What is Stalinism?

[Severian]

This is a subject where I run into a common misunderstanding from time to time, on this board. I hope a thread specifically on the subject can help clear this up. (Of course there have been past threads with similar titles, but in none of them was this clearly explained.)

Stalinism is not defined by Stalin the individual. Nor is it an insult - it would be "Stalinite" not "Stalinist" if that was the intention. It is a scientific political characterization.

For a Marxist, political tendencies are defined fundamentally by the class interests they serve, not by individuals. Stalinism is the rule of a privileged bureaucratic caste over a postcapitalist economy.

And, secondarily, the politics of their franchise parties worldwide. They were defined by their allegiance to these bureaucratic regimes, and identified the interests of the world working class with the interests of the "workers' fatherland", as defined by its rulers.

This was the basis of all their actions, and the main characteristic separating them from the social democracy. The larger remaining Stalinist parties, like the CPUSA and the French Communist Party, have become social democratic now that their sponsors have gone. Some of the smaller remnants and fragments of Stalinism, through inertia, are still clinging to positions which served Moscow or Beijing's interests at some past time.

For the apparatchik regimes in power, the "Communist Parties" were diplomatic bargaining chips in their efforts to make deals with the capitalist world. The Stalinist regimes ordered one or another policy, and developed and discarded "theories" to excuse and rationalize whatever policy fit their needs of the moment. The Stalinist parties abroad went along with this largely because they were convinced

The phenomenon's named after Stalin because he was its first political representative. Despite factional conflicts within the bureaucracy, it includes Stalin's sucessors in the USSR, and similar regimes in China, north Korea, Vietnam, and of course Eastern Europe.

Ironically, I run into the biggest objections to this....from people who think Stalin's otherwise spotless honor shouldn't be sullied by associating him with "revisionists", whatever that means exactly.

The Encyclopedia of Marxism's article on Stalinism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stalinism) is pretty decent. Gives a good critique of some of the "theories" which the bureaucracy generated to rationalize its existence.

[Hiero]

Your post being pointless and making more understandings this paragraph confuses me. What do you mean? It seems fragment.


The phenomenon's named after Stalin because he was its first political representative. Despite factional conflicts within the bureaucracy, it includes Stalin's sucessors in the USSR, and similar regimes in China, north Korea, Vietnam, and of course Eastern Europe.

[Vanguard1917]

I agree with Severian. Stalinism is not merely a label that we use to describe the ideas and actions of Stalin. Stalinism is a system that characterised all Communist countries, especially in the bipolar world system of the post-war era.


it includes Stalin's sucessors in the USSR, and similar regimes in China, north Korea, Vietnam, and of course Eastern Europe.

What about Cuba?

[h&s]

Yes Cuba is included. It is a planned economy ruled undemocratically by the Party.
It may be a very good system (which shows the vast potential of a democratically run worker's state), but it is not a worker's state.

[Axel1917]

I would highly recommend reading the MIA's definition of Stalinism:


Stalinism

In contemporary parlance, the word “Stalinism” has come to embody a range of ideologies, specific political positions, forms of societal organization, and political tendencies. That makes getting at the core definition of “Stalinism” difficult, but not impossible.

First and foremost, Stalinism must be understood as the politics of a political stratum. Specifically, Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers' state. Its first manifestation was in the Soviet Union, where Stalinism arose when sections of the bureaucracy began to express their own interests against those of the working class, which had created the workers' state through revolution to serve its class interests.

Soviet Russia was an isolated workers' state, and its developmental problems were profound. The socialist movement–including the Bolshevik leaders in Russia–had never confronted such problems. Chief among these was that Russia was a backward, peasant-dominated country, the “weakest link in the capitalist chain,” and had to fight for its survival within an imperialist world. This challenge was compounded by the defeat of the revolution in Europe, particularly in Germany, and the isolation of the Soviet workers' state from the material aid that could have been provided by a stronger workers' state. But the pressures of imperialism were too great.

From a social point of view, then, Stalinism is the expression of these pressures of imperialism within the workers' state. The politics of Stalinism flow from these pressures.

The political tenets of Stalinism revolve around the theory of socialism in one country–developed by Stalin to counter the Bolshevik theory that the survival of the Russian Revolution depended on proletarian revolutions in Europe. In contradistinction, the Stalinist theory stipulates that a socialist society can be achieved within a single country.

In April 1924, in the first edition of his book Foundations of Leninism, Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”

In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”

Leon Trotsky, in The Third International After Lenin, called the Stalinist concept of “socialism one country” a “reactionary theory” and characterized its “basis” as one that“sums up to sophistic interpretations of several lines from Lenin on the one hand, and to a scholastic interpretation of the 'law of uneven development' on the other. By giving a correct interpretation of the historic law as well as of the quotations [from Lenin] in question,” Trotsky continued, “we arrive at a directly opposite conclusion, that is, the conclusion that was reached by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and all of us, including Stalin and Bukharin, up to 1925."

Stalinism had uprooted the very foundations of Marxism and Leninism.

From “socialism in one country” flow the two other main tenets of Stalinist politics. First is that the workers' movement–given the focus on building socialism in one country (i.e., the Soviet Union)–must adapt itself to whatever is in the best interests of that focus at any given moment. Hence we find the Stalinists engaged in “a series of contradictory zigzags” (Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed), from confrontation with imperialism to détente and from seeming support for the working-class struggle to outright betrayal of the workers. In other words, Russia's own economic development comes first, above an international policy of revolution–which was the Bolshevik perspective. The second is the idea of revolution in “stages” –that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state–and, by extension, within the world workers' movement–we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role.

The case of Indonesia in 1965 affords an ideal illustration of the bankruptcy and treachery of the “two-stage theory.” As class tensions mounted among the workers and the peasantry, and the masses began to rise up against the shaky regime of President Sukarno, the Stalinist leadership in Beijing told the Indonesian masses and their mass organization the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to tie their fate to the national bourgeoisie. In October, as many as 1 million workers and peasants were slaughtered in a CIA-organized coup led by General Suharto, which swept aside the Sukarno, crushed the rising mass movements, and installed a brutal military dictatorship.

The “two-stage theory” has also propelled the Stalinists into “popular fronts” with so-called“progressive”elements of the bourgeois class to “advance” the first revolutionary stage. Examples include Stalinist support (through the Communist Party, USA) to President Roosevelt 1930s. And, taking this orientation to its logical conclusion, the Communist Party in the United States consistently supports Democratic Party candidates for office, including the presidency.

The theory of “socialism in one country” and the policies that flowed from it propelled a transformation of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin. The Bolshevik revolutionary strategy, based on support for the working classes of all countries and an effort through the Communist International to construct Communist Parties as revolutionary leaderships throughout the world, gave way to deal-making and maneuvers with bourgeois governments, colonial “democrats” like Chiang Kai-shek in China, and the trade union bureaucracies.

In his 1937 essay “Stalinism and Bolshevism,” Trotsky wrote: “The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion. The revolutionary doctrine which teaches the proletariat to orient itself correctly in situations and to profit actively by them, contains of course no automatic guarantee of victory. But victory is possible only through the application of this doctrine.” At best, one can say that the Stalinist orientation has not been one of orienting “correctly."

In terms of the organization of a state, Stalinist policies are quite clear: democratic rights threaten the position of the bureaucracy, and hence democracy is incompatible with Stalinism. In basic terms on a world scale, the forces of Stalinism have done everything in their power to prevent socialist revolution.

Submitted by Scott Cooper,
December, 2000

From marxists.org's Encyclopedia of Marxism

[YKTMX]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 03:04 PM
I agree with Severian. Stalinism is not merely a label that we use to describe the ideas and actions of Stalin. Stalinism is a system that characterised all Communist countries, especially in the bipolar world system of the post-war era.


it includes Stalin's sucessors in the USSR, and similar regimes in China, north Korea, Vietnam, and of course Eastern Europe.

What about Cuba?
;) Nice spanner in the works there Vanguard.

Severian draws up a erudite, lucid account of the phenomenon, and then gets a bit ancy about following through on his own logic.

But you're quite right, Cuba is 'Stalinism with palm trees.'

[metalero]

Originally posted by h&[email protected] 3 2005, 03:20 PM
Yes Cuba is included. It is a planned economy ruled undemocratically by the Party.
It may be a very good system (which shows the vast potential of a democratically run worker's state), but it is not a worker's state.
the fact that URSS was their main economical allied is not enough base to make this statement. Cuban leadership managed to understand the failure of stalinism and they've always developed their own economical and political desicion according to their historical and material conditions...despite being blocked by an empire, it's followed a deep internationalist policy, far more than URSS did.

[Nachie]

I think it's interesting to note that most "Stalinists" (or at this point. the remaining Stalin apologists) are usually quite adamant that there is no such thing as "Stalinism", meaning that Stalin himself had no particularly great contributions to communist theory, but was nevertheless continuing Lenin's great vision.

Being anti-Leninist as well, I think all this is hilarious. After all, "Stalin did not fall from the moon."

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 09:04 AM
I agree with Severian. Stalinism is not merely a label that we use to describe the ideas and actions of Stalin. Stalinism is a system that characterised all Communist countries, especially in the bipolar world system of the post-war era.


it includes Stalin's sucessors in the USSR, and similar regimes in China, north Korea, Vietnam, and of course Eastern Europe.

What about Cuba?
That is, of course, debated. I would strongly argue that it's a very different regime. Certainly it has a different origin - the pro-Moscow PSP was bypassed by a new revolutionary leadership.

It's possible, of course, to argue that the revoutionary government degenerated at some point due to the adverse conditions and Soviet influence. But there's really no shortage of threads debating the nature of the Cuban regime and its actions on this board!

Here, lemme just point out you're giving a lot of credit to Stalinism in this case. (As with any label that's applied to the Cuban revolution.)

To draw the logical conclusion: apparently Stalinism, rather than being "counterrevolutionary through and through", is capable of:

Keeping bureaucratic privilege at relatively low levels

Successfully defying Washington from 90 miles away for 45 years.

Maintaining the enthusiastic support of much of the population.

Relying on a relatively low level of repression considering the situation

Organizing some significant forms of mass participation in decision-making

Relying on mass mobilization to meet every important challenge - and being able to do so

Strengthening the worker-peasant alliance while following a policy of gradual, voluntary collectivization

Telling the truth fairly consistently

Economically, placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people

And most anamolous of all:

Revolutionary internationalism. Putting opportunities to aid revolutionary struggles ahead of opportunities to seek "peaceful coexistence" with Washington - the biggest opportunity in the late 70s was scuttled by the Angolan events. The Cuban regime hasn't stood to gain anything material from its internationalist foreign policy, and at times even endangered its relationship with the USSR for its sake..

I'd be curious what explanation anyone could give for why a bureaucratic caste would want to do all those things, let alone be able to do so.

***
On the MIA definition - I think it's pretty decent, like I said. I do think there is a certain overemphasis on the "theories" - like the "two-stage" rationalization for support to Third World capitalist classes.

The "theories" changed with the shifting needs of the caste. Sometimes very abruptly - that kind of zigzag was the inspiration for Orwell writing in 1984, "Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." And then it's at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, and always has been.

On the other hand, it is important to recognize those ideas when you see 'em; they are very widespread on "the left" worldwide due precisely to their promotion by Moscow and Beijing. All kinds of leftists hold some variant of those ideas, partly 'cause of their inability to shake their early political training.

And the "two stage" approach fits well with social-democracy as well, so it continues to operate as orphaned Stalinist parties drift towards social democracy.

***

I'm surprised to see YTMX say "Severian draws up a erudite, lucid account of the phenomenon". I'd thought he considered the Stalinist regimes to be merely another form of capitalism...which implies a very different analysis and expectations of their behavior. It also tends to imply a longer list of countries considered to be in the same "state capitalist" category as the USSR. Egypt for example, where most industry was taken over by the state in Nasser's time, as part of a bourgeios nationalist development strategy.

***

Hiero, I don't know what you don't understand, but I'm saying all of those are examples of Stalinism, of the bureaucratic rule I'm describing at the beginning of the thread.

[Guest1]

I also think there's a bit of danger in considering Stalinism a "system", as its very nature implies it is ever-contradictory.

It is a phenomenon of bureaucratic degeneration within workers' states, referring to it as a system is akin to the idea of "state-capitalism".

That being said, I'm still unsure as to where I stand on what exactly it was, and despite the rumours and songs, whether I'm a Trotskyist :lol:

[Vanguard1917]

Keeping bureaucratic privilege at relatively low levels

Successfully defying Washington from 90 miles away for 45 years.

Maintaining the enthusiastic support of much of the population.

Relying on a relatively low level of repression considering the situation

Organizing some significant forms of mass participation in decision-making

Relying on mass mobilization to meet every important challenge - and being able to do so

Strengthening the worker-peasant alliance while following a policy of gradual, voluntary collectivization

Telling the truth fairly consistently

Economically, placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people

Even assuming that all these claims are accurate, this is hardly what we have in mind when we talk of a progressive system to replace capitalism. We want the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Cuban state has had the same leader for almost fifty years. What can explain this longevity? Surely not the accountability of the Cuban state to the social currents existing within Cuban society...? Just like the Stalinist regimes of the past, Cuban society is held in place artificially: i.e. it's not part of a progressive historical process.

We should defend Cuba against Western aggression - just as we should defend any other country against Western aggression. But i'm against those on the left today who try to pose Cuban society as some sort of progressive alternative to Western capitalism. It isn't...

[metalero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 02:50 AM
Just like the Stalinist regimes of the past, Cuban society is held in place artificially: i.e. it's not part of a progressive historical process.

We should defend Cuba against Western aggression - just as we should defend any other country against Western aggression. But i'm against those on the left today who try to pose Cuban society as some sort of progressive alternative to Western capitalism. It isn't...


--------------------

Anyone trying to portray cuba as a "progressive" alternative to capitalism would be deemed to failure. This sounds to me like a social democrat definition,and I would advice them to show for example scandinavian countries. In cuba you don't find fancy and unnecessary burgouis items, and there's shortage of many comforts that would make very hard for a "humanist capitalist" to live in Cuba.
If you read about Cuban history, and pre-revolutionary cuba (See extreme poverty now in other latin american countries), you would find that Cuba revolution is a particular one that brings together thoughts and ideas from Jose Marti, Simon bolivar, Marx and Lenin, regarding specifical conditions in Latinamerica. So I think it does follow a revolutionary historical process, far way from Stalinism.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 08:50 PM

Keeping bureaucratic privilege at relatively low levels

Successfully defying Washington from 90 miles away for 45 years.

Maintaining the enthusiastic support of much of the population.

Relying on a relatively low level of repression considering the situation

Organizing some significant forms of mass participation in decision-making

Relying on mass mobilization to meet every important challenge - and being able to do so

Strengthening the worker-peasant alliance while following a policy of gradual, voluntary collectivization

Telling the truth fairly consistently

Economically, placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people

Even assuming that all these claims are accurate, this is hardly what we have in mind when we talk of a progressive system to replace capitalism. We want the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Cuban state has had the same leader for almost fifty years. What can explain this longevity? Surely not the accountability of the Cuban state to the social currents existing within Cuban society...? Just like the Stalinist regimes of the past, Cuban society is held in place artificially: i.e. it's not part of a progressive historical process.
So against all that the Cuban revolutionary government has done, you cite one fact: Fidel Castro's been in office too long. Cuba cannot possibly represent a dictatorship of the proletariat - it must be a dictatorship of Fidel Castro!

'Course, I can't see why Cuban working people would want to remove a capable and dedicated representative of their class interests.....just to prove to you they can? By most accounts, they don't want to; visitors to Cuba commonly report that Fidel is personally very popular and not blamed for the various warts and blemishes of Cuban society.


Just like the Stalinist regimes of the past, Cuban society is held in place artificially: i.e. it's not part of a progressive historical process.

And what exactly is this "artificial" force which, you say, has held Cuban society in place for 45 years...in the face of unrelenting hostility from Washington?

[YKTMX]

Keeping bureaucratic privilege at relatively low levels



As opposed to, say, no privilege.


Successfully defying Washington from 90 miles away for 45 years.


Why does "defying Washington" neccessarily connote a progressive social system? In any case, I think you'll find that the "original" Stalinist state existed, and indeed prospered at certain times, for longer than 45 years while under the severest "imperialist pressure".


Maintaining the enthusiastic support of much of the population.


Fatuous. There is no way of real way of knowing this because Castro and the Cuban bureaucrats aren't subject to any real democratic process.

No doubt Ceaucescu and Saddam thought their populations were "enthusiastic" - they weren't.


Relying on a relatively low level of repression considering the situation


What "situation"? The reason Cuba suffered after the collapse of their paymaster's is because it specifically decided to align itself with the Soviet Union - it wasn't an "accident". Therefore all "repression" that happens is a direct and inevitable result of Cuban policy.

America was under certain "pressures" after 9/11 - does this excuse the Patriot Act and Guantanomo?


Relying on mass mobilization to meet every important challenge - and being able to do so

Rhetoric.


Strengthening the worker-peasant alliance while following a policy of gradual, voluntary collectivization

Rhetoric.


Telling the truth fairly consistently

Like most good liars.


Economically, placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people


Possibly. So does Sweden.


I'd thought he considered the Stalinist regimes to be merely another form of capitalism...which implies a very different analysis and expectations of their behavior.

Well, the political behaviour is pretty self-evident. I don't think you said anything on the economy apart from once using the vaguest possible terms ("postcapitalist"), so I didn't feel it neccessary to go over State capitalism yet again.


It also tends to imply a longer list of countries considered to be in the same "state capitalist" category as the USSR. Egypt for example, where most industry was taken over by the state in Nasser's time, as part of a bourgeios nationalist development strategy

Finally, you're getting it! State capitalism is a particular type of capitalist development, which wouldn't neccessarily be confined to "Stalinist" states. That's why, for instance, many bourgeois economists and politicians respected Stalin. They noticed that the tendency towards "state control" was a general one in world capitalism - which the Soviet Union had "anticipated" in its own capitalist structures. The political superstructure in these countries which so confuses people like you was merely an expression of the "origins" of this particular strata - the Stalinist bureaucracy.

That is, they built the statues to Marx and sang the internationale because of their political origins, not because their system was in anyway socialist, progressive, post capitalist, workerist or anything else.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 10:03 AM

Keeping bureaucratic privilege at relatively low levels



As opposed to, say, no privilege.
If they could do that....it would be socialism in one country.

I think that really sums up this type of critique of the Cuban revolution....they're being criticized for failing to do the impossible.


Why does "defying Washington" neccessarily connote a progressive social system?
It doesn't, and I'm glad you realize that, seeing as how you once asked "How can anything anti-imperialist be reactionary"?

The point is, the social force it takes to successfully do that...


In any case, I think you'll find that the "original" Stalinist state existed, and indeed prospered at certain times, for longer than 45 years while under the severest "imperialist pressure".

In a rather larger country, and not in Washington's backyard.

Certainly no capitalist regime in the Western hemisphere has been able to do anything like what Cuba's done. So why is that? Fidel's superpowers? Divine protection? Or is there some powerful class force behind the Cuban revolution?


Fatuous. There is no way of real way of knowing this because Castro and the Cuban bureaucrats aren't subject to any real democratic process.

Did you get this trick from Redstar? Whenever the facts are inconvenient, he proclaims they're unknowable.

In fact, there are numerous ways of measuring Cuban public opinion, from visiting Cuba to a Gallup Poll the Miami Herald commissioned once...and never again, since the results were inconvenient. But they're ahead of you in basing themselves on reality, since at least they did it once.

Cuban elections actually are one measure, though not the most important....the opposition, external and internal, calls on Cubans to spoil their ballots. Some do so. The percentage is not high, though I don't remember it exactly offhand.


What "situation"? The reason Cuba suffered after the collapse of their paymaster's is because it specifically decided to align itself with the Soviet Union - it wasn't an "accident".

The "situation" is that of a proletarian revolution in an underdeveloped country in a hostile capitalist world....and specifically, 90 miles from Miami. Y'know, the situation that makes it impossible to build socialism in one country.

The reason Cuba survived the initial years is "because it specifically decided to align itself with the Soviet Union." Over those decades, the revolution built the strength it drew on to weather the economic consequences of the USSRs collapse....and begin to recover from them. Defying all predictions in the process.

Speaking of which, what did the British SWP say would happen? Seems like a useful test of your theory.



Relying on mass mobilization to meet every important challenge - and being able to do so

Rhetoric.


Strengthening the worker-peasant alliance while following a policy of gradual, voluntary collectivization

Rhetoric.

Another neat trick for ignoring inconvenient facts....label them non-facts. But whether a country has practiced forced or voluntary collectivization, for example, is a fairly straightforward factual question.

Whether a country responds to unrest with a Tiananmen Square-style military attack, or by mobilizing supporters of the revolution in a counterdemonstration which takes back the streets, is another.



Telling the truth fairly consistently

Like most good liars.

Got any examples of lies you want to point out? In any case, quite unlike all Stalinist regimes, which are the world's biggest and worst liars.



Economically, placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people


Possibly. So does Sweden.

Wow. The Swedish capitalist state puts human needs before profits? Don't think so.

Of course, they did grant significant welfare-state concessions , in the face of workers' struggle, and when they could afford it without too much trouble.

What motivates the Cuban regime to assign the social priorities it does? What class interest do they reflect?


Well, the political behaviour is pretty self-evident. I don't think you said anything on the economy apart from once using the vaguest possible terms ("postcapitalist"), so I didn't feel it neccessary to go over State capitalism yet again.

And here I thought political behavior flowed from economic foundations. If those economic foundations are merely capitalist, why the particular political behavior?


Finally, you're getting it! State capitalism is a particular type of capitalist development, which wouldn't neccessarily be confined to "Stalinist" states....The political superstructure in these countries which so confuses people like you was merely an expression of the "origins" of this particular strata - the Stalinist bureaucracy.
That is, they built the statues to Marx and sang the internationale because of their political origins, not because their system was in anyway socialist, progressive, post capitalist, workerist or anything else.

Heh. The "political superstructure" I described in my "lucid" earlier post goes well beyond statues of Marx. I emphasized the actions rather than the paint job.

Anyway, the Cuban revolution has different political origins. So if origin is the only reason for the differences, why did you mention only them as "Stalinist", and not Egypt or Burma or any of the others?

As usual, the "state capitalist" analysis raises more questions than it answers.

What is the difference between Stalinist state capitalism and other types of state capitalism? What is the difference between state capitalism and other types of capitalism?

From world events, or, say, by the consequences for workers of the economic "reforms" in the former USSR, it's obvious there are significant differences between the states you label in this way. Yet no serious answers to these questions are given by the "state capitalism" theorists.

[Hiero]

Severian can you adress my post.

[Severian]

Already did.

[h&s]

Originally posted by metalero+Oct 3 2005, 09:26 PM--> (metalero @ Oct 3 2005, 09:26 PM)
h&[email protected] 3 2005, 03:20 PM
Yes Cuba is included. It is a planned economy ruled undemocratically by the Party.
It may be a very good system (which shows the vast potential of a democratically run worker's state), but it is not a worker's state.
the fact that URSS was their main economical allied is not enough base to make this statement. Cuban leadership managed to understand the failure of stalinism and they've always developed their own economical and political desicion according to their historical and material conditions...despite being blocked by an empire, it's followed a deep internationalist policy, far more than URSS did. [/b]
You misunderstand the basis of Stalinism. Stalinism does not refer to states that follow the example of the USSR. The basis of Stalinism is the ruling class that takes over planned economies.

[YKTMX]

It doesn't, and I'm glad you realize that, seeing as how you once asked "How can anything anti-imperialist be reactionary"?


I don't think any regime which aligns itself with the butchers of Prague and Budapest can neccessarily be called "anti-imperialist" - but that's another matter.

I don't think I've ever labelled Cuba "reactionary". Certainly I don't think the Cuban system is any sense "progressive", whether it's reactionary or not, I don't know.


The point is, the social force it takes to successfully do that...

A propped up Stalinist bureaucracy.


Certainly no capitalist regime in the Western hemisphere has been able to do anything like what Cuba's done.

Which is?


Cuban elections actually are one measure, though not the most important

Of course not. Every true demcrat knows opinion polls are better than free and fair elections.



The "situation" is that of a proletarian revolution in an underdeveloped country in a hostile capitalist world....and specifically, 90 miles from Miami.

Proletarian revolution? Try petit-bouregeois insurgency which decide it's "communist" when it's convenient to do so.


Speaking of which, what did the British SWP say would happen?

I don't know, I'll need to check. I'd imagine collapse or head for free market capitalism - which European sex tourist will tell you is nonsense.


The Swedish capitalist state puts human needs before profits? Don't think so.


Sorry, you said, "placing a uniquely high priority on the social needs of working people". To which, I said "so does Sweden".

Then you start babbling about "human need before profit".

This is what happens when one is seduced by Stalinism - you start thiniking and acting like them as well.


What motivates the Cuban regime to assign the social priorities it does? What class interest do they reflect?


You talk as if the Cuban bureaucracy is the first ruling class to make concessions to its populace. When Roosevelt introduces the New Deal, or the Labour Party builds the NHS, what class interest do they reflect?

The same one they always did, the same one as Dr. Fidel and his cronies.


And here I thought political behavior flowed from economic foundations. If those economic foundations are merely capitalist, why the particular political behavior?


Yes, economic behaviour flows from political foundations, but capitalist states are not monolithic.

Sweden has a very diffirent economic system (high-tax, welfarist, strong trade unions) and exhibits diffirent "political behaviour" from the U.S. It's still a capitalist state, with basically the same economic motivators.

"Base and superstructure" is not a deteministic outlook, as I'm sure you're aware.


Anyway, the Cuban revolution has different political origins.


Well, even though Fidel came from a middle-class lawerly nationalist standpoint, there were some in the movement with very similar "politial origins" to the Soviet bureaucrats - or at least their putative origins - namely Ernesto and, I believe, Castro's brother.


So if origin is the only reason for the differences, why did you mention only them as "Stalinist", and not Egypt or Burma or any of the others?


Because Stalinism is a form of state capitalism, with distinctive origins and goals. Whatever else he was, Nasser wasn't an agent of the Soviet bureaucracy - unlike, say, Mao.

And as I said earlier, the "state capitalisms" were indicative of a general tendency towards centralization in post-war capitalism - not specific to the Soviet Union or its satellites.


What is the difference between Stalinist state capitalism and other types of state capitalism?

One is Stalinist, the other isn't.


What is the difference between state capitalism and other types of capitalism?


Give me an example of "another type".

I would have thought the diffirences would have been self-evident.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 10:30 PM
I think it's interesting to note that most "Stalinists" (or at this point. the remaining Stalin apologists) are usually quite adamant that there is no such thing as "Stalinism", meaning that Stalin himself had no particularly great contributions to communist theory, but was nevertheless continuing Lenin's great vision.

Being anti-Leninist as well, I think all this is hilarious. After all, "Stalin did not fall from the moon."
Stalin continuing Lenin's work? Do you even know what you are talking about?

[Luís Henrique]

For a Marxist, political tendencies are defined fundamentally by the class interests they serve, not by individuals. Stalinism is the rule of a privileged bureaucratic caste over a postcapitalist economy.

If this is the case, then, obviously, the Cuban regime is Stalinist: it is the rule of a privileged bureaucratic layer over a postcapitalist economy. Unless, of course, it is either State capitalism or socialism. But we know it cannot be socialism, because, not being Stalinists ourselves, we deny the possibility of "socialism in one country".

But the differences between the Cuban regime and the "Sovietic" regime under Stalin (or, for the matter, most other post-revolutionary regimes) are too huge not to be noticed. Certainly, the privileged bureaucratic layer in Cuba allows (or is forced to allow) a completely different degree of popular participation in public affairs than the bureaucratic layers in the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, etc.

Thence, I would reserve the term "Stalinism" for the cases in which the bureaucratic layer's dictatorship is most open and degenerate.

Luís Henrique

[Severian]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 5 2005, 01:55 PM
If this is the case, then, obviously, the Cuban regime is Stalinist: it is the rule of a privileged bureaucratic layer over a postcapitalist economy. Unless, of course, it is either State capitalism or socialism. But we know it cannot be socialism, because, not being Stalinists ourselves, we deny the possibility of "socialism in one country".
Well, that's a beautiful piece of a priori reasoning: it's not capitalism, it's not socialism, therefore it must be a bureaucratic regime.

It's based on an assumption, not facts: it's assumed that the bureaucracy is the politically dominant social layer in Cuba.

As I've shown, that assumption is hard to reconcile with the known facts of the Cuban government's actions. With the way that working people get their way time and time again. E.g. the "technocrats" plans to introduce an income tax on wages, scuttled after this proposal was overwhelmingly rejected in workplace assemblies organized by the union federation.

Those actions can best be explained by the conclusion that the working class holds power in Cuba. Not in some perfect and unalloyed way, of course; but where has it? Certainly not in the early USSR, for example, as Lenin pointed out.

(Heck, where is anything perfect and unalloyed in the real world?)


But the differences between the Cuban regime and the "Sovietic" regime under Stalin (or, for the matter, most other post-revolutionary regimes) are too huge not to be noticed. Certainly, the privileged bureaucratic layer in Cuba allows (or is forced to allow) a completely different degree of popular participation in public affairs than the bureaucratic layers in the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, etc.

Well, thanks for noticing reality.

Of course, we still have the problem of why the apparatchiks would find that in their interests. Can the bureaucratic caste play some progressive historic role?

Like I said earlier, whatever label you put on Cuba, that label ends up looking pretty damn good. If it's capitalism, you have to ask whether capitalists in the Third World still have some revolutionary role to play...

actually that's a problem with mislabeling any of the workers states as "state capitalist" as well. Drawing the logical conclusion, people who adopt that assessment tend to start thinking Third World capitalists can play some revolutionary-democratic role in the fight against imperialism, for example....the British SWP being a good example.

***

YTMX, I think you evaded every point I made. If I was going to respond point-by-point, I'd just be repeating myself.

[Luís Henrique]

Well, that's a beautiful piece of a priori reasoning: it's not capitalism, it's not socialism, therefore it must be a bureaucratic regime.

Well, if it is socialism, then certainly that theory that "socialism in only one country" is impossible should be discarded.


It's based on an assumption, not facts: it's assumed that the bureaucracy is the politically dominant social layer in Cuba.

While you "assume" that the working class is such.


As I've shown, that assumption is hard to reconcile with the known facts of the Cuban government's actions.

Yes, it is. The idea that the working class is the dominant social class in Cuba, however, is hard to reconcile with what we know about socialism requiring a broader productive basis than capitalism. If Cuba is socialist, then certainly it is possible to have socialism without a considerable increasing of productive forces as compared with capitalism. Do you think that possible?


With the way that working people get their way time and time again. E.g. the "technocrats" plans to introduce an income tax on wages, scuttled after this proposal was overwhelmingly rejected in workplace assemblies organized by the union federation.

Which social layer are those technocrats? Working class or bureaucracy?

Who gets to elaborate plans in Cuba? The technocrats or the working class?

The working class having a veto power over the technocrats plans doesn't mean that it has the political initiative, does it?


Those actions can best be explained by the conclusion that the working class holds power in Cuba. Not in some perfect and unalloyed way, of course; but where has it? Certainly not in the early USSR, for example, as Lenin pointed out.

OK. In Cuba, the working class has managed to retain power against both capitalists and bureaucrats, for half a century, albeit there wasn't any sign of a world-wide revolution during that time, being, at the same time, unable to develop the productive forces in Cuba significantly more than the third-world capitalist countries. Fine; it would mean that some things we have being assuming as correct for the last seventy or eighty years are wrong. In this case, we need to bring up new theories that match those new facts. Do you know of any Marxist theorists that have dealt with this and came up with some new trends of thought that match them?


(Heck, where is anything perfect and unalloyed in the real world?)

No.


Of course, we still have the problem of why the apparatchiks would find that in their interests. Can the bureaucratic caste play some progressive historic role?

No; they certainly can be punctually defeated by the working class, though. Do you believe there is an innerent need of the bureaucratic layer to be more politically oppressive than the bourgeoisie? Ie, while the bourgeoisie may keep its power through regimes varying between Nazism and Swedish-style socialdemocracy, the bureaucracy may only govern through brutal dictatorship?


Like I said earlier, whatever label you put on Cuba, that label ends up looking pretty damn good. If it's capitalism, you have to ask whether capitalists in the Third World still have some revolutionary role to play...

Either that, or perhaps really the Cuban bourgeoisie was unnable to stand up to their historical role, and the democratic-bourgeois tasks have been accomplished by the working class?


actually that's a problem with mislabeling any of the workers states as "state capitalist" as well. Drawing the logical conclusion, people who adopt that assessment tend to start thinking Third World capitalists can play some revolutionary-democratic role in the fight against imperialism, for example....the British SWP being a good example.

We know that capitalists cannot play such role. What is in question, however, is: when the working class of an underdeveloped country undertakes a revolution - specially an isolated revolution - what the outcome is, some kind of atypical socialism, or some kind of atypical capitalism? Or something else?

Luís Henrique

[metalero]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2005, 08:40 AM


Fatuous. There is no way of real way of knowing this because Castro and the Cuban bureaucrats aren't subject to any real democratic process.

Did you get this trick from Redstar? Whenever the facts are inconvenient, he proclaims they're unknowable.

:lol: by the way, where is redstar??

[metalero]

Originally posted by h&s+Oct 5 2005, 09:32 AM--> (h&s @ Oct 5 2005, 09:32 AM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 09:26 PM

h&[email protected] 3 2005, 03:20 PM
Yes Cuba is included. It is a planned economy ruled undemocratically by the Party.
It may be a very good system (which shows the vast potential of a democratically run worker's state), but it is not a worker's state.
the fact that URSS was their main economical allied is not enough base to make this statement. Cuban leadership managed to understand the failure of stalinism and they've always developed their own economical and political desicion according to their historical and material conditions...despite being blocked by an empire, it's followed a deep internationalist policy, far more than URSS did.
You misunderstand the basis of Stalinism. Stalinism does not refer to states that follow the example of the USSR
. The basis of Stalinism is the ruling class that takes over planned economies.[/b]

The basis of Stalinism is the ruling class that takes over planned economies.

:huh: If you define stalinism by this statement, then, all possible revolutions would be a copy of stalinism as soon as the proletariat takes over political power and tries to force new economical relations by planning economy


"First and foremost, Stalinism must be understood as the politics of a political stratum. Specifically, Stalinism is the politics of the bureaucracy that hovers over a workers' state. Its first manifestation was in the Soviet Union, where Stalinism arose when sections of the bureaucracy began to express their own interests against those of the working class, which had created the workers' state through revolution to serve its class interests"
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm

When I said that Cuba has always developed their own politics regarding its own historical process, far away from stalinism, I was refering to this,

"the idea of revolution in “stages” –that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state–and, by extension, within the world workers' movement–we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role. "

and that is precisely what USSR wanted other countries to follow through their local Communist parties.

[Severian]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 5 2005, 03:00 PM
OK. In Cuba, the working class has managed to retain power against both capitalists and bureaucrats, for half a century, albeit there wasn't any sign of a world-wide revolution during that time, being, at the same time, unable to develop the productive forces in Cuba significantly more than the third-world capitalist countries. Fine; it would mean that some things we have being assuming as correct for the last seventy or eighty years are wrong.
Speak for yourself. I'm not aware of any major Marxist thinker who said that it was theoretically impossible for the working class to retain political power for a prolonged period in an adverse situation. That would be kinda defeatist, to declare that in advance.

Workers' power is not the same thing as socialism. It is a necessary but not, by itself, sufficient precondition for socialism - aka the first phase of communism, aka classless society.

In some ways it's suprising that the Cuban revolution has done so well as it has. But why be so pessimistic that we reject success when it smacks us in the nose?

And it's an exaggeration to say that "there wasn't any sign of a world-wide revolution during that time". After all, the years since 1959 saw the Vietnamese defeat of U.S. imperialism, the Nicaraguan and Grenadian revolutions, and numerous other revolutionary developments in the world....all of which strengthened the situation of the Cuban Revolution in the world, and the workers in the class struggle inside Cuba.

Additionally, the Cuban Revolution occurred at a time when Stalinism had been weakened enough so that it couldn't block the revolutionary struggle, or refuse to aid the Cuban Revolution, whose prestige it needed to associate itself with. But when the Soviet workers state - the legacy of the Russian Revolution - was still strong enough to provide important aid and trade.

That was part of the world class balance of forces which made it possible for the Cuban Revolution to survive and, in some important respects, progress. It was not wholly alone in a capitalist world. Not nearly so alone as the early Russian Revolution was.

(And even now, with the collapse of the USSR, the Cuban Revolution is not so alone as many people may assume...that is, the worldwide class relationship of forces is not so favorable to imperialism as many leftists think, especially those shocked and dispirited by the collapse of so-called "actually existing socialism.")

Of course, when theory and facts contradict, theory should be (carefully) revised. But in this case, I think it's only a more concrete examination of the situation that's required.


Do you believe there is an innerent need of the bureaucratic layer to be more politically oppressive than the bourgeoisie? Ie, while the bourgeoisie may keep its power through regimes varying between Nazism and Swedish-style socialdemocracy, the bureaucracy may only govern through brutal dictatorship?

So far the evidence is...it strongly tends to. Probably because its regimes are unstable, not resting on the broad support of a propertied class and its economic power.

But that's all general and abstract. Like YTMX, you seem to have missed my point, which is: what concretely forces the allegedly bureaucratic Cuban regime to act in this highly atypical way, to give such unprecendented large concessions to the workers? (Unprecedented relative to the economic level of the country.)

Where's the oppositional mass actions of workers which are pressuring it, for example? People keep saying large concessions are theoretically possible...sure, but that's not a substitute for a concrete explanation.

I can do it for Sweden: it was one of the only countries in Europe not devastated by WWII. As its industry produced for the huge market of rebuilding Europe after the war, Sweden experienced a prolonged period of great capitalist prosperity which made it possible for the state to afford large concessions to the workers. On the workers' side of things, there was a history of struggle and a significant degree of class-consciousness, leading to mass struggles which extracted those concessions. With its prosperity drying up in recent decades, the Swedish capitalist state has been moving to roll back its social welfare programs.

Can anybody do that for Cuba?


What is in question, however, is: when the working class of an underdeveloped country undertakes a revolution - specially an isolated revolution - what the outcome is, some kind of atypical socialism, or some kind of atypical capitalism? Or something else?

I'd say, assuming the revolution is not reversed...then the result is a transitional stage between capitalism and socialism. Which has been described with terms such as a workers state, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. More or less distorted.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2005, 09:01 PM
"the idea of revolution in “stages” –that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state–and, by extension, within the world workers' movement–we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role. "

and that is precisely what USSR wanted other countries to follow through their local Communist parties.
Right. The July 26th Movement broke with that to make the revolution....and the Cuban Communist Party broke with Stalinist practice through its revolutionary internationalism, as I mentioned earlier.

That's a side of the question that has been wholly evaded by those who argue the Cuban government is bureaucratic.

And it's a very important side of the question: revolutionary internationalism was always at the center of the communist opposition to Stalinism.

[h&s]

If you define stalinism by this statement, then, all possible revolutions would be a copy of stalinism as soon as the proletariat takes over political power and tries to force new economical relations by planning economy
You know what I mean! And I said what I meant also. The basis of Stalinism has never been the policies of Moscow, but the class interests of the beaureucrats, wherever they may be.


When I said that Cuba has always developed their own politics regarding its own historical process, far away from stalinism, I was refering to this,

"the idea of revolution in “stages” –that the “national-democratic revolution” must be completed before the socialist revolution takes place. This, too, runs contrary to Marxism. But because of this theory and as the expression of imperialism within the workers' state–and, by extension, within the world workers' movement–we find the Stalinists assigning to the national bourgeoisie a revolutionary role. "

and that is precisely what USSR wanted other countries to follow through their local Communist parties.

That does not mean that the Cuban CP is not beureaucratic though does it? The Cuban CP may want other revolutions, but what does that mean?
The USSR did not want revolution becasue it would provoke world revolution and their downfall. Cuban support for revolution, however, is not for a working class revolution. They support peasant/populist revolutions, which are of no threat to their class interests and if anything bolster their home support.

*Edit*
2000 posts!
Am I god or what? :)