Socialism in one country

[Technocrates]

Many of us here are internationalists, but I believe in socialism in one country. No, I am not a National Bolshevik, with all their crazy ideas of a united Eurasia, because I reject all racist ideals. I just happen to think socialism works best on a local scale with the same people of a relative same culture. What do you think?

[coda]

Socialism, yes, Communism, No.

Do you mean redistributing the wealth of that country amongst that countries people?

I think it is impossible to have an isolated communism in one country without the rest of the world being communism, as long as their are World Markets in place. The country would have to be totally self-sufficient including natural resources, and not having to rely on any kind of import or export for it to work properly.

[Alf]

Marx never made much of this distinction between socialism and communism. He talked about the lower stage of communism introduced by the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a higher stage characterised by abundance and the absence of any need for political power. In the initial stage the working class has to take measures which tend towards the abolition of the fundamental features of capital - wage labour and commodity production. As long as the proletariat's rule is limited to one country or even several countries, it will be dominated by the laws of the world market, of global capital. This is why socialism in one country is just total nonsense. Unless of course you swallow the Stalinist lie (backed up by all other currents of bourgeois thought from right to left) that socialism means a system where the extraction of surplus value is directly managed by the state. That can happily be achieved in one country, because the nation is by its very nature the classic framework for the operation of capitalism.

Communism means the end of nations, and you can't be a communist without being an internationalist.

[Technocrates]

I am just a socialist.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Technocrates+--> (Technocrates)....but I believe in socialism in one country.[/b]

Well this is a tricky question, because it depends on the country.

Countries are an ideological concept. For instance, New York could be a country, and the European Union could be a country as well.

So really when someone says "Socialism is possible in one country", then you really have to ask which country.

In my opinion, the smallest regions where Communism would be possible are North America (by this I mean the North of the US and the bottom of Canada) and a combination of the Scandinavian countries.

Why? ....well as far as I know, both these regions have an adequate variation of natural resources (they wouldn't need to trade with outside regions) and they have a lot of timber.


Alf
Unless of course you swallow the Stalinist lie....

To be fair to Uncle Joe, Russia (or the Russian Empire) covered something like a sixth of the worlds land. It wasn't the same type of a country as say Wales or Ireland. There were plenty of natural resources and good variation.

So all in all, a region the size of "Stalin's Russia", with the variation and amount of natural resources could possibly have a functioning Communist society.

[Rawthentic]

well, Cuba IS socialist, and we see the great things that it has done for its people, granted, its not perfect, but it sure is beautiful, the people are so world conscious and naturally good hearted its hard to wonder why everyone else cant be like that. Cuba does suffer from poverty due to its isolation as a socialist state, but it still keeps afloat. Cuba shines through its own light, it need not the power of others :D

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2006, 05:46 PM
Cuba shines through its own light, it need not the power of others :D

Well not really.... Advancing Cuba-China relations. (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45143)

Like I said earlier, it is important to ask which country when asked the question "could Socialism happen in one country?"

Cuba, unfortunately, is far too small to create a society of material abundance.

[Technocrates]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2006, 05:46 PM
well, Cuba IS socialist, and we see the great things that it has done for its people, granted, its not perfect, but it sure is beautiful, the people are so world conscious and naturally good hearted its hard to wonder why everyone else cant be like that. Cuba does suffer from poverty due to its isolation as a socialist state, but it still keeps afloat. Cuba shines through its own light, it need not the power of others :D
Cuba can blame its poverty on the USA.

[chebol]

Not entirely. There are limitations to Cuba's productive capability. This is not to deny the fact that the blockade has severely damaged the Cuban economy, but even without the blockade, Cuba would have difficulty trying to build socialism in isolation.

The truth of this can be seen in the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the Cuban economy, and therefore on Cuban society. Taking the blockade into account, Cuba could be doing better, but reality would suggest that a socialist society would face aggression from the world's largest imperial power anyway...

What is worth noting in the case of Cuba, and why the revolution survives and prospers until this day, is the ideological strenght of the revolution. Despite immense hardship, the sacrifice and dedication of the cuban people has kept as much of the revolution going as possible. A central tenet of Cuba's (and any other) socialist revolution is internationalism, and the doctrine of 'building socialism in one country' was never Cuba's aim.

However, after a decade and a half of the 'special period', things were looking bad. And this is why the Venezuelan revolution is so important. It provides many of the material products that Cuba requires, while Cuba provides human resources (doctors, teachers, agronomists) and ideas.

While Cuba has also increased it's ties and trade with China (and Russia, and Vietnam, although this is a different story), the key is Venezuela, and now Bolivia, as it fits the long-term strategy of spreading the revolution throughout Latin America.

I doubt I would be mistaken in saying that the Cuban revolution would likely have faltered over the next decade without a revolutionary outbreak in Latin America, and the current revolutionary tide rising in the continent would not be able to succeed (or would be facing hurdles a hundred times larger) if not for the solidarity of the Cubans.

[Technocrates]

I really don't know what to think of Cuba. Some say Fidel Castro is a dictator, some do not. I have heard it is poor but a person who went there said on his site that their healthcare system is second to none.

[Alf]

If Cuba is socialism, then marxism is totally invalid.

Marx and Engels, from 1847 onwards, made it quite clear that the socialist revolution had to take place more or less simultaneously at least in the most advanced countries. On the scale of history, simultaneous isn’t instantaneous, but Cuba has supposedly been ‘socialist’ for around half a century.

By the same token, Marxism has always argued that the precondition for socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Russian workers in 1917 translated this phrase into concrete reality: the power of the workers’ councils. There were never any workers’ councils in Cuba, no mass self-activity by the workers, no seizure of power by the armed working class. So if Castro’s Stalinist clique has established socialism in Cuba, it proved that Marx and Engels were wrong about the working class being the only social force that can establish it.

Socialism/communism is a new mode of production: the abolition of production for the market and its replacement by production for need under the control of the associated producers. The market is a world market, so if you want to get rid of capitalism, you have to get rid of the world market, and of nation states. The state of Cuba is a single capitalist firm producing its commodities to realise a profit on the world market Like all capitalist firms, its structure is hierarchical, hence the dominant power of the Castroite bureaucracy, the personification of Cuban capital.

Socialism is something to fight for, against the present system; it’s not here already, whether in Cuba, North Korea, China or anywhere else on this planet. To support any of these states is to support the present world order against the socialist revolution.

[KC]

I am just a socialist.


Yeah? So what do you believe will happen once capitalism falls? Your theories aren't applicable whatsoever to a post-capitalist society.

[ReD_ReBeL]

Some say Fidel Castro is a dictator, some do not. I have heard it is poor but a person who went there said on his site that their healthcare system is second to none.

Is Castro A Dictator? (http://www.cuba-solidarity.org/dictator.htm)