal nobility and capitalists actually own the land and means of production. The state is a dictatorship of a particular class. You seem to concede that "the Party Elite" isn't actually a class, so now you act as if the state itself can stand-in for classes.

At this point you're breaking with Marxism altogether, but alright, let's continue. How did the state "extort the product of others labors"? As you should know, the reserve army of labor did not exist in the USSR, since unemployment was abolished, so the worker being obliged to sell his labor-power at whatever price the capitalist offers didn't exist in the Soviet context. Furthermore any bourgeois critique of Soviet factories would note how "workplace culture" was quite different American or any other capitalist factories, not just in terms of how things were structured but in the actual life of the factory. I'll cite André Fontaine, a French bourgeois journalist: "A visitor to any Soviet firm can't help being struck by the relaxed, perhaps overly casual, atmosphere. People are obviously obsessed neither by time nor production pressures. In this connection, I can't resist quoting the comeback an Intourist hostess gave a French industrialist who noted at the end of his two-week stay that obviously 'people don't overexert themselves in Soviet factories.' The Intourist girl replied: 'And what if that were socialism's advantage?'" (Manchester Guardian Weekly, September 11, 1975, p. 14.)


If the U.S. socialized industry but retained its democratic liberal republic it would mirror the U.S.S.R. in effect. The political system would maintain the exploitation of the working class; not for private profit but
for nation state and love of country!If the US socialized industry, we'd be talking about a very different society. Accordingly, the "democratic liberal republic" would have to be smashed as incompatible with socialism. Bourgeois concepts like the "separation of powers" were criticized by Marx, Engels and Lenin, who instead argued for the combining of executive and legislative functions. That is what happened in the USSR and other socialist states. That's why the Constituent Assembly in Russia was given two choices: either recognize soviet power and write a constitution embodying it (which it refused to do), or advocate for a bourgeois republic and face disbandment (which is what happened.)


National and totalitarian collectivism over and instead of direct worker control.What is "direct worker control"? If Marx and Engels wrote about it, let me know where.

[(A)]

I don't cite them as authorities on what constitutes classes or what type of society the USSR, GDR, etc. were.

Actually you did exactly that. You used them as witness (as authority's) on the subject of the nature of the USSR system.

I am not an expert on the author of the book tho I checked and he was a communist politician. A member of the party.

"Born in Podbišće near Mojkovac, Kingdom of Montenegro, he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia as a University of Belgrade student in 1932. He was a political prisoner from 1933-36. In 1938 he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party and became a member of its Politburo in 1940"

So yes while he may have died a capitalist his perspective on the state is from the same position as your references. Eye witnesses.


Now you've gone from "the Party Elite" being a class to the state itself standing-in for classes. Feudal nobility and capitalists actually own the land and means of production. The state is a dictatorship of a particular class. You seem to concede that "the Party Elite" isn't actually a class, so now you act as if the state itself can stand-in for classes.

Depends on your definition of ruling class. The Nation state owns any socialized capital yes? Well if you dont go in for the Liberal B.S. that republic democracy is the will of society then any government is simply a group of people using violence to retain state control over the means of production. Not worker control; but government ownership of the capital. I.E. State Capitalism.


"democratic liberal republic" would have to be smashed as incompatible with socialism.

Exactly. Government; even the most democratic ones are not compatible with socialism. Its not worker or social control over the means of production if the government owns the means of production.
Nation state being a forced collective; is not society but a non-consensual relation between rulers and the ruled.


What is "direct worker control"? If Marx and Engels wrote about it, let me know where.

Not a Marxist so I would not know where they referenced it. While I appreciate Marx's critique of capitalism the conclusion sometimes drawn from his works (More specifically Engels) is that the state is necessary for socialism. However if the state is seen for what it is and not in a liberal ideology; then it is clear that the state is simply the evolution of feudal rule. Liberalism being the descendant of Feudalism as Capitalism is the descendant of Mercantilism. Just as Socialism will be the return of the means of production to the society that works it (The working class); Anarchism seeks to return the power taken by the state to the Society that lives under its rule (the working class). One can not exist without the other. Anarchism without socialism is Capitalism and Socialism without Anarchy is Nationalism.

[Ismail]

Actually you did exactly that. You used them as witness (as authority's) on the subject of the nature of the USSR system.You linked to the entirety of Đilas' book, apparently suggesting people read it to understand what kind of society the USSR was. I would never say the same thing about the sources I've cited due to them being bourgeois, with the exception of Mike Davidow's Working Versus Talking Democracy (that I provided a link to) since he was a Marxist and can therefore provide a more substantive analysis of the Soviet system beyond the bourgeois concept of "Party Elites dictating to the oppressed workers" or what have you.

It's possible for me to cite bourgeois authors on specific aspects of Soviet life without agreeing with their conclusions or even framework. You, however, argued that a new class emerged in the USSR and linked to a book propounding that very idea.


The Nation state owns any socialized capital yes?Yes, but "the nation state" isn't some supraclass entity. When GM was bailed out, you weren't seeing the same dynamics that underlied the nationalization of enterprises in Soviet Russia.


Well if you dont go in for the Liberal B.S. that republic democracy is the will of society then any government is simply a group of people using violence to retain state control over the means of production. Not worker control; but government ownership of the capital. I.E. State Capitalism.In the first place, you assume that the most numerous class in society, the working-class, cannot be one of those "group(s) of people" that are able to use violence in order to retain control.

Second, as noted, "workers' control" is a nebulous phrase. I'm sure you'd argue that Yugoslavia was no more socialist than the USSR, and yet workers undeniably had a greater "direct" influence over their own factories. That didn't necessarily translate into a better form of social ownership over the means of production though, as workers were thus encouraged to look out for the interests of the enterprises they worked at and to secure short-term gains at the expenses of society and ultimately of the enterprise itself.

Third, as Marx noted in the third volume of Capital, "All thought of a common, all-embracing and far-sighted control of the production of raw materials gives way once more to the faith that demand and supply will mutually regulate one another. And it must be admitted that such control is on the whole irreconcilable with the laws of capitalist production, and remains for ever a pious wish, or is limited to exceptional co-operation in times of great stress and confusion."

In other words, state capitalism (which does exist, although it doesn't describe the USSR for the reasons I've given in earlier posts) of the type you describe is impossible beyond a short period, such as the "socialism" of Britain during WWII when the state directed the activities of capitalist enterprises toward a common objective.

[(A)]

In the first place, you assume that the most numerous class in society, the working-class, cannot be one of those "group(s) of people" that are able to use violence in order to retain control.

No I am stating that government is distinctly separate and not at all representative of the working class and cant be. As tolkine put it; "The most imporoper job of man is to boss other men. Not one in a million are fit for it; least off all those who seek it."
If you give one group of people (representatives) authority over society they INSTANTLY become a separate class as they have extra rights and privileges over the working class.
For instance Murder is Illegal for workers yet the state has the authority to kill. Where did they get this authority? If they are the working class then they would be bound to the same
law that the working class is and should not be able to own capital. Government is at its core a separate class then that which it supposedly represents.
Giving that ruling class complete authority over capital is what we call state capitalism; state ownership of the means of production.
Not social ownership (socialism) but capital owned >exclusively< by the state.


Second, as noted, "workers' control" is a nebulous phrase.

I am not a Utopian trying to create heaven on earth. I am a hard nosed realist. I am against the exclusive ownership over the world that we all share. State ownership is fundamentally no different then private ownership because states are private institutions like corporations. They are a collective of people who claim authority over a plot of land or piece of capital. We want everyone who works (the working class) to possess all the means of that they use to produce and to be in charge of distributing the product of their labor. You are talking about national socialism. Where the nation (Russia, Cuba, ETC...) own the means of production nationally and produce for the greater good of the nation. Anarchists reject the nation state as a oppressive construct and instead wish for society to be managed by volentary organizations.

Translation: Union control over the means of production. NO NATIONS!

No Russia; No Cuba; No United States!


In other words, state capitalism (which does exist, although it doesn't describe the USSR for the reasons I've given in earlier posts) of the type you describe is impossible beyond a short period, such as the "socialism" of Britain during WWII when the state directed the activities of capitalist enterprises toward a common objective.

That's not state capitalism. The state does not own the capital; the private corporations do; they just use violence to force the capitalist class to bow down to the states nationalist agenda.
Your describing nationalism.

State capitalism is when the nation state nationalizes the means of production; forces the working class to toil for national profit; then calls it a workers paradise.
The U.S.S.R., cuba, china, north korea, ETC... They just nationalized the capital and continued exploiting the working class for the ruling classes profit.

Anarchy is the order of society. It is the voluntary collective of voluntary collectives (Union of Unions). Only when the workers organizations control their own production and distribution; could a society possibly be considered socialist. Any hierarchy over the voluntary organizations is by definition; ruling class. Literally the class that rules over the working class.

[ckaihatsu]

In other words, state capitalism (which does exist, although it doesn't describe the USSR for the reasons I've given in earlier posts) of the type you describe is impossible beyond a short period, such as the "socialism" of Britain during WWII when the state directed the activities of capitalist enterprises toward a common objective.




That's not state capitalism. The state does not own the capital; the private corporations do; they just use violence to force the capitalist class to bow down to the states nationalist agenda.
Your describing nationalism.


More specifically, I'll note that the WWII Britain instance is an example of *Bonapartism*, which is inherently unsustainable -- we might consider it a *strategy* of the capitalist nation-state during any crisis of regular operation, as during a world war.





State capitalism is when the nation state nationalizes the means of production; forces the working class to toil for national profit; then calls it a workers paradise.
The U.S.S.R., cuba, china, north korea, ETC... They just nationalized the capital and continued exploiting the working class for the ruling classes profit.


I'll go so far as to say that we on the revolutionary left are practically practicing political *archaeology* in looking back at the USSR, etc., because the early- to mid-20th century was also a period of necessary catch-up *industrialization* for non-Western countries -- a novel technological historical moment that has been far surpassed here in the 21st century.





Anarchy is the order of society. It is the voluntary collective of voluntary collectives (Union of Unions). Only when the workers organizations control their own production and distribution; could a society possibly be considered socialist. Any hierarchy over the voluntary organizations is by definition; ruling class. Literally the class that rules over the working class.

[Bahant]

it was not democratic at all...

[Ismail]

it was not democratic at all...What would the USSR require to characterize it as democratic, in your view?