Marxism, october revolution, USSR

[Black Sheep]

According to marxism, the proletarian state will:
1)Suppress the burgeoisie
2)Establish the 'material conditions in economy,for a socialist mode of production'

So,questions on these claims:
1-Why is the 'state' necessary to suppress the capitalists,and the ONLY WAY for a successful proletarian revolution,according to M-Ls.
2-What the hell does it mean specifically?What special arrangements are required materially for a socialist mode of production?

More:
a)Was the russian revolution a spontaneous act or was it LED by the bolsheviks?
Because i get contradictory views on that subject.
b)How did exactly the soviet state function?What was the decision making power of the soviets and the central committee?
c)Were the factories run by its workers?What was the role and the authority of the party commissars there?
d)Why was/is collectivism the system established in labor?Meaning pay according to work done for each worker.

Will add even more later.:o

[Yehuda Stern]

1-Why is the 'state' necessary to suppress the capitalists,and the ONLY WAY for a successful proletarian revolution,according to M-Ls.

To Marxists, the state is primarily the organization of armed force in the service of the ruling class. If we have workers' armed forces defending the revolution, what we have is a state, whatever you choose to name it.


2-What the hell does it mean specifically?What special arrangements are required materially for a socialist mode of production?

A workers' state is confused by many people with a socialist state. The state set up during the revolution is not yet socialist - it still exists in a capitalist world and is still subject to the law of value, that is, the blind laws governing the function of the capitalist system. The task of a workers' state is to restrain the operation of the law of value in favor of the working class (something which a capitalist state could never do, given that it depends on the profits of the capitalists, which would be interrupted by such measures).


Was the russian revolution a spontaneous act or was it LED by the bolsheviks?

I guess there's a bit of an ambiguity to what you would call a revolution - some refer to the revolution as all the events from February 1917 to the Bolshevik rise to power, and some call only the last event a revolution. Whatever definition you use, while the Bolsheviks were quite influential by 1917, the uprising in February was quite spontaneous. The taking of power in October, though, was led by the Bolsheviks.

I'll leave the rest to others.

[Tower of Bebel]

First of all: the anarchist definition of the state and the Marxist definition of the state are totally different. Even the difference between the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (the rule of the proletariat or proletarian state) and the anarchism isn't as big as it might look like.

I would advise you to read Lenin's "The State and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm)" to begin with. The book quotes from other works you might find interesting. So The State and Revolution will be more than enough to start with.

Engels wrote (I think it was the preface to "The Civil War in France") that the proletarian state is not a state in the actual sense of the word. The dictatorship of the Proletariat and the proletarian state are the same. The DotP is nothing less than the (according to Luxemburg: democratic) rule of the proletariat over the oppressors. As long as classes remain, as long as the capitalist economy is not transformed into a socialist economy, the state will remain an important feature of society. But the difference between a socialist (which is more than just a word) state and the preceding states (and the difference between marxism and anarchism) is the fact that the socialist state is one which is based on the majority of society, not on the minority. The reason behind this is not a flawed idea, but the simple fact that previous and today's societies are confronted with scarcity. Socialism gets rid of this. This allows the majority of the population to actively engage in society.

There is no question about what the alternative could be: there is no alternative. Socialism and its transitional stage means the rule of the proletariat and so it means that the proletariat forms a state. This state is totally different from today's state, so no wonder Engels wrote it wasn't actually "a state in the actual sense of the word".

This automatically brings us to the reasons why the Soviet-Union is not always regarded as a socialist state. It was only a "socialist" state for a short period of time when the Bolsheviks were supporting the socialist revolution. So it was politically a socialist state, but not socially or economically. But such a state, based on political ideas, not on a social and economic reality must degenerate when it cannot become socialist state in the economic and social sense of the word. When the USSR finally degenerated it was only a socialist state in words.

The economic base structure of Russia was a semi-feudal society. It was a peasant majority society. So it has a tendency towards capitalism, not socialism. So it had also a tendency towards a capitalist state. The only thing that could free the region from this tendency and backwardness was the success of the international proletarian revolution. When the revolution failed it was only a matter of time before either the revolutionaries would give up their idea(l)s or be eliminated.

[Black Sheep]

I have read State and revolution.. but it just says that "there is no alternative to the DotP", and that the socialist state will be 'different' than the bourgeoisie state.That's it :sneaky:, i see no justification.


If we have workers' armed forces defending the revolution, what we have is a state, whatever you choose to name it.
I dont think that a group of armed people constitute a state,a state has several other features..A feud, where the local fat rich dude had a few hundred knights and a flock of peasants is considered a state?

[Yehuda Stern]

I have read State and revolution.. but it just says that "there is no alternative to the DotP", and that the socialist state will be 'different' than the bourgeoisie state.That's it

I don't know what you have read, but if that's all you saw, you didn't read State and Revolution. That book is perhaps the most exhaustive and concrete statement of what a revolutionary workers' state would be like.


I dont think that a group of armed people constitute a state,a state has several other features..A feud, where the local fat rich dude had a few hundred knights and a flock of peasants is considered a state?

Let's not be ridiculous - obviously the intention is something much more large scale.

[Tower of Bebel]

I dont think that a group of armed people constitute a state,a state has several other features..A feud, where the local fat rich dude had a few hundred knights and a flock of peasants is considered a state?You have a total different definition of the state then we do. Therefor we shouldn't be talking about the Russian Revolution yet, but about the marxist definition of the state itself. This "definition (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s1)" can be found in "The State and Revolution". Again, you may also want to read Engels's introduction (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/intro.htm) to "The Civil War in France".

These short texts will suffice to understand why the Soviet-Union cannot be considered a proletarian state (in the real sense of the word).