Soviet Union

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 07:11 am
No, my argument is that the USSR was capitalist during this period.

I think it'd help if you outlined what you mean by 'socialist property relations' so we can all be clear. For me, it's the abolition of money, wage labour, the suppression of value, 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'. Since none of these were the case in the USSR or Cuba you presumably mean something else.
You'll have to substantiate that, too, catch. How was the USSR capitalist?

The property relations of the USSR were collectivized after the October Revolution. Private property was effectively banished. This did not change at all until the fall of the Soviet Union. As late as 1989, property in the Soviet Union was held collectively and private property was prohibited.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm

Trotsky describes how ownership was less and less "capitalist" in 1936. That continued until the fall of the USSR (unless you'd like to submit contrary evidence).

[catch]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 09, 2007 04:58 pm
You'll have to substantiate that, too, catch. How was the USSR capitalist?
See my post above the one you quoted. I'm not going to summarise 90 years of arguments for you though. Suffice to say that private property = capitalist, nationalised property = socialist isn't enough to explain how capitalism works (either in the USSR or social democracies for that matter).

Like I said earlier, Lenin himself said they were building state capitalism during 1917-18, then in 1921 made a conscious decision to reintroduce formal market relations and private ownership with the New Economic Policy (or as Miasnikov put it, the New Exploitation of the Proletariat) - which lasted until 1928. Given that Lenin was about the least likely person to admit this at the time, it's pretty damning. Lenin was at best confused on a lot of the finer points though, having got a lot of his theory from Kautsky. So the Aufheben series is a good start on those who actually developed the idea of State Capitalism in relation to what happened, as opposed to arguing for it beforehand and carrying it out like Lenin and Trotsky. One man management, Taylorism, militarisation of labour and other new capitalist measures - these are well documented in Brinton's "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control".

I'm going to write up an article on some of the strikes during the NEP and Five Year Plans soonish, which will show that not only was there capitalism but also class struggle during the period. For now, this summary of events in Vichuga 1932 (http://libcom.org/history/1932-vichuga-uprising) might show where some of this is coming from.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by catch+October 09, 2007 06:11 pm--> (catch @ October 09, 2007 06:11 pm)
manic [email protected] 09, 2007 04:58 pm
You'll have to substantiate that, too, catch. How was the USSR capitalist?
See my post above the one you quoted. I'm not going to summarise 90 years of arguments for you though. Suffice to say that private property = capitalist, nationalised property = socialist isn't enough to explain how capitalism works (either in the USSR or social democracies for that matter).

Like I said earlier, Lenin himself said they were building state capitalism during 1917-18, then in 1921 made a conscious decision to reintroduce formal market relations and private ownership with the New Economic Policy (or as Miasnikov put it, the New Exploitation of the Proletariat) - which lasted until 1928. Given that Lenin was about the least likely person to admit this at the time, it's pretty damning. Lenin was at best confused on a lot of the finer points though, having got a lot of his theory from Kautsky. So the Aufheben series is a good start on those who actually developed the idea of State Capitalism in relation to what happened, as opposed to arguing for it beforehand and carrying it out like Lenin and Trotsky. One man management, Taylorism, militarisation of labour and other new capitalist measures - these are well documented in Brinton's "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control".

I'm going to write up an article on some of the strikes during the NEP and Five Year Plans soonish, which will show that not only was there capitalism but also class struggle during the period. For now, this summary of events in Vichuga 1932 (http://libcom.org/history/1932-vichuga-uprising) might show where some of this is coming from. [/b]
No, you're failing to address the material reality of the USSR. There was no private property, there were no capitalist property relations, and yet you still claim that it was capitalist!

Quote Lenin on that. On the NEP, its introduction was necessary given the conditions of Russia at the time; ultra-leftists failed to grasp this then, as they do now. The NEP did not give up the gains of the socialist revolution, it was a temporary measure from which further gains could be made. The other policies you mentioned were similar to this. So no, your argument really has nothing to do with the direction of the USSR at the time.

I didn't see the previous post, but now that I have read it, let me briefly address it.


Capitalism doesn't depend on the formal ownership of the means of production (much less stocks and bonds). It's fundamentally about the relations of production, alienated labour, the production of surplus value. The persistence of commodity production and wage labour in the USSR and Cuba should be enough to show this was the case. The state is quite capable of acting as collective capitalist when it needs to.

So you're claiming that capitalist relations of production can create socialist property relations (which you have yet to disprove)? That's wrong in the first place. What wage labor? People were not employed as wage laborers in either the USSR or Cuba. Your argument runs in contradiction with reality and have nothing to do with the actual situations present.


Both Lenin and Trotsky admitted (enthusiastically) that they were setting up State Capitalism in Russia.

Give a quote for this insane, baseless claim (you might get away with sloppy slander on libcom.org, but not here).

[IronColumn]

If you're going to be a Leninist, at least read Lenin and understand what he was arguing and why he was arguing it. For the 2nd International, under Kautsky, state capitalism was the next step on the road to socialism. Thus, when the Bolsheviks took over they tried to implement state-capitalism with the understanding that the world revolution would give them, backwards Russia, the material to advance to socialism. What they were doing was provisional. For them, socialism was simply state capitalism run by the Bolshevik party.

"Socialism is merely the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly Lenin, CW, Vol. 25 page 358."

"...state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will become invincible in our country Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 294."

"While the revolution in Germany is still slow in coming forth, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 340."

So, these quotes are all from this site, which is the first google hit to pop up under Lenin and state capitalism. <http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/2419/lenin.html>.
Not only Lenin, but Bukharin and the left communists in the Bolshevik party (those who wanted to fight Germany instead of Brest-Litovsk sell out), as well as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and many other anarchists, as well as Otto Ruhle Herman Gorter and other distinguished German revolutionaries, recognized from 1917-1921 that the USSR was state capitalist in its ideological orientation and its practice.

There really is no debate here. After all, it&#39;s from the horse&#39;s mouth (Lenin). Unless there are those who really think that what Stalin in one country (as opposed to Lenin&#39;s views) was doing was implementing socialism? Do you really think that Stalinism=socialism? If so there&#39;s very little reason to discuss anything at all.

[manic expression]

IronColumn, the "state capitalism" that Lenin and the Bolsheviks eventually proposed differs drastically with the "state capitalism" that catch is speaking of, and that is why his claims are so preposterous. Here is an example of Lenin&#39;s "state capitalism":

The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/14b.htm

Within the very important context of the New Economic Policy, the Bolsheviks sought to make concessions to the peasantry and respond to the conditions of Russia after the devestation fo the Civil War. That is far from what catch claimed.

And finally, on the existence of "state capitalism" in the Soviet Union (the kind that catch claims exists):

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/19...ch09.htm#ch09-1 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm#ch09-1)

From the horse&#39;s mouth.

[IronColumn]

So now you&#39;ve changed your argument from Lenin/Trotsky never made any claims about building state capitalism to claiming that this "state capitalism" in their mouths meant something completely different than the "bad" state capitalism. Also no one said that the NEP was the introduction of state capitalism, this was simply small scale private capitalism added to the state capitalism of the Russians which had been constructed since 1917.

You simply think that an authoritarian state-capitalism, run by a minority party, can be made to serve the working class. All historical evidence to the contrary. Of course, you can claim that this state-capitalism is somehow "good" or "bad", passing a moral judgement, but really all we are concerned about is whether the USSR was really socialist or state-capitalist. Even you seem to have conceded the USSR was state-capitalist, albeit special. Thus, the figures of Lenin and Trotsky really have nothing for the working class except to show us, in Kropotkin&#39;s words, precisely what not to do.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 03:53 am
So now you&#39;ve changed your argument from Lenin/Trotsky never made any claims about building state capitalism to claiming that this "state capitalism" in their mouths meant something completely different than the "bad" state capitalism. Also no one said that the NEP was the introduction of state capitalism, this was simply small scale private capitalism added to the state capitalism of the Russians which had been constructed since 1917.
I never changed my arguments; you changed the context completely. The "state capitalism" that Lenin describes in the quote I provided has very little, indeed almost nothing, to do with catch&#39;s claims. Please review the differences between Lenin&#39;s words and catch&#39;s assertions. Lenin was quite specific: that state capitalism was "one of the principle aspects of the New Economic Policy".

You need to draw a clearer connection between your claims and Lenin&#39;s actual words (and policies).


You simply think that an authoritarian state-capitalism, run by a minority party, can be made to serve the working class. All historical evidence to the contrary. Of course, you can claim that this state-capitalism is somehow "good" or "bad", passing a moral judgement, but really all we are concerned about is whether the USSR was really socialist or state-capitalist. Even you seem to have conceded the USSR was state-capitalist, albeit special. Thus, the figures of Lenin and Trotsky really have nothing for the working class except to show us, in Kropotkin&#39;s words, precisely what not to do.

You are putting words in my mouth at an astonishing rate and ignoring the evidence in front of you. Further, you have completely ignored the context of this discussion. The fact is that the "state capitalism" that the ultra-leftists ascribe to the USSR (and Cuba) defies definition; the failure of anyone to satisfactorily define it for us is proof enough. The "state capitalism" that Lenin is speaking of in these writings is NOT the same thing at all; it has to do with the NEP and its role in the wider course of the revolution. You seem to have abandoned any pretense of dealing with either my arguments or the facts involved.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 10, 2007 04:23 am--> (manic expression &#064; October 10, 2007 04:23 am)The "state capitalism" that Lenin describes in the quote I provided has very little, indeed almost nothing, to do with catch&#39;s claims. Please review the differences between Lenin&#39;s words and catch&#39;s assertions. Lenin was quite specific: that state capitalism was "one of the principle aspects of the New Economic Policy".
[/b]
Lenin must have been remarkably prescient then if you imagine that these quotes are referring to the NEP:


Originally posted by [email protected] CW, Vol. 25 page 358
Socialism is merely the next step forward from state capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.


Originally posted by [email protected] Ibid, Vol. 27 page 294
...state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will become invincible in our country Lenin

They come from &#39;The Impending Catastrophe & How To Combat It&#39;, and were written in September 1917.

This one shows some prescience but a little less:


Originally posted by [email protected] Ibid, Vol. 27 page 340
While the revolution in Germany is still slow in coming forth, our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it

This is from &#39;"Left wing childishness, and the petty bourgeois mentality&#39;. It was published in May 1918.

The NEP, however, was was promulgated by decree on March 21, 1921.

How far sighted Lenin was.

The left communists also wrote on state capitalism:


Kommunist&#045; organ of the Leningrad District [email protected] April 20 1918
We stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state capitalism

Devrim

[Invader Zim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 10, 2007 01:08 am--> (manic expression @ October 10, 2007 01:08 am)
Invader Zi[email protected] 09, 2007 11:53 pm

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

You sound like a naive child.
I hope this isn&#39;t taking you away from your favorite cartoon show. [/b]
Sorry Sweetie, Invader Zim got axed years ago.

[manic expression]

devrim, the idea of a New Economic Policy did not just pop into Lenin&#39;s head in 1921; it had theory behind it already. Furthermore, the whole premise of "The Impending Catastrophe and How to Comat It" is, well, catastrophe:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/work...tm#v25zz99h-327 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/01.htm#v25zz99h-327)

It is a very specific case in which these measures must be put into place, and the NEP is an example of such a case. You are, like others, taking Lenin out of context and putting his words in a vacuum.


Sorry Sweetie, Invader Zim got axed years ago.

I&#39;m sure you&#39;ll cope.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 10, 2007 02:34 pm
devrim, the idea of a New Economic Policy did not just pop into Lenin&#39;s head in 1921; it had theory behind it already. Furthermore, the whole premise of "The Impending Catastrophe and How to Comat It" is, well, catastrophe:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/work...tm#v25zz99h-327 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/01.htm#v25zz99h-327)

It is a very specific case in which these measures must be put into place, and the NEP is an example of such a case. You are, like others, taking Lenin out of context and putting his words in a vacuum.


Actually, Lenin was won around to the NEP in 1921. At that point Trotsky had been advocating it for a year. Lenin certainly wasn&#39;t planning it in 1917 before the October Revolution.

What has happened here is that it has been shown that you don&#39;t know as much of the history as you pretend to do.

First you ask for something, and then when someone produces it you start saying that its &#39;different&#39; in some ways.

Personally, I am enjoying watching your intellectual gymnastics. It is quite amusing. Please continue.

On a political note Lenin did advocate state capitalism even before the revolution, which I would put down to his basically social democratic concept of what socialism was.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 02:51 pm
Actually, Lenin was won around to the NEP in 1921. At that point Trotsky had been advocating it for a year. Lenin certainly wasn&#39;t planning it in 1917 before the October Revolution.
That doesn&#39;t negate the fact that Lenin had dealt with the idea before. Lenin may have been won over to putting it in place in 1921, but that is in application, not in theory.


What has happened here is that it has been shown that you don&#39;t know as much of the history as you pretend to do.

No, Devrim, this is an example of deliberately misunderstanding an argument by putting it in a different context.


First you ask for something, and then when someone produces it you start saying that its &#39;different&#39; in some ways.

I asked for an explanation of how the USSR was "state capitalist", which you and the other ultra-leftists have failed to do. I&#39;m still waiting, Devrim, which shows how little foundation your theories have.


Personally, I am enjoying watching your intellectual gymnastics. It is quite amusing. Please continue.

Putting words in my mouth, changing the context of the argument and ignoring the conditions involved is precisely what you and your camp has done. My responses to these tactics have been trying to retrieve the goal posts you moved. Enjoy the victory you won in your imagination, it&#39;s all you&#39;re going to get.


On a political note Lenin did advocate state capitalism even before the revolution, which I would put down to his basically social democratic concept of what socialism was.

Please show how this is true from his writings.

on edit Devrim, the problems inherent in your argument are illustrated by your claim that Trotsky was promoting the "state capitalism" of the NEP. Now, Trotsky&#39;s views on the "state capitalism" YOU believe existed in the USSR were made clear in The Revolution Betrayed (namely, he fully stated that such a situation CANNOT EXIST). If he was promoting NEP "state capitalism" in 1921 (he later defended the policy as well) and denouncing ultra-leftist conceptions of Soviet "state capitalism" in 1936, is there not a contradiction?

[Devrim]

You really want to argue state capitalism in Russia? Start a new thread (it is a bit off the point here), and I will do it.
Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 07:12 pm
You really want to argue state capitalism in Russia? Start a new thread (it is a bit off the point here), and I will do it.
Devrim
Fine with me, although it&#39;s already the main subject of the Cuba thread (socialism vs. state capitalism).

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 10, 2007 07:15 pm--> (manic expression @ October 10, 2007 07:15 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2007 07:12 pm
You really want to argue state capitalism in Russia? Start a new thread (it is a bit off the point here), and I will do it.
Devrim
Fine with me, although it&#39;s already the main subject of the Cuba thread (socialism vs. state capitalism). [/b]
No Cuba is different. Start a new thread on Russia specifically, and lay out your argument. I will come back to it tomorrow.
Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 07:18 pm
No Cuba is different. Start a new thread on Russia specifically, and lay out your argument. I will come back to it tomorrow.
Devrim
I have no problem with doing this, but there&#39;s one issue: in order for me to lay out an argument, I have to know what your definition of "state capitalism" is in the first place (something that I&#39;ve repeatedly asked for and never recieved) and I have to know HOW you think the USSR was "state capitalist". You&#39;re asking me to disprove something that is beyond obscure and undefined. The last few posts on this thread have been ultra-leftists claiming Lenin&#39;s definition and their definition (or lack thereof), within two completely different contexts, are the same, which is simply untrue.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 10, 2007 10:30 pm--> (manic expression @ October 10, 2007 10:30 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2007 07:18 pm
No Cuba is different. Start a new thread on Russia specifically, and lay out your argument. I will come back to it tomorrow.
Devrim
I have no problem with doing this, but there&#39;s one issue: in order for me to lay out an argument, I have to know what your definition of "state capitalism" is in the first place (something that I&#39;ve repeatedly asked for and never recieved) and I have to know HOW you think the USSR was "state capitalist". You&#39;re asking me to disprove something that is beyond obscure and undefined. The last few posts on this thread have been ultra-leftists claiming Lenin&#39;s definition and their definition (or lack thereof), within two completely different contexts, are the same, which is simply untrue. [/b]
I never claimed that the USSR was &#39;state capitalist&#39;. I said that it was a capitalist, and state capitalism was a universal tendency within capitalism. I didn&#39;t define it as some special system. Actually, I don&#39;t think that either I or catch (who you were arguing with before) did. You just presumed it for some reason.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 10:37 pm
I never claimed that the USSR was &#39;state capitalist&#39;. I said that it was a capitalist, and state capitalism was a universal tendency within capitalism. I didn&#39;t define it as some special system. Actually, I don&#39;t think that either I or catch (who you were arguing with before) did. You just presumed it for some reason.
devrim, the fact remains that you need to provide reasoning as to why the USSR was capitalist, which you haven&#39;t done. There&#39;s simply nothing for me to respond to at this point. The only thing you have done is vaguely claim that Lenin&#39;s writings on the NEP make the USSR non-socialist.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 10, 2007 10:43 pm--> (manic expression @ October 10, 2007 10:43 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 10:37 pm
I never claimed that the USSR was &#39;state capitalist&#39;. I said that it was a capitalist, and state capitalism was a universal tendency within capitalism. I didn&#39;t define it as some special system. Actually, I don&#39;t think that either I or catch (who you were arguing with before) did. You just presumed it for some reason.
devrim, the fact remains that you need to provide reasoning as to why the USSR was capitalist, which you haven&#39;t done. There&#39;s simply nothing for me to respond to at this point. The only thing you have done is vaguely claim that Lenin&#39;s writings on the NEP make the USSR non-socialist. [/b]
No, I didn&#39;t claim that. What I did was stated that the quotes from Lenin that you claimed were referring to the NEP obviously weren&#39;t as they come from years earlier. I then watched amused as you tried to square this (It wasn&#39;t quite as amusing as the Trotskyist the other week who claimed that Trotsky supported the Soviet union in the war. At least he had the honesty to admit that he was wrong though).

If you don&#39;t want to lay out your positions, and debate it properly, fine. It doesn&#39;t bother me. The USSR was capitalist because it had all the essential characteristics of a capitalist economy, wage labour, the law of value, money...

The Trotskyists say it wasn&#39;t because the Old Man said it couldn&#39;t have been. It is a pretty impressive argument really. It is a shame that his inability to understand that formal property relations do not show what mode of production is in place, was passed onto his followers.

One gets the feeling that Trotsky was nearing a change at the end of his life. Certainly some of his statements on the war suggested that he would drop the idea of a defence of the &#39;worker&#39;s state&#39;.


Trotsky
[W]e do not for a moment forget that this war is not our war (...) The 4th International bases its policy, not on the military fortunes of the capitalist states, but on the transformation of the imperialist war into a war of the workers against the capitalists, for the overthrow of the ruling class in every country, on the world socialist revolution (...) We explain to the workers that their interests and those of bloodthirsty capitalism cannot be reconciled. We mobilise the workers against imperialism. We propagate the unity of the workers in all the belligerent and neutral countries.

Of course it is possible that he would have changed his position when the USSR entered the war. If he had lived I think that the reality of an imperialist war would have forced him to reconsider the idea of a &#39;deformed workers state&#39;.

Various militants in the Trotskyist movement broke with the Fourth International over the question of the war. They included the Chinese group which published The Internationalist in 1941, the members of the 4th International’s Spanish section around Munis, the Revolutionaren Kommunisten Deutschlands (RKD), the Socialisme ou Barbarie group in France, Agis Stinas in Greece, and Natalia Trotsky. Nearly all of these then went on to examine the idea of a &#39;deformed workers&#39; state&#39;.

One could even extrapolate this tendency after the war to include the likes of Cliff, The Johnson-Forrest tendency...

Whether Trotsky would have revised his position is mere speculation. To a certain extent he was emotionally attached to the USSR, and couldn&#39;t break with it.

Trotsky, however, didn&#39;t go as far as supporting imperialist wars in the name of socialism, and &#39;defence of the (deformed) workers&#39; state. That crime was left for his followers.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 12:25 am
No, I didn&#39;t claim that. What I did was stated that the quotes from Lenin that you claimed were referring to the NEP obviously weren&#39;t as they come from years earlier. I then watched amused as you tried to square this (It wasn&#39;t quite as amusing as the Trotskyist the other week who claimed that Trotsky supported the Soviet union in the war. At least he had the honesty to admit that he was wrong though).
devrim, don&#39;t run away from the posts you&#39;ve made on this thread. You took Lenin&#39;s writings completely out of their specific context and, after relegating Lenin&#39;s words to a vacuum, proceeded to twist them in isolation. You&#39;ve ignored the fact that Lenin, in the very articles that have been mentioned here, made sure to inform the reader that he was addressing coming catastrophes and desperate situations; you somehow turned a blind eye to this.


If you don&#39;t want to lay out your positions, and debate it properly, fine. It doesn&#39;t bother me. The USSR was capitalist because it had all the essential characteristics of a capitalist economy, wage labour, the law of value, money...

That&#39;s rich coming from you. All I have asked you, devrim, is for you to precisely define the very terms you have been using and simply explain the rationale behind your arguments. Either through incompetence or laziness (or even stubbornness), you have failed to do this small task. I&#39;ll request this once more: please explain how the USSR was capitalist. And no, that last sentence is woefully inadequate (I&#39;m not even sure if it&#39;s a sentence).


The Trotskyists say it wasn&#39;t because the Old Man said it couldn&#39;t have been. It is a pretty impressive argument really. It is a shame that his inability to understand that formal property relations do not show what mode of production is in place, was passed onto his followers.

The "Old Man" laid out his arguments lucidly and clearly; the ultra-leftist puritans have only been able to muster incoherent rants. Your inability, devrim, is to make the fundamental connection between material property relations (you know, that actually exist) and the mode of production. Your laughable fallacy is to claim that a capitalist mode of production could possibly yield socialistic property relations. Your incapacity to make the most elementary of analyses betrays your ignorance.


One gets the feeling that Trotsky was nearing a change at the end of his life. Certainly some of his statements on the war suggested that he would drop the idea of a defence of the &#39;worker&#39;s state&#39;.


Of course it is possible that he would have changed his position when the USSR entered the war. If he had lived I think that the reality of an imperialist war would have forced him to reconsider the idea of a &#39;deformed workers state&#39;.

I&#39;m sure you know what Trotsky was going to do had he lived. :rolleyes:

The USSR&#39;s entry into WWII did nothing to change the social conditions already existing within the country. Such involvement could never have been imperialist, because that is a characteristic of capitalist countries, and you have not (and apparently cannot) show that the USSR was capitalist in any satisfactory way.


Various militants in the Trotskyist movement broke with the Fourth International over the question of the war. They included the Chinese group which published The Internationalist in 1941, the members of the 4th International’s Spanish section around Munis, the Revolutionaren Kommunisten Deutschlands (RKD), the Socialisme ou Barbarie group in France, Agis Stinas in Greece, and Natalia Trotsky. Nearly all of these then went on to examine the idea of a &#39;deformed workers&#39; state&#39;.

Good for them.


Whether Trotsky would have revised his position is mere speculation. To a certain extent he was emotionally attached to the USSR, and couldn&#39;t break with it.

Yes, it certainly is, making it at best academic and at face value trivial. What&#39;s worse, however, is insinuating that Trotsky&#39;s emotions clouded his judgment, a statement so unfounded that we cannot even call it academic.


Trotsky, however, didn&#39;t go as far as supporting imperialist wars in the name of socialism, and &#39;defence of the (deformed) workers&#39; state. That crime was left for his followers.

For all of your rhetoric, you have yet to show how the deformed worker state label is inappropriate, making your rhetoric hopelessly empty. A sound analysis is a crime to the ultra-leftists, indeed.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 11, 2007 03:33 am--> (manic expression @ October 11, 2007 03:33 am)
Originally posted by devrimankara+October 11, 2007 12:25 am--> (devrimankara &#064; October 11, 2007 12:25 am) No, I didn&#39;t claim that. What I did was stated that the quotes from Lenin that you claimed were referring to the NEP obviously weren&#39;t as they come from years earlier. I then watched amused as you tried to square this (It wasn&#39;t quite as amusing as the Trotskyist the other week who claimed that Trotsky supported the Soviet union in the war. At least he had the honesty to admit that he was wrong though). [/b]
devrim, don&#39;t run away from the posts you&#39;ve made on this thread. You took Lenin&#39;s writings completely out of their specific context and, after relegating Lenin&#39;s words to a vacuum, proceeded to twist them in isolation. You&#39;ve ignored the fact that Lenin, in the very articles that have been mentioned here, made sure to inform the reader that he was addressing coming catastrophes and desperate situations; you somehow turned a blind eye to this.
[/b]
I really don&#39;t know what you are talking about. What do you mean I took Lenin&#39;s writings out of their context? Where did I do that? Please quote the post because it should be clear for all to see. I merely commented that they couldn&#39;t be about the NEP as you claimed they were.

Your whole mode of discussion doesn&#39;t involve addressing the points that are being made. It involves inventing things such as above, and twisting what people say around.

An example could be this comment:


Originally posted by manic expression
I&#39;m sure you know what Trotsky was going to do had he lived. :rolleyes:

I said that I think that he would have reconsidered his position. Note that reconsider doesn&#39;t mean change. But, yes, I think he would have been forced to reconsider it by the number of Trotskyists jumping ship. I did, however, write two lines later:


[email protected]
Whether Trotsky would have revised his position is mere speculation.

Making it clear that I didn&#39;t know what he would have done.

So what caused that comment?

I would say about your whole debating style that it doesn&#39;t convince in any way, and by constantly twisting people&#39;s words, and accusing them of things they didn&#39;t say you only manage to irritate people.

Sometimes, I do wonder though what you are going on about:


manic expression
What&#39;s worse, however, is insinuating that Trotsky&#39;s emotions clouded his judgment, a statement so unfounded that we cannot even call it academic.

We are not claiming to be academics. We are communists. The second bit though is bizarre. Are you suggesting that Trotsky was a machine who wasn&#39;t effected at all by his emotions?

Anyway, here is a very basic piece on our views on the USSR, and the mode of production there:


By concentrating capital in the hands of the state, state capitalism has created the illusion that private ownership of the means of production has disappeared and that the bourgeoisie has been eliminated. The Stalinist theory of ‘socialism’ in one country, the whole lie of the ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ countries, or of countries ‘on the road’ to socialism, all have their origins in this mystification.

The changes brought about by the tendency to state capitalism are not to be found on the level of the basic relations of production, but only on the level of the juridical forms of property.

They do not eliminate the private ownership of the means of production, but only the juridical aspect of individual ownership. The means of production remain ‘private’ property as far as the workers are concerned; the workers are deprived of any control over the means of production. The means of production are only ‘collectivised’ for the bureaucracy which owns and manages them in a collective manner.

The state bureaucracy which takes on the specific function of extracting surplus labour from the proletariat and of accumulating national capital constitutes a class. But it is not a new class. The role it plays shows that it is nothing but the same old bourgeoisie in its statified form. Concerning its privileges as a class, what is specific to the state bureaucracy is primarily the fact that it obtains its privileges not through revenues arising out of the individual ownership of capital, but through ‘running costs’, bonuses, and fixed forms of payment given to it according to the function its members fulfil - a form of remuneration which simply has the appearance of ‘wages’ and which is often tens or hundreds of times higher than the wages given to the working class.

The centralisation and planning of capitalist production by the state and its bureaucracy far from being a step towards the elimination of exploitation is simply a way of intensifying exploitation, of making it more effective.

On the economic level, Russia, even during the short time that the proletariat held political power there, has never been able to eliminate capitalism. If state capitalism appeared there so quickly in a highly developed form, it was because the economic disorganisation which resulted from Russia’s defeat in World War I, then the chaos of the Civil War, made Russia’s survival as a national capital within a decadent world system all the more difficult.

The triumph of the counter-revolution in Russia expressed itself as a reorganisation of the national economy which used the most developed forms of state capitalism and cynically presented them as the ‘continuation of October’ and the ‘building of socialism’. The example was followed elsewhere: China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea, Indo-china, etc. However, there is nothing proletarian or communist in any of these countries. They are countries, where, under the weight of one of the greatest lies in history, the dictatorship of capital rules in its most decadent form. Any defence of these countries, no matter how ‘critical’ or ‘conditional’, is a completely counter-revolutionary activity.

Devrim

[catch]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 09, 2007 07:20 pm
There was no private property, there were no capitalist property relations, and yet you still claim that it was capitalist&#33;

[...] On the NEP, its introduction was necessary given the conditions of Russia at the time;

These sentences are mutually exclusive. Either way, even without the NEP, the USSR was capitalist - workers exploited, surplus value produced.




Give a quote for this insane, baseless claim (you might get away with sloppy slander on libcom.org, but not here).

You&#39;re the Leninist. Presumably you&#39;ve read Lenin and Trotsky?

[Led Zeppelin]

Something important must be understood here. Both Lenin and Trotsky were not idiots, and I hope that the left-communists here are also not. Socialism is not possible in a country which lacks the material conditions of it, right?

That is common sense to any Marxist. I&#39;m not sure what Devrim and Leo&#39;s point is? Are you saying that Socialist social relations in the economy were possible to exist? That&#39;s a bit unMarxist, isn&#39;t it?

No. The reason Trotsky and Lenin called for state-capitalism was very simple; for material development. There is no doubt that the most effective means of economic development is state-capitalism, that is, capitalism controlled and regulated by the state.

This is not a permanent solution of course, and I know both Devrim and Leo know this. State-capitalism was required only for a short period of time to create an economic situation viable enough for a centralized planning system to take-over.

Ironically though, the system Lenin and Trotsky would&#39;ve liked to have seen (an advanced form of state-capitalism copied from the Germans) never took place in Russia because the nation wasn&#39;t even enough advanced materiall for that&#33; Instead a very weak version of state-capitalism, the NEP, was put in place, which was limited to the peasant economy.

Russia didn&#39;t even go through the state-monopoly capitalism stage that Lenin and Trotsky called for in its early days, because the NEP was enough to create the economic system for a centralized planning system to work effectively. Hence the success of the 5 year plans.

Now, if you want to argue that the centralized planning system was state-capitalism; good luck. But I&#39;m not interested in that debate, because I&#39;ve had it many times and it produces nothing but useless mental masturbation and link throwing. :)

[catch]

I agree with Devrim that a new thread on whether the USSR was capitalist or not would be useful, see you over there.

[Led Zeppelin]

Ok, I split the thread to a new one. I believe this should stay in History as it is about a historical issue, though I suppose it is also theoretical in nature.

History is composed of both though, so I don&#39;t see that as a problem. :)

[manic expression]

Originally posted by devrimankara+October 11, 2007 06:40 am--> (devrimankara @ October 11, 2007 06:40 am) I really don&#39;t know what you are talking about. What do you mean I took Lenin&#39;s writings out of their context? Where did I do that? Please quote the post because it should be clear for all to see. I merely commented that they couldn&#39;t be about the NEP as you claimed they were. [/b]
For instance, you said: "They come from &#39;The Impending Catastrophe & How To Combat It&#39;, and were written in September 1917."

My point was that in this piece, Lenin was clearly writing about an impending catastrophe. My objection was that his writings on the subject were dealing with disasterous situations, which is very much analogous to the reason for the introduction to the NEP. I did not feel that you were considering what Lenin was writing about, and how the NEP related to those subjects.

Could I have used more tact? Sure, but I did get frustrated (especially when you were claiming a victory when I was scarcely getting my point across).


I said that I think that he would have reconsidered his position. Note that reconsider doesn&#39;t mean change. But, yes, I think he would have been forced to reconsider it by the number of Trotskyists jumping ship. I did, however, write two lines later:


Originally posted by [email protected]
Whether Trotsky would have revised his position is mere speculation.

Making it clear that I didn&#39;t know what he would have done.

So what caused that comment?

Why did you make the comment in the first place, if it was nothing more than trivial speculation? I made that first comment because I felt you were trying to guess what Trotsky would have done; your second comment did recognize this to some extent, but you were still speculating and therefore I wanted to object to it. Again, perhaps I could have used more tact, but like before, I was frustruated.


I would say about your whole debating style that it doesn&#39;t convince in any way, and by constantly twisting people&#39;s words, and accusing them of things they didn&#39;t say you only manage to irritate people.

When did I twist anyone&#39;s words? I&#39;ve been trying to keep people from moving the goal-posts while having words stuffed down my throat. This discussion WAS on the ultra-leftist interpretation of "state capitalism", but after I claimed that Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks were not trying to create a capitalist society (which was claimed upthread), look what happens. That was the source of these posts, this all came from me basically saying that the Bolsheviks were not pursuing capitalism. Perhaps I have taken an antagonizing tone at some points, devrim, and I&#39;ll try to refrain from this in the future, but you are most certainly guilty of this as well.


Sometimes, I do wonder though what you are going on about:


manic expression
What&#39;s worse, however, is insinuating that Trotsky&#39;s emotions clouded his judgment, a statement so unfounded that we cannot even call it academic.

We are not claiming to be academics. We are communists. The second bit though is bizarre. Are you suggesting that Trotsky was a machine who wasn&#39;t effected at all by his emotions?

I am suggesting that Trotsky&#39;s analysis, an analysis I agree with, was not the product of his sentamentality. Devrim, can you not understand how I could take exception with the claim that my analysis is one of emotional baggage?


Anyway, here is a very basic piece on our views on the USSR, and the mode of production there:

Thank you. I&#39;ll address this later in another post (so we can leave the above issues out of it).

[manic expression]

OK, now I&#39;ll take a look at the ultra-leftist analysis.


By concentrating capital in the hands of the state, state capitalism has created the illusion that private ownership of the means of production has disappeared and that the bourgeoisie has been eliminated. The Stalinist theory of ‘socialism’ in one country, the whole lie of the ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ countries, or of countries ‘on the road’ to socialism, all have their origins in this mystification.

This starts out with an unproven assumption. In the very first sentence, it claims that "state capitalism" exists without even trying to make an argument to support its most basic claim. Furthermore, the assumption does not address the property relations of those who benefit from state ownership of the means of production; this ignores the fundamental aspects of capitalism in an attempt to obscure the issue.


The changes brought about by the tendency to state capitalism are not to be found on the level of the basic relations of production, but only on the level of the juridical forms of property.

They do not eliminate the private ownership of the means of production, but only the juridical aspect of individual ownership. The means of production remain ‘private’ property as far as the workers are concerned; the workers are deprived of any control over the means of production. The means of production are only ‘collectivised’ for the bureaucracy which owns and manages them in a collective manner.

This part goes against the actual conditions of the USSR. Private ownership simply didn&#39;t exist: bureaucrats did not own the means of production but gained from their abuse of power. Privileges did exist, of course, but that does not equal private ownership at all. Furthermore, this piece claims that isolation from political power must equal private ownership "as far as the workers are concerned". This is a cop-out, and it ignores the problems facing its arguments. First, the political power of the workers does NOTHING to affect the status of the bureaucrats or their relationship to the means of production. This argument asks us to believe that a lack of political say can somehow re-define property relations by itself, which is irrational. Property relations are defined by the relationship to the means of production, NOT another group&#39;s relationship to political power. The argument asserts that privileged administrative control is equal to private property, which is inherently contradictory. Again, there is nothing here to actually equate the USSR with capitalist property relations, only assertions.


The state bureaucracy which takes on the specific function of extracting surplus labour from the proletariat and of accumulating national capital constitutes a class. But it is not a new class. The role it plays shows that it is nothing but the same old bourgeoisie in its statified form. Concerning its privileges as a class, what is specific to the state bureaucracy is primarily the fact that it obtains its privileges not through revenues arising out of the individual ownership of capital, but through ‘running costs’, bonuses, and fixed forms of payment given to it according to the function its members fulfil - a form of remuneration which simply has the appearance of ‘wages’ and which is often tens or hundreds of times higher than the wages given to the working class.

This fails to recognize the fact that the state bureaucracy a.) does not own the labor of the workers and b.) does not own the means of production. To claim that such a group is the "old bourgeoisie in...stratified form" is in direct contradiction with the above facts, and is therefore an illogical statement. In an effort to reconcile its arguments with the reality of the bureaucracy, this argument even admits that the bureaucracy does not own anything itself: the privileges it describes is not the result of private ownership at all, but abuse of power.


The centralisation and planning of capitalist production by the state and its bureaucracy far from being a step towards the elimination of exploitation is simply a way of intensifying exploitation, of making it more effective.

Is there even an attempt to substantiate this? Exploitation is profiting from the labor of others; the bureaucracy did not do this in a direct manner, only through the deformations of the worker state. In this situation, capitalist exploitation is not a factor, as there is no ownership of labor or the means of production. The bureaucracy can only hope to funnel state ownership to its own benefit, which is far from what actual capitalists do. This is simply ignored by the analysis.


On the economic level, Russia, even during the short time that the proletariat held political power there, has never been able to eliminate capitalism. If state capitalism appeared there so quickly in a highly developed form, it was because the economic disorganisation which resulted from Russia’s defeat in World War I, then the chaos of the Civil War, made Russia’s survival as a national capital within a decadent world system all the more difficult.

Capitalism was abolished through the revolution. The workers were put in control of the means of production in the Soviet system, while private ownership ended in the cities. In the countryside, the workers made concessions to the peasantry; however, this is moot, for the workers still dictated the direction of society. The above argument ignores these realities and continues to make assertions based only on unproven assumptions. It claims that "state capitalism appreared...in a highly developed form", but fails to provide a single factual basis for this statement.


The triumph of the counter-revolution in Russia expressed itself as a reorganisation of the national economy which used the most developed forms of state capitalism and cynically presented them as the ‘continuation of October’ and the ‘building of socialism’. The example was followed elsewhere: China, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea, Indo-china, etc. However, there is nothing proletarian or communist in any of these countries. They are countries, where, under the weight of one of the greatest lies in history, the dictatorship of capital rules in its most decadent form. Any defence of these countries, no matter how ‘critical’ or ‘conditional’, is a completely counter-revolutionary activity.

This is simply a continuation of the same unsupported misconceptions. In the end, there is no adequate evidence, no satisfactory reasoning and no truth to the baseless claims of the ultra-leftists.

[catch]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 15, 2007 06:49 pm
OK, now I&#39;ll take a look at the ultra-leftist analysis.

Where&#39;s this from? I don&#39;t remember seeing it earlier in the thread, and you didn&#39;t link to it.




By concentrating capital in the hands of the state, state capitalism has created the illusion that private ownership of the means of production has disappeared and that the bourgeoisie has been eliminated. The Stalinist theory of ‘socialism’ in one country, the whole lie of the ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ countries, or of countries ‘on the road’ to socialism, all have their origins in this mystification.

This starts out with an unproven assumption. In the very first sentence, it claims that "state capitalism" exists without even trying to make an argument to support its most basic claim. Furthermore, the assumption does not address the property relations of those who benefit from state ownership of the means of production; this ignores the fundamental aspects of capitalism in an attempt to obscure the issue.
Well state capitalism is a tendency present outside the USSR as well - the nationalisation of industries in the UK are a good example, and they&#39;ve certainly created a lot of mystification about &#39;public ownership&#39;, &#39;privatisation&#39; etc. which tend to distract from the real issues of pay cuts, job cuts, attacks on conditions that are carried out under both of those banners.

I think the most basic definition of &#39;state capitalism&#39; you&#39;ll get is the state acting as collective capitalist. In the USSR this was totalising most of the time, outside it&#39;s been a partial tendency.




The changes brought about by the tendency to state capitalism are not to be found on the level of the basic relations of production, but only on the level of the juridical forms of property.

They do not eliminate the private ownership of the means of production, but only the juridical aspect of individual ownership. The means of production remain ‘private’ property as far as the workers are concerned; the workers are deprived of any control over the means of production. The means of production are only ‘collectivised’ for the bureaucracy which owns and manages them in a collective manner.

This part goes against the actual conditions of the USSR. Private ownership simply didn&#39;t exist: bureaucrats did not own the means of production but gained from their abuse of power.
Yes - it says ownership is removed from private individuals, and placed in the hands of the state acting as collective captalist. The bureacrats are the &#39;human face&#39; of capital in this situation as much as the CDO or director of a publically floated company who don&#39;t &#39;own&#39; it either. What&#39;s most important in this is asking if the relationship of workers to the means of production - that which makes them proletarians, has changed. It didn&#39;t. And throughout the twenties and into the thirties, there are many, many underground leaflets and accounts by workers who said they thought they were living under capitalism.


Furthermore, this piece claims that isolation from political power must equal private ownership "as far as the workers are concerned".
Not from political power, where does it say that? - from industrial control, workers control, self-management. The argument is that the workers labour was alienated in the USSR in the same way as it was anywhere else - they they produced not for themselves but for capital. The First Five Year Plan - focused on sale to external markets to finance capital investment in heavy industry is just one of many concrete examples of this relationship.





This fails to recognize the fact that the state bureaucracy a.) does not own the labor of the workers and b.) does not own the means of production. To claim that such a group is the "old bourgeoisie in...stratified form" is in direct contradiction with the above facts, and is therefore an illogical statement. In an effort to reconcile its arguments with the reality of the bureaucracy, this argument even admits that the bureaucracy does not own anything itself: the privileges it describes is not the result of private ownership at all, but abuse of power.
In the UK, Royal Mail is owned 100% by the British state. It is run however by Adam Crozier and Allan Leighton. Crozier earns £20,000 a week. He doesn&#39;t own Royal Mail, but he is still a capitalist is he not? His payment by the state for extracting surplus value from Royal Mail workers is very similar to the role of the bureaucracy in the USSR - if only in that it shows formal ownership of the means of production by the exploiters isn&#39;t necessary for exploitation and capitalist social relationships to occur.

I&#39;ll leave your other points since I think they spring from the same underlying assumptions in your own view. Did you take a look at this? http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben1 I know it&#39;s long, but it&#39;s the most comprehensive overview of the various state capitalist theories (yes there&#39;s more than one) I know of.

[syndicat]

catch:
And throughout the twenties and into the thirties, there are many, many underground leaflets and accounts by workers who said they thought they were living under capitalism.

Proves nothing. The socialist movement had adopted Marx&#39;s labor/capital polarity and thus had no concept of a class-divided economy other than capitalism. But from the fact it is a class system, it doesn&#39;t follow it is capitalist.

In "Revolution from Above" (about the transition to capitalism in Russia in the early &#39;90s), Kotz and Weir make a good case for why the USSR was not capitalist. To talk of the "state acting as capitalist" is really complete nonsense. That&#39;s because the state is not a class but an institution. Classes are determined by the social relations of production, that is, the power relations between groups in virtue of which they have antagonnistic interests. Aufheben&#39;s attempt to define the USSR as state capitalist ends up with such an abstract and ahistorical definition of capitalism that virtually any class divided economy could be capitalist.

The dominating class in the USSR had a class position not based on private accumulation of wealth, but on a relative monopolization of decision-making authority and key kinds of exerpertise needed to control social production. The Gosplan planning elite, political appartichiks, industrial managers, leaders in the military and police agencies. but they were not able, for the most part,to pass on their class position to their children, as Kotz and Weir point out, except for a few at the very top. The level of inequality in income between coordinators and workes was about 4.5 to 1, which is similar for many coordinator to worker ratios in capitalism but is way different than in capitalist systems.

Moreover, the dynamics of the USSR were different. Part of the way that profit is assured in capitalism is thru maintaining a reserve army of labor, to drive down wages by driving down worker bargaining power. In the USSR there was a tendency towards a systematic labor shortage, due to the tendency of industrial managers to hoard resources and workers, to ensure they could fulfill their targets in the plan. This led to a significant level of shopfloor power by workers. Workers were thus able to gain job security and much actual control in work.

Prices did not drive allocation of resources in social production. Decisions were made about allocation by the planning system, in part driven by political criteria, and the prices were set after the fact. It was not thus a system of commodity production. The collective farms were just about the only significant exception to state ownership of means of production.

There were periods of loosening and tightening of planning control, versus marketization, but this reflected a tug of war between different factions of the ruling class. Tendencies towards marketization would tend to empower the plant or enterprise managers and weaken the power of the planning elite and top political apparatchiks.

Even in Europe or North America, state ownership is also a realm of relative power for the coordinator class. Capitalist control is much looser in state operations because capitalist control over the state is indirect, and state operations are often independent of market revenue. The state is a realm of struggle, it isn&#39;t just an "executive committee of the ruling class." The politics of social democracy, to the degree it favors state expansion, is a coordinator class politics.

[catch]

Syndicat, I&#39;m not going to deal with your co-ordinator class rubbish on yet another thread, will just deal with the substantive points:



Moreover, the dynamics of the USSR were different. Part of the way that profit is assured in capitalism is thru maintaining a reserve army of labor, to drive down wages by driving down worker bargaining power. In the USSR there was a tendency towards a systematic labor shortage, due to the tendency of industrial managers to hoard resources and workers, to ensure they could fulfill their targets in the plan. This led to a significant level of shopfloor power by workers. Workers were thus able to gain job security and much actual control in work.
Come on, there were mass layoffs from 1917-1921, then again around 1928 - massive, massive unemployment. Not to mention the threat of the gulag for anyone organising strikes action which would&#39;ve been at least as effective as unemployment as a stick. There were massive labour shortages in the US and UK during WWII (and the biggest strikes since 1917-1920 in the US in 1943-44, miners, auto workers etc.)


Decisions were made about allocation by the planning system, in part driven by political criteria, and the prices were set after the fact. It was not thus a system of commodity production. The collective farms were just about the only significant exception to state ownership of means of production.
Again this is rubbish - the primary arbiter of prices for many commodities in the UK is the state - tax makes up much more of the price of fuel, cigarettes, tobacco etc. than the actual costs of production or the market. This doesn&#39;t stop them being commodities, or the conditions under which they&#39;re produced capitalist ones. The USSR was exporting textiles and other commodities on the world market, do you think they set the prices for that as well?


There were periods of loosening and tightening of planning control, versus marketization, but this reflected a tug of war between different factions of the ruling class.
Same in most capitalist countries.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 08:01 pm
Where&#39;s this from? I don&#39;t remember seeing it earlier in the thread, and you didn&#39;t link to it.
Devrim posted it before.


Well state capitalism is a tendency present outside the USSR as well - the nationalisation of industries in the UK are a good example, and they&#39;ve certainly created a lot of mystification about &#39;public ownership&#39;, &#39;privatisation&#39; etc. which tend to distract from the real issues of pay cuts, job cuts, attacks on conditions that are carried out under both of those banners.

We&#39;re talking about the USSR, catch, look at the thread title.


I think the most basic definition of &#39;state capitalism&#39; you&#39;ll get is the state acting as collective capitalist. In the USSR this was totalising most of the time, outside it&#39;s been a partial tendency.

The state can&#39;t act as a "collective capitalist", that&#39;s bypassing actual relationships to the means of production in favor of an unsubstantiated view. Show me how a bureaucrat is a capitalist, and maybe then you could possibly have an argument.


Yes - it says ownership is removed from private individuals, and placed in the hands of the state acting as collective captalist. The bureacrats are the &#39;human face&#39; of capital in this situation as much as the CDO or director of a publically floated company who don&#39;t &#39;own&#39; it either. What&#39;s most important in this is asking if the relationship of workers to the means of production - that which makes them proletarians, has changed. It didn&#39;t. And throughout the twenties and into the thirties, there are many, many underground leaflets and accounts by workers who said they thought they were living under capitalism.

Of course ownership is removed from private individuals and put in the state. However, you have not (and cannot) show how the state acts as a "collective capitalist" (you&#39;ve only made the claim without any support). Instead of showing how bureaucrats are bourgeois, you try to equate state-owned industry with privitization, which is simply a contradiciton. Face it: private property didn&#39;t exist in the USSR, and your mystical fascination with "collective capitalism" doesn&#39;t change that fact.

You then talk of the proletariat in the USSR, saying conditions never changed. However, you failed to mention a single actual condition that stayed the same. In the USSR, you didn&#39;t have to sell your labor to survive; you weren&#39;t subject to the market for employment (I recall talking to an engineer who lived in the Soviet Union, who said that employment was not based on profitability but on necessity and what was best for the community at the time).


Not from political power, where does it say that? - from industrial control, workers control, self-management. The argument is that the workers labour was alienated in the USSR in the same way as it was anywhere else - they they produced not for themselves but for capital. The First Five Year Plan - focused on sale to external markets to finance capital investment in heavy industry is just one of many concrete examples of this relationship.

You know as well as I do that political power = control.


In the UK, Royal Mail is owned 100% by the British state. It is run however by Adam Crozier and Allan Leighton. Crozier earns £20,000 a week. He doesn&#39;t own Royal Mail, but he is still a capitalist is he not? His payment by the state for extracting surplus value from Royal Mail workers is very similar to the role of the bureaucracy in the USSR - if only in that it shows formal ownership of the means of production by the exploiters isn&#39;t necessary for exploitation and capitalist social relationships to occur.

This example of yours does more to illustrate my point than anything else. In the capitalist state of the UK, a "nationalized" industry is decidedly bourgeois, with its directors making considerable profits through the exploitation of labor. In the USSR, administrators and bureaucrats never made a shadow of what Crozier makes. Furthermore, the ONLY way Soviet bureaucrats could profit from their position was through an extra-legal abuse of power, whereas ACTUAL capitalists profit directly from the exploitation of the workers. Your own example betrays this contradiction.


I&#39;ll leave your other points since I think they spring from the same underlying assumptions in your own view. Did you take a look at this? http://libcom.org/library/WhatwastheUSSRAufheben1 I know it&#39;s long, but it&#39;s the most comprehensive overview of the various state capitalist theories (yes there&#39;s more than one) I know of.

Sure, I&#39;ll look over it in time.

[catch]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 16, 2007 11:29 am--> (manic expression &#064; October 16, 2007 11:29 am)
[email protected] 15, 2007 08:01 pm
Where&#39;s this from? I don&#39;t remember seeing it earlier in the thread, and you didn&#39;t link to it.
Devrim posted it before.
[/b]
OK - Devrim, where&#39;s that from?



We&#39;re talking about the USSR, catch, look at the thread title.
Yes I know, but you&#39;re disputing that there can be any such thing as state capitalism



Show me how a bureaucrat is a capitalist, and maybe then you could possibly have an argument.
Would you like a picture of one with a top hat on? This is the wrong question. The issue is whether there was capital, wage labour, commodities, use-, exchange- and surplus-value. All of these persisted in the USSR.

If you&#39;d like to tell me which of these you dispute - capital, wage labour, money, commodities, then we might have the basis for a discussion. As it is I think your premises are wrong.



Of course ownership is removed from private individuals and put in the state. However, you have not (and cannot) show how the state acts as a "collective capitalist" (you&#39;ve only made the claim without any support).
The state invested capital in production, intensified the exploitation of labour*, extracted a surplus value from that labour when the goods it created were sold, consumed some (both on capital expenditure - the running of the state itself, and consumption of state functionaries), and re-invested some in capital accumulation. This is a simplified example of how it acted as collective capitalist.

(*militarisation of labour, socialist competition, the imposition of working three looms instead of one during the First Five Year Plan).


Instead of showing how bureaucrats are bourgeois
I don&#39;t need to, I need to show how social relations were capitalist - that capital accumulation occurred. I&#39;m sure I can find some quotes about party bureaucrats driving Mercedes and drinking expensive wines, but that&#39;s a side-issue.


you try to equate state-owned industry with privitization, which is simply a contradiciton.
No I don&#39;t. I say nationalisation is very similar to corporatism - which it is, and asked you to explain why nationalised industry in the West remained capitalist, when it can&#39;t possibly have been in the USSR.


Face it: private property didn&#39;t exist in the USSR, and your mystical fascination with "collective capitalism" doesn&#39;t change that fact.
I really wish you&#39;d deal with my points rather than simply stating that I&#39;m making assertions with assertions of your own.



You then talk of the proletariat in the USSR, saying conditions never changed. However, you failed to mention a single actual condition that stayed the same. In the USSR, you didn&#39;t have to sell your labor to survive;
What happened if you didn&#39;t work?
Also many Western countries instituted social housing, unemployment benefit etc. so you&#39;ve got nothing unique even if you could show that was the case.


you weren&#39;t subject to the market for employment
Nor are nurses, teachers or firefighters, do they live outside the capitalist system?


You know as well as I do that political power = control.
There is a difference between state representation, and real political power expressed in the workplace and neighbourhood. Lenin misunderstood this, one does not necessarily equal the other by any means.



This example of yours does more to illustrate my point than anything else. In the capitalist state of the UK, a "nationalized" industry is decidedly bourgeois, with its directors making considerable profits through the exploitation of labor. In the USSR, administrators and bureaucrats never made a shadow of what Crozier makes.
Nor do many people who head small companies in the UK, doesn&#39;t stop them from being capitalist. There are plenty of examples of extravagant wealth by party officials by the way, and it caused real resentment in the working class.


Furthermore, the ONLY way Soviet bureaucrats could profit from their position was through an extra-legal abuse of power, whereas ACTUAL capitalists profit directly from the exploitation of the workers. Your own example betrays this contradiction.
Are you saying there were zero wage differentials in the USSR? This is a lie if so.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 11:59 am
Yes I know, but you&#39;re disputing that there can be any such thing as state capitalism
As the ultra-leftists use the term, of course.


Would you like a picture of one with a top hat on? This is the wrong question. The issue is whether there was capital, wage labour, commodities, use-, exchange- and surplus-value. All of these persisted in the USSR.

All I&#39;m asking is for capitalist property relations and modes of production, neither of which existed in the Soviet Union. Don&#39;t give me a cop-out, give me evidence.


If you&#39;d like to tell me which of these you dispute - capital, wage labour, money, commodities, then we might have the basis for a discussion. As it is I think your premises are wrong.

You&#39;re supposed to provide a legitimate argument first, the burden of proof is on you (I can&#39;t prove a negative). However, I&#39;m specifying the complete lack of capitalist property relations in the USSR.


The state invested capital in production, intensified the exploitation of labour*, extracted a surplus value from that labour when the goods it created were sold, consumed some (both on capital expenditure - the running of the state itself, and consumption of state functionaries), and re-invested some in capital accumulation. This is a simplified example of how it acted as collective capitalist.

(*militarisation of labour, socialist competition, the imposition of working three looms instead of one during the First Five Year Plan).

You can claim it, but can you prove it? Capital is money used to buy something in order to sell it again. How did the bureaucrats accomplish this? They certainly did not invest any private property in the capitalist sense, because you need private property to do that in the first place.


I don&#39;t need to, I need to show how social relations were capitalist - that capital accumulation occurred. I&#39;m sure I can find some quotes about party bureaucrats driving Mercedes and drinking expensive wines, but that&#39;s a side-issue.

I can find criminals who drive Mercedes and drink expensive wines, but that doesn&#39;t make them capitalists, now does it? It&#39;s all about relationships to the means of production, and the bureaucrats&#39; position was far from capitalist.


No I don&#39;t. I say nationalisation is very similar to corporatism - which it is, and asked you to explain why nationalised industry in the West remained capitalist, when it can&#39;t possibly have been in the USSR.

You did claim such an equation, don&#39;t run away from your own words. You said that state-owned industry with a bureacracy is fundamentally like a privitized economy. That is contradictory. Furthermore, the USSR was not capitalist because there was a dearth of capitalist relations, it&#39;s as simple as that.


I really wish you&#39;d deal with my points rather than simply stating that I&#39;m making assertions with assertions of your own.

I addressed your points by stating that you haven&#39;t reconciled your beliefs with the fact that private property didn&#39;t exist. You need to address the contradictions inherent in your arguments.


What happened if you didn&#39;t work? Also many Western countries instituted social housing, unemployment benefit etc. so you&#39;ve got nothing unique even if you could show that was the case.

I didn&#39;t ask. I can venture to guess that a person unwilling to work got their necessities and not much more. Socialism doesn&#39;t mean people can not work if they want to. What would you suggest to do in such a situation?

The country that the engineer moved to (from the USSR to the US) had welfare and the like, but the social conditions she found were extremely different. Instead of finding a job she was trained for and capable of, she was forced to work menial jobs to keep afloat. The market ruled labor in the US, while this was not the case in the Soviet Union. One was capitalist, the other was not.


Nor are nurses, teachers or firefighters, do they live outside the capitalist system?

Nurses oftentimes are, especially now. However, you&#39;re dodging the issue and moving the goalposts. What I&#39;m talking about is an engineer, not a firefighter and not a teacher. The bourgeois relation of exploitation of labor was very palpable in one society, while it was virtually not a factor in the other.


There is a difference between state representation, and real political power expressed in the workplace and neighbourhood. Lenin misunderstood this, one does not necessarily equal the other by any means.

They are inherently connected, don&#39;t distance something that&#39;s interwoven.


Nor do many people who head small companies in the UK, doesn&#39;t stop them from being capitalist. There are plenty of examples of extravagant wealth by party officials by the way, and it caused real resentment in the working class.

You misunderstood my point. The Soviet equivalent of Crozier does NOT ONLY make FAR less money (probably less money than small UK business owners), but must ALSO make it THROUGH the abuse of the worker state and not through capitalist means. In short, the Soviet Crozier does not profit through the direct exploitation of the workers; the capitalist Crozier DOES. In this lies the failure of your argument.


Are you saying there were zero wage differentials in the USSR? This is a lie if so.

Go back, read what I wrote and try again.

[catch]

Originally posted by manic [email protected] 16, 2007 12:37 pm
[quote]If you&#39;d like to tell me which of these you dispute - capital, wage labour, money, commodities, then we might have the basis for a discussion. As it is I think your premises are wrong.[quote]



You&#39;re supposed to provide a legitimate argument first, the burden of proof is on you (I can&#39;t prove a negative). However, I&#39;m specifying the complete lack of capitalist property relations in the USSR.



No, you can quite easily tell me if you think the USSR had capital, wage labour, money and commodities or not. It did, so it would require either ignorance or blind faith to say it doesn&#39;t, but I&#39;m not ruling those last two out.


If you won&#39;t answer that simple question then I&#39;m not going to discuss this further with you since you&#39;re simply time-wasting at this point.



(*militarisation of labour, socialist competition, the imposition of working three looms instead of one during the First Five Year Plan).


You can claim it, but can you prove it?
I gave you an example - the textile industry during the first (and second) five year plan. There was massive intensification of labour, struggles over hours and all kinds of things, so that the USSR could export textiles and use the return to invest in heavy industry. This is detailed, in some depth, in Jeffrey J Rossman&#39;s "Worker resistance under Stalin" - one of the better books I&#39;ve read recently.



Capital is money used to buy something in order to sell it again.
Capital is not simply &#39;money used to buy something in order to sell it again&#39; - that&#39;s what Marx spent three Volumes of capital demonstrating against the bourgeios political economists.


How did the bureaucrats accomplish this? They certainly did not invest any private property in the capitalist sense, because you need private property to do that in the first place.
This is a tautology, "there can&#39;t have been private property because there wasn&#39;t any private property" - and is the only argument you&#39;ve been able to put forward.



You did claim such an equation, don&#39;t run away from your own words. You said that state-owned industry with a bureacracy is fundamentally like a privitized economy.
Economies aren&#39;t privatised, privatisation is a particular process under capitalism where state owned firms are handed over to private companies. You&#39;re simply using terms at random now.


That is contradictory, the USSR was not capitalist because there was a dearth of capitalist relations, it&#39;s as simple as that.
Again "it wasn&#39;t capitalist because it wasn&#39;t capitalist" - this confirms you have absolutely nothing to say on this issue. I&#39;m going to wait for you to respond to the basic fundamentals on commodity production etc. that I outlined above. Otherwise here ends the conversation unless someone who at least has a grasp of the basic terminology wants to step in and help you out.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by catch+October 16, 2007 11:59 am--> (catch @ October 16, 2007 11:59 am) OK - Devrim, where&#39;s that from?
[/b]
ICC, I am not taking this discussion very seriously, and couldn&#39;t be bothered to write anything new.

Manic Expression, there are some basic problems with your argument.

The first is that it is not true that there was no private property in the Soviet Union. The were privately owned companies, both domestic, and foreign. This isn&#39;t the main point, but it is still true.

The second is the idea that members of the bureaucracy didn&#39;t benefit. Actually, you admit that they did, but say that it was &#39;through the abuse of the workers&#39; state&#39;. I would argue that it was not only through the abuse anyway, but when a form of abuse becomes systematic it becomes a part of the system. You have a very &#39;legalistic&#39; view of these things.

The third problem is the idea that there wasn&#39;t a labour market in the USSR, which seems to be based on somebody you talked to.

But the real problem is this:

Manic Expression
The state can&#39;t act as a "collective capitalist", that&#39;s bypassing actual relationships to the means of production in favor of an unsubstantiated view. Show me how a bureaucrat is a capitalist, and maybe then you could possibly have an argument.

The State does act as a capitalist. We are not living in the 19th Century any more, and capitalists are not fat men who walk around in top hats.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:26 pm
Manic Expression, there are some basic problems with your argument.

The first is that it is not true that there was no private property in the Soviet Union. The were privately owned companies, both domestic, and foreign. This isn&#39;t the main point, but it is still true.
Cite examples for this if you want to make it a main point.


The second is the idea that members of the bureaucracy didn&#39;t benefit. Actually, you admit that they did, but say that it was &#39;through the abuse of the workers&#39; state&#39;. I would argue that it was not only through the abuse anyway, but when a form of abuse becomes systematic it becomes a part of the system. You have a very &#39;legalistic&#39; view of these things.

Of course I say that the bureaucracy benefitted from their position, that is obvious. The problem is that YOU equate benefits with OWNERSHIP of private property and capitalist relations, which is irrational given the situation. Even if we accept that bureaucratic abuse was systematic and "part of the system", that means just that: syphoning benefits from positions in state...not capitalist ownership.


The third problem is the idea that there wasn&#39;t a labour market in the USSR, which seems to be based on somebody you talked to.

Are you denying the vast differences between the USSR and capitalist countries in this regard? Labor was treated completely differently, and it was not treated in a capitalist manner in the USSR; that is my point.


The State does act as a capitalist. We are not living in the 19th Century any more, and capitalists are not fat men who walk around in top hats.

Is this even supposed to pass as an argument? I&#39;m looking at property relations and concrete social conditions, not fashion. The definitions of capitalists haven&#39;t changed, capitalism hasn&#39;t changed; the only thing that&#39;s changing is your use (or lack of use) of Marxist analyses to fit your convenience.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:23 pm
No, you can quite easily tell me if you think the USSR had capital, wage labour, money and commodities or not. It did, so it would require either ignorance or blind faith to say it doesn&#39;t, but I&#39;m not ruling those last two out.

If you won&#39;t answer that simple question then I&#39;m not going to discuss this further with you since you&#39;re simply time-wasting at this point.
catch, I&#39;ve been looking primarily at property relations and modes of production. If you want to bring up other aspects of Soviet society, do so and we&#39;ll discuss them. Don&#39;t change the subject and declare victory (as ultra-leftists have persisted in doing throughout multiple threads).


I gave you an example - the textile industry during the first (and second) five year plan. There was massive intensification of labour, struggles over hours and all kinds of things, so that the USSR could export textiles and use the return to invest in heavy industry. This is detailed, in some depth, in Jeffrey J Rossman&#39;s "Worker resistance under Stalin" - one of the better books I&#39;ve read recently.

So socialist societies can&#39;t export anything? Socialist states cannot engage in trade with other states?


Capital is not simply &#39;money used to buy something in order to sell it again&#39; - that&#39;s what Marx spent three Volumes of capital demonstrating against the bourgeios political economists.

Perhaps it was a shortcut, but I hope you can forgive me for not posting the three volumes of Capital. Here&#39;s my source, anyway: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/a.htm#capital


This is a tautology, "there can&#39;t have been private property because there wasn&#39;t any private property" - and is the only argument you&#39;ve been able to put forward.

That&#39;s rich, catch, considering the fact that you have not and cannot prove the existence of private property in the USSR. My argument in this regard is that if there was no private property, there was no capitalism. So no, it&#39;s not a tautology, it&#39;s stating the facts and contradicting your beliefs.


Economies aren&#39;t privatised, privatisation is a particular process under capitalism where state owned firms are handed over to private companies. You&#39;re simply using terms at random now.

Privitized economies have ownership of private property in most industries, no? That was my point. You&#39;ve been using the term "capitalism" to describe a society without private ownership or employment of wage-labor or capitalist property relations, so objecting to my use of "privitized economies" is pretty weak.


Again "it wasn&#39;t capitalist because it wasn&#39;t capitalist" - this confirms you have absolutely nothing to say on this issue. I&#39;m going to wait for you to respond to the basic fundamentals on commodity production etc. that I outlined above. Otherwise here ends the conversation unless someone who at least has a grasp of the basic terminology wants to step in and help you out.

The ultra-leftist goalpost-moving cop-out at its finest. I cite reasons for my conclusions, and you ignore them; I provide fundamental Marxist analyses, you try to call them tautologies. It&#39;s incredible how quickly you wiggled out of taking part in a logical argument when challenged. Fortunately for you, you don&#39;t have to deal with pesky criticisms at libcom.org when you slander socialist societies.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 16, 2007 01:46 pm--> (manic expression @ October 16, 2007 01:46 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:26 pm
Manic Expression, there are some basic problems with your argument.

The first is that it is not true that there was no private property in the Soviet Union. The were privately owned companies, both domestic, and foreign. This isn&#39;t the main point, but it is still true.
Cite examples for this if you want to make it a main point.
[/b]
There are lots of examples. This is the first I got from a quick look at Wiki.
Wiki
Under his (David Rockefeller’s) stewardship the Chase spread internationally and became a central pillar in the world&#39;s financial system, including being the leading bank for the United Nations. It has a global network of correspondent banks that has been estimated to number about 50,000, the largest of any bank in the world. A notable achievement was the setting up of the first branch of an American bank at One Karl Marx Square, near the Kremlin, in the then Soviet Union, in 1973.
Devrim

[catch]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 16, 2007 02:05 pm--> (manic expression @ October 16, 2007 02:05 pm)
[email protected] 16, 2007 01:23 pm
No, you can quite easily tell me if you think the USSR had capital, wage labour, money and commodities or not. It did, so it would require either ignorance or blind faith to say it doesn&#39;t, but I&#39;m not ruling those last two out.

If you won&#39;t answer that simple question then I&#39;m not going to discuss this further with you since you&#39;re simply time-wasting at this point.
catch, I&#39;ve been looking primarily at property relations and modes of production. If you want to bring up other aspects of Soviet society, do so and we&#39;ll discuss them. Don&#39;t change the subject and declare victory (as ultra-leftists have persisted in doing throughout multiple threads).
[/b]
Commodities, wage labour, capital - these are the substantive forms which social relations take, they&#39;re central to this question. I&#39;ll take your refusal to answer as an admission you don&#39;t have the slightest idea what you&#39;re talking about.


So socialist societies can&#39;t export anything?
A communist society will be international, so no.


Socialist states cannot engage in trade with other states?
There&#39;s no such thing as a &#39;socialist state&#39;.

Again, I&#39;ll wait until I receive a substantive response before responding further.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 02:49 pm
Commodities, wage labour, capital - these are the substantive forms which social relations take, they&#39;re central to this question. I&#39;ll take your refusal to answer as an admission you don&#39;t have the slightest idea what you&#39;re talking about.
Why are you trying to ignore what I&#39;ve been saying this whole time? Capitalist property relations did not exist in the USSR. Bureaucrats did not employ wage laborers, they did not amass capital and they did not profit from the sale of commodities. That has been central to my argument this entire thread.


A communist society will be international, so no.

Forget about that whole "dictatorship of the proletariat" thing? Sleep through that part of Marxism 101 class? Socialism is not communism, stop being thick.


There&#39;s no such thing as a &#39;socialist state&#39;.

There is if you&#39;re a Marxist.


Again, I&#39;ll wait until I receive a substantive response before responding further.

Translation: I&#39;ll ignore the rest of the post because I&#39;d rather misrepresent someone&#39;s arguments than address them directly.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by devrimankara+October 16, 2007 02:22 pm--> (devrimankara @ October 16, 2007 02:22 pm) There are lots of examples. This is the first I got from a quick look at Wiki.
Wiki
Under his (David Rockefeller’s) stewardship the Chase spread internationally and became a central pillar in the world&#39;s financial system, including being the leading bank for the United Nations. It has a global network of correspondent banks that has been estimated to number about 50,000, the largest of any bank in the world. A notable achievement was the setting up of the first branch of an American bank at One Karl Marx Square, near the Kremlin, in the then Soviet Union, in 1973. [/b]
Thank you for that. On this example, I would think that the people using the bank would probably be tourists or people from foreign embassies. I ask this in all honesty: is there any way to figure out who went to such a bank and why? I&#39;d like to know.

[catch]

You&#39;re just flailing now.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 04:07 pm
You&#39;re just flailing now.
If thinking that makes you feel better about being unable to support your beliefs...

[catch]

If you&#39;d like to tell me which of these you dispute - capital, wage labour, money, commodities, then we might have the basis for a discussion.
The offer remains.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 04:14 pm

If you&#39;d like to tell me which of these you dispute - capital, wage labour, money, commodities, then we might have the basis for a discussion.
The offer remains.
And my statement is maintained:


Capitalist property relations did not exist in the USSR. Bureaucrats did not employ wage laborers, they did not amass capital and they did not profit from the sale of commodities.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 16, 2007 03:11 pm--> (manic expression @ October 16, 2007 03:11 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 02:22 pm
There are lots of examples. This is the first I got from a quick look at Wiki.
Wiki
Under his (David Rockefeller’s) stewardship the Chase spread internationally and became a central pillar in the world&#39;s financial system, including being the leading bank for the United Nations. It has a global network of correspondent banks that has been estimated to number about 50,000, the largest of any bank in the world. A notable achievement was the setting up of the first branch of an American bank at One Karl Marx Square, near the Kremlin, in the then Soviet Union, in 1973.
Thank you for that. On this example, I would think that the people using the bank would probably be tourists or people from foreign embassies. I ask this in all honesty: is there any way to figure out who went to such a bank and why? I&#39;d like to know. [/b]
What about this one. Did the tourists, or embassy workers buy these cars after they had taken money out of the bank:


The group is present in many countries, not only in the West. Notably, it was one of the first companies to build factories in Soviet-controlled countries, with the best known examples in Vladivostok, Kyiv and Togliattigrad. The Russian government later continued the joint venture under the name AutoVAZ (known as Lada outside the former USSR). The venture was most notable for the Lada Riva. Fiat also has a subsidiary in Poland at Tychy, (formerly called FSM) where Fiat&#39;s small cars (the 126, Cinquecento and now Seicento) are made.

...

In 1966, Fiat built a new car factory on the banks of the Volga river. A new area called Togliatti (named after an Italian communist) was developed around the factory, which started producing a "people&#39;s car" called the Lada. It was based on the new Fiat 124, but aimed at the budget end of the market to target buyers of cars like the Volkswagen Beetle and Citroen 2CV - except the Lada was a more practical and spacious offering in four-door saloon and five-door estate guise. Fiat installed British-bult machine tools supplied by Herbert-BSA of Birmingham for the manufacture of many Lada parts. The Fiat 124 design was mechanically upgraded to survive treacherous Russian driving conditions and freezing Siberian winters. Imports to Western Europe began in 1974, and after a few years of slow sales, the cars began to sell well thanks largely to their low asking price.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 04:38 pm
In 1966, Fiat built a new car factory on the banks of the Volga river. A new area called Togliatti (named after an Italian communist) was developed around the factory, which started producing a "people&#39;s car" called the Lada. It was based on the new Fiat 124, but aimed at the budget end of the market to target buyers of cars like the Volkswagen Beetle and Citroen 2CV - except the Lada was a more practical and spacious offering in four-door saloon and five-door estate guise. Fiat installed British-bult machine tools supplied by Herbert-BSA of Birmingham for the manufacture of many Lada parts. The Fiat 124 design was mechanically upgraded to survive treacherous Russian driving conditions and freezing Siberian winters. Imports to Western Europe began in 1974, and after a few years of slow sales, the cars began to sell well thanks largely to their low asking price.
From what I can gather, the Lada was a twin model of a Fiat car produced by the Soviet Union. Fiat sponsored the building of the factory, but there&#39;s nothing to suggest that they employed Soviet workers at all. What do you think this shows, devrim?

[syndicat]

me:

"Moreover, the dynamics of the USSR were different. Part of the way that profit is assured in capitalism is thru maintaining a reserve army of labor, to drive down wages by driving down worker bargaining power. In the USSR there was a tendency towards a systematic labor shortage, due to the tendency of industrial managers to hoard resources and workers, to ensure they could fulfill their targets in the plan. This led to a significant level of shopfloor power by workers. Workers were thus able to gain job security and much actual control in work."

catch&#39;s ultraleft bullshit:


Come on, there were mass layoffs from 1917-1921, then again around 1928 - massive, massive unemployment. Not to mention the threat of the gulag for anyone organising strikes action which would&#39;ve been at least as effective as unemployment as a stick. There were massive labour shortages in the US and UK during WWII (and the biggest strikes since 1917-1920 in the US in 1943-44, miners, auto workers etc.)

I was talking about the normal dynamics of the system, obviously. The Russian economy wasn&#39;t expropriated from the capitalists til the summer of 1918, in response to the invasion and civil war. With the demobilization of the old czarist army, war production collapsed. the population of St Petersburg had doubled to 2 million during the war due to state war production. It dropped to half a million due to the collapse of the economy. This was a huge shock, imposed from outside.

This has nothing to do with the normal dynamics of a stable economy. You know that.

me: "Decisions were made about allocation by the planning system, in part driven by political criteria, and the prices were set after the fact. It was not thus a system of commodity production. The collective farms were just about the only significant exception to state ownership of means of production."


Again this is rubbish - the primary arbiter of prices for many commodities in the UK is the state - tax makes up much more of the price of fuel, cigarettes, tobacco etc. than the actual costs of production or the market. This doesn&#39;t stop them being commodities, or the conditions under which they&#39;re produced capitalist ones. The USSR was exporting textiles and other commodities on the world market, do you think they set the prices for that as well?

More bullshit. Taxes are an add-on to a base price. You are claiming that base price isn&#39;t a result of market dynamics? The producers wouldn&#39;t produce the products if their costs, in terms of market prices they must pay to suppliers and wages to workers, are not less than revenue from market sale. These are capitalist industries because capital is used to secure labor power and non-human means of production and raw materials from factor markets. The prices, before taxes, depend on (1) the prices paid by the firms for the various factors, and (2) their bargaining position (relative monopolization) in the market.

This is not how allocation of labor power and materials and means of production were allocated in the USSR.

me: "There were periods of loosening and tightening of planning control, versus marketization, but this reflected a tug of war between different factions of the ruling class."


Same in most capitalist countries.

Nope. Virtually all the means of production were owned by the state, the only significant exception were the collective farms. Hence the coordinator class were the ruling class. That ain&#39;t the way it is in capitalism. But you know that.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by manic expression+October 16, 2007 04:48 pm--> (manic expression @ October 16, 2007 04:48 pm)
[email protected] 16, 2007 04:38 pm
In 1966, Fiat built a new car factory on the banks of the Volga river. A new area called Togliatti (named after an Italian communist) was developed around the factory, which started producing a "people&#39;s car" called the Lada. It was based on the new Fiat 124, but aimed at the budget end of the market to target buyers of cars like the Volkswagen Beetle and Citroen 2CV - except the Lada was a more practical and spacious offering in four-door saloon and five-door estate guise. Fiat installed British-bult machine tools supplied by Herbert-BSA of Birmingham for the manufacture of many Lada parts. The Fiat 124 design was mechanically upgraded to survive treacherous Russian driving conditions and freezing Siberian winters. Imports to Western Europe began in 1974, and after a few years of slow sales, the cars began to sell well thanks largely to their low asking price.
From what I can gather, the Lada was a twin model of a Fiat car produced by the Soviet Union. Fiat sponsored the building of the factory, but there&#39;s nothing to suggest that they employed Soviet workers at all. What do you think this shows, devrim? [/b]
Right, FIAT built the factory, and had there own workers travel in from Italy everyday.

It shows that there was private property in the USSR, which is incidental to my point, but more intrinsic to yours.

Devrim

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 05:02 pm
Right, FIAT built the factory, and had there own workers travel in from Italy everyday.

It shows that there was private property in the USSR, which is incidental to my point, but more intrinsic to yours.
That&#39;s tangential to both of our points, devrim, because we&#39;re talking about a socialist state here. Italian workers employed in capitalism does not affect Soviet property relations (and most of the population of Togliatti, the city of the factory, moved there during construction, which would suggest that Soviet workers played a role in building it: workers who weren&#39;t employed by Fiat). Want to bring up a relevant point? How about Soviet workers?

[manic expression]

By the way, devrim, I just dug up some info and a short analysis on the Fiat-Volga deal.

"The recent Soviet contract with the Fiat automobile company to supply equipment and technicians for the construction of a complete factory in the USSR suggests that they may be willing to take still another step in emulating Eastern Europe. Cooperative agreements could be used in economic agreements with LCDs. But they are unlikely to be used widely, and this should not necessarily be construed as a step in the direction of liberal trade practices."

From "Soviet Aid and Trade Policies" by Franklyn D. Holzman.

On edit, we&#39;re finally getting to the bottom of this. It does seem that the Fiat-Volga deal was NOT what you originally portrayed it as. It boils down to an exchange between two countries, which socialist states can and should take part in. As I asked catch (who refused to answer directly, of course), are you saying socialist states cannot engage in trade?

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 04:59 pm

catch&#39;s ultraleft bullshit:


Come on, there were mass layoffs from 1917-1921, then again around 1928 - massive, massive unemployment. Not to mention the threat of the gulag for anyone organising strikes action which would&#39;ve been at least as effective as unemployment as a stick. There were massive labour shortages in the US and UK during WWII (and the biggest strikes since 1917-1920 in the US in 1943-44, miners, auto workers etc.)

What&#39;s ultra-left about pointing out some basic (although oft-ignored) facts.



The Russian economy wasn&#39;t expropriated from the capitalists til the summer of 1918, in response to the invasion and civil war.
There was hardly any expropriation whatsoever. Expropriation is when workers seize control of the means of production themselves. S.A. Smith mentions three occurrences at small plants in Petrograd before October 1917, very few afterwards. What occurred in the summer of 1918 was nationalisation, which I&#39;d hope you&#39;d accept is a completely different process.



With the demobilization of the old czarist army, war production collapsed. the population of St Petersburg had doubled to 2 million during the war due to state war production. It dropped to half a million due to the collapse of the economy. This was a huge shock, imposed from outside.

This has nothing to do with the normal dynamics of a stable economy. You know that.
I&#39;m afraid you can&#39;t use the civil war to explain unemployment in 1927-32, nice try though. I&#39;m sure I could find more &#39;exceptions&#39; to your rule if necessary.




More bullshit. Taxes are an add-on to a base price. You are claiming that base price isn&#39;t a result of market dynamics? The producers wouldn&#39;t produce the products if their costs, in terms of market prices they must pay to suppliers and wages to workers, are not less than revenue from market sale. These are capitalist industries because capital is used to secure labor power and non-human means of production and raw materials from factor markets. The prices, before taxes, depend on (1) the prices paid by the firms for the various factors, and (2) their bargaining position (relative monopolization) in the market.
You appeared to be saying that at the point of sale prices bore no relation to this &#39;base price&#39; - I was simply saying this is equally applicable to western countries where there are all kinds of price fixing measures. The costs of fixed and variable capital were certainly important in the USSR, and it was producing goods for international export, would you deny this was the case?


This is not how allocation of labor power and materials and means of production were allocated in the USSR.
In Japan there&#39;s massive allocation of labour via state planning (10% of the population works in construction, a vast amount of them in state funded white elephant projects) so again you&#39;re unable to prove some unique social system seperate from capitalism.




me: "There were periods of loosening and tightening of planning control, versus marketization, but this reflected a tug of war between different factions of the ruling class."


Same in most capitalist countries.

Nope. Virtually all the means of production were owned by the state, the only significant exception were the collective farms. Hence the coordinator class were the ruling class. That ain&#39;t the way it is in capitalism. But you know that.
I don&#39;t agree that there&#39;s any qualitative difference, quantative yes in terms of the percentage of formal state ownership, but not in how this relates the social relationships expressed in this.

[syndicat]

catch:
There was hardly any expropriation whatsoever. Expropriation is when workers seize control of the means of production themselves. S.A. Smith mentions three occurrences at small plants in Petrograd before October 1917, very few afterwards. What occurred in the summer of 1918 was nationalisation, which I&#39;d hope you&#39;d accept is a completely different process.

The capitalists had their property taken away. That it ended up owned by the state doesn&#39;t show it wasn&#39;t expropriation. Classes that do expropriation don&#39;t have to be the working class.


I&#39;m afraid you can&#39;t use the civil war to explain unemployment in 1927-32

The forced collectivization was done to move much of the rural labor force into industry. The unemployment was temporary while this transition was underway. That doesn&#39;t show what the normal mode of operation was. And you know it. The tendency was to suck up all that available surplus labor. Women were also moved into industry as well, but the fact that despite all this additional labor added to the system, they ended up with persistent labor shortage actually makes my point.


The costs of fixed and variable capital were certainly important in the USSR, and it was producing goods for international export, would you deny this was the case?

A relatively small percentage of the Soviet economy was involved in international trade. They used a different method of calculating costs than "fixed and variable capital." This is why there are different interpretations of Soviet statistics to try to fit it with Western capitalist measures like GDP.

There is massive allocation to the defense industries in the USA via taxation. This doesn&#39;t show that USA is a centrally planned or coordinator class controlled economy. The coordinator class is important, and especially so in the public sector, but it is a subordinate element to the capitalist class.

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 07:59 pm
catch:
There was hardly any expropriation whatsoever. Expropriation is when workers seize control of the means of production themselves. S.A. Smith mentions three occurrences at small plants in Petrograd before October 1917, very few afterwards. What occurred in the summer of 1918 was nationalisation, which I&#39;d hope you&#39;d accept is a completely different process.

The capitalists had their property taken away. That it ended up owned by the state doesn&#39;t show it wasn&#39;t expropriation. Classes that do expropriation don&#39;t have to be the working class.

Many capitalists remained on as managers of their firms. When firms are privatised, it&#39;s not expropriation by capitalists from the &#39;co-ordinator class&#39;, so neither does it work the other way &#39;round - it&#39;s simply a shift of formal ownership. Yes some individual capitalists were disenfranchised, but this did nothing to change the social relations of production.




I&#39;m afraid you can&#39;t use the civil war to explain unemployment in 1927-32
Women were also moved into industry as well, but the fact that despite all this additional labor added to the system, they ended up with persistent labor shortage actually makes my point.
Women and southern blacks moved into industry during WWII, there was still unemployment.

Also 40 years later:

An unemployment rate for the urban population living in the European U.S.S.R. for the late 1970s is calculated from a survey of 2,793 former Sovi et citizens residing in the United States. Patterns of unemployment i ncidence, frequency of multiple spells, and unemployment duration by demographic characteristics are compared with U.S. patterns. In contr ast, similar unemployment rates for Soviet men and women, and a posit ive relation between education and unemployment, are found. The Sovie t unemployment rate is low compared to Western rates for the 1970s, b ut has been matched by West Germany and Japan in high-employment year s. Copyright 1988 by American Economic Association.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v78y1988i4p613-32.html



A relatively small percentage of the Soviet economy was involved in international trade. They used a different method of calculating costs than "fixed and variable capital."
So do capitalists.

[syndicat]

me: Women were also moved into industry as well, but the fact that despite all this additional labor added to the system, they ended up with persistent labor shortage actually makes my point.

catch:

Women and southern blacks moved into industry during WWII, there was still unemployment.

In the USA, yes, and that also supports my point that capitalism generates a reserve army of labor whereas the centrally planned Soviet economy tended to generate a labor shortage.

In the period from 1918 into the &#39;20s some former owners of smaller enterprises were employed as managers. Also many former engineers and managers were kept on. A coordinator class dominated system needs a coordinator class to run social production. People who have experience doing that sort of work will be coopted to that system. In the first five year plan, begining in the late &#39;20s, there was a "proletarianization" campaign which was a crash program to put party members, typically from the working class or peasantry, thru universities, to train them as engineers and managers. This was to have coordinator cadre who were more loyal to the party-state.

There can be a change in social relations of production where many of the people in the new dominant class are from the old dominant class. In Britain a large part of the process of creating capitalism was initiated by the landed gentry, changing the social relations of production thru enclosures, denying the peasantry their traditional rights to have cottages, gather in forests, allow their cow to graze on the common, etc. They were converting from feudalism, which limited their ability to accumulate private wealth through things like disallowing sale of land, and requiring they recognize social obligations to "their" peasants.

The social relations of production stratify society into classes. There is a different class system when the social relations of production are changed. When the old Soviet system was dismantled in the USSR in the early &#39;90s, it was a revolution from above, in which the coordinator class moved to change the social relations of production through privatization of the former public assets, and also tearing up obligations to the working class under the old system.

Just as the change from feudalism to capitalism was a revolution -- a change in the social relations of production -- so was the change in Russia in the &#39;90s. Kotz and Weir do a good job of explaining all his in "Revolution from Above."

[Intelligitimate]

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