Currently reading October but know nothing rn about the middle-end of the USSR
When the Soviet Union was capital S socialist?
Love my socialist commodity production, even Lenin never thought of the USSR as something different than state capitalism
Why did you stop there with your quote?
Only Marx had imagined this `social decision' as being radically democratic, so that the production of the surplus would have an intrinsic legitimacy. The people, having made the decision to devote so much of their combined labour to net investment and the support of non-producers, would then willingly implement their own decision. For reasons both external and internal, Soviet society at the time of the introduction of economic planning was far from democratic. How, then, could the workers be induced or compelled to implement the plan (which, although it was supposedly formulated in their interests, was certainly not of their making)?
But other than that, there are fundamental problems with that, central planning doesn't make anything "socialist". If one says " this switch to a planned system, where the the division of necessary and surplus product is the result of deliberate social decision, is entirely in line with what Marx had hoped for", what about other elements of planning in clearly capitalist economies? The Nazis nationalized their entire steel industry, thus "making the division of necessary and surplus product the division of deliberate social decision", but clearly still extracting surplus from the workers, just now in a monopolized form, rather than competing entities responding to market changes and thus extracting the most possible surplus value of the workers.
The same can be applied the the USSR, just expanded to the entire economy instead of just the steel industry. Workers did not receive the full value of their labour, the allocation of the surplus was not managed by the workers themselves, but rather the state apparatus.
What constitutes capital and therefore capitalism according to Marx, Engels and Lenin?
This was done by the discovery of surplus-value. It was shown that the appropriation of unpaid labour is the basis of the capitalist mode of production and of the exploitation of the worker that occurs under it, that even if the capitalist buys the labour-power of his labourer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value from it than he paid for; and that in the ultimate analysis this surplus-value forms those sums of value from which are heaped up the constantly increasing masses of capital in the hands of the possessing classes. The genesis of capitalist production and the production of capital were both explained.
-Engels, AntiDuhring
“The historic conditions of its existence are by no means given with the mere circulation of money and commodities. It [capitalism] can spring into life only when the owner of the means of production and subsistence meets in the market with the free laborer selling his labor power.”
Marx - (Capital, Vol. I, International ed., p. 170.)
“In themselves money and commodities are no more capital than are the means of production and of subsistence. They want transforming into capital. But this transformation can only take place under certain circumstances that center in this, viz., that two very different kinds of commodity-possessors must come face to face and into contact; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of subsistence, who are eager to increase the sums of values they possess, by buying other people’s labor power; on the other hand, free laborers, the sellers of their own labor power and therefore the sellers of labor… With this polarization of the market for commodities, the fundamental conditions of capitalist production are given. The capitalist system presupposes the complete separation of the laborers from all property in the means by which they can realize their labor. As soon as capitalist production is once on its own legs, it not only maintains this separation, but reproduces it on a continually extending scale.”
Marx (Capital, p. 714.)
the separation of the direct producer from the means of production, i.e., his expropriation, [signified] the transition from simple commodity production to capitalist production (and [constituted] the necessary condition for this transition)… The home market… spreads with the extension of commodity production from products to labor power, and only in proportion as the latter is transformed into a commodity does capitalism embrace the entire production of the country, developing mainly on account of means of production…"
Lenin - (Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 68-69.)
What did Marx and Lenin say regarding the lower phase of communist society?
Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structureof society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
-Marx, Critique of the Gotha programme
It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.
The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).
-Lenin, State And Revolution, Chapter 5 Section 3
So in response to this
The Nazis nationalized their entire steel industry, thus “making the division of necessary and surplus product the division of deliberate social decision”, but clearly still extracting surplus from the workers, just now in a monopolized form, rather than competing entities responding to market changes and thus extracting the most possible surplus value of the workers.
So there was no free market for a labourer to sell their labour power as a commodity (what Marx says must be characteristic for capital to "spring into life"). So capital didn't exist because capital is surplus-value of labour and the industries were all state owned and profit didn't go into a capitalists hands but back into industry as investment and the workers wages and all of the mentioned subordinated to a central plan so was not subject to the "whim of the anarchy of production".
Incidently this is why the Soviet Union and then China were able to industrialise at a phenomenal place precisely because they were not hampered by the capitalist mode of production of the capitalist class, the profit motive and the anarchy of production. Industry could just expand like balloon.
In order to demonstrate that a given society was capitalist, in the scientific sense of the term, it would be necessary to show not merely that articles of consumption were commodities (which was true but proves little), but also and principally that commodity exchange, based on expropriation of the direct producers, embraced and governed the means of production and labor power. If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production, and if consequently neither these means nor labor power function as commodities, then no survivals of "bourgeois right," nor any amount of other inequities and injustices, can allow of such a society being properly termed capitalist.
Inversely, if the direct producers have been separated from the means of production, and consequently both labor power and means of production are exchanged as commodities, then no amount of social welfare benefits, no nationalizations, no statutory curbs on excess profiteering, no ameliorative measures whatever can conceal or modify the capitalist character of such a society.
I obviously agree with almost everything in this comment, I think the key part is this:
If the direct producers, the workers, are not divorced from the means of production
I think the workers in the soviet union were still very much divorced from the means of production and thus from the surplus value they created. I do not see any big change in relation to the control over the means of production from the 20s to the 30s, other than the NEP ended and control was shifted more to the state.
It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.
Do you really think the USSR has achieved that? The lower phase of communism should still not show symptoms of a state (a tool for class oppression, I think we agree with that) as it is a classless society.
For me it's ridiculous to claim that the USSR didn't show a class character and thus - that the USSR was stateless. It's absurd.
I think the workers in the soviet union were still very much divorced from the means of production and thus from the surplus value they created. I do not see any big change in relation to the control over the means of production from the 20s to the 30s, other than the NEP ended and control was shifted more to the state.
They weren't. Their direct connection to the means of production through either state owned (and therefore worker managed and directed but subordinated to the central plan) industry or directly through the collective farms and tractor stations. Please go read the Communist Manifesto Chapter 2 with particular attention to the last 5 paragraphs on what Marx says should be done in a country and report back whether the Soviets did that
Do you really think the USSR has achieved that? The lower phase of communism should still not show symptoms of a state (a tool for class oppression, I think we agree with that) as it is a classless society.
For me it’s ridiculous to claim that the USSR didn’t show a class character and thus - that the USSR was stateless. It’s absurd.
Absolutely they achieved this lower form of communism (or what we would now term socialism). Marx and Engels explicitly say that the era between capitalist and Communisty society (here we mean full classless/stateless/moneyless etc.) can be none other than the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here is what they said.
The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.
Engels to August Bebel In Zwickau, London, March 18-28, 1875;
In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilized countries, in spite or their motley diversity of form, all have this in common: that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed. They have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense, it is possible to speak of the "present-day state" in contrast with the future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off.
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'.
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
They downvoted @Hungover because he spoke the truth.
There's definitely a group on Chapo whose line is: "Communism is when surplus value is extracted by states that are opposed to American imperialism, and the more surplus value extracted, the more communist it is."
v Please give me your downvotes below, thank you. v
Lotta words to ask "Why didn't Stalin press the big red establish communism button?"
I literally said it wasn't possible for the USSR to establish socialism / communism (really, more or less the same thing for Marx) without a revolution in Europe, this is such an absurd strawman.
That is literally what you're saying. The (stated) goal of all socialist countries is to give the workers ownership over the means of production, but this cannot be achieved until there is a strong enough coalition capable of and willing to stand up against capitalist interference. The moment a capitalist state catches wind of a country even saying that sort of stuff is the moment they begin plotting its destruction - the surplus value of labor (at least, part of it) must be used for the common good - ie building up productive forces, purging reactionary elements, and creating a military sufficient not only to defend the country itself but to discourage interference with allies and neighbors. It's not ideal, by all means, but it is the only way forward. If China, or Cuba, or Vietnam, or North Korea were to not use its surplus value doing the previously stated things, the US and other NATO aligned countries would've crushed them decades ago, and replaced their leadership with neoliberal or fascist puppets.
This is not an uncritical defense of AES, but rather an explanation as to why just because they have not achieved the socialist mode of production and distribution does not mean they are not building towards it. This also isn't proof that they will, or even desire to, transition to the socialist mode of production and distribution, but again, simply saying that they aren't NOW isn't proof that they won't later. If you wish claim that say, China does not wish to move to socialism, that is a perfectly fine opinion to hold, once backed with an argument and evidence
This is not an uncritical defense of AES, but rather an explanation as to why just because they have not achieved the socialist mode of production and distribution does not mean they are not building towards it. This also isn’t proof that they will, or even desire to, transition to the socialist mode of production and distribution, but again, simply saying that they aren’t NOW isn’t proof that they won’t later. If you wish claim that say, China does not wish to move to socialism, that is a perfectly fine opinion to hold, once backed with an argument and evidence
I agree with all of this, maybe our differences lie somewhere else. I do not blame countries or leaders or parties or whatever else for 'not pushing the socialism button', I think history plays out of material conditions.
Obviously there are material factors that explain the current conditions, I'm just not willing to call countries socialist if they don't have a socialist mode of production. Dictatorships of the proletariat - fine. Socialist experiments - fine. Actually existing Socialism? - I think that's just empirically not true and a fundamental deception.
This is not an uncritical defense of [actually existing socialism], but rather an explanation as to why just because they have not achieved [actual existing socialism] does not mean they are not building towards it.
See how this is a facially absurd sentence? How you literally go from saying "it is socialism" to "it isn't" in the course of like a dozen words? This is the essence of my problem with idealist definitions of AES that emphasize intentions over actions and material circumstances.
Idealist definitions of AES? Socialism isn't something you just get overnight, it's something that will take years, decades to build WITHOUT capitalist interference. You're the fucking idealist, thinking that you can just institute socialism the moment you get into power
In the mixed economies that have existed to date, the socialist elements have remained subordinated to the capitalist elements.
There are no 'socialist elements' in a mixed economy. It's a capitalist economy because the mode of production remains capitalist and the commodity form exists, it's only the market that takes a simpler form (monopolized) with a single element on the 'job supply' side - the state.
Nationalised steel industries within a capitalist system have to conform to market pressures. Similarly the “worker receiving full value of their labour” in worker coops operating in markets will also engage in commodity production. Key is that with a planned economy, anarchy in production has been eliminated and the scope of commodity exchange has been reduced.
I fully agree with this point, I just don't see the relevance. It's still key who plans the economy and manages surplus value, right?
Love my socialist commodity production, even Lenin never thought of the USSR as something different than state capitalism
Because Lenin died when it was state capitalist lmao
Socialism was constructed in the early 1930s
The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian government in one country does not yet guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism, the organisation of socialist production, still lies ahead. Can this task be accomplished, can the victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint effort of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible... For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia are insufficient.
- Stalin, Foundations of Leninism
Stalin acknowledges here in 1924 that "socialism in one country" and the establishment of a socialist mode of production, is impossible for Russia. Later he revised that claim for propaganda purposes, but even he gets the point that the USSR can't accomplish socialism on its own, especially without another revolution in Europe.
He revised it and admitted he was wrong on that account
The main task of socialism, the organisation of socialist production, still lies ahead.
Stalin was correct. It wasn't constructed until early 1930s as I said previously
Later he revised that claim for propaganda purposes, but even he gets the point that the USSR can’t accomplish socialism on its own, especially without another revolution in Europe.
Even Trotsky agreed Socialism had been established in the 1930s. Here he is:
Socialism has demonstrated its right to victory, not on the pages of Das Kapital, but in an industrial arena comprising a sixth part of the earths surface – not in the language of dialectics, but in the language of steel, cement and electricity. Even if the Soviet Union, as a result of internal difficulties, external blows and the mistakes of leadership, were to collapse – which we firmly hope will not happen – there would remain an earnest of the future this indestructible fact, that thanks solely to a proletarian revolution a backward country has achieved in less than 10 years successes unexampled in history.
This also ends the quarrel with the reformists in the workers movement. Can we compare for one moment their mouselike fussing with the titanic work accomplished by this people aroused to a new life by revolution?
-Trotsky, Revolution Betrayed
We do not stan the USSR, we critically support it. It had some pretty pretty good ideas, along with some pretty pretty bad practices. Kids here idealize the USSR way too much, without realizing that it had some pretty reactionary and problematic elements.
Don't stan any country. The USSR accomplished a lot and was a great example of what socialism can achieve, but uncritical support of anything is never a good idea.
I meant "stan" more in a jokey way, like at what point was it more bad than good, outside of material conditions stuff where it wasn't possible to do the right thing. I can tell that this is a very subjective question, and some will say it was always impure and bad, but just looking for a gist of the history
always
Edit: To actually seriously answer the question, as a socialist experiment I think the USSR deserves our support in and off itself, not uncritically or blindly of course. Everyone has there opinion of "where it went wrong" some say during Gorbachav, others Kruschev, and others again Stalin.
The History of the Soviet Union isn't really as simple as this one guy is Secretary General or whatever and has complete control, there were a bunch of people within the party who invariably disagreed on the best way to achieve socialism/communism, or in fact where even opportunist or revisionist, but the stated goal was always a communist transition.
So even if, say, I believe it all started to go wrong under Gorbachav, I don't think that means to stop "stanning" (as you put it) the USSR, because the USSR is not just Gorbachav. I currently hold a similar position to China, I am under no illusions that everyone in the Party of government is a communist or isn't corrupt or can't effect policy in a negative way, nor do I think people within the CPC who actually want to achieve communism are perfect, or always make the right choice, or aren't susceptible to pressures and bias. But as long as the transition to communism is a stated goal of the PRC and as long as there are people within the CCP (or however the abbreviation goes) I will generally support the idea of the Chinese Communist State.
No state is worthy of uncritical support, but the first ten years or so were full of fascinating experiments of a scale and revolutionary character never again seen.
In terms of its socialist character, workers lost control of the means of production pretty quickly due to war communism and the fact that the Soviet of "workers, peasants and soldiers" had a way disproportionate amount of soldiers. Not surprising due to the civil war, but it's very hard to create a dictatorship of the proletariat while also giving power mostly to the people with guns.
True, but there's significant local control and participation in Mondragon, and or in the West German work councils during certain periods, or in some of the Nordic state-owned companies. If we're going to (quite rightly, IMO) make fun of libs for "dae nordic socialism?" I don't think we can fairly express much enthusiasm for Stalin-era workplace democracy.
first ten years or so were full of fascinating experiments of a scale and revolutionary character never again seen.
You should take a look at the cultural revolution then. Especially the Shanghai Commune
Personally I’m of the opinion that the corruption started to appear around Brezhnev, in the middle of his control. Of course the USSR had many problems before that but that was where things really started to go downhill, and when most of the images of empty grocery stores and such started appearing. From that point forward things started getting really bad due to a major reinvestment in nuclear weapons and a dwindling economy. Gorbachev, once he took power, pretty much had two options: purge corrupt leadership and try to keep the Soviet Union together by force, or soften his stance to the west and concede. He chose the latter and it became a slippery slope leading to now. I don’t think I can fully blame him, because he had noble ideas in mind, but unfortunately it left him vulnerable.
Yeah especially with the stability of cadre thing that he introduced which basically banned purges and made a bunch of bureaucratic positions lifetime appointments the whole formula for how to keep the bureaucracy even kinda under control was destroyed. Gorby had I think the exact wrong ideas for his time period, he wanted the USSR to be an equal alliance of social democracies as opposed to a more centralized federation of socialist states and he threw himself into that mission whole hog without having fixed the economy. Like you can say the USSR should have been more democratic but making it more democratic before you make sure there's economic stability was suicide.
As I understand it, for as long as the person in charge has an awesome mustache and/or beard
The entire time. It was always good and always socialist, even when it was in decline, mismanaged, and governed by revisionists. Even imperfect socialism is worth preserving and supporting.
Yup. Even with all of his disastrous policies, it was still drastically better than capitalism until the very end, not to mention all the other socialist countries that relied on it even then.
It was not socialist under gorbachev. If you believe that then you are so revisionist that your basically a socdem.
it was still drastically better than capitalism until the very end,
if it was better it wouldn't have collapsed lol
You clearly have no idea how horrible the fall of the USSR was for the people living there.
And even an anti-USSR anarchist should be able to recognize that socialist projects that do meet the needs of the people can be destroyed by the forces of imperialism.
You clearly have no idea how horrible the fall of the USSR was for the people living there.
idk man my current squeeze is a Ukrainian immigrant, her dad has told me of how utterly fucked the USSR was in the last 20 years of it's existence. Literally everybody knew the system was failing and there was widespread misery and alcoholism and shit to cope. Things were fucked there for a while before the collapse, that's like how collapses work y'know
should be able to recognize that socialist projects that do meet the needs of the people can be destroyed by the forces of imperialism.
I aint an anarchist but I am a "working government that doesn't collapse in on itself-ist" and the USSR fails that test by not even making it 65 years. Fucking China lasted linger than that because they were practical and looked for solutions instead of jerking off their glorious history for 40 years while every gain they made was lapped by the capitalist west.
idk man my current squeeze is a Ukrainian immigrant, her dad has told me of how utterly fucked the USSR was in the last 20 years of it’s existence.
And yet it was worse or no better than the neoliberal hollowing out, the resurgence of fascism, the mass poverty and unemployment and homelessness and child prostitution that followed it?
The vast majority of people did not want the USSR to fall. A western poll carried out a year beforehand demonstrated this. Most people who lived in the USSR regret that it fell, in every post-Soviet country except Uzbekistan for some reason.
I aint an anarchist but I am a “working government that doesn’t collapse in on itself-ist” and the USSR fails that test by not even making it 65 years.
An unstable socialist system that allows itself to be coopted is not just as bad as capitalist one. A socialist government that fails to defend itself from internal and external subversion and falls in what was essentially a coup is a tragedy, but to deny that it offered a far better standard of living than what came after and that it actually did allow workers some control over the economy is bullshit.
And yet it was worse or no better than the neoliberal hollowing out, the resurgence of fascism, the mass poverty and unemployment and homelessness and child prostitution that followed it?
It directly led to that. The USSR's failure led to the 90's.
The vast majority of people did not want the USSR to fall.
Yeah, no shit. Most Americans don't want America to fall either. Not that it matters much, the system guarantees failure
blah blah blah unstable better cappie quality of life
Ok still fell though. Shit system, dead end style of government. Like you realize that if a country collapses it is proven to be running on a shit foundation right? Especially a world-bestriding colossus like the USSR that manages to kill itself from sheer economic mismanagement
October was an amazing retelling of those twelve months. I am unsure how you could tell that story in a form that makes it more digestible for a modern audience. In my favorite part at the end, Mieville describes revolutionaries as switchmen, switching the trains of history onto the tracks of illegal branching lines (yeah, train gang).
Everything after Stalin was revisionist trash pushed by out-of-touch mediocrities
the concept of revisionism is immaterial critique and an intellectual braindead spillway to avoid reckoning with the policies of socialist states. there is no date when the country started to turn to shit. the nature of the country doesnt change with a bad head of state. this is a crutch we need to cut the fuck out with immediately
edit: there has never been a coherent analysis of revisionism. feel free to produce one
Dumb take. “The nature of a country doesn’t change with a bad head of state” ok, but the nature of a country can and does change, I don’t see how anybody could possibly deny that, so the question remains valid.
those are administrative arrangement. everything and everyone revises itself all the time. the leninists have constructed revisionism as a wedge to separate all that they cant properly analyse or reckon with against all other history
everything and everyone revises itself all the time
Right and the nature of those things change with the revisions, despite you claiming otherwise in the comment I responded to.
thats marxist language. adjustments, arrangements and the constant flux of change cannot be categorized as "revisionism" because that which have been charged as such arent any different to any other dynamic. states dont "degenerate", what in particular have led something to change class character? what are the regime changes and how do they influence material conditions and visa versa? We must discard this term and lobotimize that discourse. What happened? Did a national bourgeoisie consolidate as Mao would have it? Could we explain it through a concentration of vested interest or the weberian bureaucracy?
you havent clarified your terminology. "changes" and the grand concept of revisions arent the same
Revisionism is basically just capitalist realism. People, for whatever reason, material or personal, cling to aspects of the current system as the idea of radical change is either scary or seen as unrealistic for some reason. Revisionism cannot be done away with until capitalism as a mode of production is destroyed.
