Was Democratic Kampuchea a deformed workers state?
No takers?
I don't believe in the theory as it is normally known, but I fucking hope no one thinks that; although I am pretty M.H. would of thought so.
AMH thought it was "bureaucratic collectivist" which is such a fucking cop out because they have no problem castigating the upholders of the bureaucratic collectivist theory i.e. Schacthtman as opportunists for having the same view toward other Stalinist regimes. But then they appropriate the same theory to avoid addressing something that makes their own theory look like shit. Talk about opportunism, just shows how bankrupt DWS theory really is.
Deformed peasant's state
I don't think it came as a result of a revolution from the working class, it was more like a rich peasant based dictatorship that was supported as a proxy. I don't know much about that though, DWS holds true for the USSR at least. Deformed workers states are states with a planned economy ran by a state disconnected from the masses, but i'm not sure Pol Pot ran a planned economy, or any economy.
Thank you for the response. So is North Korea a deformed worker's state?
The workers and peasants never really gained any power, so the term wouldn't apply, right?
Where the workers gain power and lose it is a degenerated worker's state, while where they never have it is a deformed worker's state. I think the biggest problem with this theory is that it leads to supporting things like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
How is it an anything "worker's state" if workers had nothing to do with it though?
When the workers revolution creates a planned economy, it is a workers state since it doesn't at that point abide by the laws of capitalism. When a state that serves itself, recognizing itself as an entity independent of working class democracy, is administering the planned economy, it is a degenerated workers state. When the USSR invaded eastern europe, it created planned economies, which were dictated by the USSR's state, by USSR officials, so that's a deformed workers state. These labels don't really matter if we can understand the history of the USSR though.
I think that's a hole that DWS theory can fall into though - if qualitatively a deformed worker state is better for the worker than capitalism then we must by extension support it whenever the Stalinists just fucking try to take over the place like in Afghanistan. That's the logical extension.
Problem with any DWS theory is that it actively excludes workers from running society as a class. Surely a negation of marxist thought.
Not at all, the dws theory states what the beast is, not whether or not to support its wars. The invasion of hungary in 56 should of been condemned by all trotskyists, same for afghanistan. Supporting the USSR against nazism seems like it would make sense, seeing as the property relations would of been mass concentration camps if the nazis won, or a general mass extermination. Finland and afghanistan were unavoidable conflicts, seeing as the nazis and us proxy in afghanistan would have fought against the planned ecnomy, and ultimately liquidated the working classes in the regions that were outside the peripherary of the Ussr. The other side in afghanistan was the taliban, so it takes a lot more consideration.
My understanding was that DWS means a bureaucratically deformed proletarian dictatorship. If these Stalinist regimes were indeed proletarian dictatorships however bureaucratically deformed, they should be unconditionally supported.
Yes they should be supported in war, we know very well what happens when a DWS is replaced by a bourgeois state and it's not pretty. The DWS theory is able to explain a lot that other theories can't or don't bother trying to, really there's not any theory that provides any sort of competition to it , if your looking for criticism though probably it's biggest problem is that it's answer to degeneration hasn't been developed practically, that is in none of the DWS has there developed a workers movement capable of removing the bureaucracy and reestablishing proletarian democracy and internationalism.
There actually were fears of this after WW2, this is why destalinization happened. There were strike waves through the USSR, and much of europe as a whole, in the decade following the war. This is why the marshall plan happened. The USSR bureaucracy was still led by stalins cronies, only they were smart enough to improve living standards.
Don't know much about Kampuchea, so I really couldn't say, but both North Korea and Vietnam were at some time DWSs. NK restored capitalism some 10 years ago or so (I think), while Vietnam didn't last a decade. Here's an article which sums up our position about Korea... it only exists in portuguese, sadly, but I'll try to get around to translate it sometime: http://www.litci.org/pt/index.php?op...orea-del-norte
Has degenerated/deformed worker's state theory gone through any revision or adaptation since its conception in the 30s? That would be the greatest criticism possible: that a theory conceived in the 30s by a man however brilliant that had perhaps been unable to see through the smokescreen that his own personal experiences in the matter had created. I think it's interesting to consider the route the Fourth International took with this theory and how it would be different if Trotsky had been able to live past WWII and reflect on his past perspectives and perhaps correct his mistakes. However, since Trotsky's weight lingered on after his death this kind of reflection and self-criticism was more difficult.
He hated Stalin, so if anything, if personal feelings were involved, he would of said the USSR was capitalist or something. Isn't it a marxist concept that only a social revolution can roll back a different social revolution? I don't know if a social revolution happened, changing the political body (which did happen) and the economic relations which existed with the planned economy. The state cap argument is garbage though, there's literally no proof for that.
Well some such as Cliff argue that Trotsky was moving toward a state capitalist interpretation of the Soviet economy, but I've yet to see any proof of that however. In fact I'd say the opposite is true, that he became more hardline with his DWS theory. Take his position on the Winter War for instance. However, I am not sure how his personal feelings being involved on the matter would have translated into a state capitalism at all. In fact that makes no sense whatsoever. Sure he hated Stalin but Trotsky was far more brilliant than you give him credit for in that his personal feelings for one single human could never have been a deciding judgement on his analysis of the broader system. Recall, however, that Trotsky played an instrumental role in the formation of the Soviet Union and that he devoted much of his life to it. This is the only possible explanation for why he so enthusiastically defended Stalinist Russia and later the Stalinist states in eastern Europe as worker's states. I'm not sold on state capitalism either but it certainly provides a more thorough analysis than DWS which doesn't even try to explain what the economy is. Furthermore, if a regime can be a worker's state without the workers being in actual power, then the term "worker's state" is completely meaningless.
You know what I mean, he hated the bureaucracy more, so if he got personal he would call them capitalists. "whoever is in power," is dictated by which class interest is being served with the economy, which the working class did have with the planned economy, which developed things to be competing with capitalism, while allowing things like universal 8 hour days and no unemployment. It was a huge economic bubble that ended up bankrupt because of how unprofitable it was.
It wasn't even slightly a workers state, it was invaded by the DWS vietnam. Pol pot killed anyone who could read and moved people to the countryside. Now very Marxist
The only Socialist country that I can call a workers State is Libya under Gaddafi
The only Socialist country that I can call a workers State is Libya under Gaddafi How was Libya socialist? Or a workers state?
How was Libya socialist? Or a workers state? Watch this video to know how http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVDdBYsAzA8 http://www.mathaba.net/info/
If workers do not as a class control the economy through workers council then how can the state in question be regarded as being a workers state however deformed. While Trotsky lagged behind developments in the Russian state through refusing to see the complete defeat of the Russian working class through the late 1920's which is why he came up with such a flawed theory.
There was no proletarian revolution in Democratic Kampuchea; the Khmer Rouge were primarily supported by the middle and poor peasants, and their urbicidal policies pretty much eliminated the urban proletariat in the social sense, before eliminating them physically. There was little to no central planning in Democratic Kampuchea; the economy was ran through hilariously (if you appreciate black humour, that is) unrealistic campaigns - the "Super Great Leap Forward" (Or: How I Stopped Worrying About the Material Conditions and Learned to Out-Mao Mao) comes to mind. Furthermore, if the economy of the early Soviet Russia could be described as state-capitalist in the Leninist sense, the economy of Democratic Kampuchea could be fairly described as state-slaveowning. But perhaps even "state" is a misnomer - Democratic Kampuchea was fragmented from its establishment, with zonal secretaries acting like independent warlords. So no, there is no reason to call DK a deformed workers' state.
