USSR mode of production

[Psy]

Okay capitalism is M-C-^M (Money-Commodities-delta Money)

so what was the USSR mode of production?

Stalin and Khrushchev talked about out producing the capitalists so this would be ^C (delta commodities) but that leaves us with ???-^C if that was the case wouldn't the USSR have constantly increased commodities?

So I got nothing, any ideas?

[trivas7]

Let's start by realizing that the Russian system did not evolve over time, as did capitalism. It was created, forcibly, after the Revolution of 1917. A semifeudal society dotted with a few large capitalist enterprises was taken over by a revolutionary government deeply read in Marx but who nothing about how to administer, much less organize, a 'socialist' economy.

Shortly after the initial sucess of the revolution Lenin nationalized the banks, major factories, the railways, and the canals. In the meantime, the peasants themselves had taken over the large landed states on which they had been tenants and had carved them up into individual holdings. The central authorities then attempted for several years to run the economy by requesitioning food from the farms and allocating it to factory workers, while controlling the flow of output from factories by a system of direct controls from the government.

The initial attempt to run the economy was a disasterous failure. Under inept management, industrial output declined precipitously; by 1920, it had fallen to a mere 14% of prewar levels. As goods available to the peasants became scarcer, the peasants themselves were less and less willing to acquiesce in giving food to the cities. The result was wild inflation, followed by degeneration into an economy of semibarter. Towards the end of 1920, the system threatened to break down completely. To forestall the impending collapse, in 1921 Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy. This was a return toward a market system and a partial reconstitution of actual capitalism. Retail trade, e.g., was again opened to private ownership and operation. Small-scale industry also reverted to private direction. Most important, the farms were no longer requisitioned but operated as profit-making units. Only the "commanding heights" of industry and finance were retained in government hands.

A bitter debate ensued for several years about what course of action to follow. Though the basic aim of the Soviet government was still to replace the private ownership of the means of production with state ownership, the question was how fast to move ahead -- indeed, how to do so. The pace of industrialization hinged critically on one highly uncertain factor: the willingness of the largest peasant sector to deliver food that city workers need to be sustained in their tasks. In 1927, Stalin took command and made the decision not to appease unwilling peasants but to "collective" -- seize -- their holdings in the name of the state. The result was a ghastly period of Russian history in which an estimated 5 million kulaks (well-off peasants) were executed or put into labor camps; in the cities, workers were ordered to perform their tasks, forbidden to strike, and subjected to brutal speedups. But such industrialization on the grand scale has always been wrenching processes in the West starting with the Industrial Revolution with its heavy-handed exploitation of labor.

With all its difficulties, central planning worked in years following WWII, when the ravaged Russian economy was rebuilt in a storm of energy resembling that of the early '30s. Thereafter, however, the problem of socialism began to change. Once the essential work of rebuilding had been accomplished, the main task of planning shifted from construction to coordination. The challenge facing the planners was no longer to bring into being the basic framework of the modern industrial state, but to make such a framework function effectively.

That proved to be much more difficult than the earlier effort. Under Stalin's successors, especially Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, the system began to show alarming signs of failure. According to US government estimates, real Soviet gross national product grew at an average annual rate of about 6.5 percent from 1965 to 1980 but by only about 1.8 percent per year from 1980 to 1985. In a few parts of the economy, where no expense was spared and where the bureaucracy was subordinated to the highly demanding requirements of special "consumers", the system had triumphs -- the Soviets launched the first space shot, built impressive military planes and tanks, and created whole new cities in strategic regions.

However, in other areas, where the special interests were not in a position to dominate the bureaucracy, very different results followed. Consumer goods were produced in quantity, but of such poor quality that warehouses bulged with unusable shoes and shoddy cloth. Although the USSR produced twice as much steel per capita as the US, there was chronic steel shortage because the material was used so wastefully. Lumber was in short supply because only some 30 percent of the Soviet timber harvest was utilized, compared with 95 percent in the US and Canada.

Um, I forget the initial question...

[Psy]

Uhh didn't the whole civil-war effect production for far greater then policies?


Anyway more point is Marx's formula for bourgeois production is very clear, you start with money (M) that is transformed into commodities (C) in order to get more money then one started out with (delta money or ^M) then you simply start the whole process over.

So my question was what would be the formula for the USSR's mode of production. Do we start with money? Do we end with delta commodities? So something like M-???-^C? Yet ending with delta commodities then the goal of the USSR mode of production was to accumulate commodites rather the capital, yet then we would have seen the USSR accumulate massive amounts of commodities.

[trivas7]

So my question was what would be the formula for the USSR's mode of production. Do we start with money? Do we end with delta commodities? So something like M-???-^C? Yet ending with delta commodities then the goal of the USSR mode of production was to accumulate commodites rather the capital, yet then we would have seen the USSR accumulate massive amounts of commodities.
The USSR was a sovereign country not an economic formation in the Marxian sense.

As C-M-C models commodity circulation, M-C-M' models capital circulation, i.e., the capitalist invests money in order to return more money. Shampoo, lather, rinse. Repeat as necessary.

[Hit The North]

M-C-^M is capitalism from the point of view of the capitalist.

But a mode of production is more than just M-C-^M, unless you want to argue that money transforms itself into commodities and then back into money x. There are also the relations of production and exchange to deal with.