What do you think about the countries of the "Communit Block"?

[nvm]

I believe that most of them were deformed/degenerated workers states. Meaning that although they had a nationalized planned economy they did not have workers democracy and a caste of bureaucrats had an authoritarian rule. As Trotsky predicted in 1936 the bureaucracy if not removed by a political revolution that will bring back the power to the hands of the proletariat, will sell out the nationalized planned economy in order to serve its interests. And we see that today with all the ex-members of the CPs and the KGB, being high officials of the bourgeois states or billionaire capitalists.
I formulated this opinion after reading Trotsky's the revolution Betrayed and some of the Book "another view on Stalin" . I compared the two different opinions and decided that Trotsky made more sense.
I know that the left communists call the USSR state capitalist, and the Stalinists socialist , while the anarchists some of them use the term state capitalist and others state socialist.
So what do you honestly think about the Communist block countries? How would you define them and why ?
Thank you for your time!

[spartan]

Undemocratic socialism and a failed experiment by and large forced on unwilling people who came to resent socialism and happily welcome back capitalism in the late 80's and early 90's.

We can learnt alot about not what to do from the eastern bloc.

[nvm]

Undemocratic socialism and a failed experiment by and large forced on unwilling people who came to resent socialism and happily welcome back capitalism in the late 80's and early 90's.




But undemocratic socialism is the same with degenerated workers state!
But yes democracy was needed. As Trotsky said "Democracy is for socialism , what oxygen is for the human body"

[Pogue]

Other - they were just messed up places which suffered from authoritarianism and people seeking to exploit the revolution for power.

[nvm]

Other - they were just messed up places which suffered from authoritarianism and people seeking to exploit the revolution for power


This either qualifies as deformed workers states or state capitalism.
Please don't troll guys , dont make your own definitions when they already exist!

[BobKKKindle$]

With the exception of the Soviet Union, all of the states which comprised the Soviet Bloc were deformed workers states. A state suffering from bureaucratic deformation (as distinct from degeneration) is a country where the proletariat has never exercised political power because social property relations have been imposed by another country. The abolition of private property allowed for many progressive advances which would not be possible under a capitalist economic system, including full employment and the universal provision of healthcare. Trotskyists call for unconditional military defense of all workers states regardless of the degree of bureaucratic deformation, but also call for political revolution which, as distinct from social revolution, will preserve existing property relations but will eliminate the parasitic influence of the bureacracy and establish proletarian control.

It is wrong to identify these states as state-capitalist because there was no ruling class. Marxists recognize that a class has an independent role in the structure of the economy and independent property roots. However, the bureacracy did not own the means of production, and so was unable to derive income from the sale of commodities, or transmit property to the younger generation as inheritance. The bureacracy is merely a social stratum which uses political power to develop bourgeois norms of distribution and so gains access to material privileges which are not available to ordinary workers.

[BobKKKindle$]

It should be recognized that this is not merely an issue of historical interest. There are also deformed workers states which exist today and Trotskyists face an obligation to defend these states against external threats which have the potential to overturn the gains of social property and restore capitalism through armed intervention. These states include North Korea, Cuba, and, arguably, China, although it can be argued that China has already suffered capitalist restoration, as market reforms have led to the privatization of many state enterprises.

[Natasha Gonzalez]

I agree with user Bobkiddles and the original poster.
The Communist block countries were deformed workers states which needed democracy.
I don't understand why people defend them.
They clearly failed.
I also think that the degeneration started when Stalin and his bureaucracy rose to power.

[BobKKKindle$]

I don't understand why people defend them.

A distinction should be made between two different forms of defence. Trotskyists do not offer political support to the bureacracy and do not uphold the deformed workers state as a model of how society should be organised, because bureacratic deformation has a regressive influence on the process of socialist construction and creates the potential for the restoration of capitalism. However, Trotskyists do offer unconditional military support to deformed workers states, to preserve social property relations, which form the basis of socialist economic organisation and allow for the rapid development of the productive forces.

An excellent explanation of the Trotskyist approach to this issue is available here:

The Bankruptcy of “New Class” Theories (http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/archives/oldsite/NEWCLASS.HTM)

[Natasha Gonzalez]

yes I kind of had the same attitude towards Cuba etc.
Of course I cannot offer military support but I defend it when I talk to liberals and conservatives. I think I should read some more Trotsky. His work , the revolution betrayed was very good. I will read what you linked me for sure.

[Mala Tha Testa]

deformed/degenerate worker states

[Yehuda Stern]

The Eastern Bloc states were state capitalist, with the Soviet Union as the imperialist superpower oppressing most of them. A few countries, like China and Yugoslavia, allied themselves with Western imperialism. This is further proof of the theory that no third-world capitalist state can truly be free from imperialism.

Those who believe that the USSR was a workers' state have to explain why there was no counter-revolution after that of the 1930s (which they do not believe has been one, obviously). If we say that a workers' state changed back into a capitalist state without a change in the state machinery, we're merely, to paraphrase Trotsky, playing out the reformist vision in reverse.

In the USSR, most bureaucrats are now also part of the ruling class. The KGB is still intact. The IMT has even taken the ridiculous and anti-Permanent Revolution theory that China has somehow transformed itself into an imperialist state - this while the Maoist party and its repressive forces are all still in control.

The British SWP's theory has also failed the test of reality. According to it, the law of value did not work in the USSR in the conventional sense.
The SWP never expected the USSR's downfall - quite the contrary, it saw state capitalism as the next stage of capitalism.

There is nothing Marxist about claiming that a state can remain a 'deformed' workers' state for decades; that a workers' state can be formed not only without the support of the workers, but through their repression; or that Stalinism managed to create a new society in the USSR. All tendencies that have held such theories have been forced, in one way or another, to present Stalinism as a progressive force, or at least a force for revolutionary change under certain conditions - which is, at bottom, exactly the same.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Care to explain, then, your group's position on the nature of the Soviet state before Lenin's death? :confused:

[Yehuda Stern]

What do you want me to explain? Russia was the classical country for the permanent revolution. The Russian bourgeoisie was too weak and afraid of the workers to carry out the democratic revolution against the Czars and the landlords. The workers tried to carry out a revolution in February 1917, but the Bolsheviks were unprepared, and the other parties consciously betrayed the revolution and passed it to the bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin and Trotsky, intervened in this process and managed to build a vanguard proletarian party which took power and set up a workers' state, the only workers' state of any kind in history.

This state, by the way, did not even nationalize industry until 1918, just to show you how false the orto-trot criterion for a workers' state is.

[Random Precision]

Whenever I hear the term "deformed workers state", I automatically think of the mutants in Futurama having a revolution to build socialism in the sewer. :lol:

I voted state-capitalist.

[BobKKKindle$]

If we say that a workers' state changed back into a capitalist state without a change in the state machinery, we're merely, to paraphrase Trotsky, playing out the reformist vision in reverse.

There was a change in the state machinery. The Soviet Union was broken up into many smaller states which are now controlled by independent governments. The fact that there is still a secret police of some kind is not enough to show that the state machinery has not changed, as a secret police is a common feature of many authoritarian governments which seek to retain power through suppression of political dissidents and control of the media.


In the USSR, most bureaucrats are now also part of the ruling class

This is exactly what Trotsky predicted. The restoration of capitalism occurs because the bureaucracy aims to attain ownership of the productive apparatus, to create a secure basis for material privilege, and to enable the inheritance of property by the younger generation:


We cannot count upon the bureaucracy’s peacefully and voluntarily renouncing itself in behalf of socialist equality. If at the present time, notwithstanding the too obvious inconveniences of such an operation, it has considered it possible to introduce ranks and decorations, it must inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations. One may argue that the big bureaucrat cares little what are the prevailing forms of property, provided only they guarantee him the necessary income. This argument ignores not only the instability of the bureaucrat’s own rights, but also the question of his descendants

The Revolution Betrayed, Social Relations in the Soviet Union, The Question of the Character of the Soviet Union Not Yet Decided by History (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm#ch09-3)

[Q]

Those countries were degenerative/deformed workers states as the OP pointed out. "State capitalism" is pretty much a rubbish theory (based on the false idea of a bourgeoisie united into the state apparatus, but apparently an economy without any of the characteristics of capitalism...) that leads to wrong conclusions for action. This debate isn't completely historical btw, as there are still some last vestiges of totalitarian "socialism" around, for example Cuba and North Korea. The key word on these countries shouldn't be "for a social revolution" as the planned economy is in effect and society is already socialised, the key word should therefore be "for a new political revolution!" that puts aside the bureaucratic stratum and puts workers to power.

Of course this isn't an easy matter, a political revolution in that sense hasn't occured because the bureaucracy in the country was all too often too strong for the working class to organise against it. In the case of Cuba, things might turn into an extra gear if and when Venezuela has a revolution and abolishes capitalism. North Korea might see working class opposition when China (which has degenerated back into capitalism) sees a revolution or at least a heightened phase of class struggle.

[Yehuda Stern]

There was a change in the state machinery. The Soviet Union was broken up into many smaller states which are now controlled by independent governments. The fact that there is still a secret police of some kind is not enough to show that the state machinery has not changed

That the Soviet federation broke up is obviously true. But this shows that the regime fell, not the capitalist state. And please, do not make cheap arguments. I didn't argue that there was no counterrevolution because there's a secret police, but because, among other things, the secret police is the same as it was.


This is exactly what Trotsky predicted. The restoration of capitalism occurs because the bureaucracy aims to attain ownership of the productive apparatus, to create a secure basis for material privilege, and to enable the inheritance of property by the younger generation:

Do not avoid the question. Trotsky did predict that many bureaucrats would join the new capitalist class, but he never said anything about the old bureaucratic stratum changing the state back into a capitalist state without a civil war. This civil war took place in the 1930s, not in the 1990s.


"State capitalism" is pretty much a rubbish theory (based on the false idea of a bourgeoisie united into the state apparatus, but apparently an economy without any of the characteristics of capitalism...)

This is the Cliff variant of state capitalism, and Johnson shares this viewpoint as well. But the state capitalism that we, for example, uphold, holds that the law of value operated in the Stalinist states just like in any 'normal' capitalist state, with some peculiarities stemming from the fact that production was nationalized.


China (which has degenerated back into capitalism)

This is probably even richer than the theory that the USSR has 'reverted' into capitalism. What social convulsion, what counterrevolution in China, has enabled the bourgeois to take power away from the workers? Or are you just "unwind[ing] the film of reformism in reverse"?

[BobKKKindle$]

Do not avoid the question. Trotsky did predict that many bureaucrats would join the new capitalist class, but he never said anything about the old bureaucratic stratum changing the state back into a capitalist state without a civil war. This civil war took place in the 1930s, not in the 1990s.You are adopting a very scholastic (basing analysis solely on the opinions on an author, not empirical observation) approach to the issue. It is correct that Trotsky suggested that the restoration of capitalism would require a prolonged civil war and could not occur through a gradual process. Clearly this prediction has not been affirmed by historical events, and arguably it is possible for a bureaucratic state to maintain the same political system during the transition to capitalism, to suppress working class opposition to the elimination of social property, as is currently occurring in China. However, the fact that Trotsky may have been wrong on this issue (the means by which capitalism is restored) does not mean the concept of the workers state should be rejected.

According to the theory of state-capitalism, the bureacracy was not merely a stratum, but a ruling class. However, how could the bureacracy be a ruling class, if they did not have independent property roots, and the laws of economic motion were fundamentally different to those in a capitalist society? The theory of state-capitalism is in direct opposition to the Marxist analysis of what a class is.

[Yehuda Stern]

But here you are avoiding the question again. Everyone can agree that Trotsky was wrong - there are factors he did not take into account, he was isolated, he was facing a new and strange historical phenomenon - Trotsky was wrong despite being a great revolutionary. But don't you play the dogma card on me. You're the one who tosses away all of Trotsky's analysis to hang on to the dogma of the 'degenerated/deformed workers' state'. Please answer this question: If there was a gradual change in the USSR, then isn't this "reformism in reverse" like Trotsky said? Doesn't this mistaken conception of yours vindicate reformism?

[Led Zeppelin]

It is correct that Trotsky suggested that the restoration of capitalism would require a prolonged civil war and could not occur through a gradual process.

I seriously suggest you read Revolution Betrayed:



Let us assume to take a third variant – that neither a revolutionary nor a counterrevolutionary party seizes power. The bureaucracy continues at the head of the state. Even under these conditions social relations will not jell. We cannot count upon the bureaucracy’s peacefully and voluntarily renouncing itself in behalf of socialist equality. If at the present time, notwithstanding the too obvious inconveniences of such an operation, it has considered it possible to introduce ranks and decorations, it must inevitably in future stages seek supports for itself in property relations. One may argue that the big bureaucrat cares little what are the prevailing forms of property, provided only they guarantee him the necessary income. This argument ignores not only the instability of the bureaucrat’s own rights, but also the question of his descendants. The new cult of the family has not fallen out of the clouds. Privileges have only half their worth, if they cannot be transmitted to one’s children. But the right of testament is inseparable from the right of property. It is not enough to be the director of a trust; it is necessary to be a stockholder. The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion into a new possessing class.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm)

[BobKKKindle$]

I seriously suggest you read...[etc]

The quote you have given does not show that Trotsky accepted the possibility of a gradual transition to capitalism. In The Class Nature of the Soviet State Trotsky argued that a "gradual bourgeois counterrevolution" would not be possible, because the overthrow of capitalism occurred through armed struggle against the bourgeois state not a gradual process of reforms, and so the restoration of capitalism must also be violent.


The class theory of society and historical experience equally testify to the impossibility of the victory of the proletariat through peaceful methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the imperceptible, “gradual,” bourgeois counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any case, feudal as well as bourgeois counterrevolutions have never taken place “organically,” but they have invariably required the intervention of military surgery. In the last analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as reformism generally has attained to theory, are always based upon the inability to understand that class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; hence, the perspective of a peaceful transformation of capitalism into socialism. The Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic character of the transfer of power from the hands of one class into the hands of another applies not only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps madly ahead, but also to the periods of counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. He who asserts that the Soviet government has been gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is only, so to speak, running backwards the film of reformism.

The Class Nature of the Soviet State, How the Question is Posed (http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/1933/10/sovstate.htm)

[RHIZOMES]

In the USSR, most bureaucrats are now also part of the ruling class. The KGB is still intact. The IMT has even taken the ridiculous and anti-Permanent Revolution theory that China has somehow transformed itself into an imperialist state - this while the Maoist party and its repressive forces are all still in control.

The Communist Party of China is not Maoist, let alone Communist. And since when was imperialism not a repressive force?

[Led Zeppelin]

The quote you have given does not show that Trotsky accepted the possibility of a gradual transition to capitalism.

Did you not read the quote or something?

Do I really have to repost it?

I'll just repost the most relevant section: "But the right of testament is inseparable from the right of property. It is not enough to be the director of a trust; it is necessary to be a stockholder. The victory of the bureaucracy in this decisive sphere would mean its conversion into a new possessing class."


In The Class Nature of the Soviet State Trotsky argued ...

That was written in 1933, Revolution Betrayed was written in 1936.

As I said in the profile message I sent you: I know that Trotsky believed the USSR was a degenerated workers' state up to the time that he died, but that doesn't mean that he was politically an idiot. He didn't rule out any possibilities even though at times during polemics with some people (Shachtmanites) he had to "bend the stick" to prove his point, but in his book dedicated to this subject, Revolution Betrayed, he was very clear on this matter.

[Yehuda Stern]

The Communist Party of China is not Maoist, let alone Communist. And since when was imperialism not a repressive force?

Let's not be silly, here. I wasn't saying that imperialism wasn't repressive but that it's pretty interesting that orto-trots claim that a workers' state can turn imperialist without any change in the state apparatus. And if the CCP isn't Maoist, I don't know what party is. That it's not communist is a given - I did say it was Maoist.

[RHIZOMES]

Let's not be silly, here. I wasn't saying that imperialism wasn't repressive but that it's pretty interesting that orto-trots claim that a workers' state can turn imperialist without any change in the state apparatus. And if the CCP isn't Maoist, I don't know what party is. That it's not communist is a given - I did say it was Maoist.

It used to be Maoist. It is now today a 100% capitalist party, once it was taken over by Deng Xiaopeng, who was an enemy of Mao.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism


Maoism, variably and officially known as Mao Zedong Thought (traditional Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_character): 毛澤東思想; simplified Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_character): 毛泽东思想; pinyin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin): Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), is a variant of Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism) derived from the teachings of the late Chinese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_China) leader Mao Zedong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong) (Wade-Giles Romanization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade-Giles_Romanization): "Mao Tse-tung"), widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology in the Communist Party of China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China) (CPC) from Mao's ascendancy to its leadership until the inception of Deng Xiaoping Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping_Theory) and Chinese economic reforms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform) in 1978.

[Niccolò Rossi]

The so-called 'socialist states' of the 20th Century were State Capitalist.

“What defines them as state capitalist?”, our ortho-trot asks.

Well that's simple, they exhibited a capitalist mode of production.

Lets start from the top by first defining the concept of a mode of production.




A mode of production is an articulated combination of relations and forces of production structured by the dominance of the relations of production. The relations of production define a specific mode of appropriation of surplus labour and the specific form of social distribution of the means of production corresponding to that mode of appropriation of surplus-labour.

[...]

The mode of appropriation of surplus-labour governs the mode in which the social product is distributed amongst the agents of production.

'Forces of production' refers to the mode of appropriation of nature, that is, to the labour process in which a determinate raw material is transformed into a determinate product.

The writers go on further about the forces of production, but I feel discussing them further is unnecessary with my argument being based on the relations of production being capitalist in nature, since it is these which structure the articulation of the means of production and the relations of production, defining a mode of production.

Now we have a definition of a mode of production. The question then needs to be answered, what defines the capitalist mode of production? As with all modes of production, the relations of production are dominant. Thus the question then becomes, what relations of production define the capitalist mode of production?




For example, capitalist relations of production define a mode of appropriation of surplus-labour which works by means of commodity exchange.

[...]

Appropriation of surplus-labour here depends on a difference between the value of labour-power and the value that may be created by means of that labour-power. Surplus-labour takes the form of surplus-value. This appropriation of surplus-labour presupposes that the means of production are in the hands of the capitalists, since otherwise there is no necessity for the labourers to obtain the means of consumption through the sale of their labour-power. Thus capitalist relations of production define a mode of appropriation of surplus labour in the form of surplus-value, and a social distribution of the means of production so that these are the property non-labourers (capitalists), while the labour-power takes the form of a commodity which members of the class of labourers are forced to sell to members of the class of non-labourers.

By now our ortho-trot is kicking and screaming: “But the means of production were not owned by a class of non-labourers, they were the property of the whole people. These bureaucrats could not have been a separate class because of this!”

Hush now, stop being so 'un-Marxist' (this is a label you love to brand anyone who is not a follower of your genuine brand of Marxism). You are here failing on two accords. One you are defining class in a very peculiar manner and two, you are failing to differentiate between the existing property relations and their legal expression. Let us look at these more closely.

What defines a class? This is a question is fundamental to the Marxist point-of-view. As such we would expect a careful an calculated analysis by anyone who wishes to call themselves as such, but, what do we get? Instead we see a reductionist understanding of class as a concept and a loose analysis of the class composition of the so-called 'socialist states'.

G.E.M. De Ste. Croix gave an excellent (and thoroughly Marxist) definition of class in his The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Let us see what he had to say:




Class [...] is the collective social expression of the fact of exploitation, the way in which exploitation is embodied in a social structure. By exploitation I mean the appropriation of part of the product of the labour of others [...]

A class [...] is a group of persons in a community identified by their position in the whole system of social production, defined above all according to their relationship (primarily in terms of degree of ownership or control) to the conditions of production (that is to say, the means and labour of production) and to other classes. Legal position [...] is one of the factors that may help to determine class: its share in doing so will depend on how far it affects the type and degree of exploitation practised or suffered [...]

[...]

It is the essence of a class society that one or more smaller classes, in virtue of their control over the means of production (most commonly exercised through ownership of the means of production) [4], will be able to exploit – that is, to appropriate a surplus at the expense of – the larger classes, and thus constitute an economically and socially [...] superior class or classes.

[4] 'Most Commonly', but not always: my definition allows for e.g. Control being exercised by directors of a limited company who are not majority shareholders.

Our trot friend is now baffled. He is so used to only defining class in a reductionist manner, that is, defining it as the relationship (ownership) of the means of production. Such a definition as is commonly used (in this debate and others) is false in that it reduces all class society to a confrontation of only two classes: the propertied and the propertyless, something thoroughly 'un-Marxist'. Also as I noted above, it confuses the real existing relations of production with their legal expression.

Our trot then asks: “Why should we consider the red-bureaucrats of the 'socialist states' as a capitalist class?”.

Exploitation of the proletariat existed in the 'socialist states' due to the existence of wage slavery.

Since we defined a class as being 'a group of persons in a community identified by their position in the whole system of social production' we can thus conclude that the red-bureaucrats were in fact a capitalist class. They occupied a distinctly separate position in the process of production as compared with the labouring masses. They exerted a direct control over the means of production and coordinated the process of social production.

This control over the social production process, however, did not take the form of direct ownership of the means of production. As noted above, such is unnecessary for their definition as an exploiting class, but let us for a moment disregard this for the sake of argument. The fact that the means of production where not the direct property of state bureaucrats does not mean that they did not constitute a separate class. Why is this? Simple: such a conclusion would be confusing the actual existing relations of production with their legal expression. Such because the state bureaucrats do not hold direct ownership of the means of production does not mean they can not exercise effect ownership and thus constituted a separate class.

Now to our so called defender of 'genuine Marxism': If you reject the definition of the socialist states as having a capitalist mode of production, you are rejecting the Marxist theory of modes of production. This is not to say that Marxist theory is some eternal or unquestionable scripture, true in all places and at all times, however, what it does mean is that you can not for a second call yourself a defender of Marxist theory.

*Note: I apologise for this reply seeming so hostile and insulting. It's not meant to be. Sorry

[Random Precision]

An excellent explanation of the Trotskyist approach to this issue is available here:

The Bankruptcy of “New Class” Theories (http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/archives/oldsite/NEWCLASS.HTM)

Pimping articles from the Sparts, are we, Bob? I'm not quite sure you're making progress. :(

[Yehuda Stern]

It used to be Maoist. It is now today a 100% capitalist party

Well, a Maoist party is always 100% capitalist. I don't really see the difference here.

[Periodic]

Thank you for posting this poll, the arguments against each other have gave me a better insight of the "Communist" block.

[RHIZOMES]

Well, a Maoist party is always 100% capitalist. I don't really see the difference here.

Yes, because as we all know, mass privatization totally occurred under Mao! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

[Yehuda Stern]

No, but state capitalism did. My whole point is that nationalization does not equal socialism. Especially not when that nationalization is carried through after the suppression of the revolutionary workers.

[RHIZOMES]

No, but state capitalism did. My whole point is that nationalization does not equal socialism. Especially not when that nationalization is carried through after the suppression of the revolutionary workers.

Aaah, you're a Cliffite, should've known.

[Dros]

Arizona, imagine a Neocon/liberal Cliffite calling us capitalists?! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[KC]

CdL could you please reformat that post? I'd like to read it but I'm having trouble figuring out which quote is which. Thanks!

[Yehuda Stern]

No, not a Cliffite at all, actually. I've already written here about the difference between our version of state capitalism and that of Cliff, which denies that the law of value operated in the USSR.

[OI OI OI]

The Soviet Union was a workers state because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown by the working class and the economy was a nationalist planned one. The Soviet state degenerated because the working class became politically dispossessed. After the death of Lenin, the ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was a bureaucratic caste, and not a new ruling class, because its political control did not also extend to economic ownership( Don't forget that your class is determined by your relationship to the means of production). The theory that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state is closely connected to Trotsky's call for a political in the USSR, as well as Trotsky's call for defense of the USSR against capitalist restoration.
Don't forget that degenerated workers state we call only the Soviet Union. The term deformed workers state describes those states which are or were based upon nationalized property, but in which the working class never held direct political power
like China, Cuba , the Eastern European States that became "socialist" after the second world war etc.

[trivas7]

The Soviet Union was a workers state because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown by the working class and the economy was a nationalist planned one. The Soviet state degenerated because the working class became politically dispossessed. After the death of Lenin, the ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was a bureaucratic caste, and not a new ruling class, because its political control did not also extend to economic ownership( Don't forget that your class is determined by your relationship to the means of production). The theory that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state is closely connected to Trotsky's call for a political in the USSR, as well as Trotsky's call for defense of the USSR against capitalist restoration.
Don't forget that degenerated workers state we call only the Soviet Union. The term deformed workers state describes those states which are or were based upon nationalized property, but in which the working class never held direct political power
like China, Cuba , the Eastern European States that became "socialist" after the second world war etc.
So, then, why do some Trots call these countries 'state capitalist'?

[Random Precision]

Regardless of who it comes from, it makes valid points. Addressing the points that are raised is much more productive and honest than simply writing it off because it comes from a sect that you don't approve of.

Well, I read the article, and as might be expected, it raises precious few "points". Like nearly all articles by the Sparts, it's dedicated to insulting other leftists rather than an honest critique of their politics.

[Psy]

So, then, why do some Trots call these countries 'state capitalist'?
Because of the USSR's strategy of competing with capitalists within capitalism terms. The USSR had a welfare state but so did bourgeois states like Britain, yes the USSR owned means of production but so did bourgeois states like Britain and like capitalist states the USSR still exploited workers in order to accumulate capital, yes the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed that when the USSR accumulated enough capital then things would be different but the goal of the USSR was still to accumulate capital.

[trivas7]

^^So 'state capitalist' and 'degenerate workers state' aren't mutually exclusive, AFAIK. (Then, again, some Stalinists would object to both terms, no?)

[OI OI OI]

Because of the USSR's strategy of competing with capitalists within capitalism terms. The USSR had a welfare state but so did bourgeois states like Britain, yes the USSR owned means of production but so did bourgeois states like Britain and like capitalist states the USSR still exploited workers in order to accumulate capital, yes the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed that when the USSR accumulated enough capital then things would be different but the goal of the USSR was still to accumulate capital.

Ypu are saying that the state in Britain owned the means of production? What kind of statement is that? You cannot compare Britain to the USSR just because they both has a "welfare state". Also about the accumulated capital that does not constitute exploitation of the workers as it was not appropriated by a class , but rather used in funding education, roads etc. It was just a part of the planning of the economy. In some cases it was used as a reserve for difficult times. It was not appropriation by one class.
I reccomend that you read the Revolution Betrayed for a start as it touches on that topic also.
Your arguments for state capitalism are completely baseless mate.
In my previous post I explained the basics on why it was a degenerated workers state. I reccomend that you read the basic arguments and make some more reads

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~socappeal/russia/

These parts in particular
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~socappeal/russia/part2.html
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~socappeal/russia/part11.html
This is probably about this http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~socappeal/russia/appendix2.html

[Psy]

Ypu are saying that the state in Britain owned the means of production? What kind of statement is that? You cannot compare Britain to the USSR just because they both has a "welfare state".

Britain before privatization owned mines and power plants, going further back Britain owned factories, mills and stores.



Also about the accumulated capital that does not constitute exploitation of the workers as it was not appropriated by a class , but rather used in funding education, roads etc. It was just a part of the planning of the economy. In some cases it was used as a reserve for difficult times. It was not appropriation by one class.

If you read Marx you would know that is impossible, this is why co-operatives are not a solution to capitalism as the forces of capitalism forces even co-operatives to exploit the worker force in the pursuit of capital. The only way to not exploit workers is stopping the M-C-^M cycle, this is why communism in one country is impossible as communism can exist only after world capitalism has been destoryed.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Did any of you actually read my post! *sigh*


The Soviet Union was a workers state because the bourgeoisie had been overthrown by the working class and the economy was a nationalist [sic] planned one.

Nationalisation does not equate to socialism. Also, the bourgeoisie had not been overthrown, they existed as state bureaucrats. To put it simply, "same shit, different smell", get my drift...


The Soviet state degenerated because the working class became politically dispossessed. After the death of Lenin, the ruling stratum of the Soviet Union was a bureaucratic caste

Are you saying that the bureaucracy did not exist in Lenin's life? So it was only after our God-like Lenin died that the 'socialist' USSR 'degenerated'? :rolleyes:


a bureaucratic caste, and not a new ruling class, because its political control did not also extend to economic ownership( Don't forget that your class is determined by your relationship to the means of production).

I demolished this in my above post.

1. A class is not defined by ownership of the means of production, this is a completely reductionist understanding of the concept of 'class' in Marxism. A class is defined by it's relationship to the process of social production as a whole, being defined just as much by the labour it performs and it's control over the means of production.

2. You confuse the existing relations of production with their legal expression. Whilst individuals may not have owned the means of production, they were controlled (and thus, effective ownership bestowed upon them) by a ruling class of non-labourers.

[Yehuda Stern]

So, then, why do some Trots call these countries 'state capitalist'?

Mostly because they're Trotskyists and not cheerleaders for Stalinism. But I suppose I'll have to give a more detailed answer tomorrow.

[BobKKKindle$]

Such because the state bureaucrats do not hold direct ownership of the means of production does not mean they can not exercise effect ownership and thus constituted a separate class.

You have made an attempt to obscure the differences between a bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic ruling stratum. The bourgeoisie is able to take control of the products of workers labour because they exercise ownership of the tools and machinery which are used to produce goods (otherwise known as the means of production) and these products can then be sold to generate income for the capitalist. This is the mode of appropriation which exists under capitalism – and so the fact that there was no system of private property in the Soviet bloc means that the mode of appropriation was fundamentally different to capitalism.

[Niccolò Rossi]

You have made an attempt to obscure the differences between a bourgeoisie and the bureaucratic ruling stratum

Their is not difference to obscure ;)


The bourgeoisie is able to take control of the products of workers labour because they exercise ownership of the tools and machinery which are used to produce goods (otherwise known as the means of production)

Private ownership in a lot of cases is merely the legal expression of control over the means of production in bourgeois capitalism. Ownership is in no way necessary for the appropriation of the surplus-labour of workers expressed in the form of surplus-value.

For example, slavery is still in existence around the world today, albeit illegally and without any juridical basis. Just because the ownership of people has no legal basis does not mean it can not exist. Likewise the 'ownership' of the means of production in the 'socialist states' had no legal basis did not mean that bureaucrats where not controlling them and extracting surplus-labour from the working class, constituting what can be regarded as effective ownership.


these products can then be sold to generate income for the capitalist. This is the mode of appropriation which exists under capitalism – and so the fact that there was no system of private property in the Soviet bloc means that the mode of appropriation was fundamentally different to capitalism.

The products of the working class where also sold to generate the income of the capitalist class in the 'socialist states'. Wage slavery was still in existence and the state acted as the sole retailer of articles of consumption. Surplus-labour was still appropriated privately (of course not all of it, even today surplus labour is not appropriated solely in a private manner. Some is reinvested in other areas of the national economy such as the provision of services for the public), that is, it was appropriated in a manner corresponding to the capitalist mode of production. If the 'socialist states' exhibited a socialist/communist mode of production, suplus lbaour would have been appropriated collectively and not in the form of suplus-value

[OI OI OI]

Did any of you actually read my post! *sigh*
I did!




Nationalisation does not equate to socialism. Also, the bourgeoisie had not been overthrown, they existed as state bureaucrats. To put it simply, "same shit, different smell", get my drift...
Never said that nationalization=socialism. It was not the bourgeoisie who were transformed into bureaucrats in the Soviet Union. It was some bureaucrats of the Czarist regime and some ''Leninists''. So it is not the same shit, it was different shit.





Are you saying that the bureaucracy did not exist in Lenin's life? So it was only after our God-like Lenin died that the 'socialist' USSR 'degenerated'? :rolleyes:

I never said that Lenin was Godlike. But when Lenin existed no party-traitors like Stalin dared to move into transforming the PArty and the society to a bureaucrat-run party or society. The masses had control pretty much. That was because of the big moral authority that Lenin had earned. Of course after the death of Lenin, the bureaucracy represented by Stalin did not have that obstacle and after 5 years of Lenin's death, the USSR had been transformed into a degenerated workers state.




I demolished this in my above post.

No you didn't

1. A class is not defined by ownership of the means of production, this is a completely reductionist understanding of the concept of 'class' in Marxism. A class is defined by it's relationship to the process of social production as a whole, being defined just as much by the labour it performs and it's control over the means of production.
Then managers are bourgeoisie? Managers that do not own any share. Or even foremen? I don't think so my friend. You are mistaken on this one. The bureaucracy never directly profited off the backs of the workers. Yes they got fat from some of the "surplus value" , but the increase of the GDP in the USSR was nowhere near to the increase of the wages of the fat-cats(bureaucrats).



2. You confuse the existing relations of production with their legal expression. Whilst individuals may not have owned the means of production, they were controlled (and thus, effective ownership bestowed upon them) by a ruling class of non-labourers.


See above for that(Forgot to include this on quote and now im too lazy:rolleyes:)


When the planned economy in the USSR was sold out by the ruling stratum the GDP went down 70%! Living conditions went down by more than that percentage. But according to your theory that should not have happened. It was only a transition from state capitalism to kind of laissez faire capitalism. Therefore your theory is wrong! Because as we saw it never happened that way.

@Psy -> This responce responds to all of your arguments so I will not directly respond to you because you have this responce.
As about Britain I think you misanderstood me. Next time read someone's posts more attentively and then attempt to answer.

[Niccolò Rossi]

It was not the bourgeoisie who were transformed into bureaucrats in the Soviet Union. It was some bureaucrats of the Czarist regime and some ''Leninists''.

What? Your saying that because some of the bureaucrats were Leninists they could not have been bourgeois? Class is not something your born with, you can still profess to be a 'Leninist' yet be a multi billion dollar business magnate. There is no problem with such, it is certainly hypocritical, but not an impossibility. Prior to assuming their position as a capitalist class, the Bolsheviks were certianly not a capitalist class, but this can change and it did.


But when Lenin existed no party-traitors like Stalin dared to move into transforming the PArty and the society to a bureaucrat-run party or society. The masses had control pretty much. That was because of the big moral authority that Lenin had earned.

Wait, so it was Lenin's hegemonic control over the party that stopped the likes of the 'bureaucrats taking over', yet the masses had control?

Also I would love to see you elaborate on the means by which the masses had any form of control over their government.


Then managers are bourgeoisie? Managers that do not own any share. Or even foremen? I don't think so my friend. You are mistaken on this one.

Maybe you would care to take a page from Lenin:


Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.

No, managers and foremen are not bourgeois. They do not own the means of production, nor do they exercise effective ownership over them in the form of direct control. They do not the produce commodities and thus do not allow for the extraction of surplus-value from their labour, that is to say, they are not 'exploited'. They are however employed by capitalists and are wage labourers. Their labour-power is set in action coordinating the production process, they act as the eyes, ears and hands of the bourgeoisie ensuring production persists in accordance with the interests of the capitalist they are set to work by. Thus we can conclude that they constitute a 'coordinator class' who's objective class intereststhey share with the proletariat.


The bureaucracy never directly profited off the backs of the workers. Yes they got fat from some of the "surplus value"

Do I even need to reply to his. You proved my point, the state bureaucrats lived directly off the labour of the working class.


but the increase of the GDP in the USSR was nowhere near to the increase of the wages of the fat-cats(bureaucrats).

This proves nothing, you don't define class by a pay cheque.


When the planned economy in the USSR was sold out by the ruling stratum the GDP went down 70%! Living conditions went down by more than that percentage. But according to your theory that should not have happened. It was only a transition from state capitalism to kind of laissez faire capitalism. Therefore your theory is wrong!

1. Where did I ever state that changes in the Soviet economic policy could not result major 'upsets' of living standard an GDP?

2. Why should that not have happened? In the past we've seen numerous examples where changes in government economic policy have generated 'upsets' ie. the economic reforms of the Pinochet regime.

[KC]

Originally Posted by OI OI OI http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1185822#post1185822)
Also about the accumulated capital that does not constitute exploitation of the workers as it was not appropriated by a class , but rather used in funding education, roads etc. It was just a part of the planning of the economy. In some cases it was used as a reserve for difficult times. It was not appropriation by one class.

If you read Marx you would know that is impossible

This is not true at all. Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (Pt. I):


Let us take, first of all, the words "proceeds of labor" in the sense of the product of labor; then the co-operative proceeds of labor are the total social product.

From this must now be deducted: First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up. Second, additional portion for expansion of production. Third, reserve or insurance funds to provide against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.


These deductions from the "undiminished" proceeds of labor are an economic necessity, and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.


There remains the other part of the total product, intended to serve as means of consumption.


Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be deducted again, from it: First, the general costs of administration not belonging to production. This part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops. Second, that which is intended for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc. From the outset, this part grows considerably in comparison with present-day society, and it grows in proportion as the new society develops. Third, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.


Only now do we come to the "distribution" which the program, under Lassallean influence, alone has in view in its narrow fashion -- namely, to that part of the means of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the co-operative society.


The "undiminished" proceeds of labor have already unnoticeably become converted into the "diminished" proceeds, although what the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.

[hekmatista]

Toss-up between #1 and #2. From a (non-party, non-managerial)worker's perspective, it would be hard to see his/her "property rights" in the state-run economy. Getting sent to the GULAG for poor production attitude doesn't seem all that different from the classic "whip of hunger." Of course, when viewed from above, having convict labor as the alternative to being a "good boy/girl" worker might constitute full employment rights. But from the worker's perspective, shit smells like shit. If you have to work for wages under an unaccountable boss, you're living under capitalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, managers and foremen are not bourgeois. They do not own the means of production, nor do they exercise effective ownership over them in the form of direct control.

Actually, they do exercise "factual control." ;) However, there's a class distinction between coordinators, who are closer to labour, and say, CEOs and fund managers (who manage capital itself).

This is the problem with Michael Albert's definition of "coordinator."


They do not the produce commodities and thus do not allow for the extraction of surplus-value from their labour, that is to say, they are not 'exploited' [...] Their labour-power is set in action coordinating the production process

Aren't operations reports and what not "commodities"? If those reports aren't made, proper business decisions can't be made in order to extract the most surplus value from everyone else. :confused:

Also, if their coordination isn't done, there's no maximum surplus value to be extracted.

[KC]

Aren't operations reports and what not "commodities"?

Of course not; they have no exchange value, and certainly aren't produced for the purpose of exchange. I have no idea why you'd even ask that question, honestly.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Aren't operations reports and what not "commodities"?

No. Whilst they may have a use-value and a labour-value, they do not have an exchange value.


If those reports aren't made, proper business decisions can't be made in order to extract the most surplus value from everyone else.

Also, if their coordination isn't done, there's no maximum surplus value to be extracted.

Of course, this is correct. Mangers and other coordinators facilitate the extraction of surplus-value, but they are not directly producing surplus-value themselves and are not 'exploited'. However here I am using the word exploited in a very specific way, that is, I am referring to whether or not they are paid wages which are less than the value of commodities they directly produce. Since managers and other coordinators do not directly produce any commodities they can not be 'exploited'.

However, managers and other coordinators, whilst not be exploited in the specific sense, are exploited in a more general sense. What I mean by this is that their interests, like those of the proletariat, are directly opposed to the bourgeoisie. It is in the interests of capitalist who purchases their labour-power to try and reduce the wages they pay out to them. So whilst in the workshop, the manager may appear to have antagonistic interests, in that they carry out the wishes of the capitalist, their objective class interests are no different.

[Qwerty489]

Marx defined labour power as human capacity for labour:
"By labour power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use - value of any description".
(K. Marx: "Capital", Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 164).
A worker who does not control means of production has no commodity he can sell in order to live except his labour power:
"In order that a man may be able to sell commodities other than labour power, he must of course have the means of production".
(K. Marx: ibid., Volume 1; p. 165).
Soviet workers were expropriated of the means of production, they they had no means of living except to sell their labour power to those who control the means of production -- that is, to the new class of Soviet capitalists.
Naturally, Soviet propagandists tried to present Soviet society as "socialist", deny that Soviet workers sell their labour power, deny that labour power in the Soviet Union is a commodity:
"In a socialist country (i.e., in the contemporary Soviet Union -- WBB) the economic laws that make labour power a commodity do not exist".
(E.N. Zhiltsov: "Concerning the Subject of the Economics of Higher Education", in: "Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta: Seriia ekonomika" (Journal of Moscow University: Economic Series), No. 1, 1973, in: "Problems of Economics", Volume 17, No. 5; September 1974; p. 76).
"Under socialism (i.e., in the contemporary Soviet Union -- WBB) labour power is not a commodity". (V.M. Batyrev: "Commodity-Money Relations under Socialism", in: "The Soviet Planned Ecoomy"; Moscow; 1974; p. 156).
Such propagandists refer to Soviet workers as "disposing over" their labour power -- suggesting that the right to do so is a "benefit" enjoyed by Soviet workers and not by those in orthodox capitalist countries:
"Under socialism,... a working person constantly retains the right to dispose freely over his labour power. He realises this right by concluding a labour contract with enterprise". (A. Sukhov: "Labour Mobility and its Causes", in: "Nauchnye doklady vysshei shkoly: Ekonomicheskie nauki" (Scientific Reports of Higher Schools: Economic Science), No. 4, 1972, in: "Problems of Economics", Volume 17, No. 7; November 1974; p. 29).
But since Soviet workers "dispose over" their labour power by "disposing of" it to enterprises in return for money -- wages -- the term "disposition" must be regarded as a mere euphemism for "sale".

In the Soviet Union labour power was bought and sold: it was a commodity.
The value of labour power, according to Marx's analysis, is determined, like that of any other commodity, by the amount of socially necessary labour required for its production, i.e., by the value of the means of subsistence conventionally -- in a particular society at a particular time -- required for the maintenance of the worker and his dependents:
"The value of labour power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour time necessary for the production, and consequently also for the reproduction, of this special article.. In other words, the value of labour power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer...
On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them,... depend... to a great extent on the degree of civilization of a country....In contradistinction therefore to the case of other commodities, there enters into the determination of the value of labour power a historical and moral element. Nevertheless, in a given country at a given period the average quantity of the means of subsistence necessary for the labourer is practically known...
The sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour power must include the means necessary for the labourer's substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearence in the market."
(K. Marx: "Capital", Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 167, 168).
Soviet economists, denied that labour power is a commodity in the Soviet Union, are compelled to declare that here the concept "value of labour power" does not exist:




"In our country, for the first time in history, a State has taken shape which is not a dictatorship of any one class, but an instrument of society as a whole, of the entire people...
The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary ".
(N.S. Khrushchov: Report on the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 22nd. Congress CPSU; London; 1961; p. 57, 58).




But if one is to believe such an analysis, then it's pretty obvious that restoration of capitalism was post-Stalin in the USSR, in fact it wasn't till 1960 that capital had fully replaced labor as the instrument of the ruling class. Capitalist restoration in the USSR was a Khrushchevite instrument, and was the tool of revisionism, not civil war or some other event.

[UnbrokenThread]

Perhaps an analogy to the French Revolution shall prove useful.

The example of the French revolution is very similar, although it was on a different economic basis.

The rule of the bourgeoisie in France was ushered in by the French Revolution of 1789. The revolution at its progressive height was led by the revolutionary Jacobins who abolished the feudal system in a very short period of time.
This was then followed by a Thermidor reaction and a Bonapartist counter revolution.

Let us compare the superstructure of the Bonapartist counter revolution with that of the revolution.

There was a great a difference between the revolutionary dictatorship of the Jacobins and the counter revolution of Bonaparte as there was between the early revolutionary rule of the Bolsheviks and the counter revolution of Stalin.

In terms of superstructure, the difference between the revolution and the counter revolution after 1789 was glaring. Napoleon reintroduced many of the orders, decorations and ranks similar to those of feudalism; he restored the Church; he even crowned himself emperor.

Despite this counter-revolution, it is clear that it had nothing in common with the old regime. It was a counter revolution on the basis of the new property relations which were a product of the revolution. The capitalist forms of property or property relations remained as the basis of the economy.

Given the backwardness of the Russia economy and the isolation of the revolution, why should a similar process not have happened in the USSR? It actually did happen.

A Bonapartist counter revolution on the basis of new property relations.


Merely to point out the capitalist features which existed in Russia (wage labour, commodity production, that the bureaucracy consumes an enormous part of the surplus value) is not sufficient to tell us the nature of the social system.

The capitalist mode of production arose from within feudalism. At a certain point we have capitalist relationswith a feudal superstructure. These are then torn apart by the revolution and the possibilities of capitalist production then have the unhampered potential to develope production without being held back by feudal restrictions.


The whole essence of the revolution (capitalist and proletarian) consists of the fact that the old relationships do not correspond with the new method or mode of production.


Production under capitalism is social, the appropriation of the surplus value is individual. This is the fundamental contradiction of the system. In order to free itself from these restrictions, the productive forces have to be organised on a different basis.


The fact is that in the USSR the appropriation was not individual. The economic contradiction was resolved. This freed the productive forces and laid the basis from the massive growth we saw.

Here is a quote from Trotsky's book "Stalin" where he explains that the power of the bureaucracy came precisely from a defense of the nationalize planned economy against capitalism, against the kulak.

"The new social basis of the Soviet Union became paramount. To guard the nationalisation of the means of production and of the land, is the bureaucracy’s law of life and death, for these are the social sources of its dominant position. That was the reason for its struggle against the kulak. The bureaucracy could wage this struggle, and wage it to the end, only with the support of the proletariat."


OI OI OI brings up a good point about the GDP collapsing with the fall of the USSR. If this was already capitalism, then why did the GDP fall 70%? Concretely the majority of the working masses in the USSR understand the qualitative difference between a fundamentally different economic basis of society. With the collapse of the USSR living standards plummeted massively. But for someone who believed that this was state capitalism none of this really matters because it was already capitalism! There was no point in defending the economic basis of the USSR because it was a capitalist one. There was no need to defend against the reintroduction of capitalism into the USSR because it was already there!


The theory of state capitalism leads you into a blind alley. What slogan and method of agitation do you emloy in these countries? In Cuba to call for the overthrow of the regime would be the same as calling for the restoration of capitalism. This completely isolates you from your every day cuban. If any of the proponents of the theory of state capitalism had some meaningful impact in Cuba (or any “state capitalist” country) their theory wouldn't just be a mere abstraction only useful for argumentation on revleft.

[Yehuda Stern]

The theory of state capitalism leads you into a blind alley. What slogan and method of agitation do you emloy in these countries? In Cuba to call for the overthrow of the regime would be the same as calling for the restoration of capitalism. This completely isolates you from your every day cuban. If any of the proponents of the theory of state capitalism had some meaningful impact in Cuba (or any “state capitalist” country) their theory wouldn't just be a mere abstraction only useful for argumentation on revleft.

You orto-Trots are wildly amusing when you get so self-important. How many groups claiming to be Trotskyist can claim any meaningful membership in Cuba? I will save you the time thinking up of an answer - none. Why? It might have something to do with Castro's oppression of the Trotskyists in the early days after the revolution, which does not prevent people like you from supporting him.

On another note, one can only come to the conclusion that calling for the overthrow of Castro means calling for the restoration capitalism if you decided in advance that Cuba is a workers' state. When you consider that it isn't, the argument falls apart. Better luck next time.

[Qwerty489]

You orto-Trots are wildly amusing when you get so self-important. How many groups claiming to be Trotskyist can claim any meaningful membership in Cuba? I will save you the time thinking up of an answer - none. Why? It might have something to do with Castro's oppression of the Trotskyists in the early days after the revolution, which does not prevent people like you from supporting him.

On another note, one can only come to the conclusion that calling for the overthrow of Castro means calling for the restoration capitalism if you decided in advance that Cuba is a workers' state. When you consider that it isn't, the argument falls apart. Better luck next time.
Wow, it seems you are openly opposing even the grossly revisionist wrecking of the Trots, what's the matter? Aren't they revisionist ENOUGH for you? Do you want something even MORE ultra-left and sectoid? I think if you go any further to the left pal you might come out as a fascist. Don't worry though, by the look of your angry posts that isn't a date far off.

[UnbrokenThread]

I can give you the name of one International that does and actually can intervene in Cuba. The International Marxist Tendency

Here is proof.
Go to the IMT website and search for Havana book fair 2008. (I can't post links yet)

The first time a Trotsky book has been launched in Cuba and it sold out!

What is that you say?
“But Fidel represses Trotskyists!”

The point I am trying to make is that you CAN'T intervene there with your position. A dialectical materialist always goes to theory and then back to practice and vice versa. Truth is concrete, and concretely your theory holds absolutely no weight in Cuba.

The Cuban people want to defend their revolution. The only way to defend the revolution is the defeat the counter-revolution and carry forward the revolution to the end, placing political power in the hands of the Cuban working class.

Of course if you already think that Cuba is state capitalist you are stuck. There is no where to go. The closest Cuban allies you will find are the counter revolutionaries living in Florida!

One of the main distinguishing characteristics of capitalism is that it forces a class war. Capitalists don't attack the working class because they are "bad guys" (although undoubtedly some of them are), they do so because they are forced to by the system.

Bureaucrats in a deformed or degenerated worker's state are not forced into a class war with the workers, because they are not a class! Certainly they do take a considerable chunk of the surplus value for themselves but this is due to greed and it is not systemic.

This is why there is still a large reserve of support for Fidel. He is not forced into an open class war with the Cuban working class because there are no classes in Cuba.
Now that the Cuban revolution is no longer isolated this is a very important period. Lunacy such as calling Cuba state capitalist is a damn crime in this situation.


“On another note, one can only come to the conclusion that calling for the overthrow of Castro means calling for the restoration capitalism if you decided in advance that Cuba is a workers' state. When you consider that it isn't, the argument falls apart. Better luck next time.”


This just proves my point all the more. The fact that the restoration of capitalism in Cuba would mean the complete destruction of the lives of the Cuban people means very little to you. In this situation, that is the concrete difference. But for your theory the material reality this means very little. This is why you will never be able to build anything in Cuba with that theory and that is why it is useless.


Please don't try to make reality subservient to your theories, that is ass-backwards.

[Niccolò Rossi]

To Qwerty489, your original post in this thread regarding the existence of wage slavery is brilliant and I agree completely. What I can't work out is, why are you an 'anti-revisionist'!? Shouldn't your criticism attack Stalin as well since wage slavery existed in the SU long before 'Khrushchev's Revisionism'.


Merely to point out the capitalist features which existed in Russia (wage labour, commodity production, that the bureaucracy consumes an enormous part of the surplus value) is not sufficient to tell us the nature of the social system.

Huh? We aren't debating about the 'social system', we are debating about the economic relations of the 'base'. Wage Labour, Commodity Production and the individual appropriation of surplus-value are all proof of the existence of capitalist economic relations in all of the so-called 'socialist states'.


Production under capitalism is social, the appropriation of the surplus value is individual. This is the fundamental contradiction of the system. In order to free itself from these restrictions, the productive forces have to be organised on a different basis.

The fact is that in the USSR the appropriation was not individual. The economic contradiction was resolved.

As has already been explained above, production in the USSR was still social and appropriation of surplus-value was still individual. Don't confuse the juridical property relations with the appropriation of surplus value. Just because they are 'owned by the people', does not mean that the people appropriated the social-product collectively.


If this was already capitalism, then why did the GDP fall 70%?

I already answered this criticism. I have a question for you: Can a change in state economic policy lead to 'upsets' such as a fall in GDP? Of course! Look what happened after Pinochet's economic reforms in Chile. In 1973, unemployment was only 4.3%. Following ten years of junta rule in 1983, unemployment sky-rocketed to 22%, while real wages declined by more than 40%. In 1970, 20% of Chile's population lived in poverty, but by 1990, the last year of Pinochet's dictatorship, poverty had doubled to 40%. Between 1982 and 1983, the GDP dropped 19%. Now according to you, this would have indicated more than a simple change in economic policy. Or maybe Allende's Chile was really a degenerated worker's state :rolleyes:.


But for someone who believed that this was state capitalism none of this really matters because it was already capitalism! There was no point in defending the economic basis of the USSR because it was a capitalist one. There was no need to defend against the reintroduction of capitalism into the USSR because it was already there!

Sorry, are you trying to make a point? Do the exclamation marks indicate surprise!?


The theory of state capitalism leads you into a blind alley. What slogan and method of agitation do you emloy in these countries? In Cuba to call for the overthrow of the regime would be the same as calling for the restoration of capitalism.

You do the same you would in any other capitalist nation. You call on the working masses to rise up against their government, not to put in place a new set of capitalists but to liberate and empower the working class to bring about socialism.


This completely isolates you from your every day cuban.

No it doesn't. That's like saying that speaking out against US politicians isolates you from the everyday American. Calling on the cuban people for political revolution is according to your logic just as 'isolating'

The cuban people have the same objective class interests as all workers of the world, that is, their liberation from the forces of capital and the birth of socialism. How this isolates you from the cuban people is fail to grasp.


A dialectical materialist always goes to theory and then back to practice

No, anyone with half a brain does that. It has nothing to do with some abstract philosophical method you seem to want to apply were not necessary.


The Cuban people want to defend their revolution.

Wow, way to put words in the mouths of the masses. I'm no expert on what the cuban people are saying, but the objective class interests of all working people is the abolition of capitalism and the liberation of the working class.


Of course if you already think that Cuba is state capitalist you are stuck. There is no where to go.

We aren't stuck, we can and must go forward, toward the emancipation of the working class.


Bureaucrats in a deformed or degenerated worker's state are not forced into a class war with the workers, because they are not a class! Certainly they do take a considerable chunk of the surplus value for themselves but this is due to greed and it is not systemic.

Their is a class war in Cuba as in all capitalist nations. The bureaucrats have intersts which are antagonistic to those of the workers. Whilst the workers want political freedom, better living conditions and higher wages, the state bureacrats want a greater surplus, somethign they can only get by exploiting the working class to a greater degree.


He is not forced into an open class war with the Cuban working class

The class war need not be an open conflict:


... in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight ...

[Unicorn]

In the USSR, most bureaucrats are now also part of the ruling class.
Care to explain why this so-called bureaucratic "class", i.e. the CPSU, led a selfless internationalist struggle against imperialism and exploitation of the working class? After all, this struggle did not serve the class interests of the capitalists.

Workers should thank the existence of the Soviet Union for the gains made by the working class such as the welfare state systems. The Russian Revolution inspired workers all over the world to mass activism and the fearful capitalists were forced to accept the badly needed reforms which make the life of a worker in the First World more bearable.

The Soviet Union defeated the Nazis and after the war with its might intimidated European powers to abandon their overseas empires. Numerous peoples in the Third World can thank the Soviet Union for the success of their national liberation struggles. If the Soviet Union had not existed the world would be a very ugly place as 19th century -style Western racism and imperialism would still prevail.

[Qwerty489]

It's important to remember that Soviet class relations, and indeed the solidification of a new (monopoly) bourgeois, didn't really occur until well into the 1960's, under the guise of Khrushchevs' 'economic reform' and 'destalinization' plans, which in fact replaced socialism with capitalist relations. Trotskyites and 'anti-Stalinists' in general reject the facts of capitalist restoration during the 60's and 70's because it doesn't fit in with their neat worldview which places 'Stalinism' as a form of state capitalism, when it fact socialization of relations well into effect towards the War. These Trots and their ultra-left allies reject the most obvious evidence which points towards this because it completely discredits the sectoid vision of Trots in general, and points to comrade Stalin as a true revolutionary Marxist, and not in the view of how the bourgeois paint him, which is how the Trots choose to view him for opportunistic reasons (mainly to appeal to the bourgeois).

In the Soviet capitalist system, the 'manager' of the Soviet industrial enterprise is, thus, the effective owner of the means of production (other than natural resources) of the enterprise and has full legal responsibility for their operation:
"The rights of the enterprise that relate to its production and economic activity are exercised by its director".
(Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M.E. Sharpe (Ed.): "Planning, Profit and Incentives in the USR", Volume 2; New York; 1966; p. 299).
"The industrial managers bear full responsibility for the production sectors entrusted to them by the state. This responsibility, the role of one-man management in production, is becoming especially important now".
(A.N. Kosygin: "On Improving Industrial Management, Perfecting Planning, and Enhancing Economic Incentives in Industrial Production", in: ibid.; p. 42).
And since this responsibility is primarily to ensure that the enterprise under his control makes the maximum possible rate of profit, he, in Marx's words,
"becomes a capitalist... The expansion of value.. becomes his subjective aim.. He functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with a consciousness and a will".
(K. Marx: "Capital", Volume 1; London; 1974; p. 151).
As a writer in the (US) "Harvard Business Review" expresses it:
"Many Soviet managers would fit into any corporate hierarchy in the United States and do exceptionally well".
(M.I. Goldman: "More Heat in the Soviet Hothouse", in: "Harvard Business Review", Volume 49, No. 4; July/August 1971; p. 15).
Significantly, in the propaganda campaign preceding and associated with the "economic reform", the demand was put forward for the establishment in the Soviet Union of a network of "business schools" for the training of executives, modelled on that attached to Harvard University in the USA:
"Harvard University (USA) has a school for business executives, training personnel for 300 concerns. There is no special training for managerial personnel in the USSR... It is high time to tackle this problem seriously".
(K. Plotnikov: "E.G. Liberman: Right and Wrong", in: "Voprosy ekonomiki" (Problems of Economics), No. 11, 1962, in: M.E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 1; p. 165).
In February 1971 the Institute of Management of the National Economy, attached to the State Committee for Science and Technology, was opened in Moscow as the first "business school". (Z. Katz: "The Nachalnik (Executive) Class in the USSR"; Cambridge (USA); 1973; p. 25).
The writer in the "Harvard Business Review" already quoted, commented:
"The Russians have again turned to the non-Communist world; they are creating a network of business schools".
(M.I. Goldman: ibid.; p. 15).
The director of a Soviet industrial enterprise differs from his counterpart in private industry in Britain (the managing director of an industrial company) in that:
1) he is appointed to, and may be dismissed from, his position as director by the state, instead of by the shareholders of the company concerned:
"The director of the enterprise is appointed and relieved of his post by the superior body (i.e., the appropriate Ministry -- WBB)".
(Statute on the Socialist State Production Enterprise, in: M.E. Sharpe (Ed.): op. cit., Volume 2; p. 310).
2) in the absence of shareholdings, his right to draw profits from the enterprise continues only so long as he is actively attached to that enterprise.
On the other hand, the director of a Soviet enterprise differs from his counterpart in nationalised industry in Britain in that he draws, in addition to a substantial salary, profit from the enterprise.

[Yehuda Stern]

Care to explain why this so-called bureaucratic "class", i.e. the CPSU, led a selfless internationalist struggle against imperialism and exploitation of the working class?

Sure, but first, can you explain why the moon is made out of cheese or why God created Santa?


I can give you the name of one International that does and actually can intervene in Cuba. The International Marxist Tendency

You know, I knew you were an IMTer, there was no doubt in my mind, but I stopped myself and thought - nah, people are going to say I'm paranoid, that I have a special vendetta against the IMT - but no. I should've known better, I suppose.

So, Grantist, now that we have established that, let me tell you - I have been an IMT member and am not fooled by Mr. Woods' fancy slogans and your false claims. I'm not sure if what you're saying about the Havana Book Fair is true, but even if it is, all that support from some of the bureaucracy for your international just goes to show us what we know already - that the IMT is merely a left prop for Stalinist regimes. That you write off the oppression of Cuban Trotskyists as unimportant is interesting and instructive but not suprising.

And I am not calling for the restoration of capitalism in Cuba - seeing as there's nothing to 'restore.' I am calling for a revolution against the Castro bureaucracy as well as the other, rival wings of it. By the way, it is a very right-wing position, even for an orto-trot, to support any wing of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

But wait, here's a real gem:


This is why there is still a large reserve of support for Fidel. He is not forced into an open class war with the Cuban working class because there are no classes in Cuba.

This is perfect! So, Cuba isn't a deformed workers' state or even a socialist state - it's a Communist state! You kill me, IMTer. With all your fancy talk about dialectics and other hogwash bellowed out by Alan Woods' in boring Victorian tone and a bad, fake accent, you're in the end just a Stalinist in disguise. Who would've thought? Well, me and anyone else who knows the IMT, but really, who else?

[KC]

I am calling for a revolution against the Castro bureaucracy as well as the other, rival wings of it. By the way, it is a very right-wing position, even for an orto-trot, to support any wing of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

How is Cuba capitalist? Who are the capitalists in Cuba?

[Qwerty489]

There was no such thing as the 'Stalin bureaucracy', Stalin was a long struggled for revolutionary class democracy in the USSR.

In 1934, the Party under Stalin's leadership began a struggle for democracy within the Party.
It is on this basis of difficulties in applying the instructions during the purification campaign that on December 17, 1934, the Central Committee focused for the first time on more fundamental problems. It criticized `bureaucratic methods of leadership', where essential questions are treated by small groups of cadres without any participation from the base.
On March 29, 1935, Zhdanov passed a resolution in Leningrad, criticizing certain leaders for neglecting education work and only doing economic tasks. Ideological tasks disappeared in paperwork and bureaucracy. The resolution underscored that the leaders must know the qualities and capacities of their subordinates. Evaluation reports of their work were needed, as were closer contacts between leaders and cadres and a political line of promoting new cadres.

On May 4, Stalin spoke about this subject. He condemned
`(T)he outrageous attitude towards people, towards cadres, towards workers, which we not infrequently observe in practice. The slogan ``Cadres decide everything'' demands that our leaders should display the most solicitous attitude towards our workers, ``little'' and ``big,'' assisting them when they need support, encouraging them when they show their first successes, promoting them, and so forth. Yet in practice we meet in a number of cases with a soulless, bureaucratic, and positively outrageous attitude towards workers.'

Stalin, Address to the Graduates of the Red Army Academies. Leninism, p. 364.

Arch Getty, in his brilliant study, Origins of the great purges, makes the following comment.
`The party had become bureaucratic, economic, mechanical, and administrative to an intolerable degree. Stalin and other leaders at the center perceived this as an ossification, a breakdown, and a perversion of the party's function. Local party and government leaders were no longer political leaders but economic administrators. They resisted political control from both above and below and did not want to be bothered with ideology, education, political mass campaigns, or the individual rights and careers of party members. The logical extension of this process would have been the conversion of the party apparatus into a network of locally despotic economic administrations. The evidence shows that Stalin, Zhdanov, and others preferred to revive the educational and agitational functions of the party, to reduce the absolute authority of local satraps, and to encourage certain forms of rank-and-file leadership.'

[Niccolò Rossi]

Care to explain why this so-called bureaucratic "class", i.e. the CPSU, led a selfless internationalist struggle against imperialism and exploitation of the working class? After all, this struggle did not serve the class interests of the capitalists.

The same could be said about any number of anti-imperialist third-world nationalists. Their interests of course do not serve those of the imperialist bourgeoisie but they can not be called socialist for that fact. The capitalist class of the Soviet Union painted itself red and splashed around a lot of socialist sounding rhetoric because it was this that allowed them to continue to their existence as a class off the labour of the workers.


Workers should thank the existence of the Soviet Union for the gains made by the working class such as the welfare state systems. The Russian Revolution inspired workers all over the world to mass activism and the fearful capitalists were forced to accept the badly needed reforms which make the life of a worker in the First World more bearable.

Whether the Soviet Union gave confidence to workers around the globe is a highly contestable and dubious notion, but even if we assume this for the sake of argument being a model or inspiration for workers is in no way a proof they were in any way socialist or a 'degenerated workers state'. Did the US not also offer an inspiration for many workers, one of freedom and opportunity, however misguided such a view may be.

The same goes for your other points. Sure you can argue they were a progressive force, in that they 'defeated fascism', and supported national liberation movements (whether this was progressive is very debatable), but this still does not mean that they not state capitalist in any way what so ever.


How is Cuba capitalist? Who are the capitalists in Cuba?

This has already been discussed if you would care to read back. However for your benefit I will summarise.

Cuba (along with the other "socialist states") was capitalist as they exhibited a capitalist mode of production. The means of production corresponded with those in other capitalist nations with the application of modern technology and labour performed socially. The relations of production where structured so that surplus-value was appropriated privately by a group of non-labourers who exercised control over the means of production, a capitalist class. Also important to note, please do not confused the objective, material relations of production with their legal expression (take the example of slavery in modern capitalist society, despite having no juridical basis slavery continues to exist).

[BobKKKindle$]

Care to explain why this so-called bureaucratic "class", i.e. the CPSU, led a selfless internationalist struggle against imperialism and exploitation of the working class? After all, this struggle did not serve the class interests of the capitalists.

The Soviet bureaucracy consistently undermined revolutionary movements which had the potential to overthrow capitalism and establish socialist relations of production, and failed to exhibit a genuine commitment to internationalism. There are two examples which show the regressive influence of the bureaucratic stratum in this sphere. Firstly, during the May 1968 uprising, the CGT (which was subject to the control of the PCF) encouraged workers to accept the terms which were offered by the government in response to widespread factory occupations, instead of calling on the working class to overthrow the bourgeois state apparatus and establish a workers state. This represented a deliberate failure to take advantage of a revolutionary opportunity. In addition, concerning the bureaucracy's approach to national oppression, Stalin supported the foundation of Israel, which signified a direct violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, and allowed for the penetration of imperialism in the Middle East. (Source) (http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/stalin_and_zionism.html)

[Led Zeppelin]

I am no "Trotskyist." I don't blame Stalin for everything that went wrong in the USSR, and I think calls for "political revolution" were/are often as deluded as they were/are suicidal;

How then do you propose the system that was bound to further degeneration and ultimate restoration of capitalism should have changed? Reform?

I believe the further spreading of the revolution to more advanced nations would have lifted the burden on the USSR and rendered a political revolution unnecessary, but this didn't happen, and in such a situation the only thing you can do when faced with a bureacratic regime that is killing off proletarian revolutionists and betraying revolutions left and right is to call for revolution against the reactionary ruling clique.

Remember, it was only after the Nazis were victorious in Germany that Trotsky called for a new International and for political revolution in the USSR, before that they still tried to "work inside the official channels", even though that became a bit hard when they were being arrested and hauled off to Gulags (if they were lucky enough to not be executed), and even despite of that, when Trotsky himself was arrested and sent to a work-camp, he did not call for political activity outside of the official channels until it was obvious beyond any doubt that Stalinism represented a reactionary movement that could not be "reformed from within":


In the course of the years from 1923 to 1933, with respect to the Soviet state, its leading party and the Communist International, I held the view expressed in those chiselled words: Reform, but not revolution. This position was fed by the hope that with favorable developments in Europe, the Left Opposition could regenerate the Bolshevik Party by pacific means, democratically reform the Soviet state, and set the Communist International back on the path of Marxism. It was only the victory of Hitler, prepared by the fatal policy of the Kremlin, and the complete inability of the Comintern to draw any lessons from the tragic experience of Germany, which convinced me and my ideological companions that the old Bolshevik Party and the Third International were forever dead, as far as the cause of Socialism was concerned.
Link (http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330715.htm)

[Yehuda Stern]

How is Cuba capitalist? Who are the capitalists in Cuba?

The main point is that a state in which the working class has never had political rule cannot be a socialist state. In the USSR, the state could degenerate until it finally became capitalist in the 1930s because the workers had taken power in 1917. In Cuba, there has never been a workers' revolution (though there was a partial bourgeois revolution), and the new state bureaucracy has transformed itself into a ruling class.

[Unicorn]

In addition, concerning the bureaucracy's approach to national oppression, Stalin supported the foundation of Israel, which signified a direct violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, and allowed for the penetration of imperialism in the Middle East. (Source) (http://www.marxist.com/MiddleEast/stalin_and_zionism.html)
Stalin indeed supported the foundation of Israel and expected that Israel would become a socialist state. I cannot fault Stalin for that as it was a fine ideal. Mapam became the second largest party in the first elections but failed to make a revolution. Israel became a stooge of Anglo-American imperialism and when that happened Stalin changed his position.

[KC]

This has already been discussed if you would care to read back. However for your benefit I will summarise.

Cuba (along with the other "socialist states") was capitalist as they exhibited a capitalist mode of production. The means of production corresponded with those in other capitalist nations with the application of modern technology and labour performed socially. The relations of production where structured so that surplus-value was appropriated privately by a group of non-labourers who exercised control over the means of production, a capitalist class. Also important to note, please do not confused the objective, material relations of production with their legal expression (take the example of slavery in modern capitalist society, despite having no juridical basis slavery continues to exist).

This doesn't answer my question. Who are the capitalists in Cuba? I'm looking for specific names, and how they are capitalist.

[Yehuda Stern]

It's not as easy as it is in 'normal,' i.e. market capitalism. The regime maintains a socialist facade and therefore doesn't publish anything like the fortune 500 list. Names are a bit difficult, although the Castro brothers are most definitely part of the ruling class. But the bureaucracy as a class still exploits the workers as a class. That is the essence of statified capitalism.


Stalin indeed supported the foundation of Israel and expected that Israel would become a socialist state. I cannot fault Stalin for that as it was a fine ideal. Mapam became the second largest party in the first elections but failed to make a revolution. Israel became a stooge of Anglo-American imperialism and when that happened Stalin changed his position.

Did Stalin expect this? Why and how? Neither Mapam nor Mapai were in the Third international. Mapai was part of the Second and Mapam was a member of the London Bureau (which admittedly was to the left of the Comintern at the time). Did Stalin expect a social-democratic party to create a socialist state? And how? By expelling a million Palestinians? All the lies in the world won't help the fact that your imperialist idol was essential for the setting of the Zionist state and the carrying out of the Nakba.

[Niccolò Rossi]

This doesn't answer my question. Who are the capitalists in Cuba? I'm looking for specific names, and how they are capitalist.

The capitalists in Cuba take the form of state bureaucrats. They are capitalist because they constitute a class of non-labourers who live on the surplus-value extracted from the Cuban working class.

As to the question of specific names: Why on earth do you want specific names!? Would you care to give me the names of the entire bourgeoisie of any other capitalist nation? I don't understand what you are trying to prove with this.

[UnbrokenThread]

Well Yossi,

I knew it was you before I replied and I am well aware of your political differences with the IMT

You make a whole lot of assumptions and twist my arguments into something they are not and then proceed to destroy something that I don't stand for
This is a very dishonest method of argumentation.

I have to say that when I met you I thought much higher of you

You should seriously, read our reports from our intervention at the Havana book fair. We showed up, launched "The Revolution Betrayed," had a big meeting in which we explained that the only way to protect the Cuban revolution is for power to be placed in the hands of the working class. This had a big effect amongst the Cuban revolutionaries as the book sold out along with most of the rest of our literature.
Are we then a prop for the Cuban regime?

If we are, then why are we talking about politically expropriating them?

[Yehuda Stern]

Grantist, that you pretend to know so well who I am despite not knowing a thing is symptomatic of your political attitude. My name is not Yossi. And anyway, even if this was Yossi writing under a pseudonym, you have no right to 'expose' anyone. Get over yourself.

And no, you are not talking about expropriating the Cuban regime. You're talking about siding with Castro against the 'right,' about 'many Cubas' in Latin America, but never about expropriating the Cuban regime. Maybe amongst yourselves, but your practice is that of a prop for Stalinism.

[Unicorn]

I recommend the book "Is the Red Flag Still Flying?" by Albert Szymanski (1979).

Symanski was an economist and a Maoist who set out to prove the Maoist thesis of "capitalist restoration" in the Soviet Union, but on examining the statistics and realities, came to the conclusion that the Maoists were wrong, that the Soviet Union was still primarily run in the interests of the working class.

Eugene Ruyle in in his 1988 paper:

Using the data of Western Sovietologists (who may be assumed not to be prejudiced in favor of the Soviet Union), Szymanski finds that there is much more political freedom, democracy, and effective participation in the Soviet Union than most bourgeois scholars acknowledge, and that the Soviet working class probably exerts more effective freedom and control than do the working classes of the United States or other overdeveloping nations. It is not, thus, a question of "freedom" versus "totalitarianism", but rather of the structural locus of such freedom, and of what class interests are being served.

Szymanski concludes that the Soviet bureaucracy serves the interests of the Soviet working class as well as our own bureaucracies serve the bourgeoisie (and much better than Western bureaucracies serve the working class). The Soviet Union, in other words, is an authentic dictatorship of the proletariat.

http://www.csulb.edu/~eruyle/protosocialismmod2004.htm

[Yehuda Stern]

1. I did not say that the USSR was worse than western imperialism - that's what you put in my mouth. I said that it was as imperialist and reactionary as the west.

2. Maoists believe that the USSR turned capitalist after Stalin's death. It would be no stretch of imagination to say that he probably compared the USSR after Stalin to that of his time, found it to be no worse - indeed, maybe even better in some respects - and concluded that it was 'still' a workers' state.

[Rawthentic]

Wait, Mao never "concluded" that the USSR was still socialist after Stalin's death and the beginning of capitalist restoration. In fact, the GPCR was a mass democratic struggle against the possibility of capitalist restoration, as lesson learned from the USSR. Under socialism, there is still class struggle, there is still a bourgeoisie, there is still imperialism, commodity production, and all these things are reflected within the vanguard party in the form of lines and policies that are draped in red, but really lead towards capitalism, as Deng's coup proved.

I am not sure if this is what you were arguing, so forgive me if it is not.

[Unicorn]

1. I did not say that the USSR was worse than western imperialism - that's what you put in my mouth. I said that it was as imperialist and reactionary as the west.
The theory of "social imperialism" is utterly bankrupt. The USSR supported the countries which were in its sphere of influence economically. It didn't exploit them for superprofits like capitalist countries.

Szymanski responds to the Maoist claim that the Soviet system "authorizes the enterprises to decide independently on their production and management plans and gives them free rein to seek high profits":

"Contrary to this Chinese claim, in the Soviet Union today the most important production and allocation decisions are still made through the central plan. [..] Only the basic commodities are fully planned [through the central plan]. Large numbers of minor commodities are not explicitly planned by the central planning agencies, but because their production deprends on the output of the basic planned commodities, the plan greatly influences their production as well. [..] This planning takes the form of the annual establishment of targets and the central allocation of resources, as well as the central establishment of prices and wages and centralised investment decisions. As a result, very little actual autonomy lies with individual enterprises or associations." (pp. 37-3

"(1) Profits cannot be increased in the Soviet Union by restricting production since all prices are centrally determined [..] (2) Profits are not owned or even very much controlled by private persons. [..] (3) Profits are not necessarily an objective measure of efficiency since the state very often fixes prices below their values [..] (4) Differences in profits do not necessarily determine the distribution of investment since basic investment decisions are centrally determined [..] (5) The flow of Soviet capital to foreign countries is not determined by profit maximization or the inability to invest profits at home [..].



2. Maoists believe that the USSR turned capitalist after Stalin's death. It would be no stretch of imagination to say that he probably compared the USSR after Stalin to that of his time, found it to be no worse - indeed, maybe even better in some respects - and concluded that it was 'still' a workers' state.
No, Szymanski demonstrates that the Soviet Union was a socialist state as defined in Marx's Kapital.

[Rawthentic]

This is an awesome work on the reality of the capitalist restoration process after Stalin's death: http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html

Let me clarify something: Maoists and others that realize the return of capitalism in the Soviet Union after Stalin do not suggest that this occurred overnight. It was a process that took years and decades. It is similar to how socialist reconstruction takes years and decades to consolidate. The matter here is what road was the USSR on? What path were the lines, policies, and theories (starting with Khrushchev) taking? It was the capitalist road. Let us start with something basic. Nikita formulated the line that there could be peaceful coexistence between socialist and capitalist nations. He also said that there could be a "peaceful transition" to socialism, therefore disregarding the correct Marxist theory of the capitalist state (that is, that it requires violence to overthrow). How can a nation be socialist when its lines and policies reflect the interests of a capitalist ruling class? In the economic base, there might still be nationalized industries (and this changed in the USSR after Stalin, as a process), but what about the superstructure (politics, ideology)?

From the article I linked above:
But Khrushchev went further than these ideological transformations. In 1961 he declared that since hostile classes no longer existed in the USSR (here he was building on Stalin's error), there was no longer a need for the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. The Soviet state, accordingly, was recast as a "state of the whole people." As a corollary, the Soviet Communist party was declared a "party of the whole people," rather than the party of the proletariat. As far as the party's class composition was concerned, the meaning of the new doctrine was to remove from the party statutes any effective bars to the entry of persons with bourgeois backgrounds or current bourgeois standing. Since there were no classes, a candidate's class stand did not matter -- so went the official reasoning. As several Western writers on this party "reform" note, the effect was to open wide the party's doors to managers, engineers, administrators, high-ranking academics and others with positions far removed from the ordinary workaday life of the Soviet proletariat. Party membership, the historian John Hazard wrote, became "like the British knighthood," an honor awarded to successful administrators and engineers regardless of their ideology and leadership ability. (The Politics of Soviet Economic Reform, in Balinsky, ed., Planning and the Market in the USSR: The 1960s, New Brunswick 1967.)

Along with the new social class composition of the party went a new definition of the party's role: what Khrushchev called the "production principle." Basing himself in part on quotations taken out of context from Lenin's writings in the early phase of the New Economic Policy (see part three (http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html#s3) of this series), Khrushchev decreed that party cadre must give the task of economic management and the promotion of production priority over political leadership or ideological debate. (See e.g., Carl A. Linden, Khrushchev and the Soviet Leadership 1957-64, Baltimore 1966, pp. 149-52.) The party thus became explicitly -- even too explicitly for appearance's sake -- a party of the managers, whose own powers (see below) had meanwhile been considerably enhanced. To carry the "production principle" to its logical conclusions, Khrushchev then divided the party into industrial and agricultural branches joined only at the very top, and proposed that the salaries of local party officials be tied to the "economic success indicators" of the farms and factories under their authority. (Alec Nove, Economic Rationality and Soviet Politics, New York, 1964, p. 93) This meant, in so many words, that party members should be paid according to how much profit their enterprises make.



Along with the sell-off, Khrushchev abolished the plan targets (production quotas) to which the collective farms had been subjected. The farms were thus, more than any other kind of enterprise at the time, "on their own" -- with little relations other than commodity-exchange relations to link them with the towns. It was only a short time thereafter, due in part to the cost of having to maintain their own machinery, in part to the profiteering spirit that seized hold of the farms, that the controlled prices paid to the collective farms by the state had to be increased in a number of product lines. In 1962, as a direct outcome of the new setup, meat and dairy product prices to the consumer were raised 30 percent and 20 percent respectively. (Miller, op. cit. p. 235)


"It would do no harm if we were also to learn from the foremost capitalist models how to speed up construction, initiate and run new enterprises. . . . We should not scorn useful foreign experience, and should critically adopt all technically and organizationally valuable points available in the West, including the field of speeding the turnover of funds and getting greater returns from capitai investments." (p. 96, emphasis added)


Borrow from the West not only technology, Khrushchev was saying, but also the secrets of its economic organization, which allow its corporations to realize maximurm profits with the maximum speed.





The Krushchev group thus reintroduced the great divorce between the working class and the means of production which the Soviet Communist party under Lenin and Stalin had fought ceaselessly to bridge over and to eliminate. The great reconciliation, unification, between the working class and its tools, achieved during the socialist period, was once again ruptured. Khrushchev's seizure of state power in the USSR was the newly engendered Soviet bourgeoisie's "primitive accumulation of capital" described by Karl Marx in "Capital": "The process . . . that clears the way for the capitalist system can be none other than the process which takes away from the laborer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage-laborers. The so-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production." (Capital, I, International ed., p. 714)


From "On Khrushchev's Phoney Communism":
Khrushchov has substituted "material incentive" for the socialist principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work". He has widened, and not narrowed, the gap between the incomes of a small minority and those of the workers, peasants and ordinary intellectuals. He has supported the degenerates in leading positions, encouraging them to become even more unscrupulous in abusing their powers and to appropriate the fruits of labour of the Soviet people. Thus he has accelerated the polarization of classes in Soviet society. Khrushchov sabotages the socialist planned economy, applies the capitalist principle of profit, develops capitalist free competition and undermines socialist ownership by the whole people.
Khrushchov attacks the system of socialist agricultural planning, describing it as "bureaucratic" and "unnecessary". Eager to learn from the big proprietors of American farms, he is encouraging capitalist management, fostering a kulak economy and undermining the socialist collective economy.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/KPC64.html#c3

There is much more to both of these links, I suggest you read them.

[Yehuda Stern]

The theory of "social imperialism" is utterly bankrupt. The USSR supported the countries which were in its sphere of influence economically. It didn't exploit them for superprofits like capitalist countries.That's pretty funny. How about the Red Army raping and murdering men and women in Eastern Europe after the war, or the looting of entire factories - I mean the factories themselves! Russia supported its satellites economically, like every imperialist power. In return it got support for its military adventures, for example, Cuba in Angola, just like Israel serves the military interests of the USA.

And I never argued for 'social-imperialism.' Again those are words you put in my mouth. I argued that the USSR was an imperialist state in the classical sense, with some deformities owing to its nationalized character.


Szymanski demonstrates that the Soviet Union was a socialist state as defined in Marx's Kapital.That's charming. Only Marxism defines socialism as the states that arise after the world revolution is victorious, not after the revolution is victorious in one state. So unless you demonstrate that the whole world turned socialist, you do not have much of an argument here.

And besides, are we really still having this argument? The USSR collapsed because its economy was bankrupt. Stalinist officials were forced to admit that the economic growth of the state was fabricated and in reality was - nil. It's a measure of the sect nature of Maoism and Stalinism that their proponents still claim such a backwards state to be a socialist state, no more, no less.

[Rawthentic]

It's a measure of the sect nature of Maoism and Stalinism that their proponents still claim such a backwards state to be a socialist state, no more, no less.
Maoists don't claim that the USSR was socialist after the capitalist restoration there. In fact, Mao and the CCP were the ones that made the probing scientific analysis of Soviet society after the revisionist take over to conclude how socialism was being and had been defeated.

I hope I am mistaken to think that you are claiming that Maoists think the USSR was socialist after this period. In fact, that is a Trotkyist position.

[Yehuda Stern]

Maoists don't claim that the USSR was socialist after the capitalist restoration there. In fact, Mao and the CCP were the ones that made the probing scientific analysis of Soviet society after the revisionist take over to conclude how socialism was being and had been defeated.

Some Stalinists believe the USSR was socialist to its last days, some Maoists believe China still is, some Maoists believe that only the Stalin and Mao regimes were socialist. It doesn't really matter. The backwardness of these regimes has been proven by history, as has the reactionary nature of capitalism in general.


I hope I am mistaken to think that you are claiming that Maoists think the USSR was socialist after this period. In fact, that is a Trotkyist position.

That's pretty hilarious. Even the Pabloist, i.e. pseudo-Trotskyist position, is that the USSR under and after Stalin was a degenerated workers' state. The Trotskyist position is that the USSR was a deformed workers' state up to the late 1930s, when it transformed itself into an imperialist state.

[Rawthentic]

Some Stalinists believe the USSR was socialist to its last days, some Maoists believe China still is, some Maoists believe that only the Stalin and Mao regimes were socialist. It doesn't really matter. The backwardness of these regimes has been proven by history, as has the reactionary nature of capitalism in general.Those Maoists who believe that China is still socialist are obviously not Maoists. That is a ridiculous position to hold.

I agree, the backwardness of capitalist regimes cloaked in red flags are very reactionary.


That's pretty hilarious. Even the Pabloist, i.e. pseudo-Trotskyist position, is that the USSR under and after Stalin was a degenerated workers' state. The Trotskyist position is that the USSR was a deformed workers' state up to the late 1930s, when it transformed itself into an imperialist state.
Oh so that is the real Trotkyist position? I always hear them say that it was not capitalist until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Maoist position (the one which I believe to be correct) is that it was socialist until the capitalist roaders assumed power in the mid-1950s.

[Led Zeppelin]

The Trotskyist position is that the USSR was a deformed workers' state up to the late 1930s, when it transformed itself into an imperialist state.

I guess Trotsky was not a "Trotskyist" then. :lol:

In the future please say "my position is that..." or "the position of my sect is that..." in order to not falsify history.

[OI OI OI]

@ Zeitgeist.
Comrade I am sorry that I did not answer to you for the last 5 days but capitalism had cut my internet connection!!.
I see that comrade UnbrokenThread made an excellent response to you so it would be useless to repeat what he said.
I suggest that you search a bit more on that topic.
We can also have a debate at the revolutionaryleft.com subforum sometime in the next month about that topic if you are interested.

Comradely,
OI OI OI!

[Yehuda Stern]

Led Zep, I do not feed trolls. You shameless lying in the past shows that it is impossible to hold a discussion with you. Please do not address me again.


Oh so that is the real Trotkyist position? I always hear them say that it was not capitalist until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I believe that had Trotsky not been murdered By agents of Stalin, he would've come to this position. But that's another discussion for another time.


The Maoist position (the one which I believe to be correct) is that it was socialist until the capitalist roaders assumed power in the mid-1950s.

The 'capitalist roaders' assumed power in mid 1920s. That was the stage in which the revolution started degenerating. Trotsky saw this and warned against this. In the late 1920s, workers' control of the means of production was finished off, and in the late 1930s, the left opposition was destroyed, signaling the death of the revolution.

If you believe that post-Stalin Russia was different from that of his time, then you have to prove this. In what was it different, in principal?

[Unicorn]

That's pretty funny. How about the Red Army raping and murdering men and women in Eastern Europe after the war, or the looting of entire factories - I mean the factories themselves!
What war are you talking about? WWII? Absurd.



Russia supported its satellites economically, like every imperialist power. In return it got support for its military adventures, for example, Cuba in Angola, just like Israel serves the military interests of the USA.
The Soviet Union supported anti-imperialist national liberation struggles.



And I never argued for 'social-imperialism.' Again those are words you put in my mouth. I argued that the USSR was an imperialist state in the classical sense, with some deformities owing to its nationalized character.
Lenin defined "imperialism" in the "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism". The actions of the Soviet Union do not meet that definition. You have some weird bourgeois understanding of the term.



That's charming. Only Marxism defines socialism as the states that arise after the world revolution is victorious, not after the revolution is victorious in one state. So unless you demonstrate that the whole world turned socialist, you do not have much of an argument here.
Debatable. Ever heard of "socialism in one country"? Even if the USSR had not developed full socialism it definitely was at least proto-socialist as prof. Ruyle argues.
http://www.csulb.edu/~eruyle/protosocialismmod2004.htm



And besides, are we really still having this argument? The USSR collapsed because its economy was bankrupt. Stalinist officials were forced to admit that the economic growth of the state was fabricated and in reality was - nil.
The Soviet Union achieved highest economic growth in world history. The growth of the GDP was faster than in capitalist states until the 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed because of an unfortunate combination of factors such as the price of oil and military build-up of the US but the collapse itself does not prove that Soviet socialism was a false form of Marxism. Mistakes were made but the Soviet Union should have practiced more socialism, not less.



It's a measure of the sect nature of Maoism and Stalinism that their proponents still claim such a backwards state to be a socialist state, no more, no less.
No mass party backs your line and thus you are the one who is in a sect. You demand "pure socialism" which has never existed in the world while trashing and spitting on the very real achievements of the Soviet Union.

[Led Zeppelin]

Led Zep, I do not feed trolls.

Yes you do, if you didn't you'd stop posting.


You shameless lying in the past shows that it is impossible to hold a discussion with you.

"Shameless lying" even when you yourself admitted to falsfying history in your own post by saying: "I believe that had Trotsky not been murdered By agents of Stalin, he would've come to this position", thereby admitting that you base your ideas on speculatory history like a schoolboy?

I don't think so, the members here aren't blind, the only one who's blind here is you, blind to history.

Not that it was even necessary for you to admit this basic historical fact, I had already proven it which provoked the same trollish response from you as here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1186553&postcount=16).


Please do not address me again.

I'll address your falsifications and will expose them whenever and wherever you post them, whether you like it or not.

This isn't your sect of 3 members where you can tell the other two to shut up when they say something you don't like, sorry.

If you don't like it, I suggest you stop replying with stupid trollish one-liners and just ignore me. I don't give a shit about engaging you in a discussion or about changing your mind anyway (your mind is so rigid and dogmatic, similar to a brick, that it would be a futile task), I only want to expose your lies for other members to see, just to make sure that they won't believe the horseshit you're peddling here.

Let's see if that massive ego of yours (which is the only thing here that stretches from the Jordan to the Sea) will be able to do that, instead of mumbling nonsense just to get the last word in like the fools Marx spoke of.

[Qwerty489]

Some Stalinists believe the USSR was socialist to its last days

You are full of BS, and you reek of bourgeois idealism.

[BobKKKindle$]

The Soviet Union supported anti-imperialist national liberation struggles.

You have already admitted that Stalin supported the creation of Israel - and you claim that this was the right position to take, despite the fact that many socialists regard the creation and subsequent expansion of Israel as a violation of the rights of the Palestinian people. This clearly shows that the Soviet government was not committed to supporting movements struggling against national oppression, and foreign policy was instead guided by the interests of the ruling stratum, and efforts to extend soviet influence into areas of strategic importance.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Really? Which bureaucrats exactly? 'Cause even the right-wing anti-communist papers admit that Fidel and Raul along with others in the government have a relatively low standard of living.

So Marxists now define class on the basis of material wealth and standard of living do they?

If I make the argument to you that cops are poorly paid wage slave does that make them members of the proletariat? No, of course not.


How do these "bureaucrat capitalists" ownthe means of production? Do they have stocks or bonds, or is their ownership otherwise written into the law? Are they able to pass their ownership on to their offspring?

Again, again you people walk straight into the same trap. How many more times do I have to repeat it! You are confusing real existing relations of production with their legal expression.

Let me repeat an example. Slavery as an institution continues to this day despite slavery having no legal basis.

Another example is the Catholic Church, which was at a time the largest feudal landowner in Europe. It exploited peasants even though no Vatican high officials privately owned Church land. The fact that individual bishops could not inherit or pass on landed wealth did not negate the fact that the church as an institution was an exploiter of the peasantry on the lands it collectively owned*. The same holds for Cuba today.

* This example comes from Tony Cliff's State Capitalism in Russia pg. 272


Where do new "bureaucrat capitalists" come from? How are government positions filled?

Once again irrelevant. The manner in which government positions are filled does not change their holders class nature.


Can government officials get special privileges without abusing their positions?

Again, confusing juridical property relations with objective relations of production


Why are there constant campaigns against privilege amongst government officials? Why have those with any kind of ill-begotten special privilege historically tried to hide it?

Why do certain capitalist corporations donate to charity or sponsor 'needy causes'. It's a great image that's why. Don't you think it would appear rather inconstant to the Cuban working class and international observers to see such glaring hypocrisy in 'socialist' Cuba.

[RHIZOMES]

It's a measure of the sect nature of Maoism and Stalinism that their proponents still claim such a backwards state to be a socialist state, no more, no less.

:lol::lol::lol:

Funny coming from the most sectarian member on the board.

[BobKKKindle$]

Once again irrelevant. The manner in which government positions are filled does not change their holders class nature.If this statement is true, then as long as a government of some form exists, a society can only be state-capitalist. This renders the concept of socialism meaningless, because socialism, as a historical stage, is characterized by the abolition of capitalist property relations, alongside the existence of a state, to defend the revolution against the remnants of the ruling class, which may try and overturn proletarian power and restore capitalism.

[Unicorn]

You have already admitted that Stalin supported the creation of Israel - and you claim that this was the right position to take, despite the fact that many socialists regard the creation and subsequent expansion of Israel as a violation of the rights of the Palestinian people.
At the time Britain had a mandate for Palestine. The Soviet Union supported the creation of Israel because it wished to end Britain's imperialist domination. The USSR expected that Israel would have a progressive leadership which would respect the rights of Palestinians. That was a mistake but the Soviet Union could not foresee what would happen in Palestine. After the Arab-Israeli the Soviet Union denounced Israel as the servant of Anglo-American warmongers and consistently supported Palestinians and neighboring Arab countries during the Cold War.

[Niccolò Rossi]

If this statement is true, then as long as a government of some form exists, a society can only be state-capitalist. This renders the concept of socialism meaningless, because socialism, as a historical stage, is characterized by the abolition of capitalist property relations, alongside the existence of a state, to defend the revolution against the remnants of the ruling class, which may try and overturn proletarian power and restore capitalism.

I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. Whether a government be democratic or dictatorial does not effective the mode of production. Whether government posts be filled by the internal selection of the party, or a public vote does not change the the class nature of the institutions.

To NHIA, I'll respond to your points tomorrow morning. Right now it's very late. In the mean time thank you for your reply.

[BobKKKindle$]

The USSR expected that Israel would have a progressive leadership which would respect the rights of Palestinians. That was a mistake but the Soviet Union could not foresee what would happen in Palestine.In the early months of 1949, when Israel's potential admission to the United Nations was being discussed in the Security Council, of which the Soviet Union was a member, the Soviet ambassador, Jacob Malik, argued that "it is well known that the Israeli government is a peace-loving government which loyally complied with the requirements of the United Nations". Malik made these comments after the Nakba (the program of ethnic cleansing directed by the Israeli state, and subsequent exodus of Palestinian refugees to neighboring Arab states) had taken place - and so clearly the Soviet Union's position was not based on any illusion of a progressive Israeli government.

(Source: Soviet Decision Making in Practice, The USSR and Israel, 1947-1954, pages 275-277)

Merely by supporting the creation of Israel, regardless of the government which took power, the Soviet Union exhibited hostility to anti-imperialism. Prior to the creation of Israel, the Jewish people comprised less than half of the population of Palestine, and also owned less than ten percent of the total land area, and yet under the UN partition plan, Israel was given more than fifty percent of the land. This means that the creation of Israel - a state created to serve the interests of a specific ethnic group based primarily on religious faith - was inherently oppressive, for the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Socialists call for a single Palestinian state which gives equal legal protection to all inhabitants, regardless of religion, and oppose the current division of Palestine into separate states.

The issue of Palestine is not the only example of Soviet opposition to national liberation. The Soviet Union also used armed force to retain control in Eastern Europe (prior to the declaration of the "Sinatra doctrine" under Gorbachev) and so prevented any deviation from the political model supported by the Soviet government. The Hungarian uprising was a political revolution against the bureaucracy, which exercised a regressive influence on the process of socialist construction, and the workers who participated in the uprising created industrial councils to serve as the basis of a new socialist system based on democracy. However, this uprising was brutally crushed, further evidence of the Soviet Union's disregard for national independence.

[Unicorn]

In the early months of 1949, when Israel's potential admission to the United Nations was being discussed in the Security Council, of which the Soviet Union was a member, the Soviet ambassador, Jacob Malik, argued that "it is well known that the Israeli government is a peace-loving government which loyally complied with the requirements of the United Nations". Malik made these comments after the Nakba (the program of ethnic cleansing directed by the Israeli state, and subsequent exodus of Palestinian refugees to neighboring Arab states) had taken place - and so clearly the Soviet Union's position was not based on any illusion of a progressive Israeli government.
At the time Israel was weak and the Soviet Union was struggling to prevent Israel's drift to the right. A denunciation would have done nothing good at that phase and just further alienated Israel. The Soviet Union did not want that Israel would become the foothold of Anglo-American imperialism in the Middle East as ultimately happened. The Soviets did what they could to help the Palestinians as they supported Syria militarily.



Merely by supporting the creation of Israel, regardless of the government which took power, the Soviet Union exhibited hostility to anti-imperialism. Prior to the creation of Israel, the Jewish people comprised less than half of the population of Palestine, and also owned less than ten percent of the total land area, and yet under the UN partition plan, Israel was given more than fifty percent of the land. This means that the creation of Israel - a state created to serve the interests of a specific ethnic group based primarily on religious faith - was inherently oppressive, for the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. Socialists call for a single Palestinian state which gives equal legal protection to all inhabitants, regardless of religion, and oppose the current division of Palestine into separate states.
The Jewish people fought an anti-imperialist national liberation struggle against Britain which was the colonial power in Palestine before the establishment of Israel. Communists do support national liberation movements in the Third World even if they are led by people with nationalist tendencies. Palestine was a part of the British Empire and decolonization was a worthy goal.



The issue of Palestine is not the only example of Soviet opposition to national liberation. The Soviet Union also used armed force to retain control in Eastern Europe (prior to the declaration of the "Sinatra doctrine" under Gorbachev) and so prevented any deviation from the political model supported by the Soviet government. The Hungarian uprising was a political revolution against the bureaucracy, which exercised a regressive influence on the process of socialist construction, and the workers who participated in the uprising created industrial councils to serve as the basis of a new socialist system based on democracy. However, this uprising was brutally crushed, further evidence of the Soviet Union's disregard for national independence.
Imre Nagy was a right deviationist who was leading Hungary towards capitalist restauration. The intervention was necessary to prevent that.

[Leo]

Lenin defined "imperialism" in the "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism". The actions of the Soviet Union do not meet that definition.

Lenin is not the only one who defined imperialism. His analysis clearly had many weaknesses. Stalinist Russia was clearly imperialist according to Rosa Luxemburg's analysis.


Ever heard of "socialism in one country"?

Yes, it is a complete betrayal of everything socialism stands for, it's declaration was the proof that the bourgeoisie was definately and completely in power in Russia.


Really? Which bureaucrats exactly? 'Cause even the right-wing anti-communist papers admit that Fidel and Raul along with others in the government have a relatively low standard of living.

Much better than the Cuban working class nevertheless, obviously.

Yet even this is not the point at all. Stalin is said to have slept in a divan, and did not do anything to save his son from the hands of Nazis: this does not refute the fact that he is the murderer of thousands of communists, that he was the head of a capitalist and imperialist state, and that he was the symbol of one of the worst counter-revolutions in history.


How do these "bureaucrat capitalists" ownthe means of production? Do they have stocks or bonds, or is their ownership otherwise written into the law?

The juridical aspects of property is not a reflection of anything. The Cuban bourgeoisie collectively owns the means of production through the state. National capital is still capital. Private property is not necessarily individual property.

And of course according to you all nationalizations would be socialist, since "bureaucrats do not own anything according to the law". If you were to be consistent, you would have to name at least state run industries from FDR's America to Peron's Argentina, and from Nasser's Egypt to Idi Amin's Uganda, and from Ben Gurion's Israel to Mitterand's France etc. to be socialist, and consider the economy of the world semi-socialist as well by nature also then.


Are they able to pass their ownership on to their offspring?


Really? So in a capitalist society the capitalist rulers die, are unable to pass on their positions and the wealth that comes from them, and are replaced by others in a process completely independent of property relations? That's some kind of capitalism!

Bureaucrats generally have the position to make enough favors for their offspring to get them more or less as high as they are unless they are especially good or bad at being a bureaucrat.

"the transformation, either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts this is obvious. And the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the work*ers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total na*tional capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the na*tional capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers - proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head" (Engels, Anti-Duhring).

Bureaucracy in generals and all bureaucracies is a sum of completely capitalist relations.

Would Raul Castro have succeeded Fidel even if he wasn't his brother?


Where do new "bureaucrat capitalists" come from?

Obviously, the way to make a good business career in Cuba is to enter the party and rise in it's hierarchy.

Where else did you think they came from, the "people"? :lol:


Can government officials get special privileges without abusing their positions?


The fact is that the current property relations don't objectively benefit government officials unless they subjectively abuse their positions.

Without that abuse on their part, government officials could enjoy no special privilege because privilege is not inherent to their positions.

I don't think you understand what bureaucracy is. "Abusing positions", that is going outside the law, is a natural part of being a bureaucrat.

And yeah, obviously they all live much better lives than the Cuban workers.


Why have those with any kind of ill-begotten special privilege historically tried to hide it?

For the same reason why every politician wants to appear as "a man of the people", someone who is supposedly living "just like the poor, working families".


If you're gonna claim that Cuba is capitalist, you have to explain why the "capitalists" there have pretty much the same things and live pretty much the same way as everyone else..

Which they don't, they are clearly privileged when compared to workers.


Are the first capitalist class not interested in continually bringing in more and more profit.

Yes, and this is what they are trying to do: both collectively and while competing with each other in bureaucratic rivalries.


"In civilized societies, property relations are validated by laws." - Trotsky

So classes did not exist in the Turkish state in 20's because laws said they didn't?

How about the Nazi regime? How did state manage to manipulate and when necessary confiscate the property of who it chose? Was it not not capitalist also?

Trotsky wasn't the clearest when it came to state capitalism anyway. I think Marx was more clear on this question.

"Capital can grow into powerful masses in a single hand because it has been withdrawn from many individual hands. In any given branch of industry centralization would reach its extreme limit if all the individual capitals invested in it were fused into a single capital. In a given society the limit would be reached only when the entire social capital was united in the hands of either a single capitalist or a single capitalist company" (Marx, Capital, Vol 1, chap XXV, section 2).


In the capitalist countries chattel slavery is gone. Wage-slavery exists and its basis, private property, is very much inscribed in law.

And it exists in Cuba also, regardless of the what the laws say.

You really seem to have a difficulty accepting that what capitalists write in their laws doesn't always reflect the truth about the capitalist system.


If it wasn't socialist, why would it matter? Capitalist governments drip with hypocrisy.

Yes, this is why the Cuban government is like that also.


Do "certain capitalist corporations" launch campaigns against their own greed?

No, neither does the Cuban capitalist bureaucrats. Not "sincere" campaigns anyway.


Exxon has never attacked its own CEOs for being too greedy and taking too much pay home... They're expected to do that.

And Cuban state bureaucrats are expected to "abuse their positions" also.


The whole point that you've missed is that if Cuba was capitalist, the ruling class wouldn't have to pretend that it didn't exist.


If Cuba is already capitalist, what do the "bureaucrat capitalists" have to fear in letting the workers know that they rule? If they already rule why would they care what the workers thought?

This is a very ahistorical, ignorant and even US-centric view. History of 20th century is full of capitalists, not only in the west and in the third world, and varying in ideologies from Stalinist to social democrat, and from third world nationalist to fascist, trying to hide the existence of classes from the workers, trying to argue that classes don't exist, trying to argue that it is the people who is in power and not the bourgeoisie.

The way some factions of the American bourgeoisie behaves nowadays is not necessarily the way all bourgeois factions have to behave. And even the American bourgeoisie claims to argue that classes are no more (the infamous "we are all middle class now" line) and bourgeois leaders claim to be living plain lives and for the "little man" etc. The bourgeoisie always competes for workers support in order to use them in their internal conflicts and prevent them from struggling against them.


And why do these "bureaucrat capitalists" maintain a situation in which their trade is severely limited by blockade?

Their trade is not that blocked even with the US. Dollars entered the market for a while and Euros still are in the market. In the past, Cuba used to trade what it needed from the USSR to whom it was obviously economically dependent. The collapse of Russian imperialism caused Cuba to look for other trading partners. In October 2000, the U.S. Congress passed legislation, later signed by the President into law on October 28, 2000, which changed the U.S.-Cuba trade relationship by enacting certain exceptions from U.S. sanctions legislation for agricultural and medical exports. (http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/cuba.asp) Obviously this was not done for no reason, Cuba is buying $600 million dollars worth agricultural products from America now. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1819722.stm , http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/21/international/i185934S17.DTL) As for exports, Netherlands receive the largest share of Cuban them (24%), 70 to 80% of which through Fondel Finance, a company owned by the Van't Wout family who have close personal ties with Fidel Castro. The second largest trade partner is Canada, with a 22% share of the Cuban export market. They are clearly making a profit from those they are selling as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Cuba#International_trade)

So much for a "blockade"...


Why do they spend so much on education and healthcare, in Cuba and internationally -- severely limiting their own take home money? Why do they spend more than any other capitalists on earth in this way?

Oh dear dear, every capitalist government spend money that seems so much on education and health care. Even if Cuba spends more than the average country, it would only show Cuba to be a more "proper" capitalist "welfare state". And of course, I am very doubtful about them spending more than other capitalists and would like to see proper statistics about this.


If these "capitalists" run society, why is production geared toward meeting human needs instead of filling their own pockets?

It is not, the Cuban proletariat is living in poverty, and the bureaucracy is living comfortably.

[BobKKKindle$]

A denunciation would have done nothing good at that phase and just further alienated Israel.

Socialists should not lower the strength of criticism to avoid alienating governments which have exhibited disregard for the rights of oppressed groups - to claim otherwise is to adopt an opportunist position at the expense of firm principles.


The Soviets did what they could to help the Palestinians as they supported Syria militarily.

The Soviets clearly did not make any attempt to help the Palestinians, as the Soviet delegate voted in favor of the UN partition plan, and later supported the entry of Israel into the general assembly (which was symbolically important, because representation in the UN allows a disputed state to claim legitimacy) despite the Nakba.


Communists do support national liberation movements in the Third World even if they are led by people with nationalist tendencies. Palestine was a part of the British Empire and decolonization was a worthy goal.

Socialists offer support to national liberation movements, but not when these movements seek to exercise oppression against other national groups contained within the borders of an imperialist power. The Zionist movement was engaged in a military struggle against British Imperialism, but this movement aimed to establish a state based on the interests of a specific ethnic group, at the expense of Palestine's Arab inhabitants. Hence, it is logically impossible to offer support to the Zionist movement in the name of anti-imperialism (and regard the creation of Israel as legitimate) because doing so entails implicit acceptance of the national subjugation of the Palestinian people.


Imre Nagy was a right deviationist who was leading Hungary towards capitalist restauration. The intervention was necessary to prevent that.

Imre Nagy is not synonymous with the Hungarian uprising. The workers who participated in the uprising clearly showed that they would not be willing to tolerate the restoration of capitalism or any return to the previous regime. The Central Workers Council of Budapest declared in a 27 November 1956 appeal to workers councils throughout the country:

“Faithful to this mission, we defend, even at the cost of our lives, our factories and our fatherland against any attempt to restore capitalism.”

[Unicorn]

Socialists should not lower the strength of criticism to avoid alienating governments which have exhibited disregard for the rights of oppressed groups - to claim otherwise is to adopt an opportunist position at the expense of firm principles.

The Soviets clearly did not make any attempt to help the Palestinians, as the Soviet delegate voted in favor of the UN partition plan, and later supported the entry of Israel into the general assembly (which was symbolically important, because representation in the UN allows a disputed state to claim legitimacy) despite the Nakba.
For the Soviet Union the choice was between supporting the establishment of Israel or the continuation of British imperialism. The latter alternative was even worse. A multiethnic Palestinian state was not in the realm of possibility then.

Furthermore, I am not a Stalinist as I agree with Khruschev's secret speech to the 20th Congress of CPSU. Unlike Maoists I don't feel compelled to defend every decision Stalin made and adding this issue to the list of Stalin's misdeeds doesn't diminish the achievements of Soviet socialism after Stalin. The mistakes Stalin made in his Middle East policy were later corrected by Khruschev and Brezhnev. The Soviet Union was the greatest supporter of the anti-imperialist struggle of the Palestinians and gave economic and military aid that was worth billions of dollars to Arab countries.



Socialists offer support to national liberation movements, but not when these movements seek to exercise oppression against other national groups contained within the borders of an imperialist power. The Zionist movement was engaged in a military struggle against British Imperialism, but this movement aimed to establish a state based on the interests of a specific ethnic group, at the expense of Palestine's Arab inhabitants. Hence, it is logically impossible to offer support to the Zionist movement in the name of anti-imperialism (and regard the creation of Israel as legitimate) because doing so entails implicit acceptance of the national subjugation of the Palestinian people.
There are numerous examples of countries in the Third World which have degenerated to tribal or national strife and wars after national liberation. For multiethnic young countries it is very hard to arrange the rights of minorities in satisfactory manner and reactionary elements easily gain power. That is what happened in Israel. However, socialists were not wrong when they gave support from imperfect national liberation movements like pre-1948 Zionist movement or ZANU-PF in Rhodesia because of the detestable nature of the imperialists they fought against.



Imre Nagy is not synonymous with the Hungarian uprising. The workers who participated in the uprising clearly showed that they would not be willing to tolerate the restoration of capitalism or any return to the previous regime. The Central Workers Council of Budapest declared in a 27 November 1956 appeal to workers councils throughout the country:

“Faithful to this mission, we defend, even at the cost of our lives, our factories and our fatherland against any attempt to restore capitalism.”
Capitalist restauration can happen through orders from the top against the will of the workers. That is what happened in the Soviet Union 1989-1991.

[Rawthentic]

Furthermore, I am not a Stalinist as I agree with Khruschev's secret speech to the 20th Congress of CPSU. Unlike Maoists I don't feel compelled to defend every decision Stalin made and adding this issue to the list of Stalin's misdeeds doesn't diminish the achievements of Soviet socialism after Stalin.
Sorry comrade, but this bullshit. Mao heavily criticized Stalin, such as in the manner Stalin handled economic problems in the USSR (caring more about things than people), the wrong handling of contradictions amongst the people and the enemy (purging counterrevolutionaries instead of mobilizing the masses to do so), as well as criticizing Stalin for saying that in the Soviet Union, class struggle had ceased (a grave mistake).

[Niccolò Rossi]

Because Leo has already covered your post, I'd only like to add one thing.


In the capitalist countries chattel slavery is gone. Wage-slavery exists and its basis, private property, is very much inscribed in law.


This is bullshit and you know it. Unlike yourself, I will provide sources to back up my claims: Does Slavery Still Exist? (http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/slavery.htm) How Many Slaves Are There? (http://www.anti-slaverysociety.org/slavery.htm)

Again, just because the property laws do not exist to make slavery legal, it still exists today. Of course for yourself and Trotsky, real facts will just have to be ignored.

[Leo]

No, not obviously.. otherwise right-wing anti-communist newspapers (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/fidel/castro-family.htm) wouldn't print things like "The houses of Fidel and Raúl are large but simply appointed," "The only luxury ... is a big-screen television", "they don't seem to have many luxuries" (in between lies, slander and exaggeration of course).

From your own source: "Fidel Castro and wife Dalia live in a two-house complex in western Havana."

"The houses of Fidel and Raúl are large but simply appointed Fidel and Dalia's compound in western Havana is equipped with one outdoor tennis and basketball court. It is ringed with pine trees that block off outside views, and surrounded by electronic fences that detect intruders. All streets surrounding the compound are marked as one-way streets heading away from the house to deter sightseers ... Only official cars are allowed to drive the wrong way into the compound."

"An acquaintance who has visited both Fidel and Raúl's homes described them as very large by Cuban standards but relatively simply appointed with Cuban-made furniture, with Raúl's home ``a bit nicer than Fidel's.'"

"The Castro brothers are known to have had several other houses around the island set aside for vacations or official visits to the provinces."

"The elite live better ... ``You see the house of a top official all worn on the outside, badly in need of paint, the grass all a mess,' ... ``You see the house of a top official all worn on the outside, badly in need of paint, the grass all a mess,'' ... ``But inside he'll have two television sets, a VCR, a nice stereo, a new fridge.''"

"``Of course, anything the hijos de papi [sons of daddy] want they get -- even if no other Cuban ever sees this stuff. Computers, nice houses, vacations, you name it."

Your own source disproves your point.


"All the judges of the world together cannot show that in nearly 40 years of revolution, any minister, high-level official, or leader of this country, has ever appropriated even one dollar from the state." - Fidel

Wow, that's credible then :rolleyes:


So... there are capitalist rulers somewhere living relatively equal lives to the workers they exploit?

But they clearly are not living equal lives, even as demonstrated by your source.

However the need to hide differences can, technically create an image of such. Marx says: "The community is only a community of labour, and equality of wages paid out by communal capital – by the community as the universal capitalist. Both sides of the relationship are raised to an imagined universality – labour as the category in which every person is placed, and capital as the acknowledged universality and power of the community" (1844 Manuscripts) on what he calls 'crude communism'.


A better question would be is Raul president because he's Fidel's brother?

Yes, this is the question I'm trying to pose.

I think the answer is yes as well, they wanted another Castro to be at the top.


The answer to that is of course no, and even most pro-capitalist folks with any understanding of Cuba would admit that.

Raul fought in the revolution from its earliest days. He was among those who attacked Moncada. He went to jail for it. He went into exile in Mexico. He trained and played a major role in the revolutionary war. He served in the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the party afterwards.

Yeah, lots of other people, and several in the government as well did that.


Like I said, people don't get positions in Cuba because of who they are related to. Which is why the Miami Herald admits that "Except for brothers Raúl and Ramón and his oldest son, 'Fidelito,'' Castro's close relatives hold no publicly visible jobs, wield no political power, and are unlikely to play a role in the succession to the 74-year-old ruler."

Obviously, bourgeois statesman aren't commonly succeeded by their children. On the other hand, four people in the family being holding political power is not supporting your argument.


They also say "The only politically powerful member of the Fidel or Raúl families is believed to be Deborah's [Raul's daughter] husband, Luis Alberto Fernández, about 40, son of an army general and himself a lieutenant colonel in the armed forces," who a source they quoted says "...isn't just Raúl's son-in-law or the son of a general earned his position because he's smart and efficient."

Again, this is completely destroying your point: a competent and efficient son of a general would enter into the army and do well in every capitalist regime. Had he not been competent and efficient, had he not been interested in having a position, he would not have such position. The bourgeoisie is not the aristocracy, and if their children is not up to having a position, they can spend all the capital and power left to them within their lifetimes. The child of a bourgeois bureaucrat has the opportunity of holding a position more or less the same with his father. The child of a proletarian is not, in Cuba or anywhere else in the world.


You really seem to have difficulty accepting that under capitalism the rulers benefit through the regular workings of things, while in a socialist system administrators and bureaucrats can only benefit through corruption and [I]abuse of their positions.

This is ridiculous, capitalism is not about individual benefit, individual capitalists' benefit is a mere sign of the existence of capitalist mode of production, be it lawful or not. Capitalism is a mode of production which is based on the generalized extraction of surplus value from labor in order to accumulate capital by the bourgeoisie. Individual capitalists intention is always to benefit, and but that is clearly not what determines whether a mode of production is capitalist.

And of course the Cuban bosses do benefit, and they benefit because they are bosses and the ideological paradigm of the Cuban state which they have written can't prevent them from benefiting.


Really? So why hide it? If in practice things already work that way, and everyone knows it, why would they have to keep it a secret?

For the same reason politicians try to pose themselves as men of the people, as if they were coming from the poor and living like the poor etc.

The current Turkish prime minister obviously is a very rich man. He is, on the other hand, "living" in a two bedroom apartment in a lower working-class district of Ankara.

The ruling class always tries to create the image of equality and the absence of classes. The degree they would go in their charade differs from country to country.


Not the first time some adjustments were made to the embargo, to benefit and pacify some sectors of the capitalist class in the U.S.

So Cuba is buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth agricultural products in order to... pacify some sectors of the capitalist class in the US then.


"The possibility of Cuba making medical purchases from the United States will remain a 'fantasy'' as long as the 37-year embargo is in place, according to the government of Fidel Castro.

But they are making medical purchases from the US.


"How to get purchased products to the island seems to be a never- ending saga, since there are no commercial flights between the two countries, and because any ship that docks in Cuba is prohibited from visiting U.S. ports for the following six months.

Except, of course, the ships that bring agricultural and medical products. US is ranked seventh of the Cuban import market and 4.3% of it's products are imported from America. This is a fact. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

It's living much better than the proletariat in the rest of the imperialist-oppressed "third world" countries, and even some of the imperialist countries.


This site (http://www.anonym.to/?http://humandevelopment.bu.edu/dev_indicators/show_info.cfm?index_id=82&data_type=1) shows that Cuba's "Human Poverty Index" in 2002 was lower than every country in the "third world" except Costa Rica and Uruguay which were very slightly lower, and Chile which was tied. It passed most of those countries by leaps and bounds.. And of course in those three that are relatively the same, the workers take on a disproportionate share of the suffering.

So, according to this logic, Costa Rica, Uruguay and Chile are socialist countries as well, because they are either tied to Cuba on poverty or because there is less poverty?


But these aren't just "politicians" right? They're capitalists. What capitalists pretend that live "just like the poor, working families"? Certainly not this one (http://www.anonym.to/?http://vinayworld.blogspot.com/2007/06/mukesh-ambani-to-build-mansion.html), or these ones (http://business.smh.com.au/chinas-rich-flaunt-their-billions-20080330-22h0.html)....

Well, Castro is living in a mansion as well, though might not be as big as the mansions of other guys, regardless with one private outdoor tennis and basketball court, ringed with pine trees that block off outside views, and surrounded by electronic fences that detect intruders...

So tell me now, how many proletarians you know own such things? The ones that I know clearly don't.


Of course some of the capitalists try to push the "no more classes" crap.. but the difference is, [B]everyone knows that every president of the United States is rich. Everyone knows that Bill Gates has tons of cash. Everyone knows that Senators in the Dominican Republic make more in a month than most Dominicans make in a year, or more.

And every Cuban worker knows that Castro and his band of merry bureaucrats live better lives than they do.


If it was discovered that in Cuba some official had 400 times what the average worker had, there would be mass outrage and people calling for his head.

They don't have to have 400 times what the average worker has. The Turkish prime minister officially makes around eight times what the average worker has. He is clearly making more money from it. His salary could have been exactly the same on paper in different circumstances.

But yeah, fundamentally the fact that members of the working class are not happy because the ruling class is living comfortably is apparent, and obviously answers your question in regards to why they are trying to hide their privileges.


So where's the analogue in another capitalist country? What party can I, as a poor worker, join in the U.S. to become a part of the capitalist ruling class?

As a poor worker you obviously don't stand a chance anywhere, including Cuba. Conditions will be in your favor if your daddy is gonna make favors to you. In America, I'd say join whichever party in which you know more people who will make you favors.


Here you demonstrate that you really don't know what you're talking about. There have been several successful campaigns against bureaucracy, privilege and excess in Cuba.

Yeah, I'm sure there were campaigns which they called succesful. On the other hand, the privileged bureaucratic capitalist class is not gonna be sincere when it's running a campaign against privilege and bureaucracy and their "success" will not be real as well.


This is confirmed by the fact that more than 28 percent are laborers, small farmers and workers linked to services, education and health

Individuals in the parliament having been workers doesn't prove anything. Possibly a greater number of deputies in the Turkish parliament has been workers in their lives, this includes the prime minister as well.

[Unicorn]

They don't have to have 400 times what the average worker has. The Turkish prime minister officially makes around eight times what the average worker has. He is clearly making more money from it. His salary could have been exactly the same on paper in different circumstances.

But yeah, fundamentally the fact that members of the working class are not happy because the ruling class is living comfortably is apparent, and obviously answers your question in regards to why they are trying to hide their privileges.
Do you believe in some weird form of utopian socialism in which everyone has the same wage? It is not exploitation if the head of a socialist state makes eight times more money than the average worker. Wage differentials are a part of socialism.

The income of Fidel Castro or others at the "top" of the Cuban society is not a burden to the average Cuban worker because the wage differentials in Cuba are so small. In capitalist countries workers have to support a whole class of parasitic capitalists who can make 400 times more money than them.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Do you believe in some weird form of utopian socialism in which everyone has the same wage? It is not exploitation if the head of a socialist state makes eight times more money than the average worker. Wage differentials are a part of socialism.

This is not the argument Leo is making, he is responding to CdL's claim that the Cuban bureaucracy can not be capitalist class because of it's material wealth is no different to the Cuban working class.

Your right in saying that it's not exploitation is someone (not necessarily a 'socialist' bureaucrat) earns a higher wage. What defines exploitation is the extraction of surplus value from a worker greater than the wages that are paid to them (other expenses of production should also be included here but for the sake of simplicity lets ignore them to demonstrate the point). The Cuban bureaucracy is a capitalist class because it is a class of non-labourers who live off the surplus value the working class, by exploitation.

[Unicorn]

This is not the argument Leo is making, he is responding to CdL's claim that the Cuban bureaucracy can not be capitalist class because of it's material wealth is no different to the Cuban working class.

Your right in saying that it's not exploitation is someone (not necessarily a 'socialist' bureaucrat) earns a higher wage. What defines exploitation is the extraction of surplus value from a worker greater than the wages that are paid to them (other expenses of production should also be included here but for the sake of simplicity lets ignore them to demonstrate the point). The Cuban bureaucracy is a capitalist class because it is a class of non-labourers who live off the surplus value the working class, by exploitation.
An average Cuban worker pays a 10% income tax. A small proportion of the tax revenue is used to the wages of the government bureaucrats. If Fidel Castro and other top officials worked without pay the taxes an average worker pays would not noticeably change. Where is the exploitation? Capital accumulation does not happen in Cuba as can be easily statistically shown.

[BobKKKindle$]

Capital accumulation does not happen in Cuba as can be easily statistically shown.

Capital accumulation does occur in Cuba. This does not invalidate the concept of a workers state, because capital accumulation is not synonymous with, or the defining feature of, capitalism. If workers were payed the full value of what they produce, it would be impossible for the Cuban economy to grow, because surplus value is necessary to expand the forces of production and repair machinery which has suffered depreciation due to prolonged use or events such as natural disasters. However, the use of surplus value is directed by the state, and the bureacracy is unable to derive income from the sale of goods, because they do not own the means of production.


The Cuban bureaucracy is a capitalist class because it is a class of non-labourers who live off the surplus value the working class, by exploitation.

Living off the surplus value generated by the working class is not the same as exploitation. Marx explained in Critique of the Gotha Program that it will be necessary to make deductions from the total value produced by the working class ("proceeds of labour") due to the need to provide:


funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today

Critique of the Gotha Program, Section One (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm)

Clearly the people who may fall into this category (for example, people who are too sick to work, or young children who are not included as part of the labour force) should not be considered part of a ruling-class simply because they are dependent on surplus-value produced by others.

[Unicorn]

Capital accumulation does occur in Cuba.
Right but capital accumulation by private individuals does not. That is what I intended to say.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Living off the surplus value generated by the working class is not the same as exploitation. Marx explained in Critique of the Gotha Program that it will be necessary to make deductions from the total value produced by the working class ("proceeds of labour") due to the need to provide

Clearly the people who may fall into this category (for example, people who are too sick to work, or young children who are not included as part of the labour force) should not be considered part of a ruling-class simply because they are dependent on surplus-value produced by others.

Very good point. I should have been more specific instead of trying to reduce the class of Cuban bureaucrats in a single sentence.

Remember that class is not only defined by the relationship of an individual to the means of production and to labour but by their position within the system of social production. The fact that the Cuban Bureaucracy lives off the surplus-value of the product working class does not provide ample evidence to suggest that it constitutes a capitalist class.

For example on the basis of the poor definition I provided, it could be argued that all unproductive workers (see my theory forum thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/product-unproductive-labour-t83666/index.html)) are not members of the proletariat as they derive their income from the surplus value produced by the productive proletariat, since they themselves do not directly produce surplus-value and their wages represents a mere siphoning off of surplus-value produced by directly by the productive proletariat. However, such an argument would be ludicrous when we look at the position of these unproductive workers in relation to the whole system of social production. When we do this we realise that whilst these members may not be directly exploited, they facilitate the production of surplus-value and share common class interest with the productive proletariat.

Now, when we consider the Cuban state bureaucracy in reference to the whole system of social production we do however arrive at the same conclusion as we had before, that the state bureaucracy does comprise a separate class. The reason being that these individuals occupy a distinctly different position to the proletariat within the system of social production, that of ruling elites, the (slightly, as CdL would argue) privileged commanders and coordinators of production with interests diametrically opposed to those of the porletariat.

[Led Zeppelin]

Leo, care to explain why Cuba sent thousands of troops to defend the progressive party in Angola in its fight against South-African imperialism and then left when the new government requested it?

In your opinion all nations are imperialist, after all, so could you explain to me why an imperialist nation actually aids another nation for nothing in return by sending thousands of troops to fight for them?

[BobKKKindle$]

The reason being that these individuals occupy a distinctly different position to the proletariat within the system of social production, that of ruling elites, the (slightly, as CdL would argue) privileged commanders and coordinators of production with interests diametrically opposed to those of the porletariat.Is having different interests to the proletariat sufficient to categorize the bureacracy as a ruling class? Trotsky also recognized that the bureaucratic stratum did not have the same material interests as the proletariat, and argued that the problem of bureaucratic degeneration would allow for the restoration of capitalism (and hence destroy the social gains made possible by the planned economy, and result in the conversion of the bureaucracy into a new capitalist class) because the bureaucracy would aim to establish a secure legal base for material inequality and the right to inherit wealth. Clearly, Trotsky did not think that having different interests meant the bureaucracy should be viewed as a new ruling class - because classes are based on relations of production, and the bureaucracy did not have independent property roots.

A further example of a social stratum which has separate (and opposed) interests to the lower ranks of the proletariat and yet does not constitute a separate class is the labour aristocracy. Members of the labour aristocracy are able to derive benefits from the exploitation of the developing world and so are hostile to the overthrow of capitalism, and use trade unions to control the working class and obstruct industrial militancy - but the members of this stratum do not have ownership of the means of production and are still forced to sell labour power as a commodity to purchase the goods they need to survive, and, as such, are part of the proletariat.

[Niccolò Rossi]

This thread is old and I am tired, lets wind this up. (I may be debating this issue one-on-one over in the RevolutionaryLeft.com user group in the not-to-distant future)


Is having different interests to the proletariat sufficient to categorize the bureacracy as a ruling class?

No, you are correct. As I have said time and time again:


The productivity of labour is insufficient to define a class
The ownership of the means of production is insufficient to define a class
Material wealth is insufficient to define a class
The (perceived) 'class' interests of a group is insufficient to define a class

Of course all these factors are important and may help us in defining class but on their own they can not.

The Marxist concept of class is a complex and can not be reduced to one single factor or one line definition. An interesting article on the Class in the writings of Marx is Marx's Use of "Class" by Bertell Ollam. (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/class.php)


Clearly, Trotsky did not think that having different interests meant the bureaucracy should be viewed as a new ruling class - because classes are based on relations of production, and the bureaucracy did not have independent property roots.

Not having independent property roots means nothing. It's been said again and again (hopefully if the debate goes through I'll be able to flesh it out more properly), whether or not the bourgeois property ownership is codified in law or not, does not change the objective relations of production.


A further example of a social stratum which has separate (and opposed) interests to the lower ranks of the proletariat and yet does not constitute a separate class is the labour aristocracy. Members of the labour aristocracy are able to derive benefits from the exploitation of the developing world and so are hostile to the overthrow of capitalism, and use trade unions to control the working class and obstruct industrial militancy - but the members of this stratum do not have ownership of the means of production and are still forced to sell labour power as a commodity to purchase the goods they need to survive, and, as such, are part of the proletariat.

According to this logic lumpenproles, police and even upper management would also be considered proletarians, whilst the poor petit-bourgeoisie and even some peasants would be Bourgeois.

[comrade stalin guevara]

workers paridise

[Trystan]

Domestically, I believe the USSR was bureaucratic collectivist. Internationally, I believe state capitalist.

[Q]

Domestically, I believe the USSR was bureaucratic collectivist. Internationally, I believe state capitalist.

Could you elaborate on "international state capitalism"? How was the USSR capitalist internationally while it wasn't domestically?

[Trystan]

Could you elaborate on "international state capitalism"? How was the USSR capitalist internationally while it wasn't domestically?

I meant that domestically it had socialist policies.