RED DAVE

Sorry to come into this debate so late, but why shouldn't Communism, a system of state capitalist exploitation (where the authoritarian government takes the place of the authoritarian corporation) in an impoverished country fail just like private capitalist exploitation has also failed?

A plague on both their houses.

RED DAVE

Grad Student Humanist

I applaud you for your honesty and integrity, Red Dave. It's refreshing in light of the other communist propagandists around here who have spent the weekend trying to justify all manner of authoritarian tyranny since it was done in the name of communism.

RED DAVE

From Grad School Humanist:

There is a long tradition on the Left of opposing both Copmmunism (which we prefer to call Stalinism) and capitalism. It goes under the general term of Independent Socialism. Here are three different sources of this tendency, which I have belonged to for my entire political life.

Solidarity

New Politics

International Socialist Review

RED DAVE

echidna

So Red, ignoring the problems of authoritarianism, how did the Soviet Union differ from socialism, economically ? The Left today seems to define itself more by being anti-capitalist than being pro-anything.

RED DAVE

From echidna:

The essence of socialism, as it was taught to me and as I always have understood is workers' control of the means of production. By this is meant that from the lowest levels, on the work floor, to the middle levels across entire idustries, to the highest, the economic decisions that are made society-wide, the institutions that make these decisions are rooted in the workplace.

The terms workers' councils, soviets, rank and file committees, etc., designate the institutions that would run society. In addition, tenants' committees, neighborhood committees, other geographical based groups, etc., would be part of it. Everything should be noisy, disorganized, political and joyful. Examples are the Paris Commune, the Russian soviets (not the Stalinist government), the rank and file committees that sprung up in Hungary in 1956 and France in 1968, Solidarity, in Poland, in its early days, etc.

What I'm not talking about is some kind of anthill or super-efficient dictatorship. If you want to see its counterpart in literature, the writer who comes closest, for me, is Ursula LeGuin in her novelThe Dispossessed.

RED DAVE

David M. Payne

But the reality is that the workers NEVER get control of the means of production under Marxist socialism. The state gets control, and instead of withering away, it becomes an authoritarian dictatorship. This is because power corrupts esp. when it is in a few hands, as it is under Marxist dogma. (The dictatorship of the proletariat etc.) If you really want the workers to have the means of production in their control, then they have to OWN those means of production, not have some state in between.

David

"God, Marx, and religion, the oldest scam(s) in history, and they still suck them in today. So free your mind, and your body will follow!

RED DAVE

From David Payne:

Let me do this point by point:

1. "But the reality is that the workers NEVER get control of the means of production under Marxist socialism."

"Marxist socialism" has never been tried, except in prototype, under extraordinarily difficult conditions, e.g., the Paris Commune, Russia 1917-1921, Hungary 1956. It has always been attacked from within and without. Workers always control the means of production under socialism or it is not socialism.

2. "The state gets control, and instead of withering away, it becomes an authoritarian dictatorship."

In Russia during the Civil War, in order to survive, in the face of internal counter-revolution and foreign intervention, a centralized state emerged. This state triumphed over mascent socialism and developed, by 1928, into state capitalism (the state as one giant corporation; the bureaucracy as a capitalist class), which had little to do with socialism but preserved its rhetoric. Same happened in Hungary, Cuba.

3. "This is because power corrupts esp. when it is in a few hands, as it is under Marxist dogma. (The dictatorship of the proletariat etc.)"

When power is in a few hands, this is no longer socialism. Plain and simple. Whoever told you different was wrong. The term "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a synonym for socialsm in its brief early stage, when the proletariat rules directly, in its own name, usuing its own institution. Like "scientific socialism," it is an unfortunate term which is no longer used. (Make of that what you may.) But yes, when power is in a few hands, as in capitalism governments and corporations and Stalinist bureaucracies, it corrupts.

4. "If you really want the workers to have the means of production in their control, then they have to OWN those means of production, not have some state in between."

I guess that means that a capitalist is telling the workers how to own the means of production. Does this mean we should all become stock holders or through retirement funds or something like that? This has nothing to do with socialism and is merely a piece of Libertarian dogma.

RED DAVE

moon

Of course, this is totally wrong. The Soviet state can in no sense be considered a corporation. It didn't extract surplus value from the workers to make a profit. The bureaucracy can in sense be considered a capitalist class, because it did not own the means of production.

RED DAVE

From moon:


a) No, it didn't extract surplus value to make a profit because, under state capitalism, "profit" in the sense of corporate profit is not the goal of the extraction of surplus value.

b) Nevertheless, surplus value was extracted from the proletriat under, say, the "Soviet state." Or, where else did the value, the cap;ital, to build the society come from? No other class in modern society is capable of producing surplus value. (Remember, agriculture was collectivized and a rural proletariat was created.)

c) However, instead of surplus value being expropriated as private capital, it is state capital, expropriated by the state. Now, the proletariat had no control over the "Soviet state" and the state bureaucracy did control it, as a group, as a class, in the same manner that the capitalist class controls the bourgeois state Therefore, the state bureaucracy had control over surplus value.

Hence, state capitalism.

RED DAVE

moon

I think this is where the main flaw in your argument lies.

It is absurd to say that the bureaucracy controlled Soviet state capital in the same manner as the bourgeois in capitalist states. The bureaucracy owned no shares of stock, recieved no dividends, could not pass on their "ownership" of the state to their offspring, did not amass the huge fortunes amassed by their counterparts in the capitalist states, nor anything even remotely resembling it. The bureaucracy can in no sense by thought of as owning the state, ergo they were not a capititalist class.

Simple control over the functions of capital does not make one an owner. Indeed, simply look at the capitalists. They do not run their own empires all by themselves, they have others do the managing. They construct for themselves a bureaucratic layer to run things for them. In the Soviet state, you had that bureaucratic layer, but without the capitalists! They were constrained not by the dictates of the market, nor the demands of owners, but by their desire to maintain power. This necessitated acting in the interests of the workers at some points, while suppressing them at others, which explains the incredible zig-zags of the bureaucracy.

I have to say, RED DAVE, that I find this desire to equate the USSR with capitalism a bit unsettling. Clearly, the analogy is shaky at best. We never were able to finish this discussion before, but I would like to ask you point-blank: Do you think the workers in the USSR retained any of the gains of the October Revolution after 1928?