The case of the USSR

Quote:

Russia was too backwards to build socialism in alone, to claim anything else is actually quite revisionist.

Then Lenin was a revisionist then.

Mabool wrote:

No. Why would I want that? Why can't I have communism now? Who says it has got to be this way?

Reality says it.

Conscript, you are mixing socialism with communism. Socialism is the first phase of the revolutionary process, the transitional stage towards communism. Communism is the second and final stage of the revolutionary process. The state is necessary during the socialism phase and is only abolished in the communist stage. That is why some people argue that USSR was never a communist state since there is no state in a communist society. I would rather classify socialism as reality and communism as utopia to be quite honest with you. I know many people will disagree with me but that's the way i think. Thomas More wrote "Utopia" in 1516 and the society described in that book was a mirror of the communist society. I believe that everybody already heard about the book.

He's not mixing them up he's claiming the Soviet bureaucracy constituted a neo-bourgeoisie. He's wrong, which is why the USSR needed to be destroyed for these bureaucrats to actually become bourgeoisie, otherwise we'd see a Europe like left-liberal "social-democrat" Soviet Union today. I don't know why Conscript has chosen to endorse the most anti-Marxist trot analysis which Trotsky himself would have angrily argued down.

Loz wrote:

Then Lenin was a revisionist then.

Where does Lenin support building socialism in one country? How did he build socialism?

If anything he supported state capitalism because it was much more feasible for the time being:

Quote:

It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

Quote:

State capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months’ time state capitalism became established in our Republic, this would be a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in this country.

Quote:

What is state capitalism under Soviet power? To achieve state capitalism at the present time means putting into effect the accounting and control that the capitalist classes carried out. We see a sample of state capitalism in Germany. We know that Germany has proved superior to us. But if you reflect even slightly on what it would mean if the foundations of such state capitalism were established in Russia, Soviet Russia, everyone who is not out of his senses and has not stuffed his head with fragments of book learning, would have to say that state capitalism would be our salvation.

Lenin never tried to abandon the capitalist stage, just combine the DDOTPP (which was intended to modernize, e.g. accumulate capital) with a world socialist revolution abroad which would make a transition to socialism possible.

Quote:

He's not mixing them up he's claiming the Soviet bureaucracy constituted a neo-bourgeoisie. He's wrong, which is why the USSR needed to be destroyed for these bureaucrats to actually become bourgeoisie, otherwise we'd see a Europe like left-liberal "social-democrat" Soviet Union today. I don't know why Conscript has chosen to endorse the most anti-Marxist trot analysis which Trotsky himself would have angrily argued down.

The bureaucracy wasn't 'bourgeoisie', they did not 'own' any of the property, which is part of the reason why they tore it down. However the state was like a large corporation that could set prices and pay wages at its own will. It didn't have any struggles with unions and had full control over quotas. Of course if they didn't do this they would have never industrialized, but that's another story.

It got out of control with the 1965 kosygin reforms which had the soviet state invest in industries based on profit, leading to a huge military equipment and capital goods export business. It stalled technological advancement (think rejection of computers which threatened bureaucratic power) and left other markets such as consumer goods less funded or more reliant on imports.

Trotsky did not live long enough to see the majority of the USSR's lifetime, and with that considered I think he's wrong. I think Trotsky knew the USSR was state capitalist but insisted on a political revolution to restore an arguably better party line. Whether this would do anything depends on revolution in the advanced countries, and if it came too late there might be none thanks to bad comintern policies.

Quote:

The state is necessary during the socialism phase and is only abolished in the communist stage.

Socialism is not the same thing as dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism is 'lower communism', it's stateless but has yet to achieve post-scarcity. Before lenin both terms were used interchangeably.

Conscript wrote:

Socialism is not the same thing as dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism is 'lower communism', it's stateless but has yet to achieve post-scarcity. Before lenin both terms were used interchangeably.

According to Lenin the socialist phase it's not stateless, on the contrary:

Quote:

"Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary."

Lenin, The State and Revolution.

You said it right: "Before Lenin"

Quote:

2. Socialism is the transition phase or stage between capitalism and communism

Marx says that “between capitalism and communism lies the period of the revolutionary transition of the one into the other.” (Lenin SW 2 p300). This idea conforms to the theory of change (dialectics), which identifies the existence of an intermediate or transitional stage between opposites. The transitional stage will contain the evolving elements of the opposites. In this case the opposites are ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’, and ‘socialism’ is the transition phase or stage containing elements of capitalism and communism.

Lenin says “the first fact that has been established most accurately by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole - a fact ignored by the utopians, and is ignored by the present-day opportunists, who are afraid of the socialist revolution - is that, historically, there must undoubtedly be a special stage, or special phase, of transition from capitalism to communism” (Lenin SW 2 p300)

Quote:

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

The problem with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was that the state was too strong-one class, a class of bureaucrats, reigned over the proletarian class.

Arguably there were no Bourgeoisie, as all property was more or less nationalized by the state, but the workers never owned their own means of production, a requirement that was no doubt necessary if the socialist stage was to end in a communist stage in the USSR or anywhere else in the world.

Lenin was right however in believing that the revolution must be at the very least European-wide for the Russian revolution to succeed. Germany, Hungary, Italy, etc. were all vital cogs in the socialist machine. Without them, the machine wouldn't and didn't work.

China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. were not enough to save the USSR, as being third world nations made them only periphery to the USSR's success on the world stage.

America and western Europe's economic might combined ensured doom for the USSR, eastern Europe, and all other third world socialist states.

Quote:

Then Lenin was a revisionist then.

That's why I don't like the category of "revisionism". Lenin wasn't really wrong on anything, most things he says are perfectly logical things to say - but only from his perspective. He was a highly capable Marxist - but only to the extent that the Russian circumstances permitted. A Marxist who lives in feudalism just can't really comprehend Marxism as a theory of proletarian revolution. Marxism (or, at least, scientific socialism, that is, post-Manifesto Marxism) was created under circumstances that were much more progressive than Lenin's circumstances. But Lenin could only ever understand the Marxism that we see in the manifesto. He couldn't understand the developments of Marxism that went beyond this, he couldn't understand the change of mind that Marx and Engels had after the experience of the commune, because he had never experienced similar circumstances. This becomes apparent if you look at how confused he was when he was in Switzerland:

Cajo Brendel wrote:

Everything we've already said about Lenin's position towards unions, all these things also apply to his position towards parliamentarism. He cannot regard it from the position of the Western European working class, but from that position that Russian Bolshevism had reached from its analysis of the Russian circumstances, and the conditions of the coming Russian revoluion.

He does not, and cannot, notice the difference. For him, other perspectives were incomprehensible. He also couldn't understand the matter that was central to his debate with the radical left: The change of the nature of parliamentarism that is happens in bourgeois society.

For example, his widow recounts in her "Memories" how Lenin, in 1908, recalled the words of a Swiss MP, who had said that the Swiss Republic could never allow a breach of the right to private property, with condescension and astonishment. Lenin's astonishment had a very good reason that is mentioned by the author: "The struggle for the democratic republic," she adds, "was a part of our platform then."

The meaning is clear. Up to this moment, Lenin obviously had a naive conception of the "democratic republic." It would probably not be a mistake to claim that it corresponded to the naive conceptions of the bourgeois French and German revolutionaries of 1848 (the mistaken conceptions of the manifesto)- those conceptions that were central to the revolution whose center had "moved eastwards", as Lenin and Kautsky had said. (translation mine)

So Lenin certainly isn't a revisionist because he really sticks to the original theory of 1848. It's Marx & Engels who are the "revisionists" because they revised that.

Quote:

Reality says it.

No. Humanity lived in communism for the majority of its existence. Communist distribution and division of labor happen every time I see my comrades. If you think communism is impossible, you must be a sociopath. People would never respect private (or any other kind of) property if the state didn't force them to, and I think that's really obvious. Communism really isn't hard to accomplish if everybody participates.

Quote:

Socialism is not the same thing as dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism is 'lower communism', it's stateless but has yet to achieve post-scarcity. Before lenin both terms were used interchangeably.

You don't need to overcome "scarcity" in order to have communism. Communism is humanity behaving in a decent way, it's not the land of milk and honey. And the dictatorship of the proletariat is stateless too.

Mabool wrote:

No. Humanity lived in communism for the majority of its existence. Communist distribution and division of labor happen every time I see my comrades. If you think communism is impossible, you must be a sociopath. People would never respect private (or any other kind of) property if the state didn't force them to, and I think that's really obvious. Communism really isn't hard to accomplish if everybody participates.

Humanity lived in some kind of communism in the Stone Age when hunting and fishing were the main economic activities. The modes of production developed since then and a new form of political and social organization emerged. The Brazilian Indians before the Portuguese arrived in 1500 lived also in a communist form of society where the leader worked just like anybody else and had no privileges, but again the economic activities were also just hunting and fishing.

I'm not a sociopath, just like to live with my feet on the ground.

You haven't given a single counter argument. You call that having your feet on the ground? My daily experience tells me that people don't want to treat each other like shit.

I didn't? I just told you that some kind of communism existed only in the Stone Age when hunting and fishing were the main economic activities. Give me examples of pure communist societies in the modern history.

Quote:

Where does Lenin support building socialism in one country? How did he build socialism?

I've already given these quotes in another thread not long ago.

Quote:

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 out of cooperatives, out of cooperatives alone, which we formerly ridiculed as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to treat as such now, under NEP? 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,1924
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... jan/06.htm

Quote:

Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defense of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries.

1919
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/w ... prog/i.htm

Quote:

If anything he supported state capitalism because it was much more feasible for the time being:

Yes, the NEP was supposed to last for a short time. However "state capitalism" in the USSR was somewhat of a dissapointment because, first, the foreign concessions didn't go well (Western countries didn't want to invest much) and the local small capitalists and such didn't really invest in expanding production, instead spending money on luxuries or gold and so on with which they could escape to Paris and London if things take a different turn.
NEP however had succeeded in its purpose to recover the country's economy but by 1927-1928, therefore it was abandoned.

Quote:

My daily experience tells me that people don't want to treat each other like shit.

Agreed. I'm sick and tired of the same-old "argument" that people are 'naturally greedy,' and therefore capitalism is the perfect system.

Occupy Wall Street, the Greek resistance movement(s), etc. are just a few examples of everyday people banding together in social solidarity with each other, contrary to capitalist logic of dog-eat-dog social-Darwinism.

Quote:

first, the foreign concessions didn't go well (Western countries didn't want to invest much)

Again, agreed. Of course they[the west] didn't want to invest in the world's first socialist state. Especially if we consider that these same countries sought to destroy the early Soviet Union before it even got off of its feet.

The N.E.P., being a strategic retreat economically, only served to further entrench capitalism in the Soviet Union.

Quote:

...instead spending money on luxuries or gold and so on with which they could escape to Paris and London if things take a different turn.

It just goes to show the nature of the 'producers' in relation to the 'consumers.' We've seen this in Greece right now, wherein the rich feel obligated to send their money abroad once the nation falls apart, as opposed to chipping in a few bucks to help ease the suffering of the poorer masses.

Quote:

I didn't? I just told you that some kind of communism existed only in the Stone Age when hunting and fishing were the main economic activities.

Yeah, until property appeared. Property and communism are antithetical.

Quote:

Give me examples of pure communist societies in the modern history.

No, you tell me why it's impossible to abolish property and have communism right now, if the masses decide it.

Mabool wrote:

No, you tell me why it's impossible to abolish property and have communism right now, if the masses decide it.

Because you can't simply abolish something with thousand years of daily practice existence just in one day. That is fantasy. I'm not saying that i disagree with the communist form of society, i'm just saying that is impossible to have it right now.

Who said anything about one day? When I say I want communism now, obviously that means I want the construction of communism to start today. I do not want to skip the dictatorship of the proletariat, I'm just denying that the DOTP is an entire socioeconomic formation in itself ("socialism") - rather, the DOTP is marked by the coexistence of communist and capitalist relations engaged in the harshest forms of class struggle. Communism can start existing today - but then it needs to overpower capitalism. A general strike with ad hoc workers' councils can be the beginning of communism.

Now i agree with you, the DOTP is just a stage of the revolutionary process towards communism, not the end of the process. We cannot skip stages. You still have bourgeois elements in the socialist stage as Lenin said (the state for instance), so it's normal that you cannot say that USSR was a communist regime. I think the closest that USSR was of being a communist system was in the beginning during the war communism, which was a disaster for the russian economy.

Quote:

You still have bourgeois elements in the socialist stage as Lenin said (the state for instance)

No, you're not agreeing with me.

Mabool wrote:

No, you're not agreeing with me.

Attention, i said socialist stage, not communist (which is the last stage of the process) according to the marxist-leninist theory. In the communist stage you don't have any capitalist element.

I said that i agree with you as far as the DOTP is concerned. It's a stage, not an end.

According to Marxism-Leninism you can skip the state of capitalism, of the widespread development and encroachment of self sustaining, accumulating capital into everyday life and go soon after into Socialist construction. So? I don't mean to sound egregious at all, but I am almost daily understanding less and less as to what relevance many region and milieu specific points of ideology really have for us today, if for anything but a chronology of our ideology or historical clarity.
(Course it's possible, but harder than otherwise.)

I think that's exactly what made Lenin so revolutionary, firstly because Russia wasn't the primary country where a socialist revolution would've taken place, as we all know, Marx and Engels thought revolution would first take place in the most industrialized countries like Germany and England. This refutes the whole idea that Marxism is historical determinism. Secondly, Leninism states that a socialist revolution can take place even in areas where capitalism is not as developed (which is practically nowhere today), without first necessarily having to go through a bourgeois revolution etc. Which is not to say that socialism doesn't have to develop capitalism (like they did in the USSR with state-capitalism), but the point is that a proletarian state has been created which is more progressive than first having to go through a bourgeois stage. We can't be deterministic about necessary stages in history, and Leninism allows us to take fate in our own hands.