cuba to capitalism?

[Dóchas]

I read in a book recently 'cuba is a country still wearing a castroist fig-leaf while in rapid transition to capitalism'. I found this interesting and i was just wondering what you guys thought about it?

[Motochi]

if Cuba goes to Capitalism, then, as Castro pointed out in January of '89, the first country to defy U.S. imperialism will lose its stronghold as one of the few strong socialist nations in the western hemisphere (is it the only?).

has anyone been to Cuba recently to verify whether this seems true in everyday life?

[Annie K.]

Cuba don't want to defy US imperialism more than venezuela or bolivia. No need to wait for the capitalist transition, if the blocus was to be lifted, the cuban socialism would go along quite well with the US imperialism.

[PostAnarchy]

Unfortunately, privatization is already starting in Cuba - just take a look at their tourist resorts (owned by Western countries for the most part) where wealthy Europeans and Westerners enjoy far better stay in Cuba than the average Cuban does. I believe that regular Cubans were even banned from entering the Cuban tourist resorts though this may have changed recently.

[chegitz guevara]

Cuba may be an island, but it can't be an island unto itself. It needs hard currency in order to be able to important goods from other countries. In order to get that money, it has to engage with capitalism is ways that we wouldn't see in a socialist world system. What so many purists never seem to be able to get past their bony skulls is: you do what you have to do in order to survive. It's the first rule of life.

[PostAnarchy]

If we are going to say simply that Cuba is in "survival mode" and thus it is partaking in capitalism to an extent - fine. But in that same light we cannot therefore call it a workers state or socialist state; defending it against imperialism is one thing..heck I'd defend Iran from imperialist attack but of course I do not defend the Iranian regime nor do I defend the one-party state in Cuba.

[Yehuda Stern]

I don't think that Cuba is in transition to capitalism - I think it's capitalist, and has been all through the Castro years (and obviously before). It's true that Castroism is a fig-leaf used by the regime, but then many such 'fig-leafs' have been used by many capitalist regimes in history.

[chegitz guevara]

If we are going to say simply that Cuba is in "survival mode" and thus it is partaking in capitalism to an extent - fine. But in that same light we cannot therefore call it a workers state or socialist state; defending it against imperialism is one thing..heck I'd defend Iran from imperialist attack but of course I do not defend the Iranian regime nor do I defend the one-party state in Cuba.

The problem with your argument seems to be you are identifying workers state with socialism. While you cannot have socialism without a workers state, it is perfectly possible to have a workers state without socialism. An isolated workers state will, like the Soviets, be forced to participate in the world capitalist economy, even as it begins to build socialism. There is no unresolvable contradiction between Cuba engaging in capitalist relations of production in limited areas and it having socialized relations of production in most of the rest. Tourism brings lots of money to Cuba, money that is needed since it isn't being subsidized by the USSR any longer. I don't think we should point fingers at Cuba for turning to desperate measures to hold on to workers power.

[Annie K.]

What is a workers state without socialism ? As you probably don't think that raul is the working class, what is the difference with a regular state ?

[Oneironaut]

The problem with your argument seems to be you are identifying workers state with socialism. While you cannot have socialism without a workers state, it is perfectly possible to have a workers state without socialism. An isolated workers state will, like the Soviets, be forced to participate in the world capitalist economy, even as it begins to build socialism. There is no unresolvable contradiction between Cuba engaging in capitalist relations of production in limited areas and it having socialized relations of production in most of the rest. Tourism brings lots of money to Cuba, money that is needed since it isn't being subsidized by the USSR any longer. I don't think we should point fingers at Cuba for turning to desperate measures to hold on to workers power.


Cuba turning to desperate measures to hold on to workers' power? Please, lets not pretend that it was the Cuban workers who decided to ban Cubans from entering these tourists hotels, or even wanting these hotels either way. The Cuban state, far from being a workers' state, implemented these reforms "for the best of the workers".

I agree with Yehuda on this issue.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It never stopped being capitalist:

http://www.marxists.de/statecap/cuba/80-cucas.htm

[politics student]

What was the article's argument based on? Your post basically consists of "Someone said Cuba is becoming capitalist, what do you think?"

If you post actually arguments, then folks will have a chance to address them. Otherwise, you just get a bunch of people popping in to give their two cents on the nature and direction of Cuba.

Considering the cuban system I doubt its becoming capitalist. The complaints about western holiday resorts are required as tourism is a great importance mainly due to the trade embargo, Nationalized resorts would not become well known in the west.

[benhur]

We're expecting too much. It's not easy for any isolated country to be socialist, even in theory. So to expect any nation as tiny as Cuba to be a workers paradise is quite unreasonable. Capitalism has to run its natural course, I guess. Then perhaps, socialism can be established.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

I agree with Yehuda: Cuba is not a socialist country. It accepted dependence upon Soviet social-imperialism in opposition to de-linking from capital and flatly rejected the Cultural Revolution and all of its vital lessons. Today, the country is in transition to more open and acute forms of capitalism.

[Revy]

I think that genuinely, there seems to be some reforms under Raul that are allowing for more freedom for the people, the workers.

For example, under Great Socialist Hero™ Fidel, Trotskyists had no voice. But now there was a conference allowed to promote for the first time, a book of Trotsky's, the Revolution Betrayed, which sold many copies.

While in the Great Revolutionary Era Fidelista™, Trotskyists were viciously repressed and deprived of their right to publish Trotskyist publications. One gang of Stalinists even took it so far to destroy the printing press machines by force! And of course Trotskyist parties were banned.

Of course, if it turns out to be more bourgeois democracy then the prophecy will complete itself and Cuba will have achieved what the USSR did in half the time!

[ZeroNowhere]

Cuba isn't becoming capitalist, it is capitalist, and has been since quite a bit before the Castro years.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Ah, the Trotskyist definitions of progress...*looks at Stancel*

Freedom of expression is one thing, but it should be unconditionally allowed and encouraged. (Only through a radically open back-and-forth process that encourages criticism, as well as self-criticism, not only within the party, but between the party and the masses of people, can we really get at the truth of things fully, and only on that basis can we forge out a correct synthesis at any given juncture.) The new "openness" Stancel describes is but an openness to Trotskyism. That's hardly a reason for great mystification, since so many espousedly Trotskyist organizations embrace Cuba's government; Raul is responding in kind. Of course this is more bourgeois democracy, not progress! Surely you (Stancel) should find it at least interesting, I would think, that this new openness to Trotskyism just so happens to coincide with the introduction of more overt and acute forms of capitalism. What a coincidence!

[Ptah_Khnemu]

We're asking too much. Cuba cannot survive without trade, and in a capitalist world that's going to require some capitalism. Lets not forget the advances the Revolution has made.

[scarletghoul]

Exactly. This is a great example of the problem of 'socialism in one country'.

Also I have not heard the word Castroism much before lol

[BobKKKindle$]

Cuba has always been capitalist but since the "revolution" in 1959, Cuba has been state-capitalist because the means of production are concentrated in the hands of the state, and are owned through the state by a class of bureaucrats. However, socialists should still call for the defense of Cuba as a country facing the threat of imperialist attack, and should acknowledge that the existing state-capitalist regime also embodies certain gains for the working class in the form of guaranteed employment and the universal provision of healthcare.

[Comrade_Red]

"revolution"


Yeah, sure...

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

We're asking too much. Cuba cannot survive without trade, and in a capitalist world that's going to require some capitalism. Lets not forget the advances the Revolution has made.

...

Exactly. This is a great example of the problem of 'socialism in one country'.
"Some" trade? Cuba is totally dependent! Yes, rupturing out of that would be initially painful. But that's the only way you get to a basic, overall sense of self-reliance.

As for the supposed evils of socialism in one country, I will point out that, on the rare occasions that it has actually been applied, it has succeeded (the defeat, not failure, of the given revolutions aside). For example, take revolutionary China (1949-1976). Throughout the whole socialist period, China's industry grew at an average rate of 10 percent a year and agriculture also grew at an average rate of 3 percent a year. This, mind you, was despite having no trade partners to speak of for most of this time and yes amid all the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution!

The possibility of building socialism in a single country is not some nationalist, anti-communist thing. It is realistically the only way to have revolutionary victories! (On a country-by-country basis, in general, that is.) You see, there is this thing, may I remind the Trotskyists, called the law of uneven development, which yes includes the uneven development of ideas. If we simply await a scenario where "everyone is ready", we'll be waiting forever. 'Socialism in one country' is not a defeatist thing, but a call to seize upon every possible opening for revolution and socialism.

Historically, there has thus far been one self-described Trotskyist to head up any government. That's Hugo Chavez. It makes some sense that he regards himself as a Trotskyist as well. His logic matches up with that of the "permanent revolution" theory: it's just impossible to de-link in an overall way from the larger world economy, he reasons. He follows this reasoning through to conclusion: Because you can't survive largely independent of foreign trade, you shouldn't try to. That's what Trotskyism looks like in real world application.

[lvl100]

"Some" trade? Cuba is totally dependent! Yes, rupturing out of that would be initially painful. But that's the only way you get to a basic, overall sense of self-reliance.

Yes, that worked so great for DPRK , isnt it ?


For example, take revolutionary China (1949-1976). Throughout the whole socialist period, China's industry grew at an average rate of 10 percent a year and agriculture also grew at an average rate of 3 percent a year. This, mind you, was despite having no trade partners to speak of for most of this time and yes amid all the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution!

China its not a pocket size island in the middle of the ocean.
I`m curious if your theory explains as well how a country can become a decent place to live with only sugar and nickel. Other than a Zerzan`s utopia of course.

The thing that KJI didn't understood, but Castro and Ceausescu did is that a small country cant be "anti-imperialist" and a "socialist" example by taking the me against the world stance.
If the Cubans play their cards right ,a degenerated worker state like Cuba has the chance to do more for its own workers and for the international Left than any ideology centered, isolated country like DPRK.
I just hope that the Cuban leaders wont sellout the country like the soviets did.

[spice756]

Unfortunately, privatization is already starting in Cuba - just take a look at their tourist resorts (owned by Western countries for the most part) where wealthy Europeans and Westerners enjoy far better stay in Cuba than the average Cuban does. I believe that regular Cubans were even banned from entering the Cuban tourist resorts though this may have changed recently.

This is not some think they wanted to do they had to do it.After the brake up of the USSR they could not survive by them self with out money coming in.




if Cuba goes to Capitalism, then, as Castro pointed out in January of '89, the first country to defy U.S. imperialism will lose its stronghold as one of the few strong socialist nations in the western hemisphere (is it the only?).

has anyone been to Cuba recently to verify whether this seems true in everyday life?


I fear it matter of time with out other countries like Cuba or the leaders in Cuba determine by faith to not allow free-market no matter what.

But capitalists and countries will try to bribe Cuba on the importing goods to Cuba .And even pay Cuba extra if they pass some reform bills on goods they need from Cuba.

If there is NOT a revolution in other countries in the next 5 to 8 years it is very unlikely Cuba will not bow down to a China style .

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Originally posted by lvl100:
Yes, that worked so great for DPRK , isnt it ?

North Korea never adopted any genuine sense of self-reliance except in official language. It was never a socialist country either, but relied heavily on Soviet social-imperialism to prop itself up. It even engaged large-scale trading with the West beginning in the 1970s, and this led them to their situation of bankruptcy. North Korea is basically a semi-feudal country in many ways, complete with dynastic succession. What is North Korea fighting for today? Not the revolutionary road forward, but rather how to acquire state "aid" from foreign capital; how to further open trade with them without collapsing their state.


I`m curious if your theory explains as well how a country can become a decent place to live with only sugar and nickel. Other than a Zerzan`s utopia of course.

The lessons of the Great Leap Forward tell us a great deal about this. The answer lies not in just urban industrialization that leaves agriculture behind and comes at its expense, but also in agricultural development alongside urban industrialization. Many have argued that the Great Leap Forward was a disaster. But China overcame its food problem (the same type plaguing North Korea at present) by 1970. This had everything to do with the lessons of the Great Leap Forward! By 1975, further, life expectancy in Beijing exceeded that in New York City! Genuine all-around development, in other words.

[Comrade_Red]

<i>but relied heavily on Soviet social-imperialism </i>

Oh, yeah. Because you can't call it Imperialism you have to call it 'social-imperialism.'

[SecondLife]

WTF contra-revolution conspiracy there flys in this thread. :D
"is socialism"..."is capitalism"....Cuba needs rather YOUR help in struggle with capitalism, in purify society from anti-revolutionarys and global approbation.
I was there in last summer. I think Cuba don't transform into capitalism, though it is not impossible. Therefore it needs your help. It don't transform into capitalism, because there is too much people who support socialism, most people support socialism. Now there is much foreign monopols working in Cuba, but this is not privatization, because Cuba gives huge taxes from those capitalists. There is still all nationalized, thanks to god.
......and if you say that Cuba was not socialist, then you are probably CIA agent.

[Sam_b]

I think Cuba don't transform into capitalism

It didn't transform into capitalism because in the 20th century it always was capitalism.


Now there is much foreign monopols working in Cuba, but this is not privatization, because Cuba gives huge taxes from those capitalists

Sweden has large taxes on big business, does that mean that Sweden is socialist as well? No, if anyone suggested that they would be laughed out the door. So why would you use that feeble argument for Cuba? Socialism is about the workers owning the means of production, not allowing capitalism with higher taxes.

[SecondLife]

It didn't transform into capitalism because in the 20th century it always was capitalism.

Socialism begans in Cuba with 1959 revolution. All the world knows this and also I don't want to make about this some kind of bizarre theory.


Socialism is about the workers owning the means of production, not allowing capitalism with higher taxes.
Yes, in Cuba means of production is in state hands and state is the same as workers. Or you think that state is some extraterrestrial monster.

[Sam_b]

Socialism begans in Cuba with 1959 revolution. All the world knows this and also I don't want to make about this some kind of bizarre theory.

Just because you and some socialists say so doesn't make it true. But here is your chance to prove it: show me evidence of democratic worker's control in Cuba.


and state is the same as workers. Or you think that state is some extraterrestrial monster.

I'd appreciate it if you would make arguments to state your case rather than tired and confused one-liners which actually make no sense. The state is not the same as workers as there are a class of bureaucrats which own and control the means of production, as Bob rightly says above. Unless of course, you can prove otherwise. And by prove don't mean your usual one-line evidence-free "but there is nationalisation and that means socialism idot DUN DUN DUN".

[SecondLife]

show me evidence of democratic worker's control in Cuba.

Fidel talks all the time about revolution, far after 1959. I think long time why there is still revolution situation. Now it's clear - Cuba is really still in revolution situation, USA pressure is too tight to release this condition.
There is too early to talk about democracy. Altough there is already freedom of speech, fredom to homosexuals etc. Legal elections etc.
You maybe too much believe into democracy, that in reality is instrument of bourgeoisie. You are contra-revolutionary.


The state is not the same as workers as there are a class of bureaucrats which own and control the means of production,

No, bureaucrats is not class. Bureaucrat is public servant who work, it's worker, from working class. If you mean case when bureaucrat brokes law, then its criminal. Criminals aren't also class.

[Sam_b]

Fidel talks all the time about revolution, far after 1959

So what? That is not evidence. I don't take what a leader says uncritically. You have not shown that the working class are in control of the means of production.


There is too early to talk about democracy

Socialism needs democracy. You've still given absolutely zero evidence to Cuba's apparent 'socialism'.


You are from USA and maybe you too much believe into democracy, that in reality is instrument of bourgeoisie. You are contra-revolutionary

1. I'm not from the US, and have never been there.

2. I'm a 'contra-revolutionary', you say? You're an idiot. At least i'm not running a migration to Cuba group where you reccommend taking enough money 'more like $100,000' to buy 'luxury items, for example hygene products'. Great example of your socialism in action :lol:


No, bureaucrats is not class. Bureaucrat is public servant who work, it's worker, from working class

Wrong again. These bureaucrats of the state are the real owners of the means of production, not the Cuban working class.

Now, do you wish to try and give concrete and factual evidence as to the ownership of the means of production in Cuba and democratic worker's control, or will you be shutting up now?

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Many Trotskyists on the board have supported my view on the Cuban Revolution and the fact that Cuba is a state-capitalist country. So why does my friend the Trotsykist still insist that Cuba is a good example of socialism?

[SecondLife]

So what? That is not evidence. I don't take what a leader says uncritically. You have not shown that the working class are in control of the means of production.
Socialism needs democracy. You've still given absolutely zero evidence to Cuba's apparent 'socialism'.

What kind of evidence you want? This kind of evidences usually wants right-wing. You can enjoy democracy also in your home.


2. I'm a 'contra-revolutionary', you say? You're an idiot. At least i'm not running a migration to Cuba group where you reccommend taking enough money 'more like $100,000' to buy 'luxury items, for example hygene products'. Great example of your socialism in action :lol:

Is this too much or not enough? I understand that you are 20 (in profile) and don't have jet your own house (of course you cant sell your parents house). Or you really think that nowadays communists are only poor people? Wrong!


Wrong again. These bureaucrats of the state are the real owners of the means of production, not the Cuban working class.

Prove it!
The real owners have better to do than work in office.

[BobKKKindle$]

What kind of evidence you want? This kind of evidences usually wants right-wing. You can enjoy democracy also in your home.I don't think Sam_b or any of the other people who use this site can really enjoy democracy at home because all of us live in capitalist societies, and capitalism, as a system based on the division of society into classes through private ownership of the means of production, in which the vast majority of people have no choice but to subject themselves to the control of others by selling their labour power, cannot be reconciled with democracy - the only way you can enjoy genuine and complete democracy is if capitalism has been overthrown and replaced with an alternative system based on collective and popular control of the economy. This is why we are Marxists - we want to live in a free society. When Sam_b asks for evidence he is quite clearly asking you to point to the institutions that allow Cuban workers to control their workplaces and make decisions that apply to the whole economy. Where are the workers and consumers councils, for instance?


Or you really think that nowadays communists are only poor people?I think "poor people" is a bit demeaning, but why would someone want to overthrow capitalism if they had enough money to live in luxury and not have to worry about things like debts and jobs? Communism is a project that is based on the self-emancipation of the working class, and that means that we're necessarily in conflict with the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeois state apparatus.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Your friend may be the "orthodox Trotskyist" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodox_Trotskyism) type as opposed to third camp types (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Camp).

Thanks for the links. Really helpful. I always seem to see Trots on the board say things and I think I don't think my friend would think that....

[teenagebricks]

Cuba has many capitalist elements, but I don't think it will be the next China or USSR, without things like tourist resorts Cuba would simply keel over and die. I'm hopefully going to Cuba with my other half in January, I'm not expecting to find a socialist utopia, but I am certain that I will see a society free of economic and cultural imperialism.

[Sam_b]

I agree with what Bob says of course, and I just wanted to add a couple (probably my last, but who knows?) thoughts against this irrational knee-jerk reaction to Cuba as 'socialist'.


What kind of evidence you want? This kind of evidences usually wants right-wing. You can enjoy democracy also in your home

As Bob says, if Cuba is socialist like you claim, where are the worker's councils? Where are the factory committees that control the means of production? If all power s concentrated in the hands of the working class, what evidence is there to show for it?


Is this too much or not enough? I understand that you are 20 (in profile) and don't have jet your own house (of course you cant sell your parents house). Or you really think that nowadays communists are only poor people? Wrong!

I'll see through this patrionising piece of ageism and say that you 'understand' nothing. You don't know me and have absolutely no idea about what life I lead. I don't live in my parent's home, not that this is any of your business: I work on top of my studies and use this money to pay rent on a flat that I live in, in Glasgow. It seems to me with your, to put it mildy, bizarre, post in your 'Migrate to Cuba' group (which, funnily enough only has one member), that it is in fact you that wants to live a life of luxury amongst the Cuban working class - seeing as you reccommend vast amounts of money to move there.

So in short, don't make assumptions about a person that you know nothing about, apart from seeing for a couple of weeks on an nternet forum.


Prove it!
The real owners have better to do than work in office.

Proof? Fine.

We could of course start with the income disparity amongst the population, and I would point to the multitude of 'dollar' and 'peso' shops in existence on the island. Tourist workers in Cuba tend to get paid in dollars which are valued more than average workers paid in Cuban Pesos.

Issac Saney's book "Cuba - A Revolution in Motion" is pro-Cuba and pro-socialist, yet he even admits that: "tourism and foreign investment increased inequality in Cuba, rekindled elitist attitudes, and brought an increase in crime, including prostitution".

Yet, however, look at the privileged elite running the economy. Socialist Worker says that:
Regimes such as Cuba’s can make all sorts of progressive reforms “from above” – but they cannot single handedly opt out of the world capitalist system, nor can they substitute for socialism “from below”, where the mass of ordinary people rise up and take their destinies into their own hands.
Despite all the crises and contradictions, Castro’s regime has survived. The undoubted authoritarianism of the Cuban system has certainly helped in this regard, but this fact alone doesn’t explain the regime’s durability.
Part of the reason is that Castro could draw on a genuine nationalist feeling of pride. Cubans are proud to have held out against all that the mighty US has thrown at them.
Yet the various forms of dissent in the country – still largely individual or small scale – indicate the difficulties ahead for a hierarchical regime used to giving orders and having them carried out.
Castro’s Cuba is a paradox. Once an attempt to break from colonial dependence, it was defeated by the impossibility of a small island breaking with the rules of the world market.
Once a revolution with mass popular backing, if not mass popular participation, it became a stagnant hierarchy with authoritarian control.


Again, and for one more time, I attain that on Cuba: we should celebrate and defend the gains made by the Cuban revolution, and defend it against imperialism, but it is far from a socialist country as there is no working class control of the means of production. You assrt there is, and the onus is on you to prove it.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Sam:



As Bob says, if Cuba is socialist like you claim, where are the worker's councils? Where are the factory committees that control the means of production? If all power s concentrated in the hands of the working class, what evidence is there to show for it?
Again, and for one more time, I attain that on Cuba: we should celebrate and defend the gains made by the Cuban revolution, and defend it against imperialism, but it is far from a socialist country as there is no working class control of the means of production. You assrt there is, and the onus is on you to prove it.http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html (http://members.allstream.net/%7Edchris/CubaFAQ.html)

http://www.themilitant.com/2007/7113/711359.html

http://www.angelfire.com/pr/red/cuba/democracy_in_cuba.htm

It would be safe to say, in my opinion, that workers in Cuba have a significant amount of control.


edit: another good source (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/wfbcjcub.txt).

[manic expression]

I agree with what Bob says of course, and I just wanted to add a couple (probably my last, but who knows?) thoughts against this irrational knee-jerk reaction to Cuba as 'socialist'.

As Bob says, if Cuba is socialist like you claim, where are the worker's councils? Where are the factory committees that control the means of production? If all power s concentrated in the hands of the working class, what evidence is there to show for it?

The workers councils come in many forms. First, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR's) carry out working-class control on a community-wide basis (their motto: "In every neighborhood, revolution!"). Second, trade unions, women's associations, youth organizations and other social groups take an active and direct role in Cuban society. Last, the Cuban government is composed of workers elected directly through working-class democracy: each neighborhood comes together to nominate and elect, without the participation of any party apparatus, representatives who recieve no wage for their time in office.

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html


Proof? Fine.

We could of course start with the income disparity amongst the population, and I would point to the multitude of 'dollar' and 'peso' shops in existence on the island. Tourist workers in Cuba tend to get paid in dollars which are valued more than average workers paid in Cuban Pesos.

Issac Saney's book "Cuba - A Revolution in Motion" is pro-Cuba and pro-socialist, yet he even admits that: "tourism and foreign investment increased inequality in Cuba, rekindled elitist attitudes, and brought an increase in crime, including prostitution".

There are such unfortunate elements, yes. However, that does not change the foundation of the Cuban state. Some increased inequality, which HAS been mitigated as of late (compared to the late 90's, for example), does not make a socialist society un-socialist.

On your claims about a "privileged elite" running the economy, nothing could be further from the truth. The Cuban state is run by and for the workers of Cuba, and if you review the link I posted ("Democracy in Cuba"), I think you'll find proof of this. Every revolution has its leaders and its vanguard, and Cuba is no exception, so to try to use this as evidence of counterrevolution is quite paper-thin IMO.

[Sam_b]

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html

Source on this guy, anyone?

I find it pretty hard to swallow the "there are no opposition parties elected because they cannot buy an election" line when much of what Trotskyist academic Mike Gonzalez says on the issue contradicts this ("Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution"). I think the Socialist Worker article too points out the need to reform the economic system into one more friendly to the working class.

But how can a country really be socialist when it system still operates on a state-capitalist basis?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Source on this guy, anyone?

I find it pretty hard to swallow the "there are no opposition parties elected because they cannot buy an election" line when much of what Trotskyist academic Mike Gonzalez says on the issue contradicts this ("Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution"). I think the Socialist Worker article too points out the need to reform the economic system into one more friendly to the working class.

There are no opposition parties elected because Cuba has a non-partisan system.


But how can a country really be socialist when it system still operates on a state-capitalist basis?

It can't.

[Sam_b]

There are no opposition parties elected because Cuba has a non-partisan system.


Yes, well that was the point.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Yes, well that was the point.

That doesn't mean it isn't democratic. I'd say that makes it far more democratic than a multi-party system.

[Sam_b]

I didn't say that. Rather it would show up the sentence I highlighted as being rather illogical.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Source on this guy, anyone?
There are plenty of sources listed on the site.


I find it pretty hard to swallow the "there are no opposition parties elected because they cannot buy an election" line when much of what Trotskyist academic Mike Gonzalez says on the issue contradicts this ("Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution"). I think the Socialist Worker article too points out the need to reform the economic system into one more friendly to the working class.

But how can a country really be socialist when it system still operates on a state-capitalist basis?This really depends on your definition of socialism, and of course the elusive "state-capitalism".

If you view the DOTP as socialism, then yeah Cuba would be socialist. If you think of socialism more as the global overthrow of the bourgeoisie (which is a common viewpoint held by trots if I'm not mistaken) the no Cuba is a simply a worker's state developing socialism. There should be little question of whether or not the current system in Cuba is democratically controlled by the working class, because it is. When we start speaking of "state-capitalism" in Cuba, then it's something I view as a side effect of the post-CCCP situation. Cuba really has no choice but to operate limited 'state-capitalism', but the majority of employment in Cuba is either in the public sector or the municapl farm collectives; really the only markets in Cuba exist for tourism.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

While the sites listed above are good, there is some inconsistency. Here's a description of the Cuban political system from the Cuban government itself:

cubaminrex.cu/English/61CDH/Complete%20texts/Cuba%B4s%20Political%20and%20Elections%20System.ht m

[mykittyhasaboner]

^ Link is dead.

[Magdalen]

I noticed Sam made a reference to Mike Gonzalez, the SWP's so-called 'expert' on Latin America, a man who in the past has referred readers of Socialist Worker to the works of the late Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the terrorist Cuban-American National Foundation in the US, and close friend of Luís Posada Carriles. In 2004, Gonzalez called upon 'socialists' to help Cuban people to organise against their own socialist government.

In 'Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution', Mike Gonzalez told numerous lies about the revolutionary struggle which lead to the overthrow of Batista. He claimed that the M26J was 'not connected with the trade unions or any other organisations outside its own circle'. What Gonzalez failed to mention was that the Cuban trade union movement was at that time under the control of Eusebio Mujal, an ex-anarchist turned notorious anti-communist and ally of Batista, who had raked in over $1 million through corruption and his ties to the Mafia. When Gonzalez described the 'disastrous failure' of the M26J led general strike of 1958, he decided to omit the military's brutal suppression of the strike at the behest of Mujal and the murder of 400 dissenting trade unionists in Havana. The fact that other guerilla forces belonging to the Revolutionary Directorate and the Popular Socialist Party fought with the M26J in the Sierra Escambray through the Pedrero Pact was also ignored.

The ignorance of Gonzalez with regards to the reactionary pre-revolutionary Cuban trade union movement bears a great similarity towards the SWP's ignorance with regards to the reactionary British trade union movement. Derek Simpson, a supposed 'ex-communist' with his proud membership of the Labour Party, his £200,000 salary, his penchant for £400-a-night hotel rooms and his 'British jobs for British workers' could quite easily be Eusebio Mujal in another time and place. Recognition of the fact that a socialist revolution can be built outside of the established labour movement would represent a crushing blow to the SWP line which gives the unions and their Labour Party buddies a key role in building a movement.

[SecondLife]

there are no opposition parties

Cuba is one-party system, but this don't mean that there doesn't exist elections (inside party and also in municipal level).
Cuban danger to transform into capitalism can be at all in its too democracy nature. Imagine if there become multi-party system. Oposition party-members are also workers, but they can be fasists, conservatives or at all CIA agents. Nowadays all are workers. Capitalists can be workers and also workers can be capitalists. Nowadays there isn't possible to look into human face and say who he/she is.


But how can a country really be socialist when it system still operates on a state-capitalist basis?
"state-capitalism" means "dictatorship of proletariate" and it's leaded by bolsheviks-party. :D Cuba isn't exactly this but I agreed, it doesn't need to fit also with yours political flavor. But anyway, sometimes we just need to choose right (I mean left) side, regardless that all isn't like we want. To be solidaristic.

[Das war einmal]

Some people here giving me a headache, with their lame and meaningless terms about 'state-capitalism' which no man outside this forum has ever heard of. Nobody gives a wooden nickel about your 'true communism/ socials', ever heard of the 'not a true Scotsman fallacy'? If you look at the dictionary you'll probably find a picture of so called 'communists', meaning everyone here who's *****ing about Cuba being capitalist

[teenagebricks]

"state-capitalism" means "dictatorship of proletariate"
Are you sure about that?

[Glenn Beck]

To me the discussion on when precisely you can call a state 'socialist' is a horribly pedantic one akin to asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I can never convince myself that there is any purpose in such debates. Revolution comes out of capitalist society and it is not only difficult but undesirable to immediately alter every single aspect of society based on some ideological plan, to hell with the consequences.

Far more important than "where we are at" is "where we've been" and "where we are going". If you take "state-capitalist" logic to its conclusions we have had nothing but state-capitalist revolutions. If communism is so fragile and prone to misinterpretation and manipulation that the majority of self-proclaimed communists are really either confused or dishonest capitalists then I think it's about time we gave up on the idea and came up with something new. I really don't see much of an in-between.

[JohnnyC]

"state-capitalism" means "dictatorship of proletariate" and it's leaded by bolsheviks-party.
State capitalism is just capitalism administrated by state instead of businesses.DOP is revolutionary period during which working class socialize means of production, destroy capitalist state and establish socialism.See any difference?

[Il Medico]

I certainly hope not! Cuba has been the closest thing to a socialist country ever created, and is one of the last home of revolutionary ideals. Modern countries with communist/socialist leaders are little more than social democracy. While social democracy is better than free market capitalism, it is still capitalist. Cuba, however, is much more concerned with the people than even the most liberal social democracy, like Sweden. If there is to be an inspiration for this generation of revolutionaries, then Cuba must stand strong!:cubaflag::castro::che::cubaflag::hammersic kle:

[manic expression]

State capitalism is just capitalism administrated by state instead of businesses.DOP is revolutionary period during which working class socialize means of production, destroy capitalist state and establish socialism.See any difference?

There are a ton of problems here. I'll deal with a few of the theoretical shortcomings of this below, but the most important factors are the last two paragraphs.

First, in order to buy your argument, you need to believe that a state can function as a capitalist class, which doesn't work too well for a few reasons. Capitalism operates with the means of production owned as private property; if there isn't any private property, there isn't a capitalist class in power. Also, even if you believe that in a worker state a bureaucracy can conquer power (etc, insert Trotskyist analysis here), that bureaucracy cannot make capitalist profit because, according to Trotsky himself, their position and privilege is based on abuse of power within a worker state that has already abolished capitalism. If you don't accept Trotsky, you simply need to consider the fact that the capitalist state is formed to protect and strengthen capitalist property; merging the two is counterproductive from the capitalist point of view, and moreover it's essentially contradictory because of the points mentioned earlier.

Second, in order to buy your argument, you need to essentially ignore the class character of states. Would you declare a proletarian state, after it had nationalized industry and asserted working-class state power over society, "state capitalist"? After all, the signal difference is that the workers expropriate everything the expropriators previously owned. Is that not the economy "administrated by state instead of businesses"?

Lastly, none of this matches up to history. Would a capitalist state send soldiers across the Atlantic to fight apartheid and expect nothing in return? Would a capitalist state send doctors to oppressed peoples around the world and, again, expect nothing in return? Would a capitalist state put just about every resource available into public healthcare, housing, education, transportation, infrastructure and the like? Wouldn't a capitalist state be more concerned with fattening its pockets? Essentially, the accusation makes absolutely no sense once you study Cuban history with any seriousness.

And ignoring all that, you can't apply ANY definition of "state capitalism" proposed thus far to Cuba, because the Cuban state is run by and for the workers, as has been proven on this thread. That's the difference.

[Eva]

Cuba is a socialist nation. A great majority of the means of products belong to the state. As long as there are capitalist nations in the world, capitalist element will be present in the development of social and industrial programs.

In 1990, the soviet union dissolved, which led the Cuban economy -which was already a victim of shortages- to enter into very difficult times. GDP fell by a third, supplies of electricity, water, basic foods, and transportation were sparse or non-existent. For decades Cuban had relied mostly on mono-cultures.

In 1995, Cuba stepped back from the brick of collapse with a new law that allowed foreign investors into the country.The two laws ( Law 77, and Law 5290) state that the Cuban government is interested in investments that will give the country the opportunity to develop new technologies and the ability to export more products. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It is important to point out that earning a license to operate in Cuba is a difficult task. Every company has to go to great lengths to earn the trust of the government. Although state laws state that is possible for a foreign investor to own 100% of a venture, to this date, only one company has been given this rights. Policy encourages 50-50 joint ventures.

Tourism is one of Cuba's biggest export, providing up to 40% of its foreign exchange revenue. Another big source of income is energy. Cuba is currently developing its mineral industry. FDI and exports are growing steadily.

Needless to say, the Cuban government is greatly in need of hard currency to fund social programs, pay for food imports (which come up to about $2.8 billion), further industrialize, and repair (Cuba is hit by hurricanes just about every summer). Through ALBA, Cuba has established time-delayed system for payment and low-interest loans with Venezuela, and signed several joint venture agreements particularly in telecommunications. Human capital is also highly important in Cuba. In 2008, the government's main source of income was from exported services.

I see Cuba as a nation more interested in its survival than in participating in global economic competition. I don't see it further heading towards capitalism, but rather looking forward to cooperating with other nations as a means to bettering the quality of life of its citizens.

Although I am not a fan of Castro, I stand by Cuba and I think that is pedantic to strip it from everything it has accomplished considering its immensely difficult situation.

[Sam_b]

"state-capitalism" means "dictatorship of proletariate" and it's leaded by bolsheviks-party

You know when in other threads I told you to read some books? Well, I couldn't make it stronger now: read some theory before you make up bollocks like this.

[Glenn Beck]

Lastly, none of this matches up to history. Would a capitalist state send soldiers across the Atlantic to fight apartheid and expect nothing in return? Would a capitalist state send doctors to oppressed peoples around the world and, again, expect nothing in return? Would a capitalist state put just about every resource available into public healthcare, housing, education, transportation, infrastructure and the like? Wouldn't a capitalist state be more concerned with fattening its pockets? Essentially, the accusation makes absolutely no sense once you study Cuban history with any seriousness.

Indeed. What on earth would be the motivation to not sell-out to international capitalism using control of the state and its military as a bargaining chip? Why limit oneself to an isolated and embattled economy with massive social welfare programs that would no doubt be considered a nuisance and a drain by some wannabe usurper bureaucracy? Certainly there are ways in which the administration of a socialist state can go severely awry but this analysis of equating the administrators of the state to a disguised capitalist class just doesn't hold water to me. They simply do not act the way you would expect them to if this were the case.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

First, in order to buy your argument, you need to believe that a state can function as a capitalist class, which doesn't work too well for a few reasons. Capitalism operates with the means of production owned as private property; if there isn't any private property, there isn't a capitalist class in power.

I agree, but what makes control by a dictatorial bureaucracy essentially different from control by the capitalist class? The working class don't have control in either case, so is it just semantics? In this situation we have the same class relations as under capitalism: one class with possession of the means of production and one class that possesses nothing but their labor power.


Also, even if you believe that in a worker state a bureaucracy can conquer power (etc, insert Trotskyist analysis here), that bureaucracy cannot make capitalist profit because, according to Trotsky himself, their position and privilege is based on abuse of power within a worker state that has already abolished capitalism.
A workers state that has already abolished capitalism is impossible. What is the difference between the state employing a wage system and appropriating surplus value and a capitalist doing it? Semantics again?

You act as if the idea of state capitalism is something alien to Marxism:


But the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers 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 national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national 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. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.

[manic expression]

I agree, but what makes control by a dictatorial bureaucracy essentially different from control by the capitalist class? The working class don't have control in either case, so is it just semantics? In this situation we have the same class relations as under capitalism: one class with possession of the means of production and one class that possesses nothing but their labor power.

It's meaningless if you look only at political power, it's not meaningless if you look at what sort of society necessarily arises from material conditions. If a "dictatorial bureaucracy" presides over a society that has already done away with the material basis of capitalism, the social structure and relations of capitalism can't exist. Basically, if no one's profiting from the direct exploitation of labor, it's useless to use the label capitalist.

And there cannot be the same class relations as under capitalism because there is no functioning capitalist class; the working class might not be politically empowered, but that does not make the situation the same at all.

I would argue that it's unnecessary and unhelpful to conjure a myriad of labels to describe shortcomings in socialist societies; flaws are flaws and they should be seen that way. I think such an outlook can promote more solidarity among revolutionaries instead of nit-picking (I'm not talking about you). That's all tangential, though.

However, just to reiterate, none of this applies to Cuba, because Cuba is socialist. The workers control the state and the means of production, and exploitation of the working class has long been abolished.


A workers state that has already abolished capitalism is impossible. What is the difference between the state employing a wage system and appropriating surplus value and a capitalist doing it? Semantics again?

The capitalist does it through private ownership of industry, the worker state does it through working-class control of the means of production. The difference lies in who controls it, and by extension for whose interests it is controlled. That's the main division between the two, and an innumerable amount of other changes, changes which touch upon every aspect of life, come with that.


You act as if the idea of state capitalism is something alien to Marxism:

That's a useful passage, but it doesn't apply here so easily, because the starting and end points are not comparable. Nationalization of industry under capitalism is done in certain cases, mostly exceptions, and the recent nationalizations of banking by the Obama administration illustrates this. The capitalists also nationalize or monopolize what they term natural monopolies, which essentially means they think an industry can be run better if a monopoly (sometimes state-owned) is established. The capitalist class almost always undertakes such initiatives with caution, and they are only taken as far as they need to be. The assertion that Cuba (or the Soviet Union, for that matter) is capitalist because some capitalist states nationalize some industry, however, is inconsistent because it doesn't take into account the process and impetus inherent in the capitalist method of nationalization.

And whatever Engels was talking about, it surely cannot be compared to the way in which anti-Bolsheviks and anti-Soviets began to use the term after the Russian Revolution.

In the end, this entire argument depends on the assumption that Cuban workers do not control their government, which has been shown to be a misled one by multiple posts on this thread.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

It's meaningless if you look only at political power, it's not meaningless if you look at what sort of society necessarily arises from material conditions. If a "dictatorial bureaucracy" presides over a society that has already done away with the material basis of capitalism, the social structure and relations of capitalism can't exist. Basically, if no one's profiting from the direct exploitation of labor, it's useless to use the label capitalist.

What is the material basis of captialism? Private property. If the workers don't have control over the property, then yes, we have the material basis for capitalism. As Engels pointed out, an economy based on state ownership of private property still has capitalist relations if it is not under the control of the working class.


And there cannot be the same class relations as under capitalism because there is no functioning capitalist class; the working class might not be politically empowered, but that does not make the situation the same at all.Sure there is.


However, just to reiterate, none of this applies to Cuba, because Cuba is socialist. The workers control the state and the means of production, and exploitation of the working class has long been abolished.I'm not talking about Cuba, I'm talking about any random nation with state ownership that isn't under working class countrol.


The capitalist does it through private ownership of industry, the worker state does it through working-class control of the means of production. The difference lies in who controls it, and by extension for whose interests it is controlled. That's the main division between the two, and an innumerable amount of other changes, changes which touch upon every aspect of life, come with that.I am not talking about workers states.


That's a useful passage, but it doesn't apply here so easily, because the starting and end points are not comparable. Nationalization of industry under capitalism is done in certain cases, mostly exceptions, and the recent nationalizations of banking by the Obama administration illustrates this. The capitalists also nationalize or monopolize what they term natural monopolies, which essentially means they think an industry can be run better if a monopoly (sometimes state-owned) is established. The capitalist class almost always undertakes such initiatives with caution, and they are only taken as far as they need to be. The assertion that Cuba (or the Soviet Union, for that matter) is capitalist because some capitalist states nationalize some industry, however, is inconsistent because it doesn't take into account the process and impetus inherent in the capitalist method of nationalization.It applies here very easily. The assertion isn't that because some capitalist states nationalize production that any state that does can't be a workers state, the idea is that state ownership that isn't under the control of the working class has the same class relations as capitalism.

[SecondLife]

, the idea is that state ownership that isn't under the control of the working class has the same class relations as capitalism.

I understand that this misundrestanding is in questions who 'controls state' and 'who owns state'. Workers or capitalists?
Capitalists can't never own state (even in capitalist country), because state isn't private ownership. It can be private ownership only in absolute monarchy. Capitalists can only control state. But after revolution, after nationalization, there don't exist anymore private ownership and therefore don't exist also capitalists who can control state. There then stays only workers. Bureaucrats aren't class itself, because they can't be private owners and can't own means of production, because state isn't private ownership (as they work for state). They are workers. Workers control then state and owns means of production, but also (as capitalists) can't be private owners of state. The point is that word private means single. But only all workers together, not single worker can own and control means of production of state (or country).
There isn't difference, if example capitalists render up their personal means of productions, then capitalists simply also becomes working class.
For "all workers together" are able to own and control means of production, needed bureaucrats who eliminate possibility from single worker to become private owner and starts control and own means of production and becomes capitalist.

[Cumannach]

The whole concept of 'state-capitalism' as used by revionists and even by anti-revisionists in regard to the later Soviet Union is a terribly muddy contradictory, messy concept, quite void really of useful meaning.

Socialism is the transition from capitalism to communism, the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the proletariat changes the relations of production and organizes socialist production. The proletariat seized state power in the October Revolution and the Soviet Union was a socialist state.

The proletariat does not seize state power merely to do nothing with it and twiddle it's fingers. Lenin, and Stalin and the other Bolsheviks in the early 20's only ever used phrases such as 'Socialism does not yet exist' or 'Socialism is not yet achieved' or 'Socialism has not yet been built' to refer to the fact that large scale socialist industrial production has not yet been organised, the rise in the standard of living that depended on this was not yet possible, and there still existed temporary limited capitalist relations in light industry and agriculture, which existence could possibly pose a political threat to working class power.

Socialist production was only starting up and the heavy industrial base required to become self-sufficient in the production of the means of production, and all other branches of industry, was still being put on it's feet and developed. Everyone was aware that the Soviet Union (the proletariat organized as the ruling class) had already expropriated the land, the heavy industrial plants and the banks, and that it had taken control of foreign trade, organized co-operatives and collectives, and that the purchasing of labour power had been tightly restricted and was pending abolition while socialist accumulation for industry progressed, and agricultural output was being restored.

So if the word has any useful meaning, the Soviet Union was socialist, as it was changing the relations of production, organizing socialist production and transitioning towards communism.

As for appealing to quotes by Lenin, that the Soviet Union was actually 'state-capitalist' or that 'socialism could not be achieved in the one country of the Soviet Union';

"Under private capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from capitalist enterprises as collective enterprises differ from private enterprises. Under state capitalism, cooperative enterprises differ from state capitalist enterprises, firstly, because they are private enterprises, and, secondly, because they are collective enterprises. Under our present system, cooperative enterprises differ from private capitalist enterprises because they are collective enterprises, but do not differ from socialist enterprises if the land on which they are situated and means of production belong to the state, i.e., the working-class."

Lenin
-(On Co-operation) 1923

So Lenin did not consider the Soviet Union 'state-capitalist'.

"Indeed, the power of the state over all large-scale means of production, political power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured proletarian leadership of the peasantry, etc. — is this not all that is necessary to build a complete socialist society...?...It is still not the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for it."

Lenin
-(On Co-operation) 1923

So in 1923, several years after the Revolution Lenin believed Socialism in one country was possible, just as he had believed it before the Revolution.

[ZeroNowhere]

"State capitalism is capitalism that we must confine within certain bounds; but we have not yet learned to confine it within those bounds. That is the whole point. And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be. We have sufficient, quite sufficient political power; we also have sufficient economic resources at our command, but the vanguard of the working class which has been brought to the forefront to directly supervise, to determine the boundaries, to demarcate, to subordinate and not be subordinated itself, lacks sufficient ability for it. All that is needed here is ability, and that is what we do not have.

"Never before in history has there been a situation in which the proletariat, the revolutionary vanguard, possessed sufficient political power and had state capitalism existing along side it. The whole question turns on our understanding that this is the capitalism that we can and must permit, that we can and must confine within certain bounds; for this capitalism is essential for the broad masses of the peasantry and for private capital, which must trade in such a way as to satisfy the needs of the peasantry. We must organise things in such a way as to make possible the customary operation of capitalist economy and capitalist exchange, because this is essential for the people. Without it, existence is impossible. All the rest is not an absolutely vital matter to this camp. They can resign themselves to all that. You Communists, you workers, you, the politically enlightened section of the proletariat, which under took to administer the state, must be able to arrange it so that the state, which you have taken into your hands, shall function the way you want it to. Well, we have lived through a year, the state is in our hands; but has it operated the New Economic Policy in the way we wanted in this past year? No. But we refuse to admit that it did not operate in the way we wanted. How did it operate? The machine refused to obey the hand that guided it. It was like a car that was going not in the direction the driver desired, but in the direction someone else desired; as if it were being driven by some mysterious, lawless hand, God knows whose, perhaps of a profiteer, or of a private capitalist, or of both. Be that as it may, the car is not going quite in the direction the man at the wheel imagines, and often it goes in an altogether different direction."
-Lenin (1922).

So yes, he did seem to be claiming that Russia was 'state capitalist', the only thing one can debate is what he meant by this.


Some people here giving me a headache, with their lame and meaningless terms about 'state-capitalism' which no man outside this forum has ever heard of. Nobody gives a wooden nickel about your 'true communism/ socials', ever heard of the 'not a true Scotsman fallacy'? If you look at the dictionary you'll probably find a picture of so called 'communists', meaning everyone here who's *****ing about Cuba being capitalist
Firstly, it's 'No True Scotsman'. Secondly, that's nice.


......and if you say that Cuba was not socialist, then you are probably CIA agent.Be afraid.

[manic expression]

What is the material basis of captialism? Private property. If the workers don't have control over the property, then yes, we have the material basis for capitalism. As Engels pointed out, an economy based on state ownership of private property still has capitalist relations if it is not under the control of the working class.

The working class doesn't control property under feudalism, either; does that alone make it capitalist?


Sure there is.

The two are not inherent. Political power does not equal property relations or material conditions. When Louis Bonaparte took control of France, Marx commented that even the bourgeoisie was forced to its knees; he did not, however say that France ceased to be capitalist because the capitalist class had been politically deprived. Under your logic, the Second French Empire would not have been capitalist when it so obviously was.


I'm not talking about Cuba, I'm talking about any random nation with state ownership that isn't under working class countrol.

Any random nation with state ownership? That's nebulous and vague, and moreover it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Perhaps you could start another thread on this second subject.


I am not talking about workers states.

Then we're not talking about the same thing, and you're not talking about what most anti-Bolshevik "socialists" term "state capitalism", which refers to post-revolutionary states such as the USSR.


It applies here very easily. The assertion isn't that because some capitalist states nationalize production that any state that does can't be a workers state, the idea is that state ownership that isn't under the control of the working class has the same class relations as capitalism.

OK, so Louis XIV and Diocletian were out-and-out capitalists because they nationalized the means of production and denied the workers any power. Does that make any sense to you?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

The working class doesn't control property under feudalism, either; does that alone make it capitalist?

The working class doesn't exist under feudalism.


The two are not inherent. Political power does not equal property relations or material conditions. When Louis Bonaparte took control of France, Marx commented that even the bourgeoisie was forced to its knees; he did not, however say that France ceased to be capitalist because the capitalist class had been politically deprived. Under your logic, the Second French Empire would not have been capitalist when it so obviously was.And this is something I've never asserted. The capitalist class exists under the workers state for example, that's basic knowledge. We aren't talking about simple political power, we're talking about state ownership of the entire economy.



Any random nation with state ownership? That's nebulous and vague, and moreover it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Perhaps you could start another thread on this second subject.You said the state can't function as the capitalist class. This is obviously an anti-Marxist position, as shown by the passage quoted from Anti-Duhring.


Then we're not talking about the same thing, and you're not talking about what most anti-Bolshevik "socialists" term "state capitalism", which refers to post-revolutionary states such as the USSR.The USSR was no doubt state capitalist for the most of it's existence, and it was never socialist as most "anti-revisionist" "socialists" like to claim.

[manic expression]

The working class doesn't exist under feudalism.

Under feudal rulers it did, but that was not my point. The urban proletariat, after all, has not been the only working class throughout history. My premise was that basing a societal judgment on the lack of working-class state control is faulty for exactly those reasons, as it takes into account no material conditions, no property relations, no substantial material analysis.


And this is something I've never asserted. The capitalist class exists under the workers state for example, that's basic knowledge. We aren't talking about simple political power, we're talking about state ownership of the entire economy.

But we are talking about political power, because you included exactly this in your argument.

The working class don't have control in either case, so is it just semantics? In this situation we have the same class relations as under capitalism: one class with possession of the means of production and one class that possesses nothing but their labor power.

Control, here, is the central point.


You said the state can't function as the capitalist class. This is obviously an anti-Marxist position, as shown by the passage quoted from Anti-Duhring.

You mean Engels' quote? As I explained, that has little to do with the subject at hand, and refers to the process of nationalization under capitalism. The starting and ending points, as I said, are wholly different.


The USSR was no doubt state capitalist for the most of it's existence, and it was never socialist as most "anti-revisionist" "socialists" like to claim.

If you want to talk about the USSR, that makes this a lot easier. The Soviet Union had no private property, no exploitation of labor by bosses, a state monopoly on foreign trade from which no direct profit was made by its administrators. As Trotsky himself came to point out, whatever shortcomings of the Soviet state one can assert, these are based on abuse of power within an already-established worker state, and thus are incompatible with the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism cannot function under such circumstances.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Under feudal rulers it did, but that was not my point. The urban proletariat, after all, has not been the only working class throughout history.

What's funny is that you said I was wrong before when I said the same thing. :laugh:


My premise was that basing a societal judgment on the lack of working-class state control is faulty for exactly those reasons, as it takes into account no material conditions, no property relations, no substantial material analysis.We're dealing with the relation between capital and the working class, neither of which exist under feudalism. Throwing around "material conditions" and "material analysis" a lot isn't enough to cover up your blatant revisionism.


But we are talking about political power, because you included exactly this in your argument.

The working class don't have control in either case, so is it just semantics? In this situation we have the same class relations as under capitalism: one class with possession of the means of production and one class that possesses nothing but their labor power.

Control, here, is the central point.
And having political power is not the same thing as having control over the means of production. If it was, there would be no such thing as a workers state. We're dealing with political power that entails possession of all of the means of production.


You mean Engels' quote? As I explained, that has little to do with the subject at hand, and refers to the process of nationalization under capitalism. The starting and ending points, as I said, are wholly different.It has plenty to do with the subject at hand. The USSR had the same relation of capital to labor that Engels is describing. The starting point is irrelevant if the result is the same.


If you want to talk about the USSR, that makes this a lot easier. The Soviet Union had no private property, no exploitation of labor by bosses, a state monopoly on foreign trade from which no direct profit was made by its administrators. And as I said, state ownership of the entire economy is essentially the same as private control of the economy by the capitalist class. You're avoiding the actual content in favor of arguing over the semantics of wether it would technically be private property. Yes, there was exploitation. Yes, there was surplus value.


As Trotsky himself came to point out, whatever shortcomings of the Soviet state one can assert, these are based on abuse of power within an already-established worker state, and thus are incompatible with the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism cannot function under such circumstances.I don't give a shit about Trotsky. If the workers were not in control, it was not a workers state. This isn't simply corrupt delegates in a proletarian democracy. As shown by Engels, state ownership of capital does not do away with capitalist production relations. By your loose definition of socialism, Saudi Arabia is socialist.

[manic expression]

What's funny is that you said I was wrong before when I said the same thing. :laugh:

Yeah, that's nice, it's good to see you like to hold grudges.


We're dealing with the relation between capital and the working class, neither of which exist under feudalism. Throwing around "material conditions" and "material analysis" a lot isn't enough to cover up your blatant revisionism.I was only using your own definitions. In late absolutist France, there was a proletariat, and it did not have state power. Was this, with an all-powerful king and nobility and clerg, a capitalist society? Don't run away from the conclusions of your own arguments.

In addition, the point, which you continually ignore, is that you are neglecting the entire basis of society when you focus solely upon political power. As I said in regard to Louis Bonaparte, the fact that a capitalist class is denied power does not reorganize society along non-capitalist lines; to the contrary, that structure is defended. The same goes for a society that, after achieving revolutionary changes (abolition of private property, collectivization of production, etc.), minimized working-class state power.

Since you failed to address this before, I'll state it again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. This is surely false, as are your assertions that the USSR was un-socialist.


And having political power is not the same thing as having control over the means of production. If it was, there would be no such thing as a workers state. We're dealing with political power that entails possession of all of the means of production.Yes, but you refuse to deal with how those means of production are organized. If they're collectivized, it's simply impossible to call the state capitalist, no matter how little political influence the proletariat may have. Once again, you're dodging the issue.


It has plenty to do with the subject at hand. The USSR had the same relation of capital to labor that Engels is describing. The starting point is irrelevant if the result is the same.No, it really didn't, unless you can point me to this phantom Soviet capitalist class. The bureaucrats didn't make profit through exploitation of labor, they owned nothing. The definition doesn't make sense because it's in contradiction with how workers and industry operated.

And the starting point is not irrelevant, and the result was not the same. Stop making things up. The starting point for Engels' analysis was a capitalist society with private property, and his ending point was cautious nationalization of certain industries due to necessity. The starting point for the Soviet Union was a collectivized society with no empowered capitalist class, and the ending point was a still-collectivized society with no private property, only with less democratic processes. Do try to understand that.


And as I said, state ownership of the entire economy is essentially the same as private control of the economy by the capitalist class. You're avoiding the actual content in favor of arguing over the semantics of wether it would technically be private property. Yes, there was exploitation. Yes, there was surplus value."Essentially the same"? Please, you're making a clear leap in logic. You're asking us to believe that a society without private property is the same as a society with private property. You're asking us to believe that all state ownership, under all conditions and all epochs, equals capitalism. Moreover, you're asking us to believe that the Soviet Union, in direct contradiction to all its laws and policies, had private property after all. Who, exactly, was making capitalist profit at this time? Who, exactly, was owning industry and exploiting labor through that ownership? Once again, we see that your slogans are only that.


I don't give a shit about Trotsky. If the workers were not in control, it was not a workers state. This isn't simply corrupt delegates in a proletarian democracy. As shown by Engels, state ownership of capital does not do away with capitalist production relations. By your loose definition of socialism, Saudi Arabia is socialist.This is wholly anti-Marxist, and unsurprisingly so. Marxists do not define society based on the degrees to which a state has democratic mechanisms, Marxists define society through the study material conditions. The Soviet Union's political system was conditioned directly by the challenges it faced, both in the lack of industry and external threats; it entrenched the same exact gains made in November 1917 and after. Collectivization of property, the absence of private ownership of industry

Engels, for the tenth time, cannot be seriously applied to the Soviet Union. He was writing about nationalizations taken by capitalist classes in times of necessity, not a society that had already abolished private property and the power of the capitalist class, which occurred in the Soviet Union. What developed after that did not change that foundation of that society. Your exploitation of Engels' writings underlines how much you don't comprehend the issue.

Where are these elusive Soviet capitalists? Where is the mysterious Soviet market? On this, you've made empty assertions, nothing more. If you want to make an argument on this, you have to go beyond repeating the meaningless phrase that the workers didn't fully control the state. That means nothing as far as the economic organization of the USSR. You berate me for repeating "material conditions" and "social relations", but it's precisely because you've failed to employ a scientific approach to history that you do this.

[mykittyhasaboner]

While Manic is doing a good job refuting such paper-thin arguments; I'm afraid this thread has gone way off topic. :lol:

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

In addition, the point, which you continually ignore, is that you are neglecting the entire basis of society when you focus solely upon political power. As I said in regard to Louis Bonaparte, the fact that a capitalist class is denied power does not reorganize society along non-capitalist lines; to the contrary, that structure is defended. The same goes for a society that, after achieving revolutionary changes (abolition of private property, collectivization of production, etc.), minimized working-class state power.

And I didn't ignore it nor did I focus solely on political power. I'm not going to go through another debate with you where all you do is misrepresent my arguments.


Since you failed to address this before, I'll state it again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. Actually, if you look above, I addressed that.



Yes, but you refuse to deal with how those means of production are organized. If they're collectivized, it's simply impossible to call the state capitalist, no matter how little political influence the proletariat may have. Once again, you're dodging the issue.I think you need to read my post again. You've said this about my argument a few times already, but if you had actually read my post you would see that this is not the case. If you think it's impossible to call it state capitalist when the means of production are owned by the state, then perhaps you should take that up with Engels.


No, it really didn't, unless you can point me to this phantom Soviet capitalist class. The bureaucrats didn't make profit through exploitation of labor, they owned nothing. The definition doesn't make sense because it's in contradiction with how workers and industry operated.For all your talk of "material analysis" you sure do seem to put a lot more emphasis on semantics than you do on actually analyzing the relation between capital and labor. They had actual control over the means of production, whether it was by legal title changes nothing.


And the starting point is not irrelevant, and the result was not the same. Stop making things up. The starting point for Engels' analysis was a capitalist society with private property, and his ending point was cautious nationalization of certain industries due to necessity. The starting point for the Soviet Union was a collectivized society with no empowered capitalist class, and the ending point was a still-collectivized society with no private property, only with less democratic processes. Do try to understand that.Semantics, semantics, semantics. How is state property that isn't under the control of the working class fundamentally different from capitalist property that isn't under the control of the working class? That's what you've been avoiding.


"Essentially the same"? Please, you're making a clear leap in logic. You're asking us to believe that a society without private property is the same as a society with private property.And you're asking us to believe that using a different word to describe something changes it's content.


You're asking us to believe that all state ownership, under all conditions and all epochs, equals capitalism.No, I'm not.


Moreover, you're asking us to believe that the Soviet Union, in direct contradiction to all its laws and policies, had private property after all.I don't care about the Soviet Unions laws. The fact that you base your analysis on the USSRs laws instead of the actual relations shows how superficial your analysis is.


Who, exactly, was making capitalist profit at this time? Who, exactly, was owning industry and exploiting labor through that ownership? Once again, we see that your slogans are only that.The state. Once again, we see that your analysis is based on semantics.


This is wholly anti-Marxist, and unsurprisingly so. Marxists do not define society based on the degrees to which a state has democratic mechanisms, Marxists define society through the study material conditions. And I never claimed anything like that, but the idea of someone who thinks we can have socialism and classes existing simultaneously calling me anti-Marxist is laughable. :laugh:


Engels, for the tenth time, cannot be seriously applied to the Soviet Union. He was writing about nationalizations taken by capitalist classes in times of necessity, not a society that had already abolished private property and the power of the capitalist class, which occurred in the Soviet Union.According to the way you use private property, then yes, Engels was talking about a situation where private property and capitalist class were abolished. When all the productive forces are owned by the state, the state is national capitalist. That is what we saw in the USSR.


What developed after that did not change that foundation of that society. The "technical" foundation, sure. Both I and Engels would agree.


If you want to make an argument on this, you have to go beyond repeating the meaningless phrase that the workers didn't fully control the state.The workers not controlling the state is meaningless is it? Are you sure you should be on this forum?


That means nothing as far as the economic organization of the USSR.But it means a whole damn lot concerning the relation between capital and labor. As Engels said, state ownership is merely the technical form of socialism. Without democratic control you lack the entire content.


You berate me for repeating "material conditions" and "social relations", but it's precisely because you've failed to employ a scientific approach to history that you do this.I criticized you for using them as an attempt to cover you revisionism and extremely superficial analysis.

[manic expression]

And I didn't ignore it nor did I focus solely on political power. I'm not going to go through another debate with you where all you do is misrepresent my arguments.

I've quoted you doing exactly that. If you want to go back and change your arguments that's fine.


Actually, if you look above, I addressed that.

No, you didn't, you only said the capitalist class exists in socialism, which has nothing to do with my point. Your response:

And this is something I've never asserted. The capitalist class exists under the workers state for example, that's basic knowledge. We aren't talking about simple political power, we're talking about state ownership of the entire economy.

Don't say you addressed something when you never did.


I think you need to read my post again. You've said this about my argument a few times already, but if you had actually read my post you would see that this is not the case. If you think it's impossible to call it state capitalist when the means of production are owned by the state, then perhaps you should take that up with Engels.

It is the economic organization of society that I'm concerned with, because that's what Marxism is concerned with. Referring to state ownership without taking into account any other circumstances, which is what you've been doing, denies the importance of such organization. I'll deal with your misuse of Engels below.


For all your talk of "material analysis" you sure do seem to put a lot more emphasis on semantics than you do on actually analyzing the relation between capital and labor. They had actual control over the means of production, whether it was by legal title changes nothing.

The legality of property is not so semantic, it is central. If private property cannot be owned by law, and if this is followed in practice, that is an example of the material circumstance of a society. That society cannot be capitalist because it has not the foundation of capitalism. If you want to prove that Soviet bureaucrats owned stock in some invisible Soviet market, you can do that, but until you do, the legality of property and the practice of property supports my position: the Soviet Union saw socialist social relations.


Semantics, semantics, semantics. How is state property that isn't under the control of the working class fundamentally different from capitalist property that isn't under the control of the working class? That's what you've been avoiding.

It's fundamentally different in a few ways, and this has been answered before. First, collectivized state property does not exploit labor or create private profit from the workers, the labor of the workers goes into the state, which then puts its resources into a variety of programs. Capitalists fatten their pocketbooks, while Soviet bureaucrats only made a living off of their wages and the privileges of their position, not from the extraction of surplus value from the working class. Again, Soviet bureaucrats owned nothing, they made no profit, they had no access to a nonexistent capitalist mode of production. Second, foreign trade went through the state and not through private companies; the significance of this is that those administrators (who, as you should remember, didn't make any profit in the capitalist sense) drove the economy through central planning and not through concerns over investment and yield. If no one is buying products in order to sell them, as happens in capitalist countries, you can't seriously argue that that society is capitalist.

I've explained those differences before, so try not to ignore them this time.


No, I'm not.

If we apply your logic according to your own definitions, you are.


I don't care about the Soviet Unions laws. The fact that you base your analysis on the USSRs laws instead of the actual relations shows how superficial your analysis is.

Every state in every epoch uses laws to reflect social relations. The feudal lords of Europe enshrined their form of production (that is, based on days of labor a week or days spent in military service a year, etc.) in law. The capitalist class of late has enshrined their form of production (the exploitation of the working class through private property) in law. Yet somehow, we're supposed to write off Soviet laws as if they mean nothing. If they mean nothing in terms of social relations, you need to show us how they mean nothing with something substantial.

And if you had payed attention, you would have seen that I referred to the Soviet Union's social relations in practice as well as in law. You referred to them not at all.


The state. Once again, we see that your analysis is based on semantics.

You haven't demonstrated that the state was making capitalist profit. On the contrary, I've shown that the state's administrators COULD NOT make capitalist profit, owing to their position as bureaucrats and not businessmen.


And I never claimed anything like that, but the idea of someone who thinks we can have socialism and classes existing simultaneously calling me anti-Marxist is laughable. :laugh:

Really? You didn't claim "anything like that"? Here's what you wrote:

How is state property that isn't under the control of the working class fundamentally different from capitalist property that isn't under the control of the working class?

What is the only variable here? Right, the degree to which the workers can access the state through democratic mechanisms.


According to the way you use private property, then yes, Engels was talking about a situation where private property and capitalist class were abolished. When all the productive forces are owned by the state, the state is national capitalist. That is what we saw in the USSR.

From Engels:

But the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces.

No, it does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. However, Engels, writing in the 19th Century, was referring to something wholly different than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, unlike the situation discussed by Engels, did not see a mere transformation of private property into state ownership (or joint-stock companies), the Soviet Union saw the smashing of private property through the October Revolution. Unlike the capitalist state, the Soviet state did not nationalize out of necessity, it was nationalized as a matter of course: property was held as collective, not as transformed private property in times which dictated such changes.

Your shameless misuse of Engels is like saying Amtrak is an example of Soviet-style economics in the US. After all, it is state owned and out of reach of the working classes; what is the difference between Amtrak and the Soviet Union, anyway? See above.


The workers not controlling the state is meaningless is it? Are you sure you should be on this forum?

It's meaningless in the categorization of social relations. As we learn from Marx, the capitalist class can be politically defeated while capitalism still exists, as seen in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. You, on the other hand, continue to argue in all ways contradictory of Marxism. Simply put, we are dealing with the material conditions of the Soviet Union, or at least I am.


But it means a whole damn lot concerning the relation between capital and labor. As Engels said, state ownership is merely the technical form of socialism. Without democratic control you lack the entire content.

The "technical form" is of the utmost importance. The "technical form" of socialism lacks a capitalist class, the "technical form" of socialism lacks exploitation of the workers. That is the point. The lack of democratic control in the USSR was in response to threats against these very things.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I've quoted you doing exactly that. If you want to go back and change your arguments that's fine.

If you want to go back and read my posts, you will see that I'm not changing anything.


No, you didn't, you only said the capitalist class exists in socialism, which has nothing to do with my point.

Your response:

And this is something I've never asserted. The capitalist class exists under the workers state for example, that's basic knowledge. We aren't talking about simple political power, we're talking about state ownership of the entire economy.

Don't say you addressed something when you never did.It has a whole lot to do with it. You said that I claimed that if the capitalist class doesn't have political power it doesn't exist. If I believed that I would have to disagree with the concept of the workers state, which is a basic Marxist concept.


The legality of property is not so semantic, it is central. If private property cannot be owned by law, and if this is followed in practice, that is an example of the material circumstance of a society. That society cannot be capitalist because it has not the foundation of capitalism. If you want to prove that Soviet bureaucrats owned stock in some invisible Soviet market, you can do that, but until you do, the legality of property and the practice of property supports my position: the Soviet Union saw socialist social relations.I don't think you even know what socialist social relations are. In the Soviet Union we had one section of society with possession of the means of production, and another section with nothing to sell but their labor power. Those are capitalist social relations. Those relations do not change no matter what you call the informal ownership of the means of production by the soviet bureaucracy. So yes, your argument is just semantics.


It's fundamentally different in a few ways, and this has been answered before. First, collectivized state property does not exploit labor or create private profit from the workers, the labor of the workers goes into the state, which then puts its resources into a variety of programs. Of course it does, as noted by Engels. By your logic Saudi Arabia is socialist.


Capitalists fatten their pocketbooks, while Soviet bureaucrats only made a living off of their wages and the privileges of their position, not from the extraction of surplus value from the working class.
Who controlled what wages and benefits they got? They did. Where did their wages and benefits come from? Surplus value. Also, I think you're missing the point of capitalist production. It isn't production in order to increase the capitalists standard of living, it's production to accumulate, and the USSR did a whole lot of that.


It must never be forgotten that the production of this surplus-value — and the reconversion of a portion of it into capital, or the accumulation, forms an integrate part of this production of surplus-value — is the immediate purpose and compelling motive of capitalist production. It will never do, therefore, to represent capitalist production as something which it is not, namely as production whose immediate purpose is enjoyment or the manufacture of the means of enjoyment for the capitalist. This would be overlooking its specific character, which is revealed in all its inner essence.


Again, Soviet bureaucrats owned nothing, they made no profit, they had no access to a nonexistent capitalist mode of production. The didn't formally own anything. Does the fact that I do not have a firearms license change have anything to do with whether I have a firearm? Legally, the workers had control over the property, just like, legally, people had the right to freedom of speech. I think we know that neither of these were the case.


Second, foreign trade went through the state and not through private companies; the significance of this is that those administrators (who, as you should remember, didn't make any profit in the capitalist sense) drove the economy through central planning and not through concerns over investment and yield. Yes, and this is only what Engels called the technical form of socialism as long as it is not under the democratic control of society.


Every state in every epoch uses laws to reflect social relations. The feudal lords of Europe enshrined their form of production (that is, based on days of labor a week or days spent in military service a year, etc.) in law. The capitalist class of late has enshrined their form of production (the exploitation of the working class through private property) in law. Yet somehow, we're supposed to write off Soviet laws as if they mean nothing. If they mean nothing in terms of social relations, you need to show us how they mean nothing with something substantial.They mean nothing when compared to what actually existed in the USSR. I don't care if soviet laws said that the USSR was democratic or socialist if analyzing the concrete shows that it isn't.


You haven't demonstrated that the state was making capitalist profit. On the contrary, I've shown that the state's administrators COULD NOT make capitalist profit, owing to their position as bureaucrats and not businessmen.You've demonstrated nothing besides some silly little example about how the bureaucrats didn't own stocks. There's a reason the term is state capitalist, because the state as a whole takes in surplus value. If it didn't we wouldn't have seen the massive capital accumulation we saw in the Soviet Union. No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense.


Really? You didn't claim "anything like that"? Here's what you wrote:

How is state property that isn't under the control of the working class fundamentally different from capitalist property that isn't under the control of the working class?

What is the only variable here? Right, the degree to which the workers can access the state through democratic mechanisms.What you're ignoring is that we aren't dealing with any random state in the abstract, but a state that has full control of the productive forces.


No, it does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. However, Engels, writing in the 19th Century, was referring to something wholly different than the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, unlike the situation discussed by Engels, did not see a mere transformation of private property into state ownership (or joint-stock companies), the Soviet Union saw the smashing of private property through the October Revolution. Not even Lenin would claim such a thing. Even after the revolution had been secured Lenin only went so far as to say they had the means with which to begin building a society in which private property did not exist.


Unlike the capitalist state, the Soviet state did not nationalize out of necessity, it was nationalized as a matter of course: property was held as collective, not as transformed private property in times which dictated such changes.It does not matter how it became nationalized. That doesn't effect the relation of capital to labor at all. It would be helpful if you quoted the rest of Engels passage as well:


The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with.

What is the proletariat? The class with nothing to sell but their labor power. If the workers of the USSR did not have control over the means of production, then they were proletarians. If they don't have control over the means of production we can't have a workers state, and if they exist as a class, we can't have socialism. Production for accumulation, these class relations - they all make the USSR state capitalist.


Your shameless misuse of Engels is like saying Amtrak is an example of Soviet-style economics in the US. After all, it is state owned and out of reach of the working classes; what is the difference between Amtrak and the Soviet Union, anyway? See above.Amtrak is not a state. The relation of the working class to the soviet state and the relation of the working class to the capitalist class are the same thing.


It's meaningless in the categorization of social relations.Who has control of the means of production is meaningless in the categorization of social relations?! :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:: laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:


As we learn from Marx, the capitalist class can be politically defeated while capitalism still exists, as seen in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. You, on the other hand, continue to argue in all ways contradictory of Marxism. And this I never denied. It is a basic fact of Marxism as can be seen in the concept of the workers state, something you obviously do not understand.



The "technical form" is of the utmost importance. The "technical form" of socialism lacks a capitalist class, the "technical form" of socialism lacks exploitation of the workers. Not according to Engels:


State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.


That is the point. The lack of democratic control in the USSR was in response to threats against these very things.
All of this arguing is pointless when all that is necessary is to show that you have no idea what socialism or the dictatorship of the proletariat mean. Socialism is classless, meaning everyone has the same relation to the means of production. If one group of society is excluded from control of the means of production, we can't have socialism. If the working class is excluded from control of the means of production, we can't have a workers state. Your revisionism is so flagrant that even most "anti-revisionists" should recognize it.

[SecondLife]

If you think it's impossible to call it state capitalist when the means of production are owned by the state, then perhaps you should take that up with Engels.


I see that before we can talk about "state capitalism","means of production","private ownership", we must talk about what at all means capitalism, what means state andwhat means working class (or worker). The conflict comes from different interpretation those concepts.
But I am really too old for this shit.

[manic expression]

It has a whole lot to do with it. You said that I claimed that if the capitalist class doesn't have political power it doesn't exist. If I believed that I would have to disagree with the concept of the workers state, which is a basic Marxist concept.

I said there was no empowered capitalist class. More importantly, you still haven't answered the charge, and since you failed to address this twice before, I'll post it again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. This is surely false, as are your assertions that the USSR was un-socialist.

I wonder how you'll dance around this a third time.


I don't think you even know what socialist social relations are. In the Soviet Union we had one section of society with possession of the means of production, and another section with nothing to sell but their labor power. Those are capitalist social relations. Those relations do not change no matter what you call the informal ownership of the means of production by the soviet bureaucracy. So yes, your argument is just semantics.You keep saying a society without private property has capitalist social relations, which is absurd. Like I've said, political empowerment does not change social relations, and those relations were socialist. I've explained this countless times, so I'll just copy and paste it so you can do some more dancing:

It's fundamentally different in a few ways, and this has been answered before. First, collectivized state property does not exploit labor or create private profit from the workers, the labor of the workers goes into the state, which then puts its resources into a variety of programs. Capitalists fatten their pocketbooks, while Soviet bureaucrats only made a living off of their wages and the privileges of their position, not from the extraction of surplus value from the working class. Again, Soviet bureaucrats owned nothing, they made no profit, they had no access to a nonexistent capitalist mode of production. Second, foreign trade went through the state and not through private companies; the significance of this is that those administrators (who, as you should remember, didn't make any profit in the capitalist sense) drove the economy through central planning and not through concerns over investment and yield. If no one is buying products in order to sell them, as happens in capitalist countries, you can't seriously argue that that society is capitalist.

As we will see below, on this point, you can only assert that bureaucrats somehow, without anyone noticing, owned private property and profited directly from this relationship. However, you have nothing behind this, and fittingly so.


Of course it does, as noted by Engels. By your logic Saudi Arabia is socialist.If you fail to justify or explain this, it remains nothing but a snarky remark.


Who controlled what wages and benefits they got? They did. Where did their wages and benefits come from? Surplus value. Also, I think you're missing the point of capitalist production. It isn't production in order to increase the capitalists standard of living, it's production to accumulate, and the USSR did a whole lot of that.Capitalists don't fix their wages and benefits by bureaucratic mechanisms, they fill their pockets through the direct exploitation of labor. The Soviet Union's bureaucracy did not do that, and instead relied on state positions. The mere fact that they had to tweak their wages in such a manner, instead of simply profiting as every capitalist on the planet does, shows the contradiction inherent in your position.

And capitalists certainly DO raise their standard of living at the expense of the workers. Marx's point is that this is not the impetus but the result. Therefore, it doesn't contradict my statement at all. Further, the essential part of the capitalist's mode of production is investment of capital in private property. When and where did Soviet bureaucrats do this? That's right, never.

And socialist societies can, should and must accumulate.


The didn't formally own anything. Does the fact that I do not have a firearms license change have anything to do with whether I have a firearm? Legally, the workers had control over the property, just like, legally, people had the right to freedom of speech. I think we know that neither of these were the case. The bureaucrats didn't own any private property at all. Unless you can show us that Soviet bureaucrats secretly owned factories and industry as private property, and secretly extracted surplus value from this ownership, you're making things up. As usual.


Yes, and this is only what Engels called the technical form of socialism as long as it is not under the democratic control of society.

They mean nothing when compared to what actually existed in the USSR. I don't care if soviet laws said that the USSR was democratic or socialist if analyzing the concrete shows that it isn't.The technical form of socialism, again, is very important, and is actually the point. Collectivized property, the absence of the capitalist mode of production (that is, commodity production as the nucleus of society), state monopoly on foreign trade and other aspects made the Soviet Union decidedly un-capitalist, and more importantly socialist.

That's an analysis of "the concrete", as you put it.


You've demonstrated nothing besides some silly little example about how the bureaucrats didn't own stocks. There's a reason the term is state capitalist, because the state as a whole takes in surplus value. If it didn't we wouldn't have seen the massive capital accumulation we saw in the Soviet Union.I gave more examples than that, but it's OK because you're running away from all of them. Please read what I wrote above ("It's fundamentally different in a few ways..."). Thanks.


No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense.Right, and that is why the USSR wasn't capitalist. As has been said a thousand times, it is the social relations that define a society, not the degrees of a healthy democracy. Were that the case, the Second French Empire would have been un-capitalist; thanks to Marx, we know that such an assertion, and by extension your assertion, is nonsense.


What you're ignoring is that we aren't dealing with any random state in the abstract, but a state that has full control of the productive forces.What you're ignoring is that was YOUR definition and YOUR line of logic that I simply applied to another situation in order to test its reliability. Obviously, it failed, and your reluctance to deal with that is further evidence of this.


Not even Lenin would claim such a thing. Even after the revolution had been secured Lenin only went so far as to say they had the means with which to begin building a society in which private property did not exist.That's because of the NEP, which was liquidated by 1932.


It does not matter how it became nationalized. That doesn't effect the relation of capital to labor at all. It would be helpful if you quoted the rest of Engels passage as well:Yes, it does matter how it is nationalized. Were that the case, the nationalization of industry under the control of the working class would always be capitalist, because after all, "it does not matter how it became nationalized". Once again, you're blindly applying nebulous and meaningless statements.


What is the proletariat? The class with nothing to sell but their labor power. If the workers of the USSR did not have control over the means of production, then they were proletarians. If they don't have control over the means of production we can't have a workers state, and if they exist as a class, we can't have socialism. Production for accumulation, these class relations - they all make the USSR state capitalist.The workers remain proletarians in a worker state. Classes exist under socialism.

This is the key here: apparently, you believe that any society that isn't classless cannot be socialist. Small wonder, then, that you come up with such unsustainable excuses as to how the USSR could not have possibly been socialist, even when all evidence points to the opposite.


Amtrak is not a state. The relation of the working class to the soviet state and the relation of the working class to the capitalist class are the same thing.Amtrak is a state-run monopoly in a capitalist society, it is precisely what Engels was talking about. According to you, that is exactly the same as the Soviet Union, which is absolutely ridiculous, and even you retreated from it on account of its absurdity. Keep backtracking.


Who has control of the means of production is meaningless in the categorization of social relations?!:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::lau gh::laugh:Yes. Ask the French bourgeoisie circa 1852. No, actually, just ask Marx:

France therefore seems to have escaped the despotism of a class only to fall back under the despotism of an individual, and what is more, under the authority of an individual without authority. The struggle seems to be settled in such a way that all classes, equally powerless and equally mute, fall on their knees before the rifle butt.

But wait, since the capitalist class was defeated politically, it could not have been capitalist! Perhaps, if we apply your logic, it was now a feudal society, or perhaps a Romanesque society, or maybe it instantly became tribalistic upon the ascent of Louis Napoleon.

The same goes for the USSR: the working class may have been denied democratic political control of the state, but that did not change how society was structured. But, of course, how was it structured? If you'd be so kind as to refer to my previous statements on this, statements you've been sure to tip-toe around ("It's fundamentally different in a few ways..."), you will find I've already been over this.

Funny. All those smilies and no arguments.


And this I never denied. It is a basic fact of Marxism as can be seen in the concept of the workers state, something you obviously do not understand.This you have consistently avoided. I have put it to you on no less than THREE (3) occasions that your logic would lead us to classify the Second French Empire as something other than capitalist. On no less than two (2) occasions, you have directly avoided the charge. Please address it or be deemed incapable of doing so.


Not according to Engels:And what is the difference? Like I said, the starting and ending points were different. Engels talked of a capitalist economy nationalizing certain industries, cautiously, under times of necessity. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, did no such thing; it abolished private property in law and in practice. Thus, the workers were not exploited and capitalism could not have existed.

I've explained this before, and you've ignored it before. Perhaps I need to use props to explain this to you.


All of this arguing is pointless when all that is necessary is to show that you have no idea what socialism or the dictatorship of the proletariat mean. Socialism is classless

No, socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, and therefore has classes. Your inability to determine which classes are and aren't in power lies at the heart of your delusion.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

I said there was no empowered capitalist class. More importantly, you still haven't answered the charge, and since you failed to address this twice before, I'll post it again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. This is surely false, as are your assertions that the USSR was un-socialist.

I wonder how you'll dance around this a third time.

I didn't dance around it at all. I've pointed out a half a dozen times that I don't think the capitalist class disappears if they lose political power, because if I did I'd be sacrificing the concept of the workers state.


You keep saying a society without private property has capitalist social relations, which is absurd.No, I didn't. That would be socialism. Even Stalin recognized that there was private property in the USSR.


Like I've said, political empowerment does not change social relations, and those relations were socialist. I've explained this countless times, so I'll just copy and paste it so you can do some more dancing:I addressed that, so I'm not going to do it again. Political empwerment when that political empowerment means controlling all of the productive forces definitely changes social relations. If you think relationship to the means of production is irrelevant then you're ignoring the class relations of society or what class actually is. Perhaps you would be benefited by reading Bernstein? Your views seem closer to his than to Marx's.


As we will see below, on this point, you can only assert that bureaucrats somehow, without anyone noticing, owned private property and profited directly from this relationship. However, you have nothing behind this, and fittingly so.No, and that's not even what I'm asserting, as I've pointed out. The term is state capitalist for a reason.


If you fail to justify or explain this, it remains nothing but a snarky remark.You think a planned economy, no matter who has political power, is socialism. All we can conclude from that is Saudi Arabia and a whole host of other states in history have been socialist.


Capitalists don't fix their wages and benefits by bureaucratic mechanisms, they fill their pockets through the direct exploitation of labor. The Soviet Union's bureaucracy did not do that, and instead relied on state positions. The mere fact that they had to tweak their wages in such a manner, instead of simply profiting as every capitalist on the planet does, shows the contradiction inherent in your position.No it doesn't.


And capitalists certainly DO raise their standard of living at the expense of the workers. Marx's point is that this is not the impetus but the result. Therefore, it doesn't contradict my statement at all. Further, the essential part of the capitalist's mode of production is investment of capital in private property. When and where did Soviet bureaucrats do this? That's right, never.Yes, and what was the impetus of production in the USSR? Was it to meets the needs of the people or accumulate? It was to accumulate, hence major shortages of consumer goods. Your understanding of the nature of socialism is pathetic.


In bourgeois society, living labor is but a means to increase accumulated labor. In communist society, accumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer.


And socialist societies can, should and must accumulate.That is not the nature of socialist production.


The bureaucrats didn't own any private property at all. Unless you can show us that Soviet bureaucrats secretly owned factories and industry as private property, and secretly extracted surplus value from this ownership, you're making things up. As usual.Haha, that's nonsense. I never claimed individual bureaucrats were capitalists, so it's entirely irrelevant. The state owns the factories as private property. The state extracts surplus value.


The technical form of socialism, again, is very important, and is actually the point. Collectivized property, the absence of the capitalist mode of production (that is, commodity production as the nucleus of society), state monopoly on foreign trade and other aspects made the Soviet Union decidedly un-capitalist, and more importantly socialist.
So who has had the technical form of socialism? Fascist Italy, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar. As Engels pointed out, there is a difference between the technical conditions of socialism and it's essence.


Right, and that is why the USSR wasn't capitalist. As has been said a thousand times, it is the social relations that define a society, not the degrees of a healthy democracy. Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.


Were that the case, the Second French Empire would have been un-capitalist; thanks to Marx, we know that such an assertion, and by extension your assertion, is nonsense.My assertion is not that any undemocratic society was capitalist. That is an obvious distortion of my argument, but it's good to know that you're getting desperate.


What you're ignoring is that was YOUR definition and YOUR line of logic that I simply applied to another situation in order to test its reliability. Obviously, it failed, and your reluctance to deal with that is further evidence of this.My line of logic is dealing with a situation where who has political power controls all of the means of production. That's a damn important detail that you're trying to leave out in order to misrepresent my argument.


That's because of the NEP, which was liquidated by 1932.So you were wrong, now they didn't have socialism until 1932. Thanks for forfeiting part of those years. Read this, and you'll only have 20 or so left to desperately defend:

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

Then remember how Stalin pointed out that there was private property in 1956, and you have nothing. Not that you care, because you don't understand what socialism is anyway.


Yes, it does matter how it is nationalized. Were that the case, the nationalization of industry under the control of the working class would always be capitalist, because after all, "it does not matter how it became nationalized". Once again, you're blindly applying nebulous and meaningless statements.
No, it would only be the same if there was a counter revolution and the working class lost control of the means of production. Two different routes to a capitalist society don't change the fact that we have capitalist social relations.


The workers remain proletarians in a worker state. Classes exist under socialism.Perhaps you should take your shitty understanding of socialism up with Marx, because you'd never find that in his writings.


This is the key here: apparently, you believe that any society that isn't classless cannot be socialist. Small wonder, then, that you come up with such unsustainable excuses as to how the USSR could not have possibly been socialist, even when all evidence points to the opposite.Yes, I do believe that, because I actually know what socialism means. It means there is no private property, meaning their can be no classes. That is BASIC Marxism. The evidence points towards my conclusion for pretty much everyone. Who else can you find who thinks the USSR under Gorbachev was socialism?


Amtrak is a state-run monopoly in a capitalist society, it is precisely what Engels was talking about. According to you, that is exactly the same as the Soviet Union, which is absolutely ridiculous, and even you retreated from it on account of its absurdity. Keep backtracking.He was talking about a state where all the productive forces are owned by the state.


Yes. Ask the French bourgeoisie circa 1852. No, actually, just ask Marx:

France therefore seems to have escaped the despotism of a class only to fall back under the despotism of an individual, and what is more, under the authority of an individual without authority. The struggle seems to be settled in such a way that all classes, equally powerless and equally mute, fall on their knees before the rifle butt.
You're going to try and tell me that Marx believed class was irrelevant when categorizing social relations? :laugh::laugh::laugh:


But wait, since the capitalist class was defeated politically, it could not have been capitalist! Perhaps, if we apply your logic, it was now a feudal society, or perhaps a Romanesque society, or maybe it instantly became tribalistic upon the ascent of Louis Napoleon.Actually, I've pointed out how that is not my logic plenty of times. Three times, actually:


And this is something I've never asserted. The capitalist class exists under the workers state for example, that's basic knowledge.


And having political power is not the same thing as having control over the means of production. If it was, there would be no such thing as a workers state.


You said that I claimed that if the capitalist class doesn't have political power it doesn't exist. If I believed that I would have to disagree with the concept of the workers state, which is a basic Marxist concept.


The same goes for the USSR: the working class may have been denied democratic political control of the state, but that did not change how society was structured.So we had a workers state, which is an organ of working class rule, without the state being controlled by the working class? I'll let your conclusion speak for itself.


This you have consistently avoided. I have put it to you on no less than THREE (3) occasions that your logic would lead us to classify the Second French Empire as something other than capitalist. On no less than two (2) occasions, you have directly avoided the charge. Please address it or be deemed incapable of doing so.And as can be seen from my quotes above, I dealt with it three times. Please read my posts or be deemed incapable of reading.


And what is the difference? Like I said, the starting and ending points were different. Engels talked of a capitalist economy nationalizing certain industries, cautiously, under times of necessity. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, did no such thing; it abolished private property in law and in practice. Thus, the workers were not exploited and capitalism could not have existed.Engels talked of a state that owned all of the productive forces, not just a mixed economy. I posted his quote agains so you could read it, but apparently you ignore anything that shows how revisionist you are. Lenin recognize that they did not have socialism, meaning there was private property. Stalin recognize that they had private property. I guess they abolished it under Kruschev, then?


No, socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, and therefore has classes. Your inability to determine which classes are and aren't in power lies at the heart of your delusion.If that is so you could provide me a quote from Marx proving it. The whole argument rests on what socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are. Until you can show that you actually know the meanings of these terms, this argument is pointless.

[mykittyhasaboner]

No, I didn't. That would be socialism. Even Stalin recognized that there was private property in the USSR.

Where did he say this?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Where did he say this?

In Economic Problems of the USSR.

[mykittyhasaboner]

In Economic Problems of the USSR.
Where exactly?


In chapter 2, he seems to contradict your claim:


It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private owner-ship of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity. Without this there is no such thing as capitalist production.
Well, and what is to be done if the conditions for the conversion of commodity production into capitalist production do not exist, if the means of production are no longer private but socialist property, if the system of wage labour no longer exists and labour power is no longer a commodity, and if the system of exploitation has long been abolished - can it be considered then that commodity production will lead to capitalism all the same? No, it cannot. Yet ours is precisely such a society, a society where private ownership of the means of production, the system of wage labour, and the system of exploitation have long ceased to exist.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Where exactly?


In chapter 2, he seems to contradict your claim:

As he notes at the beginning of the chapter he is just referring to public property of the means of production of industry. He goes on to talk about peasant property. His entire argument rests on the idea that the USSR at the time of his writing was actually democratic. That isn't something I'm going to contest. Manic expression has already said that the USSR was not democratic and that this doesn't change anything. Perhaps Lenin and Stalin's USSR were under the control of the working class, I'm not going to debate that. Manic expression thinks that is irrelevant and thinks that the USSR was socialist for its entire existence. I don't think anyone else would argue that the USSR was a workers state after Stalin.

[mykittyhasaboner]

As he notes at the beginning of the chapter he is just referring to public property of the means of production of industry. He goes on to talk about peasant property. His entire argument rest on the idea that the USSR at the time of his writing was actually democratic. That isn't something I'm going to contest. Manic expression has already said that the USSR was not democratic and that this doesn't change anything. Perhaps Lenin and Stalin's USSR were under the control of the working class, I'm not going to debate that. Manic expression thinks that is irrelevant and thinks that the USSR was socialist for its entire existence. I don't think anyone else would argue that the USSR was a workers state after Stalin.
OK, so you admit that Stalin never acknowledged the existence of private property in the CCCP, because in fact there was none? If yes, then good. The Soviet Union was a worker's state for it's entire existence; the difference is that from 1917-to 1953 it was a worker's state guided by Marxism-Leninism, and after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's "de-stalinization" it took the from of a revisionist workers state (on the road towards restoring capitalism).

On the question of democracy in the Soviet Union, I think this (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html) deals with the subject pretty well.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

OK, so you admit that Stalin never acknowledged the existence of private property in the CCCP, because in fact there was none? If yes, then good.

No, as I said he points out that it exists in the form of collectives and cooperatives in that same chapter.


The Soviet Union was a worker's state for it's entire existence; the difference is that from 1917-to 1953 it was a worker's state guided by Marxism-Leninism, and after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's "de-stalinization" it took the from of a revisionist workers state (on the road towards restoring capitalism). So the USSR was democratic for it's entire existence? Also, legally, the USSR was a "state of the whole people."


On the question of democracy in the Soviet Union, I think this (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html) deals with the subject pretty well.
I'll compare that to the thousands dealing with the lack of democracy in the USSR. I don't care anyway, because I'm not contesting whether it was democratic under Stalin or not. Even the anti-revisionist Hoxha noted that the USSR was not socialist after Stalin:


Under the cloak of aid for peoples' liber the Soviet Union and its mercenary, Cubal are intervening in other countries with armies equipped with artillery and machine-guns, allegedly to build socialism, which does not exist in either the Soviet Union or Cuba.


The Soviet Society, has become bourgeois down to its tiniest cells, capitalism has been restored in all fields.


The present Soviet state as a collective capitalist administers the means of production in the name and in the interests of the new Soviet bourgeoisie. The socialist common ownership has been transformed in a state capitalism of a new type.

[mykittyhasaboner]

No, as I said he points out that it exists in the form of collectives and cooperatives in that same chapter.
Would you mind quoting, I don't see what your talking about.


So the USSR was democratic for it's entire existence? Also, legally, the USSR was a "state of the whole people."


I'll compare that to the thousands dealing with the lack of democracy in the USSR. I don't care anyway, because I'm not contesting whether it was democratic under Stalin or not. Even the anti-revisionist Hoxha noted that the USSR was not socialist after Stalin:No the USSR wasn't democratic for it's entire existence; but it never fully restored capitalism until 1991. It ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist worker's state after Stalin's death, but fell towards revisionism with Khrushchev's assumption of power. I'm not denying that the Soviet Union post-Stalin wasn't on the road to fully restoring capitalism (this period was defined by taking loans from the West and amassing debt, etc) but it wasn't a full fledged capitalist state.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Would you mind quoting, I don't see what your talking about.

It appears I misread:


Today there are two basic forms of socialist production in our country: state, or publicly-owned production, and collective-farm production, which cannot be said to be publicly owned. In the state enterprises, the means of production and the product of production are national property. In the collective farm, although the means of production (land, machines) do belong to the state, the product of production is the property of the different collective farms, since the labour, as well as the seed, is their own, while the land, which has been turned over to the collective farms in perpetual tenure, is used by them virtually as their own property, in spite of the fact that they cannot sell, buy, lease or mortgage it.I did not notice the part I have bolded. Still, as Mao noted:


However, until collective ownership advances to ownership by the whole people and until the remnants of private economy disappear completely, the peasants inevitably retain some of the inherent characteristics of small producers. In these circumstances spontaneous capitalist tendencies are inevitable, the soil for the growth of new rich peasants still exists and polarization among the peasants may still occur. Again, though, I am not focusing on the Soviet Union under Stalin.



No the USSR wasn't democratic for it's entire existence; but it never fully restored capitalism until 1991. It ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist worker's state after Stalin's death, but fell towards revisionism with Khrushchev's assumption of power.Well we can't have a workers state without the workers in control. That makes no sense.


I'm not denying that the Soviet Union post-Stalin wasn't on the road to fully restoring capitalism (this period was defined by taking loans from the West and amassing debt, etc) but it wasn't a full fledged capitalist state.What do you mean by full fledged capitalist state? That analysis seems almost as vulgar as the libertarian argument that what we have isn't "pure" capitalism. If the workers weren't in control then we end up with the same social relations as capitalism. I'm not alone in this, as can be seen by the Hoxha quotes above, or Mao:


People have seen how in Yugoslavia, although the Tito clique still displays the banner of "socialism", a bureaucratic bourgeoisie opposed to the Yugoslav people has gradually come into being since the Tito clique took the road of revisionism, transforming the Yugoslav state from a dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the bureaucrat bourgeoisie and its socialist public economy into state capitalism.

[manic expression]

I didn't dance around it at all. I've pointed out a half a dozen times that I don't think the capitalist class disappears if they lose political power, because if I did I'd be sacrificing the concept of the workers state.

You did dance around it because you never answered it.

According to you, the Soviet Union was state capitalist because the workers did not control the state. However, the French bourgeoisie was denied control of the state in 1852, and yet capitalism endured. Your logic runs against this, for if we are to believe you, then all societies are defined merely by political power and not by social relations.

On your earlier answers, it's not the existence of a capitalist class that is the issue, the issue is that the capitalist class, while not having the reigns of political power, were able to operate in a capitalist society. So too did the workers of the Soviet Union, having lost working-class democracy, operate in a socialist society. Essentially, you didn't address the point at all, but conjured the most tangential point possible in order to hide your argument's deficiencies.

And that's the third time you've dodged the issue. Answer it or be deemed incapable of doing so.


I addressed that, so I'm not going to do it again. Political empwerment when that political empowerment means controlling all of the productive forces definitely changes social relations. If you think relationship to the means of production is irrelevant then you're ignoring the class relations of society or what class actually is. Perhaps you would be benefited by reading Bernstein? Your views seem closer to his than to Marx's.

No, you didn't address that. Not yet. Moreover, political power, by itself, does not change social relations. I can refer you to France once again on that. If you have a capitalist mode of production and the capitalist class loses power to a Bonapartist, that does not make the society un-capitalist. In the same way, if you have a socialist society (with the aspects I mentioned) and the working class loses power to a bureaucracy, that does not make the society un-socialist.

Again, perhaps I should use props to demonstrate this for you.


No, and that's not even what I'm asserting, as I've pointed out. The term is state capitalist for a reason.

Oh, but you did:

The didn't formally own anything. Does the fact that I do not have a firearms license change have anything to do with whether I have a firearm?

You clearly implied that bureaucrats owned private property in defiance of their own laws. Prove it or admit you're wrong. And since you can't seem to figure it out, getting a wage from the state doesn't automatically equal ownership of private property. Without proof, you have nothing; right now, you have nothing.


You think a planned economy, no matter who has political power, is socialism. All we can conclude from that is Saudi Arabia and a whole host of other states in history have been socialist.

All economies are planned. The only question is HOW they are planned. Since you aren't bringing up any specifics in regards to Saudi Arabia, it's safe to assume you brought it up as a snarky remark as I originally thought.


No it doesn't.

That's not an argument. Please make one. Once more:

Capitalists don't fix their wages and benefits by bureaucratic mechanisms, they fill their pockets through the direct exploitation of labor. The Soviet Union's bureaucracy did not do that, and instead relied on state positions. The mere fact that they had to tweak their wages in such a manner, instead of simply profiting as every capitalist on the planet does, shows the contradiction inherent in your position.


Yes, and what was the impetus of production in the USSR? Was it to meets the needs of the people or accumulate? It was to accumulate, hence major shortages of consumer goods. Your understanding of the nature of socialism is pathetic.

You can produce to meet the needs of "the people" and accumulate at the same time.

The shortages were not due to some sort of greed of the bureacuracy (who, coincidentally enough, made no profit), they were due to problems in the Soviet economy arising from its backwardness after the Russian Civil War and WWII. Of course there were other problems, but ascribing them roundly to those mean, greedy bureaucrats is just senseless.


That is not the nature of socialist production.

I was talking about accumulation of wealth for the workers. That's what the USSR did if you actually knew the first thing about its history.


Haha, that's nonsense. I never claimed individual bureaucrats were capitalists, so it's entirely irrelevant. The state owns the factories as private property. The state extracts surplus value.

You're right, it is nonsense...to believe that a capitalist class can be in power when even the administrators of that state are not capitalists themselves. If the bureaucrats weren't capitalists, then who was running this so-called capitalist system in the Soviet Union? Did they hire consultants?

What you're asking us to believe is that a society without private property and without having capitalists in power was capitalist. Truly incredible stuff.


So who has had the technical form of socialism? Fascist Italy, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar. As Engels pointed out, there is a difference between the technical conditions of socialism and it's essence.
Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.
My assertion is not that any undemocratic society was capitalist. That is an obvious distortion of my argument, but it's good to know that you're getting desperate.

First, I asked you to specify what you meant about Saudi Arabia and you gave me a whole lot of nothing, so there's no reason for us to think you have the slightest idea what you're talking about when you compare the USSR and those states. Second, Marxists look at technical conditions, not some un-definable "essence". In the USSR, the material conditions for capitalism had been abolished (as I've explained), and the material conditions for socialism had been established (as I've also explained).

Your assertions of capitalism are so vague that they can, feasibly, be applied to ANY society with a working class that doesn't have working-class control. The end of the French monarchy, then, was capitalist, because there was an urban proletariat which was politically disenfranchised.

Again, you're welcome to change your positions if you want to account for these contradictions.


My line of logic is dealing with a situation where who has political power controls all of the means of production. That's a damn important detail that you're trying to leave out in order to misrepresent my argument.

Even if we take your word for it, the organization of the means of production is a "damn important detail" that you've left out entirely. Allow me to reiterate this once more:

It's fundamentally different in a few ways, and this has been answered before. First, collectivized state property does not exploit labor or create private profit from the workers, the labor of the workers goes into the state, which then puts its resources into a variety of programs. Capitalists fatten their pocketbooks, while Soviet bureaucrats only made a living off of their wages and the privileges of their position, not from the extraction of surplus value from the working class. Again, Soviet bureaucrats owned nothing, they made no profit, they had no access to a nonexistent capitalist mode of production. Second, foreign trade went through the state and not through private companies; the significance of this is that those administrators (who, as you should remember, didn't make any profit in the capitalist sense) drove the economy through central planning and not through concerns over investment and yield. If no one is buying products in order to sell them, as happens in capitalist countries, you can't seriously argue that that society is capitalist.

I wonder what tangential, irrelevant argument you'll come up with this time.


So you were wrong, now they didn't have socialism until 1932.

But you forget that the bureaucracy didn't have nearly the central position in Soviet society before that point. They replaced NEP in the course of industrialization and collectivization, to a great extent. Before around that point, I would argue that working-class control over the means of production was reasonably secure.


No, it would only be the same if there was a counter revolution and the working class lost control of the means of production. Two different routes to a capitalist society don't change the fact that we have capitalist social relations.

The problem is you haven't provided the slightest bit of evidence or logic for these phantom "capitalist social relations". I, on the other hand, have repeatedly outlined what aspects of Soviet society and economic organization were un-capitalist and socialist. Once again, make an argument.


Perhaps you should take your shitty understanding of socialism up with Marx, because you'd never find that in his writings.

Just so we can reference this, Marx referred to utopians and feudalists as socialists, while today the term could hardly be applied to such ideologies. Keeping up to date in the revolutionary socialist movement might help you out here. Socialism is commonly used to describe the dictatorship of the proletariat. You might not, but that's no one else's fault.


Yes, I do believe that, because I actually know what socialism means. It means there is no private property, meaning their can be no classes. That is BASIC Marxism. The evidence points towards my conclusion for pretty much everyone. Who else can you find who thinks the USSR under Gorbachev was socialism?

Private property entails ownership over the means of production. Class society and the abolition of private property can coexist and have coexisted in the past. Cuba is a living, breathing example of such a society today.


He was talking about a state where all the productive forces are owned by the state.

He was talking about the process of nationalization under capitalist auspices, something that takes the form of Amtrak, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Again, even you retreated from that position of yours because it's so untenable.


You're going to try and tell me that Marx believed class was irrelevant when categorizing social relations? :laugh::laugh::laugh:

So many smilies, so few arguments.

The passage showed us that even when a class, after having shaped society in its own image, is politically defeated, the social relations defined and organized by that class are not necessarily changed. In France (do try to pay attention), the bourgeoisie was politically disenfranchised, and yet capitalism still existed. Under your logic, capitalism could not exist in that scenario.

Once again, since you've danced around it yet again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. This is surely false, as are your assertions that the USSR was un-socialist.


Actually, I've pointed out how that is not my logic plenty of times. Three times, actually:

That's three instances in which you said nothing pertinent to the example. See my first paragraph for more details. Again, answer it or be deemed incapable of doing so.


So we had a workers state, which is an organ of working class rule, without the state being controlled by the working class? I'll let your conclusion speak for itself.

Yes, just as the bourgeois state of 19th Century France was, for a long period, not controlled by the bourgeoisie. I'll let Marx's conclusions speak for themselves.


Engels talked of a state that owned all of the productive forces, not just a mixed economy. I posted his quote agains so you could read it, but apparently you ignore anything that shows how revisionist you are. Lenin recognize that they did not have socialism, meaning there was private property. Stalin recognize that they had private property. I guess they abolished it under Kruschev, then?

First, your assertion here is nothing more than wishful thinking. There is nothing in that quote which asserts that ALL productive forces are state-owned. He was discussing the process of capitalist nationalization of industry, which historically takes the form of entities like Amtrak.

On the second part of your post, your dialogue with mykittyhasaboner has already proven this to be the result of a misreading, so I'll let that slide this time.


If that is so you could provide me a quote from Marx proving it. The whole argument rests on what socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat are. Until you can show that you actually know the meanings of these terms, this argument is pointless.

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

- Karl Marx

That is what socialism refers to. As I've said before, if you were up to date with what's been happening in the socialist movement over the past century, you wouldn't be in the dark about the fact that socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Or the fact of socialism's existence.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

You did dance around it because you never answered it.

According to you, the Soviet Union was state capitalist because the workers did not control the state. However, the French bourgeoisie was denied control of the state in 1852, and yet capitalism endured. Your logic runs against this, for if we are to believe you, then all societies are defined merely by political power and not by social relations.

On your earlier answers, it's not the existence of a capitalist class that is the issue, the issue is that the capitalist class, while not having the reigns of political power, were able to operate in a capitalist society. So too did the workers of the Soviet Union, having lost working-class democracy, operate in a socialist society. Essentially, you didn't address the point at all, but conjured the most tangential point possible in order to hide your argument's deficiencies.

And that's the third time you've dodged the issue. Answer it or be deemed incapable of doing so.

Are you incapable of comprehension? Did the french state in 1852 control all of the productive forces?


No, you didn't address that. Not yet. Moreover, political power, by itself, does not change social relations. I can refer you to France once again on that. If you have a capitalist mode of production and the capitalist class loses power to a Bonapartist, that does not make the society un-capitalist. In the same way, if you have a socialist society (with the aspects I mentioned) and the working class loses power to a bureaucracy, that does not make the society un-socialist.

Again, perhaps I should use props to demonstrate this for you.These are radically different situations as noted above.


Oh, but you did:

The didn't formally own anything. Does the fact that I do not have a firearms license change have anything to do with whether I have a firearm?

You clearly implied that bureaucrats owned private property in defiance of their own laws. Prove it or admit you're wrong. And since you can't seem to figure it out, getting a wage from the state doesn't automatically equal ownership of private property. Without proof, you have nothing; right now, you have nothing.As I said: "No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense. "

I think Hoxha's quote worked quite nicely: "The present Soviet state as a collective capitalist administers the means of production in the name and in the interests of the new Soviet bourgeoisie."


All economies are planned. The only question is HOW they are planned. Since you aren't bringing up any specifics in regards to Saudi Arabia, it's safe to assume you brought it up as a snarky remark as I originally thought.All economies are planned? Again, you resort to semantics. Saudi Arabia has 80% of its workforce employed in the public sector. Cuba has 75%. Working class control of the state is apparently unnecessary for socialism. If Cuba can be socialism with 75% public ownership, then Saudi Arabia is surely socialist by your anti-Marxist logic.


That's not an argument. Please make one. Once more:

Capitalists don't fix their wages and benefits by bureaucratic mechanisms, they fill their pockets through the direct exploitation of labor. The Soviet Union's bureaucracy did not do that, and instead relied on state positions. The mere fact that they had to tweak their wages in such a manner, instead of simply profiting as every capitalist on the planet does, shows the contradiction inherent in your position.
Hoxha's quote that I posted above works well again.


You can produce to meet the needs of "the people" and accumulate at the same time.

The shortages were not due to some sort of greed of the bureacuracy (who, coincidentally enough, made no profit), they were due to problems in the Soviet economy arising from its backwardness after the Russian Civil War and WWII. Of course there were other problems, but ascribing them roundly to those mean, greedy bureaucrats is just senseless.
God, you don't understand anything at all about socialism and capitalism, do you? This is your worse distortion yet, I didn't say that they resulted from the bureaucracy being greed. The shortages were due to surplus value being used to accumulate instead of produce means of consumption. Yes, it's a result of backwardness, a backwardness that has to be gotten rid of before you can have socialism.


I was talking about accumulation of wealth for the workers. That's what the USSR did if you actually knew the first thing about its history.That is not what people generally mean when they refer to accumulation. So did every other country on the planet.


You're right, it is nonsense...to believe that a capitalist class can be in power when even the administrators of that state are not capitalists themselves. If the bureaucrats weren't capitalists, then who was running this so-called capitalist system in the Soviet Union? Did they hire consultants?Nonsense that came right out of the mouth of Engels and later anti-revisionists such as Hoxha and Mao.


What you're asking us to believe is that a society without private property and without having capitalists in power was capitalist. Truly incredible stuff.What you're asking us to believe is that the essence of private property changes if we stop calling it private property.


First, I asked you to specify what you meant about Saudi Arabia and you gave me a whole lot of nothing, so there's no reason for us to think you have the slightest idea what you're talking about when you compare the USSR and those states. Second, Marxists look at technical conditions, not some un-definable "essence". In the USSR, the material conditions for capitalism had been abolished (as I've explained), and the material conditions for socialism had been established (as I've also explained).Since you ignored everything I said:


Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.
My assertion is not that any undemocratic society was capitalist. That is an obvious distortion of my argument, but it's good to know that you're getting desperate.

Also, concerning essence:


"In its proper meaning, dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things."


Your assertions of capitalism are so vague that they can, feasibly, be applied to ANY society with a working class that doesn't have working-class control. The end of the French monarchy, then, was capitalist, because there was an urban proletariat which was politically disenfranchised.I'm done. I've pointed out what the difference is probably a dozen times. You ignore and distort everything.


Even if we take your word for it, the organization of the means of production is a "damn important detail" that you've left out entirely. Allow me to reiterate this once more:

It's fundamentally different in a few ways, and this has been answered before. First, collectivized state property does not exploit labor or create private profit from the workers, the labor of the workers goes into the state, which then puts its resources into a variety of programs. Capitalists fatten their pocketbooks, while Soviet bureaucrats only made a living off of their wages and the privileges of their position, not from the extraction of surplus value from the working class. Again, Soviet bureaucrats owned nothing, they made no profit, they had no access to a nonexistent capitalist mode of production. Second, foreign trade went through the state and not through private companies; the significance of this is that those administrators (who, as you should remember, didn't make any profit in the capitalist sense) drove the economy through central planning and not through concerns over investment and yield. If no one is buying products in order to sell them, as happens in capitalist countries, you can't seriously argue that that society is capitalist.

I wonder what tangential, irrelevant argument you'll come up with this time.I'm not going to come up with any new argument because you completely ignored my last one. You see the technical conditions necessary for socialism and think it's socialism without ever paying attention to the damn class relations of society. Marxist analysis is based on class. Your entire analysis, out of necessity, completely ignores anything to do with relation to production.


The problem is you haven't provided the slightest bit of evidence or logic for these phantom "capitalist social relations". I, on the other hand, have repeatedly outlined what aspects of Soviet society and economic organization were un-capitalist and socialist. Once again, make an argument.Why? So you can ignore it like you have every other time I made it?


Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.


Just so we can reference this, Marx referred to utopians and feudalists as socialists, while today the term could hardly be applied to such ideologies. Keeping up to date in the revolutionary socialist movement might help you out here. Socialism is commonly used to describe the dictatorship of the proletariat. You might not, but that's no one else's fault.And communism is commonly used to describe a one party dictatorship. Excuse me for trying to remain true to the Marxist tradition instead of your revisionist crap.


Private property entails ownership over the means of production. Class society and the abolition of private property can coexist and have coexisted in the past. Cuba is a living, breathing example of such a society today.
So Cuba, where 25% of the workforce is employed by private companies, has no private property? Cool.


He was talking about the process of nationalization under capitalist auspices, something that takes the form of Amtrak, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Again, even you retreated from that position of yours because it's so untenable.Again, "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit." Following this to it's logical conclusion, national capitalist means a society where all of the productive forces are owned by the state. Amtrak is not a state with control over all of the productive forces.




So many smilies, so few arguments.

The passage showed us that even when a class, after having shaped society in its own image, is politically defeated, the social relations defined and organized by that class are not necessarily changed. In France (do try to pay attention), the bourgeoisie was politically disenfranchised, and yet capitalism still existed. Under your logic, capitalism could not exist in that scenario.

Once again, since you've danced around it yet again:

Applying your logic, the Second French Empire was un-capitalist. This is surely false, as are your assertions that the USSR was un-socialist.No, not my logic, as pointed out probably a dozen times. You said that class has nothing to do with social relations. What reaction other than :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: do you expect? :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:



Yes, just as the bourgeois state of 19th Century France was, for a long period, not controlled by the bourgeoisie. I'll let Marx's conclusions speak for themselves.
That's because the "bourgeois state of 19th century France" was a peasant state. You're comparing this to a situation that is far different.



First, your assertion here is nothing more than wishful thinking. There is nothing in that quote which asserts that ALL productive forces are state-owned. He was discussing the process of capitalist nationalization of industry, which historically takes the form of entities like Amtrak.

On the second part of your post, your dialogue with mykittyhasaboner has already proven this to be the result of a misreading, so I'll let that slide this time.
A misreading of Stalin, not Engels. Perhaps you should read the Engels quote again: "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit." Don't just read it. Actually think about it. I know that's hard for you, but try. If by taking over more productive forces, the state moves closer to state capitalism, then logically, when it takes over all of the productive forces, it is state capitalism. Understand, or should I repeat that another dozen times like everything else?


Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

- Karl Marx

That is what socialism refers to.If so, you could easily find me a quote from Marx proving that. But you can't because you don't know what socialism is. You don't even know what the workers state is. You don't even know what the Marxist definition of the state is.


As I've said before, if you were up to date with what's been happening in the socialist movement over the past century, you wouldn't be in the dark about the fact that socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Or the fact of socialism's existence.Really? Is that why pretty much every tendency except for some Trots accept the state capitalist analysis, including the anti-revisionists Hoxha and Mao?

Also, while it appears that your mind blocks out any text that contradicts your arguments, I guess it's worth a shot to link you to this:

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

THE RESTORATION OF CAPITALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION.By W. B. Bland. It's an extremely detailed analysis of how the technical form of socialism was dismantled in the USSR with the Liberman reforms and such.


William B Bland (Bill Bland) (April 28, 1916–March 13, 2001) was a British Marxist-Leninist and optician who was notable as a worldwide leader of a movement that backed Enver Hoxha,[1] the Albanian communist leader, in the struggles over Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy in the later 1960s.

[manic expression]

Are you incapable of comprehension? Did the french state in 1852 control all of the productive forces?

These are radically different situations as noted above.

That's not the point at all. Did the French bourgeoisie have political power over the state or not?

It seems you are, after all, incapable of making a valid argument.


As I said: "No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense. "

And that statement contradicts your entire hypothesis. If the bureaucrats were not capitalists, how could they form a capitalist class?


I think Hoxha's quote worked quite nicely: "The present Soviet state as a collective capitalist administers the means of production in the name and in the interests of the new Soviet bourgeoisie."

Well, if you'd like to employ Hoxha's analyses, then you'll have to say that Albania was socialist. Have fun with that. As for me, I couldn't care less what he had to say.


All economies are planned? Again, you resort to semantics. Saudi Arabia has 80% of its workforce employed in the public sector. Cuba has 75%. Working class control of the state is apparently unnecessary for socialism. If Cuba can be socialism with 75% public ownership, then Saudi Arabia is surely socialist by your anti-Marxist logic.

Again you resort to absurdity. Cuba, unlike Saudi Arabia, sees the working class democratically control the state and the means of production. That's been proven multiple times on this very thread, and yet you're too ignorant to even figure that out.

Saudi Arabia, in addition, vests ownership in the hands of the rulers of the country. The Soviet Union, by your own words, did not. After all, No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense.


God, you don't understand anything at all about socialism and capitalism, do you? This is your worse distortion yet, I didn't say that they resulted from the bureaucracy being greed. The shortages were due to surplus value being used to accumulate instead of produce means of consumption. Yes, it's a result of backwardness, a backwardness that has to be gotten rid of before you can have socialism.

Yes, you did imply that the shortages were the doing of the bureaucrats as capitalists. Which is idiotic for obvious reasons, and I'm glad you recognized it and backtracked again.

If you honestly think the shortages were because of "surplus value being used to accumulate instead of produce means of consumption", you don't know the first thing about Soviet history. Let me know when you do, but I won't hold my breath, seeing as history runs counter to your fantasies.


That is not what people generally mean when they refer to accumulation. So did every other country on the planet.

That's what socialists mean. The workers didn't just raise their living standards through capitalist wages, they did so through the structure of a worker state. The industrialization process saw Soviet workers building the communities they would come to live and work in. More importantly, no one was making private profit off of those initiatives. That's collectivized production, and that's why it was socialist.

Enjoy arguing with history once more.


Nonsense that came right out of the mouth of Engels and later anti-revisionists such as Hoxha and Mao.

I had no idea Engels wrote about the Soviet Union. Who woulda thunk it?

And no, your vulgar misuse of Engels' words, as well as a shameless misapplication of what he was writing about, doesn't help you here. Engels was talking about Amtrak, you're talking about the USSR. If you can't see the difference in that, you're being thick, and I have to again explain this to you like you're 5 years old. Amtrak, a nationalized industry under capitalism, is nationalized under the auspices and laws of a capitalist class; the Soviet Union, by your own arguments, had no capitalist class in power and had no one owning the means of production as private property. Therefore, they're different.

I can't wait for you to ignore the facts for the 20th time.


What you're asking us to believe is that the essence of private property changes if we stop calling it private property.

Not really. Private property, to be private property, must be the ownership of the means of production for the exploitation of the workers. The Soviet Union had no such thing, even if we accept your own words, as the bureaucrats did not own capitalist property and production was collectivized.

No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense.

"Or some other nonsense", indeed.


Since you ignored everything I said:

That's not a materialistic analysis, that's a bunch of wishful thinking from someone who can't apply Marxism. Not once there did you talk about social relations, you talked of a phantom bourgeoisie controlling capital, even when you yourself have said that the bureaucrats were not capitalists.


Also, concerning essence:

Completely different context. You're looking for the "soul" of the Soviet Union, when the matter is plain for all to see. Nice attempt at exploiting another Marxist theoretician to bolster your empty garbage.


I'm done. I've pointed out what the difference is probably a dozen times. You ignore and distort everything.

No, I repeat what you fail to address, which happens to be backed up by history. You, on the other hand, can only respond thusly:

":laugh:"

Nice materialist analysis there.


I'm not going to come up with any new argument because you completely ignored my last one. You see the technical conditions necessary for socialism and think it's socialism without ever paying attention to the damn class relations of society. Marxist analysis is based on class. Your entire analysis, out of necessity, completely ignores anything to do with relation to production.

The "damn" class relations of the Soviet Union didn't have a capitalist class there in the first place. Who owned private property? Who exploited the workers for capitalist profit? Where is this phantom capitalist class? In the face of class analyses, you have nothing, so you repeat nothing.


And communism is commonly used to describe a one party dictatorship. Excuse me for trying to remain true to the Marxist tradition instead of your revisionist crap.

If you would like to remain "true to the Marxist tradition", then refer to feudalists as socialists and at least be consistent. As for me, I'd rather keep up to date with what real revolutionaries think and do in the real world.


So Cuba, where 25% of the workforce is employed by private companies, has no private property? Cool.

Again, you don't know what you're talking about. Most, if not almost all of those workers are employed in small businesses, such as family-run restaurants. They became more common during the Special Period and after, but they're becoming less important now. However, they're not capitalist endeavors because the few workers in each "company" basically get equal shares of what they make, so it's not like anyone's selling their labor to someone who owns capital.

Honestly, if you don't know the actual situation (as in Cuba, USSR, etc.), just stop, it makes me feel bad for you.


Again, "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit." Following this to it's logical conclusion, national capitalist means a society where all of the productive forces are owned by the state. Amtrak is not a state with control over all of the productive forces.

That's not following it to its "logical conclusion", because you're stripping it of its content and meaning. Amtrak is a textbook example of an industry nationalized under the control of the capitalist state: the capitalist class determined it was desirable for railroads to be nationalized to that degree, and so they carried it out. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, didn't have capitalists in government or in business, so your analogy kind of falls flat.


No, not my logic, as pointed out probably a dozen times. You said that class has nothing to do with social relations. What reaction other than :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh: do you expect? :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

That is your logic, as a matter of fact. You pointed out a lack of working-class state power in the USSR as "evidence" of capitalism; by the same token, we can point to the lack of bourgeois state power in mid 19th Century France as "evidence" of un-capitalism. Your logic, again, is wrong.

And your immaturity just underlines your argument's stupidity, so keep the smilies coming.


That's because the "bourgeois state of 19th century France" was a peasant state. You're comparing this to a situation that is far different.

It wasn't a peasant state because the peasants didn't control the state. It was a Bonapartist dictatorship established through the political defeat of all of France's classes. Thus, we have a capitalist society with a non-capitalist ruler. Applying your logic, it could not have been capitalist, because the bourgeoisie was not in power. Your line of logic, not mine.


A misreading of Stalin, not Engels.

I was referring to your misreading of Stalin.


Perhaps you should read the Engels quote again: "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit." Don't just read it. Actually think about it. I know that's hard for you, but try. If by taking over more productive forces, the state moves closer to state capitalism, then logically, when it takes over all of the productive forces, it is state capitalism. Understand, or should I repeat that another dozen times like everything else?

Please see my above paragraph ("That's not following it to its 'logical conclusion'..."). Thanks.


If so, you could easily find me a quote from Marx proving that. But you can't because you don't know what socialism is. You don't even know what the workers state is. You don't even know what the Marxist definition of the state is.

That is a quote from Marx. Better luck next time.

And the state is an organization of armed men for the suppression of non-ruling classes.


Really? Is that why pretty much every tendency except for some Trots accept the state capitalist analysis, including the anti-revisionists Hoxha and Mao?

If you want to agree with Hoxha and Mao, that's your deal, but just know you must then agree with their characterizations of Albania and PRC, respectively.

And I don't recall the pro-Soviet parties of the world calling the Soviet Union "state capitalist".


Also, while it appears that your mind blocks out any text that contradicts your arguments, I guess it's worth a shot to link you to this:

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html

THE RESTORATION OF CAPITALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION.By W. B. Bland. It's an extremely detailed analysis of how the technical form of socialism was dismantled in the USSR with the Liberman reforms and such.

Tell you what, when you understand the first thing about Soviet history, I'll give that link a try. Deal?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

That's not the point at all. Did the French bourgeoisie have political power over the state or not?

It seems you are, after all, incapable of making a valid argument.

And that's why you're not a Marxist, because to you the point isn't how people relate to production.


And that statement contradicts your entire hypothesis. If the bureaucrats were not capitalists, how could they form a capitalist class?No, it doesn't. That is why I use the term state capitalist, or as Hoxha said, "collective capitalist."


Well, if you'd like to employ Hoxha's analyses, then you'll have to say that Albania was socialist. Have fun with that. As for me, I couldn't care less what he had to say.So if I agree with one thing someone says I have to agree with everything else they say? Cool.


Again you resort to absurdity. Cuba, unlike Saudi Arabia, sees the working class democratically control the state and the means of production. That's been proven multiple times on this very thread, and yet you're too ignorant to even figure that out.Who is in control of the means of production means nothing to you.


Saudi Arabia, in addition, vests ownership in the hands of the rulers of the country. The Soviet Union, by your own words, did not. After all, No one is claiming that each bureacrat individually owns his own factories or stocks or some other nonsense.
Again, who controls the means of production apparently means nothing to you.


Yes, you did imply that the shortages were the doing of the bureaucrats as capitalists. Which is idiotic for obvious reasons, and I'm glad you recognized it and backtracked again.No, I said this: "It was to accumulate, hence major shortages of consumer goods."


If you honestly think the shortages were because of "surplus value being used to accumulate instead of produce means of consumption", you don't know the first thing about Soviet history. Let me know when you do, but I won't hold my breath, seeing as history runs counter to your fantasies.
Soviet industry was usually divided into two major categories. Group A was "heavy industry," which included all goods that serve as an input required for the production of some other, final good. Group B was "Soviet consumer goods" (final goods used for consumption), including foods, clothing and shoes, housing, and such heavy-industry products as appliances and fuels that are used by individual consumers. From the early days of the Stalin era, Group A received top priority in economic planning and allocation.


That's what socialists mean. The workers didn't just raise their living standards through capitalist wages, they did so through the structure of a worker state. The industrialization process saw Soviet workers building the communities they would come to live and work in. More importantly, no one was making private profit off of those initiatives. That's collectivized production, and that's why it was socialist.No, it isn't. When Marxists speak of accumulation, overaccumulation, etc they are referring to accumulation of capital. I wouldn't expect you to know that though, because you aren't a Marxist.


I had no idea Engels wrote about the Soviet Union. Who woulda thunk it?We were discussing a situation abstracted from any particular country. Nice try distorting my argument again.


And no, your vulgar misuse of Engels' words, as well as a shameless misapplication of what he was writing about, doesn't help you here. Engels was talking about Amtrak, you're talking about the USSR. If you can't see the difference in that, you're being thick, and I have to again explain this to you like you're 5 years old. Amtrak, a nationalized industry under capitalism, is nationalized under the auspices and laws of a capitalist class; the Soviet Union, by your own arguments, had no capitalist class in power and had no one owning the means of production as private property. Therefore, they're different.

I can't wait for you to ignore the facts for the 20th time.I had no idea Engels wrote about Amtrak. Who woulda thunk it?

He was talking about a state that owned all of the productive forces being national capitalist. You can't have a state that owns all of the capital that isn't capitalist. Like I said, state capitalist. The states position in society was not fundamentally different from the capitalist class.


Not really. Private property, to be private property, must be the ownership of the means of production for the exploitation of the workers. The Soviet Union had no such thing, even if we accept your own words, as the bureaucrats did not own capitalist property and production was collectivized.
Yes, they did. The states property was not under the control of the workers. Capitalist private property is not under the control of the workers. Both situations involved one group of society with no private property. Capitalist social relations.


That's not a materialistic analysis, that's a bunch of wishful thinking from someone who can't apply Marxism. Not once there did you talk about social relations, you talked of a phantom bourgeoisie controlling capital, even when you yourself have said that the bureaucrats were not capitalists.
I'm just gonna paste it again since apparently you didn't read it:

"Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.
My assertion is not that any undemocratic society was capitalist. That is an obvious distortion of my argument, but it's good to know that you're getting desperate."



No, I repeat what you fail to address, which happens to be backed up by history. And I repeat my response, but you ignore it. So what's the point?


The "damn" class relations of the Soviet Union didn't have a capitalist class there in the first place. Who owned private property? Who exploited the workers for capitalist profit? Where is this phantom capitalist class? In the face of class analyses, you have nothing, so you repeat nothing.Do you even know what the capitalist class is? You reject class analysis, so why do I care if you think I don't employ it?


Again, you don't know what you're talking about. Most, if not almost all of those workers are employed in small businesses, such as family-run restaurants. They became more common during the Special Period and after, but they're becoming less important now. However, they're not capitalist endeavors because the few workers in each "company" basically get equal shares of what they make, so it's not like anyone's selling their labor to someone who owns capital.Well, according to the government that only applies to half of their privately employed workers. The other 10% work for capitalist businesses:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/art3670.html/OA-Cuba_Social_Policy_at_Crossroads-en.pdf/?searchterm=social%20policy%20at%20the%20crossroad s


That's not following it to its "logical conclusion", because you're stripping it of its content and meaning. Amtrak is a textbook example of an industry nationalized under the control of the capitalist state: the capitalist class determined it was desirable for railroads to be nationalized to that degree, and so they carried it out. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, didn't have capitalists in government or in business, so your analogy kind of falls flat.I don't think you can read or are capable of utilizing logic. Here's Engels quote again:


The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit.Implying that a state controlling all of the capital becomes "national capitalist," or state capitalist.


That is your logic, as a matter of fact. You pointed out a lack of working-class state power in the USSR as "evidence" of capitalism; by the same token, we can point to the lack of bourgeois state power in mid 19th Century France as "evidence" of un-capitalism. Your logic, again, is wrong.

And your immaturity just underlines your argument's stupidity, so keep the smilies coming.Because you're abstracting from the situation. In the USSR state power entailed ownership of the means of production. By saying it doesn't matter who controls the state you're saying it doesn't matter who controls the means of production. In other words, you're throwing class out the window.


It wasn't a peasant state because the peasants didn't control the state. It was a Bonapartist dictatorship established through the political defeat of all of France's classes. Thus, we have a capitalist society with a non-capitalist ruler. Applying your logic, it could not have been capitalist, because the bourgeoisie was not in power. Your line of logic, not mine.
Perhaps you should take that up with Marx, because he says rather clearly in the 18th Brumaire that Bonaparte's state was a state of the small-holding peasants. Control of the state did not entail ownership of the means of production, so again, totally different.



That is a quote from Marx. Better luck next time.

And the state is an organization of armed men for the suppression of non-ruling classes.Perhaps you should actually read the quote. Where in that quote does he call the DotP socialism? He doesn't, because the two are not the same.

So you realize that the state is an organ of class rule, yet you think the state can be a workers state without being under the control of the workers? Interesting.


And I don't recall the pro-Soviet parties of the world calling the Soviet Union "state capitalist".But I do recall them all turning social democrat after it collapsed because they could no longer opportunistically use their pro-soviet position to get funding.


Tell you what, when you understand the first thing about Soviet history, I'll give that link a try. Deal?You're just proving my point.

[manic expression]

And that's why you're not a Marxist, because to you the point isn't how people relate to production.

So I'm not a Marxist because I'm agreeing with Marx's characterization of the Second French Empire? Right. Once more, deal with the issue: was the empire capitalist or not?


No, it doesn't. That is why I use the term state capitalist, or as Hoxha said, "collective capitalist."

That's incredibly mistaken. Capitalists do not put everything in a pot and take from it as they please; capitalists themselves own the means of production as private property and exploit the workers they employ. According to you, the Soviet bureaucrats did not do this, and so your argument is self-contradictory.


So if I agree with one thing someone says I have to agree with everything else they say? Cool.

I suppose cherry picking would befit someone who rejects Marx when it's convenient, but at least try to be consistent. If you accept Hoxha's definition of state capitalism, why do you reject his definition of Albania? It's not asking you to agree with everything he says, just the points to which the analysis applies.


Who is in control of the means of production means nothing to.

Again, who controls the means of production apparently means nothing to you.

It does, I just don't make up invisible social relations and property laws like you do. The social relations of Saudi Arabia are defined by the fact that the king and his cronies use the property they (wait for it) own to directly exploit the workers. The bureaucrats of the USSR, according to you, didn't do that, so you're wrong.


No, I said this: "It was to accumulate, hence major shortages of consumer goods."

Which ignores all of Soviet history once more. Let me know when you touch the page of a history book.


No, it isn't. When Marxists speak of accumulation, overaccumulation, etc they are referring to accumulation of capital. I wouldn't expect you to know that though, because you aren't a Marxist.

The workers should accumulate capital.


We were discussing a situation abstracted from any particular country. Nice try distorting my argument again.

Marxists don't write in the abstract, they write about concrete examples. Amtrak is such an example. The Soviet Union is not. I've explained this before.


I had no idea Engels wrote about Amtrak. Who woulda thunk it?

If you're getting frustrated, just say so.


He was talking about a state that owned all of the productive forces being national capitalist. You can't have a state that owns all of the capital that isn't capitalist. Like I said, state capitalist. The states position in society was not fundamentally different from the capitalist class.
Yes, they did. The states property was not under the control of the workers. Capitalist private property is not under the control of the workers. Both situations involved one group of society with no private property. Capitalist social relations.

Engels was talking about a society that nationalizes property under the direction of the capitalist class. From what you've written, it is safe to assume there was no empowered capitalist class in the Soviet state, and so the analogy makes no sense whatsoever, because without a capitalist class in power, such a situation is impossible. Again, maybe I should just use props so you can comprehend the point.


I'm just gonna paste it again since apparently you didn't read it:

"Yes, the social relations. And you've failed to analyze those. First, what is the relation of capital to labor in capitalism? Well, one section of society controls all the capital, and the other controls nothing but their labor power. That is what we saw in the USSR. That is what you're ignoring.

You repeat nothing because you have nothing, just as I suspected. It is the ownership of private property which defines a capitalist, as it allows the bourgeois to exploit the workers. Without that key position in society, that social relation cannot be practiced. As you've already agreed to the fact that there were no capitalists in the Soviet bureaucracy, we can comfortably conclude that your conclusion is illogical.


My assertion is not that any undemocratic society was capitalist. That is an obvious distortion of my argument, but it's good to know that you're getting desperate."

Good to know you're going in circles. Your assertion was that since the workers did not control the state, that society could not be capitalist; when confronted with an example of a capitalist society without bourgeois state power, you resort to immaturity and smilies. Have fun repeating yourself when it's obvious you're incorrect.


And I repeat my response, but you ignore it. So what's the point?

Yes, you repeat your illogical, naive and/or irrelevant responses. What, in your eyes, is the point?

[QOUTE]Do you even know what the capitalist class is? You reject class analysis, so why do I care if you think I don't employ it?[/QUOTE]

You're the one trying to tell everyone that the Soviet bureaucracy, while not counting any capitalists in their ranks, acted as a grand capitalist even as no one was making profit. My analysis takes into account the fact that there was no empowered capitalist class in the USSR. Your analysis spurns such trifles because you're an anti-socialist.


Well, according to the government that only applies to half of their privately employed workers. The other 10% work for capitalist businesses:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/newsandpublications/publications/research_reports/art3670.html/OA-Cuba_Social_Policy_at_Crossroads-en.pdf/?searchterm=social%20policy%20at%20the%20crossroad s

I searched "capitalist" and "business" and found no results in that document. Cite something concrete.


I don't think you can read or are capable of utilizing logic. Here's Engels quote again:

Implying that a state controlling all of the capital becomes "national capitalist," or state capitalist.

Leaps in logic again. Since you don't get it, here you go:

Nationalized industry under capitalism is nationalized under the auspices and laws of a capitalist class; the Soviet Union, by your own arguments, had no capitalist class in power and had no one owning the means of production as private property. Therefore, they're completely different.

Applying Engels' talk of capitalist nationalization to the Soviet Union is like applying Engels' quote to the policies of Tsar Peter I. Both nationalized capital (which is actually what happened in Russia under Peter), so the tsarist state is now the "national capitalist". See, I can completely misuse Engels, too.


Because you're abstracting from the situation. In the USSR state power entailed ownership of the means of production. By saying it doesn't matter who controls the state you're saying it doesn't matter who controls the means of production. In other words, you're throwing class out the window.

But state power does not equal private property, that's the central issue. Had bureaucrats made profits directly from the labor of workers, that's one thing, but receiving a wage from a state is something else. If a bureaucrat is not employing workers or making profit off of ownership of capital or everything else every capitalist in human history has ever done, it is simply impossible to label that state as capitalist when it is devoid of capitalists.

The lack of working-class control is secondary because the revolutionary character of the Soviet Union was actually defended from 1928-32 onward. The Soviet bureaucracy fought the external and internal threats to the collectivized production that existed in that country and maintained central planning devoid of capitalist exploitaiton. The reason it's not like Saudi Arabia is because the Saudi leaders do, in fact, own quite a lot of capital and means of production, whereas the Soviet bureaucracy could not by definition.


Perhaps you should take that up with Marx, because he says rather clearly in the 18th Brumaire that Bonaparte's state was a state of the small-holding peasants. Control of the state did not entail ownership of the means of production, so again, totally different.

A google search for "18th Brumaire Bonaparte 'peasant state'" came back with nothing of the sort. What he was saying is that Bonaparte represented their interests, which is quite a different thing.

This passage is useful:

Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time, like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself, as Napoleon’s successor, by springing constant surprises – that is to say, under the necessity of arranging a coup d’état in miniature every day – Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois economy into confusion, violates everything that seemed inviolable to the Revolution of 1848, makes some tolerant of revolution and makes others lust for it, and produces anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous.

Marx points out the confusion of the bourgeois order, but not the destruction of it. The bourgeoisie had been brought to its knees by Bonaparte, but capitalism was not overturned.

The same goes for working-class state power in the USSR. The revolutionary character of the Soviet Union was never overturned, and neither was its economic organization (until its fall, of course).


Perhaps you should actually read the quote. Where in that quote does he call the DotP socialism? He doesn't, because the two are not the same.

He also calls feudalists socialists, so I'm sure you'll call the 100 Years War socialism. Again, if you were up to date on what's been happening in the socialist movement since 1917 we wouldn't have this problem.


So you realize that the state is an organ of class rule, yet you think the state can be a workers state without being under the control of the workers? Interesting.

Just as much as a society can be capitalist with a politically defeated bourgeoisie.


But I do recall them all turning social democrat after it collapsed because they could no longer opportunistically use their pro-soviet position to get funding.

Not all of them. The KKE is a strong revolutionary party that should be emulated.


You're just proving my point.

The point that you keep talking about issues you're clearly misinformed on? Yes, I am.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

So I'm not a Marxist because I'm agreeing with Marx's characterization of the Second French Empire? Right. Once more, deal with the issue: was the empire capitalist or not?

No, you're not a Marxist because you ignore who owns the means of production.


That's incredibly mistaken. Capitalists do not put everything in a pot and take from it as they please; capitalists themselves own the means of production as private property and exploit the workers they employ. According to you, the Soviet bureaucrats did not do this, and so your argument is self-contradictory.Again, take that up with Engels.


Which ignores all of Soviet history once more. Let me know when you touch the page of a history book.Which ignores the passage I just posted and something that is common knowledge.


Marxists don't write in the abstract, they write about concrete examples. Amtrak is such an example. The Soviet Union is not. I've explained this before.
I don't think you even know what you're responding to. You ignore the fact that the Soviet state controlled all the means of production. You're abstracting from that and comparing it to every state that has existed.

Also, about Marxists not using abstractions...I suggest you take a look at Das Kapital.


If you're getting frustrated, just say so.:laugh:


Engels was talking about a society that nationalizes property under the direction of the capitalist class. From what you've written, it is safe to assume there was no empowered capitalist class in the Soviet state, and so the analogy makes no sense whatsoever, because without a capitalist class in power, such a situation is impossible. Again, maybe I should just use props so you can comprehend the point.And that state..ends up exactly the same as the USSR, which is something he called "national capitalist." The idea is that the state owns and controls the productive forces, not individual bureaucrats. Are you that dense?


You repeat nothing because you have nothing, just as I suspected. It is the ownership of private property which defines a capitalist, as it allows the bourgeois to exploit the workers. Without that key position in society, that social relation cannot be practiced. As you've already agreed to the fact that there were no capitalists in the Soviet bureaucracy, we can comfortably conclude that your conclusion is illogical.And, again, I'm not saying that individual bureaucrats were capitalist, that's why it's called state capitalism.


Good to know you're going in circles. Your assertion was that since the workers did not control the state, that society could not be capitalist; when confronted with an example of a capitalist society without bourgeois state power, you resort to immaturity and smilies. Have fun repeating yourself when it's obvious you're incorrect.No, my assertion was that since workers didn't control the means of production, that society was capitalist. Political power and ownership of the means of production are the same thing when it comes to the case of the USSR.



You're the one trying to tell everyone that the Soviet bureaucracy, while not counting any capitalists in their ranks, acted as a grand capitalist even as no one was making profit. My analysis takes into account the fact that there was no empowered capitalist class in the USSR. Your analysis spurns such trifles because you're an anti-socialist.Your analysis doesn't take into account who owned the means of production. You think socialism can exist without workers controlling the means of production. If you don't realize how anti-Marxist that is then you need to read some more.


I searched "capitalist" and "business" and found no results in that document. Cite something concrete.
Table 7.



Leaps in logic again. Since you don't get it, here you go:

Nationalized industry under capitalism is nationalized under the auspices and laws of a capitalist class; the Soviet Union, by your own arguments, had no capitalist class in power and had no one owning the means of production as private property. Therefore, they're completely different.And there would be no capitalist class in Engels' example, either.


Applying Engels' talk of capitalist nationalization to the Soviet Union is like applying Engels' quote to the policies of Tsar Peter I. Both nationalized capital (which is actually what happened in Russia under Peter), so the tsarist state is now the "national capitalist". See, I can completely misuse Engels, too.
He said that as the state nationalizes stuff, it moves closer to national capitalism. Implying that when it nationalizes everything, it is national capitalist. See how that logic stuff works?



But state power does not equal private property, that's the central issue. I don't care what you call it, it's property not under control of the workers, meaning they have to sell their labor power, and we still have the proletariat. As Bukharin said, the state becomes the direct expression of capitalist monopoly, and it makes no difference whether property is "private." Socialism is classless, so we can't have socialism. The workers state means the state is under the control of the workers, which you have already admitted was not the case, meaning we had no workers state either. There is no way you can argue otherwise.


Had bureaucrats made profits directly from the labor of workers, that's one thing, but receiving a wage from a state is something else. If a bureaucrat is not employing workers or making profit off of ownership of capital or everything else every capitalist in human history has ever done, it is simply impossible to label that state as capitalist when it is devoid of capitalists.That's because the state itself becomes the national capitalist.


The lack of working-class control is secondaryYes, I realize that the rule of the proletariat means less to you then a planned economy. Again, you are not a Marxist.


A google search for "18th Brumaire Bonaparte 'peasant state'" came back with nothing of the sort. What he was saying is that Bonaparte represented their interests, which is quite a different thing.Yes, and the peasants could not represent themselves because they were not organized as a class, unlike the proletariat.

"And yet the state power is not suspended in the air. Bonaparte represented a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the small-holding peasants. " It isn't important to this discussion at all anyway.


The same goes for working-class state power in the USSR. The revolutionary character of the Soviet Union was never overturned, and neither was its economic organization (until its fall, of course).
No one cares about it's economic organization. A capitalist society and workers state can have the exact same economic organization. Eg: The USSR and Engels hypothetical state capitalism.


He also calls feudalists socialists, so I'm sure you'll call the 100 Years War socialism. Again, if you were up to date on what's been happening in the socialist movement since 1917 we wouldn't have this problem.Again, show me a quote, please. If he used it that loosely then it shouldn't be so hard for you. Lenin himself called socialism the lower phase of communism.


Just as much as a society can be capitalist with a politically defeated bourgeoisie.
So the state can be a capitalist state when the workers control the state? Hmm...


The point that you keep talking about issues you're clearly misinformed on? Yes, I am.I hope you realize how stupid that was.

[manic expression]

No, you're not a Marxist because you ignore who owns the means of production.

Funny how the bureaucrats didn't own the means of production. Keep dancing.


Again, take that up with Engels.

I already did, and it's quite agreeable that you're misusing his words to support a wholly irrelevant and wholly incorrect argument.


Which ignores the passage I just posted and something that is common knowledge.

Yep, WWII had nothing to do with it. Do you ignore history in every case or just when it comes to socialism?


I don't think you even know what you're responding to. You ignore the fact that the Soviet state controlled all the means of production. You're abstracting from that and comparing it to every state that has existed.

Until you come to grips with the logical conclusions of your own words, you'll remain oblivious to the facts. Since you already admitted that Soviet bureaucrats were not capitalists, there's little else for me to add. The Soviet state controlled the means of production, and those who controlled the Soviet state were not capitalists according to you and I.

While you may not agree with me, your previous statements do.


Also, about Marxists not using abstractions...I suggest you take a look at Das Kapital.

Which is clearly applicable to something in the real world. Your fantasies, however, are not.

Did you really just compare your thick arguments here to Das Kapital? You're even more ignorant than I thought.


:laugh:

Like I said, you have nothing, so you repeat nothing.


And that state..ends up exactly the same as the USSR, which is something he called "national capitalist." The idea is that the state owns and controls the productive forces, not individual bureaucrats. Are you that dense?

No, that state is not "exactly the same as the USSR". The workers were not exploited and property had no capitalist character. In fact, you have never justified or explained the above statement precisely because it's nonsense. If you provided something beyond repeating a statement and expecting everyone to believe you, perhaps you could be taken seriously.


And, again, I'm not saying that individual bureaucrats were capitalist, that's why it's called state capitalism.

Right, individual bureaucrats were not capitalists, and therefore no capitalists were in power, the state could not be capitalist. For your argument to be true, the administrators of the state would have to be exploiting the workers, and to do that they would need capitalist positions and social relations, which they didn't have. Your own words condemn you, your conclusion is impossible in this situation because of what you've said.


No, my assertion was that since workers didn't control the means of production, that society was capitalist. Political power and ownership of the means of production are the same thing when it comes to the case of the USSR.

OK, so the reign of Louis XV and Louis XVI was capitalist because the workers didn't control the means of production. Gotcha. You're not even pretending to have a Marxist outlook now.


Your analysis doesn't take into account who owned the means of production. You think socialism can exist without workers controlling the means of production. If you don't realize how anti-Marxist that is then you need to read some more.

Yes, it does, because those who controlled the means of production did not own them as private property, and so they were not capitalists. Remember, you agree with me on this point, you're just too stubborn to admit your conclusions contradict your own arguments.


Table 7.

Great. Post a link or a quote.


And there would be no capitalist class in Engels' example, either.

Of course there would, who do you think initiates and oversees the nationalization of industry? In Engels' example, the capitalist class is heavily involved in such a development. That's why your entire analogy is a farce.


He said that as the state nationalizes stuff, it moves closer to national capitalism. Implying that when it nationalizes everything, it is national capitalist. See how that logic stuff works?

No, sorry, that's another leap in logic (see how that works?). Stating, correctly, that nationalization of industry under the capitalist class continues the exploitation of the workers does not imply what you're saying at all. You construe what you want to see, that "when it nationalizes everything, it is national capitalist", when Engels clearly said nothing of the sort. That's wishful thinking at its most pathetic.


I don't care what you call it, it's property not under control of the workers, meaning they have to sell their labor power, and we still have the proletariat. As Bukharin said, the state becomes the direct expression of capitalist monopoly, and it makes no difference whether property is "private." Socialism is classless, so we can't have socialism. The workers state means the state is under the control of the workers, which you have already admitted was not the case, meaning we had no workers state either. There is no way you can argue otherwise.

The proletariat exists in socialism. Classes exist in socialism. Try staying current on what socialists in the real world think.

And again, you are measuring social relations through some meter-stick of democracy. Social relations are not defined by how much or how little democracy determines a state, as you suggest, social relations are defined by economic organization and the relationship between classes. The Soviet Union, according to you, had no capitalist class in power, and so we can safely conclude the state was not capitalist. Further, Soviet industry and production remained collectivized, so we can safely conclude the economy was not run through the capitalist mode of production.


That's because the state itself becomes the national capitalist.

Under the auspices of the capitalist class. Which was not in power in the USSR.


Yes, I realize that the rule of the proletariat means less to you then a planned economy. Again, you are not a Marxist.

No, you convince yourself that there's no difference between the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia, which not only makes you anti-socialist but laughably incompetent as well. And the lack of exploitation of the proletariat is what counts for me, and that's what we see in the USSR. You have yet to provide an explanation for how some phantom capitalist class exploited the workers with some phantom capitalist state and market.


Yes, and the peasants could not represent themselves because they were not organized as a class, unlike the proletariat.

The proletariat in the Soviet Union gradually lost the means with which to control the state because of external and internal threats and the material circumstances of the USSR, which makes the situations quite comparable in many aspects, including the aspect I did use to compare them.


"And yet the state power is not suspended in the air. Bonaparte represented a class, and the most numerous class of French society at that, the small-holding peasants. " It isn't important to this discussion at all anyway.

And yet all the classes of France were politically deprived, as Marx states. That's the point.


No one cares about it's economic organization. A capitalist society and workers state can have the exact same economic organization. Eg: The USSR and Engels hypothetical state capitalism.

Marxists care about economic organization, because a worker state does not defend the exploitation of workers through the ownership of private property. To even suggest they "can have the exact same economic organization" is comically wrong.


Again, show me a quote, please. If he used it that loosely then it shouldn't be so hard for you. Lenin himself called socialism the lower phase of communism.

Once more:

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

- Karl Marx


So the state can be a capitalist state when the workers control the state? Hmm...

That's another leap in logic. A politically defeated bourgeoisie in a Bonapartist coup (not the organized control of another class) does not correspond to the above at all. Once more you're ignoring the context of class completely.

While this is unrelated to what I was saying, society can see limited capitalist production under certain circumstances when the workers control the state. The NEP is a good example, as is the Special Period in Cuba.


I hope you realize how stupid that was.

Don't forget what I said about you getting frustrated.

[robbo203]

A misreading of Stalin, not Engels. Perhaps you should read the Engels quote again: "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit." Don't just read it. Actually think about it. I know that's hard for you, but try. If by taking over more productive forces, the state moves closer to state capitalism, then logically, when it takes over all of the productive forces, it is state capitalism. Understand, or should I repeat that another dozen times like everything else?.

Exactly so. I mean its not exactly rocket science. Anyone with a smattering of marxist understanding would realise full well that the soviet union was not socialist, ever - certainly not in the sense that socialism was widely understood to mean in the late 10th early 20th century as more or less synonymous with communism. Even Lenin recognised it was state capitalism. All the primary features of capitalism were plainly there to see - wage labour( yes the Russian wage slaves did work to earn something called a wage, believe it or not) commodity production (yes , they had to buy goods and services on the market) capital accumulation and so on. Most of the cited differences between this variant of capitalism and the more traditional mixed economy of the West are either grossly exaggerated e.g. the role of planning in the USSR or superficial. For example, apologists for the Soviet regimes uncannily resemble their bourgeois counterparts in the West in attaching huge importance to de jure private ownership of capital by individuals as the mark of capitalism rather than de facto ownership which is what marxists tend to emphasise. Thus it is not necessary that capital should be privately owned by individuals for there to be capitalism. Marx had already noted this in connection with the development of the joint stock company and as the above quote from Engels clearly points out state ownership is fully compatible wuith capitalism. That the Soviet Union was not at all socialist or communist is demopnstarted by the fact that wealth took the form of commodities which implies sectional ownership of the means of productuion. Who owned the means of prpduction in the Soviet Union is most easily answered by asking who it was that controlled the state machine. Those who controlled the state - the nomenklatura of the so called communist party - were the de facto capitalist class. In fact ownership and control are just different aspects pf the same thing

[robbo203]

The proletariat exists in socialism. Classes exist in socialism. Try staying current on what socialists in the real world think.
.........

Marxists care about economic organization, because a worker state does not defend the exploitation of workers through the ownership of private property. To even suggest they "can have the exact same economic organization" is comically wrong..

Lets figure this out shall we? The proletariat or working class exists as a class by virtue of its exploited status under capitalism. The proletariat works for wages and wage labour presupposes capital (and vice versa). Capital functions to exploit wage labour and the proceeds of this exploitation permit the self expansion of capital.

Now according to you the proletariat exists in something that you call "socialism". If the proletariat exists at all that signifies that exploiitation is taking place. Who then is exploiting the proletariat in "socialism" because somebody has to be exploiting the proletariat since by definition the proletariat is exploited - as any marxist would know. You say "Marxists care about economic organization, because a worker state does not defend the exploitation of workers through the ownership of private property.

So can we take that to mean that it is not private individuals that exploit the proles in socialism but the state. Which leaves just two questions:

1) how the hell can you call this a workers state in that case and
2) why the hell would anyone, least of all someone who claims to be a marxist be advocating a system based on classes in which the working class continue to be exploited?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Funny how the bureaucrats didn't own the means of production. Keep dancing.

But the state, that you admit was not under the control of the workers, did.


I already did, and it's quite agreeable that you're misusing his words to support a wholly irrelevant and wholly incorrect argument.Does his quote not say "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit."?


Yep, WWII had nothing to do with it. Do you ignore history in every case or just when it comes to socialism?So the USSR was in a perpetual state of WWII? Or are you ignoring history in ever case afterwards?


Did you really just compare your thick arguments here to Das Kapital? You're even more ignorant than I thought.
No, I pointed out how idiotic it is to say that Marxists don't use abstractions.


Like I said, you have nothing, so you repeat nothing.:laugh:


No, that state is not "exactly the same as the USSR". The workers were not exploited and property had no capitalist character. In fact, you have never justified or explained the above statement precisely because it's nonsense. If you provided something beyond repeating a statement and expecting everyone to believe you, perhaps you could be taken seriously.In one, the state is not under the control of the workers and the state controls all of the productive forces. In the other, the state is not under the control of the workers and the state controls all of the productive forces. They sound...slightly similar. I don't think you know what exploitation is. As pointed out by Marx the civil war in France, exploitation can not disappear until the workers control the means of production. You admit that the workers did not control the means of production in the USSR.


With labor emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute.


Right, individual bureaucrats were not capitalists, and therefore no capitalists were in power, the state could not be capitalist. For your argument to be true, the administrators of the state would have to be exploiting the workers, and to do that they would need capitalist positions and social relations, which they didn't have. Your own words condemn you, your conclusion is impossible in this situation because of what you've said.
That is not part of my argument at all. My argument is that the state exploits workers, as in Engels formulation: "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit."


OK, so the reign of Louis XV and Louis XVI was capitalist because the workers didn't control the means of production. Gotcha. You're not even pretending to have a Marxist outlook now.If you were a Marxist you'd realize the stupidity of that comment. The word capitalism itself should should show you why.


Great. Post a link or a quote.I did post a link, and in table 7 in that link we see that 10% of the Cuban workforce is employed in the private sector excluding those who own their own business or work in cooperatives.


Of course there would, who do you think initiates and oversees the nationalization of industry? In Engels' example, the capitalist class is heavily involved in such a development. That's why your entire analogy is a farce.The state. His example entails a state that owns all of the means of production.


No, sorry, that's another leap in logic (see how that works?). Stating, correctly, that nationalization of industry under the capitalist class continues the exploitation of the workers does not imply what you're saying at all. You construe what you want to see, that "when it nationalizes everything, it is national capitalist", when Engels clearly said nothing of the sort. That's wishful thinking at its most pathetic.

"The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist."

Can you read it now?


The proletariat exists in socialism. Classes exist in socialism. Try staying current on what socialists in the real world think.If you were so devoted to staying current on what socialists in the real world then you wouldn't have the idiotic view that the USSR was socialist, even under Gorbachev. I'm interested in the views of Marx, which was that classes do not exist in socialism. You or anyone elses revisionism does not interest me. By your own admission we could not have had a workers state in the USSR because the workers had no control.

I find it funny that you say that there was no private property in the USSR, but admit that there were classes, when private property is the material basis for the existence of classes. :laugh:


And again, you are measuring social relations through some meter-stick of democracy. Social relations are not defined by how much or how little democracy determines a state, as you suggest, social relations are defined by economic organization and the relationship between classes. The Soviet Union, according to you, had no capitalist class in power, and so we can safely conclude the state was not capitalist. Further, Soviet industry and production remained collectivized, so we can safely conclude the economy was not run through the capitalist mode of production.
Class relations, or the relation to production, yes. And in the USSR a lack of democracy meant the same thing as a lack of working class control over the means of production. As Bukharin said, the state becomes the direct expression of capitalist monopoly, and it makes no difference whether property is "private."


Under the auspices of the capitalist class. Which was not in power in the USSR.
So the capitalist class can exist if it doesn't control any property in the case of Engels example, but in the case of the USSR, it can't? Hmm...


And the lack of exploitation of the proletariat is what counts for me, and that's what we see in the USSR. You have yet to provide an explanation for how some phantom capitalist class exploited the workers with some phantom capitalist state and market.But you don't even seem to know what exploitation is.


The proletariat in the Soviet Union gradually lost the means with which to control the stateBy your own admission the USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat. It couldn't have been. So what are you arguing?


Marxists care about economic organization, because a worker state does not defend the exploitation of workers through the ownership of private property. To even suggest they "can have the exact same economic organization" is comically wrong.The mere existence of the workers state implies that private property and exploitation still exists:


The class rule of the workers over the strata of the old world whom they have been fighting can only exist as long as the economic basis of class existence[private property] is not destroyed.

I suggest reading the Communist Manifest, it's good for beginners.


Once more:

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

- Karl MarxI don't see the word "socialism" in that quote.


That's another leap in logic. A politically defeated bourgeoisie in a Bonapartist coup (not the organized control of another class) does not correspond to the above at all. Once more you're ignoring the context of class completely.You said we can have a workers state that isn't under the control of the workers, so why can't we have a capitalist state that isn't under the control of the capitalists?


While this is unrelated to what I was saying, society can see limited capitalist production under certain circumstances when the workers control the state. The NEP is a good example, as is the Special Period in Cuba.Talk about contradictory views. You think socialism existed in the USSR because there was no private property, yet you consider the USSR under the NEP and Cuba in the Special Period to be socialism.

[manic expression]

But the state, that you admit was not under the control of the workers, did.

Control and ownership of private property are hardly the same. If they were, then all states would be capitalist. Again, Marxists know better.


Does his quote not say "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit."? Yes, which refers to nationalization under a capitalist class. Your words show that there were no capitalists in the Soviet state, so this is a completely different issue.


So the USSR was in a perpetual state of WWII? Or are you ignoring history in ever case afterwards?Run along and read up on the destruction of Soviet industry in WWII, as well as the Russian Civil War, because you're obviously oblivious to history.


No, I pointed out how idiotic it is to say that Marxists don't use abstractions.You tried to compare your arguments to Das Kapital. Pathetic.


:laugh:So many smilies, so little logic.


In one, the state is not under the control of the workers and the state controls all of the productive forces. In the other, the state is not under the control of the workers and the state controls all of the productive forces. They sound...slightly similar. I don't think you know what exploitation is. As pointed out by Marx the civil war in France, exploitation can not disappear until the workers control the means of production. You admit that the workers did not control the means of production in the USSR.More anti-Marxist absurdity. Applying your logic, the reign of Louis XVI was capitalist, because the state was "not under the control of the workers and the state [controlled] all of the productive forces." So, using your thinking here, Louis XVI ruled over a capitalist society. Not only are you desperate, you're digging yourself deeper with these half-baked arguments.

Exploitation of the workers occurs, in bourgeois society, through the ownership of private property. You already admitted no such thing existed, so there could not have been capitalistic exploitation. Better luck next time.

Oh, and labor was emancipated by the October Revolution. Again, run along and read some history.


That is not part of my argument at all. My argument is that the state exploits workers, as in Engels formulation: "The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit."More misapplication of Engels' words by someone who doesn't understand Marxism. Please refer above.


If you were a Marxist you'd realize the stupidity of that comment. The word capitalism itself should should show you why.Right, because I was applying your logic to the reign of Louis XVI in order to expose its foolishness. Such a comment was the result of your own line of reasoning, so I'm glad you've recognized the stupidity of your entire position.


I did post a link, and in table 7 in that link we see that 10% of the Cuban workforce is employed in the private sector excluding those who own their own business or work in cooperatives.It's not working on my computer, so I'll argue on your terms and still prove my point. The Cuban state, as has been proven countless times on this thread, is controlled firmly by the Cuban working class. Therefore, assuming this is true, the decision to open up part of the economy to privatization is one made by the workers and only the workers. In this case, such an economic policy does not disqualify socialism, as Cuba sees working-class state power without exception.

Remember, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, and the facts still back me up.


The state. His example entails a state that owns all of the means of production.Under the auspices of the capitalist class, unlike the Soviet Union. Keep manipulated Engels, it shows us how much of an anti-Marxist you are!


Can you read it now?Cute. Go back and read my refutation of your duplicitous misuse of Engels' analysis. Thanks.


If you were so devoted to staying current on what socialists in the real world then you wouldn't have the idiotic view that the USSR was socialist, even under Gorbachev.It's because I'm up-to-date on what revolutionaries in the real world think that I hold those conclusions.

It's because you're not that you've failed to mount any serious argument.


I'm interested in the views of Marx, which was that classes do not exist in socialism. You or anyone elses revisionism does not interest me. By your own admission we could not have had a workers state in the USSR because the workers had no control.The views of Marx held feudalists and utopians as socialists. Would you call them socialists? Be consistent here or be held incapable once more.

And if you actually applied the methods and analyses of Marx, you'd know that social relations can remain constant even when the ruling class associated with those relations has been politically defeated. Run along and read 18th Brumaire (before learning the first thing about Soviet history, don't forget).


I find it funny that you say that there was no private property in the USSR, but admit that there were classes, when private property is the material basis for the existence of classes. :laugh:There was no capitalist private property in many parts of medieval Europe, does that mean it didn't have any classes? More laughably insipid logic from the anti-Marxist.


Class relations, or the relation to production, yes. And in the USSR a lack of democracy meant the same thing as a lack of working class control over the means of production. As Bukharin said, the state becomes the direct expression of capitalist monopoly, and it makes no difference whether property is "private."It makes a great difference whether property is private. It determines if the workers are exploited, and if so, it determines who does the exploiting. It determines the nature of production, it determines the nature of society and life.

Right, private property has nothing to do with it...you don't have a materialist bone in your body.


So the capitalist class can exist if it doesn't control any property in the case of Engels example, but in the case of the USSR, it can't? Hmm...
But you don't even seem to know what exploitation is.The starting points and ending points are different, perhaps opposite. The USSR expropriated the property of the capitalist class, defeated it in all senses and established working-class control. The bureaucracy grew in that context. In Engels' example, the capitalists have complete agency, complete sovereignty.

And remember, according to you, there were no capitalists in the Soviet state, so that's enough of a difference right there. Keep dancing around your own words.


By your own admission the USSR was not a dictatorship of the proletariat. It couldn't have been. So what are you arguing?Of course you'd think that, your entire position is based on the self-serving misuse of the arguments of Marxists. But no, the USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat because it held all the materialistic qualities of one; the gradual decline of working-class democracy was a shortcoming, a flaw, a historically necessary defense against reaction, but it did not change the social relations of the Soviet Union that had already been established through the proletarian revolution of 1917. What's more is that you haven't shown anything to suggest that social relations changed, and you won't, because you can't.


The mere existence of the workers state implies that private property and exploitation still exists:Well it did in Germany, in Britain, in France, in the United States. Those were the greatest enemies of the Soviet Union, so naturally the worker state was a result of this material circumstance.


I suggest reading the Communist Manifest, it's good for beginners.I suggest committing the title to memory.


I don't see the word "socialism" in that quote.Perhaps you'll see it here:

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm#socialism


You said we can have a workers state that isn't under the control of the workers, so why can't we have a capitalist state that isn't under the control of the capitalists? From 18th Brumaire:

"The first French Revolution, with its task of breaking all separate local, territorial, urban, and provincial powers in order to create the civil unity of the nation, was bound to develop what the monarchy had begun, centralization, but at the same time the limits, the attributes, and the agents of the governmental power. Napoleon completed this state machinery."


Talk about contradictory views. You think socialism existed in the USSR because there was no private property, yet you consider the USSR under the NEP and Cuba in the Special Period to be socialism.Yes, because those policies were enacted directly by the workers of their respective countries. Just as nationalization under the auspices of the bourgeoisie is still capitalism, so too is such privatization under the auspices of the workers still socialism. So long as the workers hold all state power, limited privatization does not disqualify that society from being what it is: socialist.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Control and ownership of private property are hardly the same. If they were, then all states would be capitalist. Again, Marxists know better.

So the state didn't own the means of production?

No, because not all nations have complete state ownership of the means of production.


Yes, which refers to nationalization under a capitalist class. Your words show that there were no capitalists in the Soviet state, so this is a completely different issue.He's referring to the state becoming the national capitalist, which according to you is impossible because "capitalists do not put everything in a pot and take from it as they please." So, again, take that up with Engels.



Run along and read up on the destruction of Soviet industry in WWII, as well as the Russian Civil War, because you're obviously oblivious to history.Apparently you're oblivious to the fact that the USSR had half a century of history after WWII, or that the USSR had restored it's industry to pre-WWII levels by 1950, and had doubled them by 1954, and...etc.


You tried to compare your arguments to Das Kapital. Pathetic.No, I pointed out how stupid it is to claim that Marxists don't use abstractions. Idiotic.


So many smilies, so little logic.:laugh:


More anti-Marxist absurdity. Applying your logic, the reign of Louis XVI was capitalist, because the state was "not under the control of the workers and the state [controlled] all of the productive forces." So, using your thinking here, Louis XVI ruled over a capitalist society. Not only are you desperate, you're digging yourself deeper with these half-baked arguments.How could Louis XVI's state have the same relation of capital to labor if there wasn't even enough accumulated labor for the existence of capitalism? Hence my comment "If you were a Marxist you'd realize the stupidity of that comment. The word capitalism itself should should show you why. "


Exploitation of the workers occurs, in bourgeois society, through the ownership of private property. You already admitted no such thing existed, so there could not have been capitalistic exploitation. Better luck next time.Yes, I've refuted your little semantic argument plenty of times. You think social relations somehow change if the words used to describe property change. You don't even know what exploitation means, so why should I care what you think?


Oh, and labor was emancipated by the October Revolution. Again, run along and read some history.If I run along and read some history it's going to tell me that the October Revolution enslaved Russia, so I'm not sure that's a good suggestion.


More misapplication of Engels' words by someone who doesn't understand Marxism. Please refer above.
Please refer to all the posts where you disregard class as irrelevant and then tell me I don't understand Marxism again.


Right, because I was applying your logic to the reign of Louis XVI in order to expose its foolishness. Such a comment was the result of your own line of reasoning, so I'm glad you've recognized the stupidity of your entire position.If I call something capitalism I imply the existence of capital. See how that works?


It's not working on my computer, so I'll argue on your terms and still prove my point. The Cuban state, as has been proven countless times on this thread, is controlled firmly by the Cuban working class. Therefore, assuming this is true, the decision to open up part of the economy to privatization is one made by the workers and only the workers. In this case, such an economic policy does not disqualify socialism, as Cuba sees working-class state power without exception.

Remember, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, and the facts still back me up.But your entire claim is that the USSR was socialist because it had no private property or exploitation. If you think Cuba can be socialism with private property and exploitation you're throwing out your only defense of the USSR and need to formulate a new one.


Under the auspices of the capitalist class, unlike the Soviet Union. Keep manipulated Engels, it shows us how much of an anti-Marxist you are!But according to you the capitalist class and private property cease to exist once the productive forces become state property. Keep digging yourself into a hole instead of giving up, it shows us how much of an idiot you are.


Cute. Go back and read my refutation of your duplicitous misuse of Engels' analysis. Thanks.You refutation consisted of saying his quote said something that it obviously doesn't. I was only trying to help since the text is apparently too small for you to read.


It's because I'm up-to-date on what revolutionaries in the real world think that I hold those conclusions.

It's because you're not that you've failed to mount any serious argument.But barely any revolutionaries in the real world think that. Your position is closer to what we hear from the bourgeoisie. Most of us have realized that when our 8th grade teacher told us that socialism was a one party dictatorship where the government interferes in every aspect of your life, they were lying. Apparently you haven't.


The views of Marx held feudalists and utopians as socialists. Would you call them socialists? Be consistent here or be held incapable once more.And I'm not interested in them, I'm interested in Marx's conception of socialism, which was classless.


And if you actually applied the methods and analyses of Marx, you'd know that social relations can remain constant even when the ruling class associated with those relations has been politically defeated. Run along and read 18th Brumaire (before learning the first thing about Soviet history, don't forget).And as I've noted plenty of times, I realize this. That is the reason for the DotP.


There was no capitalist private property in many parts of medieval Europe, does that mean it didn't have any classes? More laughably insipid logic from the anti-Marxist.But I said "private property," not "capitalist private property." If you don't know that private property is the basis for the existence of class, how can you dare to call anyone anti-Marxist?


It makes a great difference whether property is private. It determines if the workers are exploited, and if so, it determines who does the exploiting. It determines the nature of production, it determines the nature of society and life.But before you said that the working class not owning the means of production was "meaningless in the categorization of social relations." Now it makes them exploited and determines the relations of production? If you want to go back and change your arguments that's fine, you've already destroyed most of your own arguments with this post.


Right, private property has nothing to do with it...you don't have a materialist bone in your body.And that isn't what Bukharin said. He said it makes no difference if you call it private property or something else. The relations will be the same no matter what we call it.


The starting points and ending points are different, perhaps opposite. The USSR expropriated the property of the capitalist class, defeated it in all senses and established working-class control. The bureaucracy grew in that context. In Engels' example, the capitalists have complete agency, complete sovereignty.
The fact that there is a workers state implies that the capitalist class could not have been "defeated in all senses." But anyway, using your logic, the capitalists couldn't possibly have complete agency in Engels example, because capitalist monopoly has turned into state monopoly, and "private" property no longer exists. We only have state functionaries, which according to you can't possibly constitute a "collective capitalist." The idea that two state with the same social relations are somehow different if they have two different starting points is idiotic, albeit less idiotic than your argument that we can somehow change social relations by using different words to describe things.


And remember, according to you, there were no capitalists in the Soviet state, so that's enough of a difference right there. Keep dancing around your own words.
But according to your reasoning, there could be no capitalists in Engels example either.


Of course you'd think that, your entire position is based on the self-serving misuse of the arguments of Marxists. But no, the USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat because it held all the materialistic qualities of one; the gradual decline of working-class democracy was a shortcoming, a flaw, a historically necessary defense against reaction, but it did not change the social relations of the Soviet Union that had already been established through the proletarian revolution of 1917. What's more is that you haven't shown anything to suggest that social relations changed, and you won't, because you can't.What are the "materialistic qualities" of a workers state? Workers rule. By your own admission workers rule didn't exist, so it couldn't possibly have been a workers state. You're back to claiming that a change in who owns property does not constitute a change in social relations.


Perhaps you'll see it here:

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm#socialismI was under the impression that this site was made by Trotskyists, not Marx. Anyway, I don't see anything on there saying that the DOTP equals socialism. All I see are a few quotes by Marx and Lenin showing the exact opposite:


"The dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for every class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period which separates capitalism from "classless society"

Even though Lenin is incorrect in this next quote, it's still sufficient to prove my point.


"But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by marx the "first", or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word "communism" is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism."

But didn't Marx say the state turned into communist society?


"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

By your logic the Dictatorship of the Proletariat turns into itself.


From 18th Brumaire:

"The first French Revolution, with its task of breaking all separate local, territorial, urban, and provincial powers in order to create the civil unity of the nation, was bound to develop what the monarchy had begun, centralization, but at the same time the limits, the attributes, and the agents of the governmental power. Napoleon completed this state machinery."That had absolutely nothing to do with my question, so I'll repeat:

You said we can have a workers state that isn't under the control of the workers, so why can't we have a capitalist state that isn't under the control of the capitalists?


Yes, because those policies were enacted directly by the workers of their respective countries. Just as nationalization under the auspices of the bourgeoisie is still capitalism, so too is such privatization under the auspices of the workers still socialism. So long as the workers hold all state power, limited privatization does not disqualify that society from being what it is: socialist. As I said above, "But your entire claim is that the USSR was socialist because it had no private property or exploitation. If you think Cuba can be socialism with private property and exploitation you're throwing out your only defense of the USSR and need to formulate a new one. "

[JimmyJazz]

Some of our Trotskyist posters seem to have revolution all figured out, they should lead one.

OH SNAP.


To me the discussion on when precisely you can call a state 'socialist' is a horribly pedantic one akin to asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I can never convince myself that there is any purpose in such debates. Revolution comes out of capitalist society and it is not only difficult but undesirable to immediately alter every single aspect of society based on some ideological plan, to hell with the consequences.

Far more important than "where we are at" is "where we've been" and "where we are going". If you take "state-capitalist" logic to its conclusions we have had nothing but state-capitalist revolutions. If communism is so fragile and prone to misinterpretation and manipulation that the majority of self-proclaimed communists are really either confused or dishonest capitalists then I think it's about time we gave up on the idea and came up with something new. I really don't see much of an in-between.

Right. I actually know several left-liberals/pinkos who are more supportive of Cuba than most Trots.* Anarchists too.

And make no mistake, that's what it's all about: support for real world revolutionary attempts to alter property relations (which Cuba has done, as any idiot knows) and build socialism (production for needs: check. workers' control: check, even if it's not up to your internet communist standards, although I doubt anyone hating on Cuba here could even give a definition of workers' control that everyone else hating on Cuba here wouldn't quibble with). If you don't support real world revolutions, you're literally useless; it doesn't matter if you read Marx in your spare time.

I'm not a fan of Stalin, but goddam if I don't like Trotskyism sometimes. This thread is like the perfect example. They are 'Marxists' first and socialists second. At least anarchist dissent from state socialism is based on a real, principled difference, whether you agree with it or not.


*but then there are Trotskyist groups like the Pathfinders who are obsessed with the Cuban revolution, which just goes to show how imprecise their whole analysis of Real True Genuine Socialism versus State Capitalism is--that it can lead to literally opposite conclusions.

[JimmyJazz]

And another thing:


Revolution comes out of capitalist society and it is not only difficult but undesirable to immediately alter every single aspect of society based on some ideological plan, to hell with the consequences.


Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?

No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.
In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.



Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.
Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.
It will develop in each of the these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.
It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm


This is Marxism 101.

[SecondLife]

...., that it is in fact you that wants to live a life of luxury amongst the Cuban working class - seeing as you reccommend vast amounts of money to move there.

Is here in forum more idiots who believe that luxury and communism are antipodes? Bourgeoisie like capitalism because they want to live in luxury.
Bourgeoisie usually think about communists as stupid people because they believe that communists like to be poor people. This is totally wrong viewpoint. Yes, they are little right - if resources are shared equally, then of course rich people aren't anymore as rich as before. But point is that in communism exist also progress and people, also people who were before rich, can soon be the same rich and not alone. Personally I like communism exactly because I like to live in luxury. Communism means for me huge economy thrift, rationality, where there don't exist anymore material problems. This all is achieved by planned economy and without unusual profit because don't exist anymore private ownership. This is future, not as Mad Max, but rather like Arthur Clarke. Communism isn't conservatism - this influences to complete real life, also ethic and morality, and means no rules anymore. In ethic or morality there was many mistakes before in communism, really big mistakes, but this time is over - communism is future without any old aspect of culture.

[Manifesto]

Honestly I think its a crime that the US made it illegal for most countries to trade with them.

[Dóchas]

Honestly I think its a crime that the US made it illegal for most countries to trade with them.

its only american citizens that the embargo applies to