bordiga: 'the "socialism" of captains of industry'

[9]

I have been reading a lot of Bordiga in recent months, and read through "Marxism of the Stammerers" earlier tonight. Thought this part was very good/succinct:

Originally Posted by Amadeo Bordiga
Never more than today has it been so obvious that Soviet Socialism is the Socialism of captains of industry. But in Russia have these not been suppressed? Well, now they're importing them!

In magnitude, 6300 billion lire is double the size of imports into Great-Britain, six times those into Italy, and equal to those of America. It is equivalent to the annual labour of 26 million workers; of probably all or almost all the Russian workers already drawn into production other than that of the exclusive little islands, but certainly of the work of the whole population of a developed country with half the population of the present day U.S.S.R. If half of the labour effort of this people - excluding that expended in pre-mercantile asiatic type consumption - has an equivalent price on the global market to that produced by the capitalist countries, other figures are not really needed in order for us to define the Russian economy as capitalist. Moreover, why doubt that it is immersed in fully fledged mercantilism when the ideological projection consists of the complete domination of the popular religiosity which is encouraged and utilised by the public power?

With the dialogue of exchange between the Russian commodity and the dollar which pays for it, and between the American commodity and the rouble which pays for it, we scarcely need to unravel its "fetishistic character". Objects can't talk, commodities can't talk, but where any type of commodity is produced, the relation is, in reality, the relation of the exploitation of wage-earners.

There is nothing to indicate that at the moment exchange isn't an open palpable reality. Exchange functioned during the war between 1941 to 1945 under various forms, such as arms and ammunition from the west for industrial and "military" effort and work from the east. Today the respective industries step up the accumulation of capital which is a social fact even in the bourgeois regime, either with the aim of arming for an imperialist war (with Truman invoking reasons of national defence for the requisition of enterprises and the militarisation of strikers) or with the aim of the mercantile satisfaction derived from international exchange.

If one wishes to say anything new about Russia, it is more than useless to know that caviar was served at Stalin's table and a millet paté to the workers. This could be compatible with a lower stage of communism. At the higher stage we will give caviar to everyone... and the millet to recalcitrant pupils who have an incurable itch to play at being teacher.

For our part, we are interested to ask ourselves if by having roubles in our pockets we can have caviar or millet, and whether, once the exchange rate is worked out, we can do the same with dollars or lire.

discuss

[vyborg]

Bordiga...what a marvelous exemple of a honest dedicated revolutionary but also an incredibly childish and mechanical thinker...
As Stalin eats caviar then he is a capitalist...

[Devrim]

As Stalin eats caviar then he is a capitalist...

That is not at all what he is saying here. I suggest you reread it.

Devrim

[turquino]

So Bordiga thought the USSR was capitalist because it traded with capitalist countries? External trade is not necessarily the mark of a capitalist society, nor even a commodity-producing one. Rather, it could be said external trade preceded private property and social class, as primitive communities met and exchanged the products of their collective labour without requiring internal private exchange.

I have trouble believing Bordiga's claim that Soviet foreign trade was mercantile. Mercantile trade is the private exchange of commodities of independent producers. The outcomes of the aggregate exchanges determine the social division of labour. But for most of its history the USSR had a state monopoly on foreign trade. The social division of labour was decided by the plan first, and then foreign trade was conducted on the basis of fulfilling certain targets. The only need to export was to pay for what it would not produce itself.

[this is an invasion]

Bordiga is saying that the USSR was capitalist because of the type of relations being produced. The working class condition, that is, the condition of being exploited wage workers rather than human beings, still existed within the USSR. Capitalist socialization still existed. Class stratification still existed.

[vyborg]

That is not at all what he is saying here. I suggest you reread it.

Devrim

This is the general meaning: workers are exploited, the bureaucracy holds the sway, hence capitalism. it is 80 years Trotskysts and left communists discuss about it. I think it is useless to discuss this topic. It is better to aknowledge other issues where we can fight together

[Devrim]

This is the general meaning: workers are exploited, the bureaucracy holds the sway, hence capitalism. it is 80 years Trotskysts and left communists discuss about it. I think it is useless to discuss this topic. It is better to aknowledge other issues where we can fight together

But what he was actually saying in the article was that it is unimportant that Stalin eats caviar. That is why I said you misunderstood it.

Devrim