They just give socialists a bad rep. In fact, North Korea is so bad I would prefer a bourgeois revolution to take control of their country over their hellish government.
And I mean it.
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Deformed and Degenerated Workers' States
Could any Trotskyists or non-Trotskyists tell me why they support countries like North Korea simply on the basis they are a pseudo-socialist state? Surely this would be a reason not to support them?
They just give socialists a bad rep. In fact, North Korea is so bad I would prefer a bourgeois revolution to take control of their country over their hellish government.
And I mean it.
The idea, shortly put, is that the 'real socialist' countries with their nationalised economies, even with political power hijacked by a bureaucratic caste, still have/had already experienced one part of the revolutionary transformation socialists strive for; the social revolution. Thus they merely lack a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy, and therefore ought to be defended against capitalist counterrevolution or intervention for the gains of the revolution not to be rolled back, while supporting forces striving for more authentic socialist politics.
Kind of like we don't support reformism in itself either, but will fight to defend any working class gains under capitalism - while pointing out that they aren't enough, and can and will be reversed without a socialist revolution. This said, the concept (just as any) can be taken to extremes with support for extremely inhumane regimes such as the cult of the Kim Dynasty in North Korea etc, or ones which simply have left the socialist economic direction behind ages ago (such as China), etc.
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The absurdity of the claim that the DPRK or China is any kind of "worker's state" is that it overlooks how (1) the working class can lack any real power in these countries, and (2) that the bureaucracy functions as a kind of collective bourgeoisie, extracting the surplus labor of the working class for (a) investing in new industrial infrastructure and (b) improving their own living standards over that of the rest of society.
Discussion of a "worker's state" without any worker's control because it is "degenerated" or "deformed" creates a notion of a worker's state that is basically hollow. A worker's state, like a capitalist state, is determined by the class character of those who determine state policy, and workers simply don't have that authority in any of these states.
Perhaps it is possible for a state to exist as "deformed" or "degenerated", but if so, the DPRK is not one of them, nor is the PRC. It is not an economy that is largely nationalized or even entirely nationalized that determines this character. Otherwise, countries like Saudi Arabia could qualify due to the fact that Aramco and other big state capitalist firms control huge swaths of the economy. I think a more nuanced understanding of state capitalism is called for than just calling any state with a semi-nationalized economy, a red flag, and a state seal involving some combination of hammers and farming implements a "worker's state"
Socialist Party of Outer Space
If you are seriously interested in the question of degenerated and deformed workers states (they are not the same thing), then I'd suggest looking into some of the literature that has been produced on the topics. Revleft can be a good resource in some ways, in a lot of ways it isn't, but questions such as these - theoretical questions which define ones politics - should never be decided on this board. Those are for independent study and research.
If you are interested in degenerated workers state theory, then the best place to start would be Trotsky's classic the revolution betrayed. As for the theory of deformed workers states, the best text I've ever read on the topic has been cuba and marxist theory, an old staple of the 'revolutionary tendency' that was collectively written by Shane Mage, Tim Wohlforth, and James Robertson.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/tro...vbet/index.htm
https://www.marxists.org/history/eto...t10.htm#states
Last edited by Art Vandelay; 22nd January 2016 at 15:33.
A quick question - what does differentiate a workers' state, degenerated / deformed or neither, from other forms of state ownership?
Sous les paves, la merde!
The base, or the relations of production. If there's bourgeois productive relations and a bourgeois dictatorship in the superstructure, then it's still capitalism, even if de jure the bourgeoisie doesn't directly own anything.
Think about it like this. After French Revolution, you had the Thermidorian Reaction, Napoleon Bonaparte's monarchy and the Bourbon Restoration. Did France revert back to feudalism because of it? No, even though the gains were being undone in the superstructure(state, religion, culture, customs, family relations) and the monarchy was restored, the capitalist base(productive relations and productive forces) was intact. Even if they tried, the surviving nobility and church couldn't go back to feudalism bar some plague or military invasion. Due to the productive relations(proletariat, bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeois strata) and productive forces advancing far beyond a feudalist mode of production, the main determinate of the superstructure(state power) in the last instance, the capitalist base, would(and did) assert itself.
Trotsky thought the same of the USSR. The October Revolution, lead by the proletariat, put the Soviet Union on the transition to socialism. There's was no real bourgeoisie to speak of(productive relations), and the bureaucracy was more of a privileged caste than a separate class. It had some socialistic features, but was tied to the backward capitalist features of the past, like primitive productive forces and a large peasantry.
Stalinism would be the Soviet equivalent of the Termidorian Reaction. A superstructure "degenerating" due primitive productive forces(which had no help from revolutions in the more advance West) and a large peasantry(a petit-bourgeois class that can waver between supporting the proletariat or the bourgeoisie) as a possible base for a counterrevolution, but mostly still on the socialist path. Because the base was supposedly on the socialist path, yet with the superstructure holding this back, this misalignment of the base and superstructure would lead either to another workers' revolution, or a counterrevolution that would lead to Russia being enslaved under compradore-capitalism from outside. The latter is why Trotsky defended the USSR as a "degenerated workers' state", yet called for a political revolution.
With "deformed workers' states", it slightly different. These were states liberated after WWII. There was some revolution in the base in terms of productive forces and productive relations, but the state in the main was said to be imposed by the Soviet bureaucracy and took on its characteristics. https://www.marxists.org/history/eto...congress08.htm
The formal name that the "deformed workers' states" called themselves were "people's democracies": http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/minc.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.or...ive/pdrule.htm It was said to be a different kind of dictatorship of the proletariat arising in the anti-feudal democratic revolutions, that thanks to the USSR could more easily move on towards a form of a proletarian socialist revolution. Said to be based on Lenin's theory of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry
And there's also the "non-capitalist development". Supposedly first used by Lenin to describe Mongolia, but later picked up by Brezhnev to justify why the USSR was supporting a bunch of anti-communist juntas in the 3rd-world. They were said to be the equivalent of a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry"(God why did Lenin have to make up such a long name), though led by an "anti-imperialist national bourgeoisie" instead of workers and poor peasants.
This leads me to a question. Can new "deformed/degenerated workers' states" emerge? Like if the CPP or CPI(Maoist) overthrew the government would that be a "degenerated workers' state" since it's not tied to the USSR's bureaucracy at all, a "deformed workers' state", a "healthy workers' state" or something else?
The Trotskyist position is that the October Revolution established a genuine proletarian dictatorship, through the most radical break with traditional property relations that the world has ever seen. Up until Stalin's consolidation of power, the USSR represented the first ever successful attempt by the proletariat to smash bourgeois state power and establish a workers' state. The political rule of the bourgeoisie had been overthrown and the basis of the economy lay in proletarian property forms, ie: collective ownership of the means of production.
The turning point for the USSR was 1924. At this point in the USSR's history the genuine proletarian dictatorship that had been established in the wake of October had undergone a qualitative degeneration. In other words, direct working class control of production had given way to control by a bonapartist bureaucratic caste, whose class character derived from the petite-bourgeoisie. The argument that the Stalinist bureaucracy represented a caste and not a new ruling class, is premised on the fact that its political control did not extend to economic ownership. For those who take seriously what Marx laid out in Capital, the class makeup of the USSR is quite clear. Capitalism is something specific, and the 'capitalism' in the USSR did not have competing capital, the function of the bureaucracy was not the same as the bourgeoisie's, production was not geared towards profit, etc...The USSR was a degenerated workers' state. It was not a new form of society, but a transitional phase in between capitalism and socialism. The bureaucracy was not a new ruling class, but a contradictory and brittle bureaucratic caste; it was bound to fall, either to capitalist restoration or the re-establishment of workers' democracy through a political revolution led by a proletarian vanguard.
Deformed workers' states came about under very different circumstances and due to very particular historical conditions. It is a term used to describe states (China, Cuba, etc...) that are based upon collectivized property, but where the working class has never directly held political power. The difference between a degenerated and a deformed workers' state therefor lies in the history of its creation. In both cases the bourgeoisie no longer holds political power and the means of production have been socialized, however a degenerated workers' state is the bureaucratic degeneration of a healthy worker's democracy, and a deformed workers' state results from the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by an alien class force (petite-bourgeois Stalinist guerilla movements, coups, invasions, etc...). They were created under the conditions whereby aspiring middle class leaderships could opt to receive support from the Soviet degenerated workers' state, rather than opting to compromise with the imperialist bourgeoisie. This allowed them to assume a leading position in those societies through state office, rather than access to private property. The end result was that they were a mediated extension of the property relations of the USSR, which still reflected its proletarian state heritage.
Last edited by Art Vandelay; 21st January 2016 at 03:16.
I don't think I phrased my question well, which was sort of a follow-up to Sinister Cultural Marxist's. "A quick question" was probably hopelessly optimistic. Never again.
Ignoring the red flags or lack thereof, and the history of the state in question, as far as relations of production are concerned, what is the difference between bourgeois state ownership and workers' state ownership?
We have a planned economy in both instances, wage labor, commodity production. This isn't intended as a "checkmate, Trots! State-capitalism theory strikes again!" I'm sure you all know plenty about state capitalism, so what do you see as the difference between a workers' state and bourgeois state ownership? Surely relative wealth and social programs are not enough to make the difference - Saudi Arabia has plenty of both, no? An advanced bourgeois state will have a highly developed division of labor.
If the proletariat can be politically disenfranchised in a workers' state, just as in a bourgeois state, experience the same relationships to the means of production, enjoy the same privileges as in a bourgeois state, then what is left to differentiate them? Again, other than red flags and glorious history.
Is it the nature of the planning? What is being planned, and for whom?
And, Juan, what about the USSR indicated it was progressive, moving away from capitalism, that the return to capitalism was made difficult? Was something different in 1938 compared to 1978? What do you think of all the "Color Revolutions" where political revolutions invariably failed to restore the workers' state?
Last edited by Sewer Socialist; 21st January 2016 at 07:50.
Sous les paves, la merde!
Whether the political system is "top down" or "bottom up".
Whether the workers/populace tell the bureaucracy what to do or the bureaucracy tell the workers what to do.
Whether the bureaucracy is seen as fearsome and socially prestigious or whether it is seen as a mere servant of the populace.
Unfortunately, previous incarnations of Socialism have failed to alter human nature in regard to questions of status and social and political hierarchy.
revolutioniscoming.moonfruit.com
But if a workers' state can be degenerated, and still be a workers' state, this is not true. The political structure can be degenerated, but the social structure can be that of a workers state, according to this analysis. So in within the framework of this analysis, what makes the difference?
Sous les paves, la merde!
Say what you want to say about Cuba, but it at least has one of the best national anthems!
