Post-NEP USSR

[MrDoom]

What kind of economic policy did the USSR have after the NEP was canceled?

Wasn't it still some form of State Capitalism or whatnot?

[ComradeOm]

Yep. After the NEP the USSR moved towards the command economy that lasted until 1990. Or to be more accurate, the NEP interrupted the USSR's progress towards state capitalism.

[MrDoom]

Excellent.

I needed to know this, because I'm currently writing up a 'Communist Theses' of sorts (Martin Luther must be rolling over in his grave! :P ); my American Government class recently went through chapters on Communism and Socialism. Needless to say, it was full of cappie bullshit, and I am going point-by-point, explaining the falsities, inaccuracies, and misinformation that came up in the PowerPoint lecture. I was going to tape it up on his classroom door before school. ;)

I won't expect him to change anything, but if he doesn't, I can try to enlighten some of the people around here on an individual level, at least. The movement ends when you stop trying.

Thanks, Comrade.

[Zeruzo]

yeah, one responce that has no basis at all... so it must be true&#33; <_<

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2006, 08:18 PM
yeah, one responce that has no basis at all... so it must be true&#33; <_<
And what do you contend? That the Five Year Plans didn&#39;t start after the NEP had been ended? That the market economy of the NEP was more centralised than what followed?

Please, if you have a clue what you’re talking about then enlighten us as to just what you think the differences between the NEP and command economy were. Either that or shut up.

[Zeruzo]

I was reffering to the fact you called it &#39;state-capitalism&#39; without giving it a basis. And then &#39;MrDoom&#39; joyfully replied &#39;excellent&#39;, as if just saying that it is makes it true.

[Ian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 03:07 AM
What kind of economic policy did the USSR have after the NEP was canceled?

Wasn&#39;t it still some form of State Capitalism or whatnot?
I will be brief, after the NEP ended the Soviet Union moved into the first Five Year Plan, which provided the model for planned economies for 60 years. The principle of the 5 year plan is still used in the People&#39;s Republic of China, (although the current one is quite possibly the last one).

I&#39;ll leave the state capitalism debate to a trot or something. The less antagonistic term for the New Economic Period is Market Socialism

[Jadan ja]

I don&#39;t understand what is socialist in NEP and why ist would be reffered to as market socialism. It is more just "small capitalism".

I think that term "market socialism" is more used to describe self management sytem (such as the one that existed in Yugoslavia).

[More Fire for the People]

I dislike the term "state-capitalist". It assumes that the state makes a surplus-value from the proletariat in the manner that the capitalists do but otherwise I think it describes the Soviet Union quite well from the 1960s to 1980s. Before then, the economy from 1928 to the late 1950s could be described as a combination of socialized agriculture and light industry with state-capitalistic relations in heavy industry and infrastructure.

[CCCPneubauten]

Then was would you guys call the economy BEFORE the NEP?

[chimx]

war communism

[CCCPneubauten]

What exactly is that, I&#39;ve heard quite a few definitions of that term.

[chimx]

clickity clak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism)

[MrDoom]

I admit that I can be a little hasty on forum replies. Some of my current haunts are a little slow-paced, so I won&#39;t make the same mistake again. I feel like a big dumb n00b. <_<


I dislike the term "state-capitalist". It assumes that the state makes a surplus-value from the proletariat in the manner that the capitalists do but otherwise I think it describes the Soviet Union quite well from the 1960s to 1980s.
Then what differentiates it from socialism? Ownership of property, I&#39;d imagine?

[More Fire for the People]

Then what differentiates it from socialism? Ownership of property, I&#39;d imagine?
Because the USSR was a deformed worker&#39;s state, the question of who owns the means of production is big but hard to answer. Property was owned by the state — but the state wasn&#39;t bourgeoisie but it is obvious that the state wasn&#39;t a through-and-through workers dictatorship. If "state-capitalism" could be said to be "legally socialist — practically capitalist" then the term is correct. The state behaved like a capitalist state but did not become the new capitalists.

[chebol]

Wrong, the state did not behave like a capitalist state. It behaved like a deformed workers&#39; state.

How exactly do you contend it was capitalist? The economy did not conform to Marx&#39;s analysis of capitalism.

[More Fire for the People]

Because the state prohibited strikes, unionizations, etc. and became a bureaucratic nightmare.

[CCCPneubauten]

How do we prevent that the second time around?

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 10:20 AM
How do we prevent that the second time around?
Depends on what happens in-between the first day of the revolution and the beginning of the Thermidoric reaction.

[CCCPneubauten]

Well, let&#39;s say that YOU were leading the Russian Revolution, what would YOU have done?

(I don&#39;t mean to make that sound harsh, as you and I are Leninists I assume)

[More Fire for the People]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 06:48 PM
Well, let&#39;s say that YOU were leading the Russian Revolution, what would YOU have done?

(I don&#39;t mean to make that sound harsh, as you and I are Leninists I assume)
On August 30, 1918 I would have worn a bullet proof vest. :lol:
But in seriousness, my only faults with the Russian Revolution are the use of petty-bourgeois scientist rather than level-footed working scientist and the lack of term limits.

[CCCPneubauten]

I see what you are saying, if the government didn&#39;t remain as still as a &#39;sketer breeding ground the USSR could have been something to be pround of.