Bourgeoisie in Soviet Russia?

[Q]

Just when I thought this forum has some sense afterall, you guys just love to prove me wrong. Seriously people: a bourgeoisie in Soviet Russia?? What have you been smoking and can I get some?

Sure, there was a bureaucratic caste that enriched itself on the cost of the workers. But this by itself doesn't define a bourgeoisie at all. The bourgeoisie is a class that exists a capitalist economic reality. It is defined by the role it has within the production process and in relation with the means of production. In concreto: the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and it has the role of innovator and doing everything which increases profits.

Now, the bureaucratic caste in the Soviet Union was obviously parasitic, but it didn't hold the same kind of position in the economy as the bourgeoisie does within capitalism, in fact it didn't hold much of a position at all, because the economy was nationalised and planned. No free market, no private ownership, no drive for profits, no freedom of capital, etc, etc, etc. All that the bureaucracy did was just sit there in their totalitarian state apparatus, kick back and enjoyed the show. Instead of a genuine democratic planned economy, they mutilated it into a bureaucratic inefficient monster, to please their personal needs. And while that may sound similar to the bourgeois drive for profits, the bureaucratic drive for privileges had no economic necessity.

This is why Trotsky called for a political revolution: a kick in the nuts for the bureaucratic stratum and giving back ownership to the workers themselves.
It wouldn't change the economy at all, because that didn't need to be changed.

So to sum it up: Stalinist Russia's economy wasn't capitalist and therefore a capitalist class, also known as a bourgeoisie, couldn't exist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You obviously haven't read up on the Das Kapital portion(s) mentioning the "functional capitalist." :(

The capitalist mode of production can exist WITHOUT the bourgeoisie, mainly because of state capitalism:

1) Fascism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1000360&postcount=17) (the petit-bourgeois employ state capitalism)
2) Revolutionary democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-stalin-and-t66656/index.html) (Lenin's alliance of workers and petit-bourgeoisie, including the "poor peasants")

3) Proletocracy/DOTP (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stamocap-t59014/index.html) (with heavy coordinator/managerial influence and practices)

[Q]

You obviously haven't read up on the Das Kapital portion(s) mentioning the "functional capitalist." :(

The capitalist mode of production can exist WITHOUT the bourgeoisie, mainly because of state capitalism:

1) Fascism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1000360&postcount=17) (the petit-bourgeois employ state capitalism)
2) Revolutionary democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-stalin-and-t66656/index.html) (Lenin's alliance of workers and petit-bourgeoisie, including the "poor peasants")

3) Proletocracy/DOTP (http://www.revleft.com/vb/stamocap-t59014/index.html) (with heavy coordinator/managerial influence and practices)
There is no such thing as "state capitalism" (unless you count Keynesian politics as such), that's basically what my previous post was all about.

Could you point me towards the nit where "functional capitalism" is being mentioned in Das Kapital?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch23.htm

[Since it's been awhile, I've grown accustomed to the usage of "functional" instead of the more proper "functioning" :( ]


There is no such thing as "state capitalism" (unless you count Keynesian politics as such), that's basically what my previous post was all about.

Trotskyists like you seriously need to read Lenin's Left-Wing Childishness.

Besides, you might want to read this, too:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-price-mechanism-t67381/index.html



P.S. - You should also chime in on my Theory thread on non-bourgeois capitalism, which I created in direct response to your specific case above.

[Tower of Bebel]

Trotskyists like you seriously need to read Lenin's Left-Wing Childishness.

I'm reading it, but just to be sure, what are you refering to?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Part III:


But what does the word “transition” mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question.

...

Let us enumerate these elements:

1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;

2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);

3) private capitalism;

4) state capitalism;

5) socialism.

Russia is so vast and so varied that all these different types of socio-economic structures are intermingled. This is what constitutes the specific features of the situation.

The question arises: what elements predominate? Clearly in a small-peasant country, the petty-bourgeois element predominates and it must predominate, for the great majority of those working the land are small commodity producers. The shell of our state capitalism (grain monopoly, state controlled entrepreneurs and traders, bourgeois co-operators) is pierced now in one place, now in another by profiteers, the chief object of profiteering being grain.

It is in this field that the main struggle is being waged. Between what elements is this struggle being waged if we are to speak in terms of economic categories such as “state capitalism"? Between the fourth and the fifth in the order in which I have just enumerated them. Of course not. It is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie oppose every kind of state interference, accounting and control, whether it be state capitalist or state socialist. This is an absolutely unquestionable fact of reality, and the root of the economic mistake of the “Left Communists” is that they have failed to understand it. The profiteer, the commercial racketeer, the disrupter of monopoly—these are our principal “internal” enemies, the enemies of the economic measures of Soviet power. A hundred and twenty-five years ago it might have been excusable for the French petty bourgeoisie, the most ardent and sincere revolutionaries, to try to crush the profiteer by executing a few of the “chosen” and by making thunderous declamations. Today, however, the purely rhetorical attitude to this question assumed by some Left Socialist-Revolutionaries can rouse nothing but disgust and revulsion in every politically conscious revolutionary. We know perfectly well that the economic basis of profiteering is both the small proprietors, who are exceptionally widespread in Russia, and private capitalism, of which every petty bourgeois is an agent. We know that the million tentacles of this petty-bourgeois hydra now and again encircle various sections of the workers, that, instead of state monopoly, profiteering forces its way into every pore of our social and economic organism.



In the discussions within my Stamocap thread, DrFreeman09 and Ben Seattle add the "moneyless economy" (the sole economy of communist society).