AES- Actually-Existing Socialism

Edit: Dictatorship of the Proletariat + Predominant, collective ownership and control of the economy = AES?

  • supermangoman [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    These points all do a good job verifying that the government is working for the benefit of the proletariat, but how do you determine that it is actually the workers that are in control? Can a state work in favor of the proletariat and then regress into something that favors the bourgeoisie?

    For example, were the workers ever in control in the USSR? If they were, did they lose it? It seems hard to square the dissolution of the USSR with a concurrent dictatorship of the proletariat.

    • nemmybun [she/her, sae/saer]
      ·
      1 year ago

      how do you determine that it is actually the workers that are in control?

      China's constitution both state that it is a DotP and that they practice democratic centralism. This has some good info and history on China's workers' congresses in practice.

      Can a state work in favor of the proletariat and then regress into something that favors the bourgeoisie?

      khrushchev-fist gorby-sad

      For example, were the workers ever in control in the USSR?

      Yes, they had workers' councils.

      If they were, did they lose it? It seems hard to square the dissolution of the USSR with a concurrent dictatorship of the proletariat.

      Post-Stalin USSR lost their revolutionary identity after revisionists and opportunists came into power. It was either Khruschev or Brezhnev that removed the DotP from the constitution. After that, the dissolution of the USSR was inevitable.