In all honesty, what is the Marxist-Leninist response to claims that...

...the USSR was a degenerated bureaucracy?

I apologize if I'm being a defeatist, but I think it's fair to say that we've lost Revleft. I barely see any Marxist-Leninists post besides myself and a handful of others, and we're always drowned out by Anti-Stalinists when we say anything that goes against the popular discourse, so it's practically pointless to try anymore.

I'm a bit disillusioned but I'm hesitant to say this reflects a weakness in Marxism-Leninism itself. They were plenty of users who could put up a good fight like Koba Junior and that Kamo comrade, but people like that always seem to hit hard and then vanish. I emailed Koba Junior who told me he was too busy with schoolwork to be involved in online discussions anymore, and I have no clue what happened to Kamo. He hasn't been here since September 25th according to his profile. Politics aside, I hope he's safe.

Now back to my original point. Seeing as we can't really talk about Marxism-Leninism in the main forum without being ripped apart, I wanted to ask this question here; what is the response to claims that the USSR was a bureaucratic degeneration? I'm not referring to Trotsky's theories, but the explanation popular on Revleft right now seems to be that isolation, imperialist encirclement, and the devastation of the proletariat during the Russian Civil War lead to the downfall of Soviet Russia, and after Stalin came to power it was merely a bureaucratic shell defending its own interests rather than the revolution's.

I've heard some comrades say that since the revolution was successful in Russia, the pragmatic choice was to defend its interests even if that meant making morally gray decisions, but, was this really the case? Class interest is what moves us. Even if the Soviet leadership sincerely believed that their interests were the interests of the worldwide proletariat, could they of still been objectively harming it because they were unconsciously pursuing the interests of the bureaucracy?

Just some questions. A few months ago state-capitalism was all the rage but now the common conception is the degenerated revolution theory (Different from Trotsky's workers' state). It seems to take most of its inspiration from Hill Tickten's theories which I have yet to read. What is the Marxist-Leninist response?

All these claims tht the USSR was a "bureaucratic dictatorship" are pure sectarian demagoguery. Under Stalin, the USSR was progressing towards Communism as fast as practically possible. But once Kruschev and the revisionists took power, the benefactor class of the existing Socialist Primitive Accumulationist system, the Bureaucy, was in power and not the revolutionary Proletariat. Instead of moving towards abolishing markets, market mechanisms were expanded and profitability was integrated into the existing underdeveloped Socialist system. Instead of making moves towards further socialisation and centralization of the economy, competition was introduced. Instead making the goals of of Marxism clear abd precise for the people, vague mentions of a potential future "Communist paradise" were made and used to lure the people to accept Communist rule, instead of educating the working people on the objective science of why Communism is the future. The bureaucracy dis not educate the people on what precisely Communism is because it did not want to change the existing system that was working so well for them. So it was never made public discussion when money shall be abolished, when direct democratic workplace structures should begin, when a true workers' state be formed; progress towards Communism was put off under the revisionists, under Stalin the USSR was a truly revolutionary country where the party tried to find ways to Communism and to educate the people on Marxism-Leninism.

There's not much to differentiate those who claim that the revolution "degenerated" under Lenin to those who claim the same in regards to the Stalin period. The bureaucracy was growing under both. Yet as others have noted it was not until after Stalin's death that socialist construction was halted and reversed.

What does seem clear is that there is basically nothing Lenin and Stalin could have done to reverse the course being set, though both tried.

There's not much to differentiate those who claim that the revolution "degenerated" under Lenin to those who claim the same in regards to the Stalin period. The bureaucracy was growing under both. Yet as others have noted it was not until after Stalin's death that socialist construction was halted and reversed.

What does seem clear is that there is basically nothing Lenin and Stalin could have done to reverse the course being set, though both tried.

Yes, they tried but I think we should ask the question:
What were the reasons the people who reversed the course had the possibility of getting in power? So what material conditions let to their rise.
Why were both Lenin and Stalin not able to combat these people?

Yes, they tried but I think we should ask the question:
What were the reasons the people who reversed the course had the possibility of getting in power? So what material conditions let to their rise.
Why were both Lenin and Stalin not able to combat these people?

And, perhaps more importantly, what lessons can be learned from this? Because for the degenerated revolution people, the lesson is that socialism in one country fails, Marxism-Leninism fails.

As for your question about the material conditions, an explanation I've heard is that, social being determining social conscious and all that, the bureaucrats who basically managed the economy began to take on the conscious of private producers after a while. The lack of political education amongst the workers and the fact that bourgeois consciousness persists after the revolution is what made this possible.

When the Khrushevites took over the USSR was not really isolated though.

When the Khrushevites took over the USSR was not really isolated though.

But the effects of isolation and two devastating wars were still in place. A command economy was still organized over an immature proletariat.

I don't think that anti-Stalinists have any right to project their own lines over Marxism-Leninism just because all socialist states so far have failed. A person can fail or pass a test only when he goes to school and actually appears for the test. Except us MLs, no other tendency has reached the level of going to school; they have not created any socialist state anywhere so far. So, naturally they have not failed due to any capitalist restoration. And to hide from this super-failure, of not being able to overthrow the bourgeoisie anywhere, they hide behind the pathetic excuse of material conditions. When they accuse MLs of anything, they should keep in mind that MLs have always worked under material conditions that were never good enough for the masses to pay any heed to the glorious anti-Stalinist tendencies and create true socialism.

As for our failure, I would like to point out that throughout the last century, isolation would not be against socialism in the sense Marx saw it. Technology was developed enough to make any country self-sufficient. The only threats were military intervention and ideological influence. USSR overcame all the external military interventions. The ideological influence of capitalists was mainly from inside, not outside. And this was not due to isolation, but due to the wrong line of primarily increasing production, instead of intensifying class struggle.

Both the USSR and PRC had a degenerating bureaucracy, although the GPCR had temporarily been successful in combating it. When the goal of socialism is to prepare the masses for communism, then it is not favourable to have an all-powerful mysterious state, however well-intended its actions might be, to act as a guardian of the masses. The masses must be taught to defend their gains themselves. It is not at all beneficial to have secret trials or people disappearing. All socialist leaders vacillated on these questions, but they showed positive tendencies from time to time. Stalin himself was pushing for democratic reforms. The GPCR is so far the supreme example of the masses trying to seize power. The advanced revolutions of today implement the core teachings of the mass line from the very beginning; the militia, local government etc are all democratic bodies of the masses, factories have the workers taking decisions regarding production. Some of us have already learned from our failures, the others need to follow the line of theory-and-practice instead of waiting for the correct material conditions of their dreams to pop up.