The USSR, Trotsky, and Soviet laws of motion (was Re: Labor in the , "workers'" Hong Kong)
John Holmes
(JH)
Justin Flude's reply to my posting of a few days ago on Soviet laws of
motion has too high a noise-to-signal ration to be worth replying to.
It's not the somewhat vitriolic quality that bothers me, in fact given
where he is coming from, if he actually *liked* my ideas I'd find that
a bit worrisome. It's more the laughably low quality of his arguments.
I mean, how seriously can you take somebody who can't figure out that
the late Ms. Spencer was a monarcho-feudalist? I mean the Spencers
*only* hit England in William the Conqueror's baggage train ... according
to a friend of mine who follows old English history, the main thing
that distinguished the Spencers from other lines of the nobility was
the remarkable frequency with which Spencers were executed for treason
& rebellion by British monarchs. So I guess that speech by her
brother, who doesn't like South Africa anymore now that the blacks have
taken over, follows family tradition.
But arguing about things like this with a fellow who obviously believes
that English history began the day Thatcher was elected PM, and
finds workers and their unions too boring and old-fashioned to be
interesting in England's brave new Thatcherite-post-modernist world,
is a waste of time.
(Flude's hilarious delusion that the post-modernists dominate academia is=
=20
explicable, as he is essentially a prisoner of their mindset himself. If he
was American, he'd be obsessing about Madonna, like the American post-
modernists were, even after she stopped being popular.)
However, now Flude has managed to post the thoughts of his guru about
the Soviet Union, so shredding them a bit might be clarifying,=20
especially as my posting did not generate any great wealth of=20
response. Furedi at least sets forth his silly notions clearly.
***************************************
Date: 6 Nov 1997 12:58:59 GMT
From: Justin Flude <jus...@xara.com>
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky, alt.politics.socialism
Subject: The USSR, Trotsky, and Soviet laws of motion=20
(was Re: Labor in the "workers'" Hong Kong)
Stephen was wondering about the RCP's assessment of the old USSR, so here's
some brief extracts to give an idea. I've also included extracts from the
discussion on Trotsky's attitude to the USSR, and some methodological
points about the Soviet laws of motion, to contribute to the wider debate.
.....
>From the conclusion of 'The Soviet Union Demystified', Frank F=FCredi, 198=
6:-
The Soviet Union has come a long way under its Stalinist leadership.=20
However, its transformation into a superpower owes little to any inherent
drive within the Soviet social formation. The stagnation of Soviet society
reveals its failure to evolve a development dynamic. From the point of
view of historical materialism, it is necessary to conclude that the Soviet
Union contains no progressive tendencies. Its very survival owes more to
rivalries among the imperialist powers than to its own form of social
organisation. The destiny of the Soviet Union will be largely decided by
events in the international arena.
******************************************
(JH) The very way Furedi poses the question about the USSR's "progressive
tendencies" proves that he is essentially a bureaucratic collectivist,
so much so that he cannot understand any other possible position.
(Bureaucratic collectivism, BTW, is simply a translation into Marxist
terminology of "totalitarianism," which has been the dominant conceptual
apparatus deployed against Stalinism by mainstream Western thinkers
at least since Hannah Arendt. Of course Burnham & Rizzi got there=20
first.)
Trotsky's analysis was that the Stalinism in the Soviet Union was a
*temporary unstable phenomenon.* Obviously, he was absolutely right,
the pitiful collapse of the Stalinist states like pricked balloons
proved that. To Furedi, writing in the '80s, this was incomprehensible,
so he natters on, like Burnham or Bruno Rizzi, about whether this
"new social system" is "progressive" or "reactionary." For Rizzi, of
course, "bureaucratic collectivism" was progressive, especially in its
German form, which solved the Jewish Question so nicely...
*******************************
(Furedi)
While Marxists recognise that the capitalist system is the main barrier to
the progress of humanity, the Soviet regime plays a significant role in
perpetuating the existing world order. The Soviet bureaucracy is committed
to preserving the status quo both at home and abroad.
(JH--there's some truth in this, while the Berlin Wall was still standing
the mass slaughter, social chaos, and warfare in Bosnia, the Caucasus, the
Persian Gulf, Angola, etc. that ensued on the collapse of the Soviet Union
might not have happened...)
The regressive
character of the Soviet social formation is shown by its basic failure to
raise the productivity of labour. The cultural and moral backwardness of
Soviet society corresponds to its wider failures of social development. In
this sphere, the Soviet system can claim no superiority over capitalism...=
=20
The Soviet bureaucracy promotes chauvinist attitudes towards women, just as
it cultivates Great Russian nationalism and other reactionary sentiments.=
=20
In such a society, progress is inconceivable without a social revolution.
Western apologists for the Kremlin have generally avoided the cultural
backwardness of the Soviet Union...
(JH -- yeah, Thatcher's England was sooo much nicer than Russia under
Brezhnev, and those Russkies were sooo backward -- Furedi reminds me
of those stand-up comics on TV during the Reagan era whose big laugh
lines were about how Russians never take showers. It's no wonder=20
snotty Thatcherite yuppies like "Living Marxism")
>From chapter 3, 'The emergence of the new society':-
Much of Trotsky's assessment of the Soviet Union was based on the belief
that the bureaucracy could plan the economy. He was aware of many of the
defects of bureaucratic planning - he stressed, for example, the failure of
the bureaucracy to solve the problem of quality. But in the end Trotsky
had no reservations about characterising the Soviet Union as a planned
economy. Trotsky never provided any arguments to back up his case, nor
could he. The disparity between planned targets and real output - even in
the thirties - indicated the fictitous character of planning.
*******************************************
(JH)
And here I'm afraid I have to take back the mean things I said about
Tony Cliff and the state capitalists. State capitalism is at least a
conceivable form of social organization. In fact the US post office,
despite privatisation threats, is still state capitalist, and Yeltsin's
Russia could perhaps be described as a state capitalist society, in that=20
most property is owned by the state, and is run in such a fashion as to
transfer as much wealth as possible into the Yeltsinites' Swiss bank
accounts, essentially disregarding any other economic considerations.
(Furedi's Burma & Syria, back in the '80s, could also have been described
as "state capitalist," and if the economic system was less self-destructive
than that of Yeltsin's Russia, their governments were if anything even
more murderous. Since the '80s, they have both gone private capitalist,
without anybody even much noticing. And the reform-minded elements
around Yeltsin would like to follow suit, which is why the Russian
mafia likes to bump them off...)
But Furedi's idea -- which he must in fact have cribbed from Hillel=20
Ticktin, I am pleased my guesswork was so accurate -- that the Soviet
Union is an *unplanned* non-capitalist economy, is truly absurd. Such
an economy could not last for more than a few years without disintegrating
-- indeed, that is precisely what happened when Gorbachev abolished
central planning in 1987. The Stalinist USSR, by contrast, lasted half
a century, and beat Hitler in WWII!
The Furedi (actually Ticktin) analysis is *more* absurd than Cliff's
state capitalism, which is rather difficult.
*******************************************************
(Furedi)
It is surprising that Trotsky considered the bureaucracy capable of
planning. The Bolsheviks never reduced planning to a technical function;
they understood that it depended on a specific social relationship -
workers' management. Without this planning could be nothing more than
administrative regulation. From a Marxist perspective, a social revolution
against the bureaucracy was needed to install workers' management of
production...
(JH--Ha. The basic Bolshevik attitude was that the precondition for
socialism was world revolution. So, until they were forced to deal
with the question by reality, they simply didn't think very much about
how to plan an economy. The main conclusion they came to from actual
experience in the early years of the Revolution was:
"One Man Management."
Practical experience demonstrated to them something that all people
who inhabit any administrative apparatus of any nature know, namely
never run anything by committee if you want it to actually work.
How Lenin's "one man management" slogan can be reconciled with Furedi's
warmed-over ex-Cliffite pseudo-Kollontaiite syndicalism I fail to see.
Granted, "one man management" was only the beginning of wisdom, and
obviously was a great club for up-and-coming Stalinist bureaucrats
to use against the workers. Still, Furedi's claim to be a "Leninist"
is hilarious.
*****************************
>From chapter 6, 'Laws of motion':-
Many radical critics of Soviet society have tried to explain it in terms of
conflicting economic laws, generally pursuing the tension between the law
of the plan and the law of value identified in the discussions of
Preobrazhensky and Trotsky. This dualistic model provided useful insights
into developments in the twenties, but it mystifies the tendencies that
emerged with the rise of the Soviet social formation in the thirties...
Instead of discussing Soviet society in terms of conflicting economic laws,
it is more useful to being from its peculiar form of social labour. The
Soviet social formation is characterised by the absence of control over the
distribution of labour-time; hence the tendency towards spontaneity is the
dominant trend.
(Yeah, right... those forced labor camps under Stalin really exemplify
"absence of control over the distribution of labor time...JH)
The effects of this trend can be curbed through central
control over material resources and the system of priority allocations.=20
But spontaneity itself cannot be suppressed or overcome, and indeed most
patterns of social interaction are reproduced through the attempt to curb
it. The autarchic patterns of Soviet economic life are themselves created
and re-created through the attempt to come to terms with the forces of
spontaniety. This can also be seen in the way that the system of priority
allocation has come into conflict with the standard institutions of the
central bureaucracy...
In the absence of both a market and a plan, the distribution of labour-time
has the advantages of neither. Instead spontaneity breeds fragmentation
and successful state policy is the exception, not the rule...
****************
(JH)
The above is actually a pretty good description of the Soviet economy towar=
ds
the end under Gorbachev. As a description of the Soviet economy under Stali=
n,
Khrushchev or even Brezhnev, it is simply laughable.=20
Granted the Arendt-Burnham model of 100% total control over=20
every aspect of society by the all-powerful totalitarian rulers was way=20
off, and had been abandoned by most serious Western Sovietologists by the=
=20
'80s. Still, the Ticktin-Furedi "totalitarianism inside out" model is,
if anything, even further from Soviet reality, except in its final dis-
integration phases -- which, admittedly, by the time Furedi wrote his
piece, the Soviet Union was heading rapidly into.
-John Holmes-
Justin Flude
John Holmes <jdho...@igc.apc.org> wrote in article
<Pine.SUN.3.91.97110...@igc.apc.org>...
> I mean, how seriously can you take somebody who can't figure out that
> the late Ms. Spencer was a monarcho-feudalist?
Er, run that past me again? Diana was a supporter of a return to feudal
monarchy, are you saying? I can see that you have a desperate desire to
pidgeon-hole things - a dangerous habit if you are a Marxist trying to
understand new phenomena ...
> So I guess that speech by her
> brother, who doesn't like South Africa anymore now that the blacks have
> taken over, follows family tradition.
He likes it enough to have moved there (Cape Town), after the ANC
government took power. Where on Earth are you getting your facts???
> (Flude's hilarious delusion that the post-modernists dominate academia is
> explicable, as he is essentially a prisoner of their mindset himself. If
he
> was American, he'd be obsessing about Madonna, like the American post-
> modernists were, even after she stopped being popular.)
Gosh, I was basing that idea on the way that post-modernism is uniformly
promoted right across the humanities. It's got so bad that academics can
no longer defend the notion of rationality, as was so dramatically
confirmed by Derrida and the collapse of Anglo-American social
constructionism. So what ideology does "dominate academia" then? Do tell
..
>> The Soviet Union has come a long way under its Stalinist leadership.
>> However, its transformation into a superpower owes little to any
inherent
>> drive within the Soviet social formation. The stagnation of Soviet
society
>> reveals its failure to evolve a development dynamic. From the point of
>> view of historical materialism, it is necessary to conclude that the
Soviet
>> Union contains no progressive tendencies. Its very survival owes more
to
>> rivalries among the imperialist powers than to its own form of social
>> organisation. The destiny of the Soviet Union will be largely decided
by
>> events in the international arena.
> (JH) The very way Furedi poses the question about the USSR's "progressive
> tendencies" proves that he is essentially a bureaucratic collectivist,
> so much so that he cannot understand any other possible position.
Run that past me again? How can the above quotation possibly "prove" that
he is a bureacratic collectivist? And what exactly is wrong with posing
the question "is the USSR progressive compared to capitalism"?
> Trotsky's analysis was that the Stalinism in the Soviet Union was a
> *temporary unstable phenomenon.* Obviously, he was absolutely right,
> the pitiful collapse of the Stalinist states like pricked balloons
> proved that.
We'll overlook here the fact that it took about 40 years longer than he
expected, but that's explained by the chronic weakness of imperialism after
the war ... BTW your characterisation of "Trotsky's analysis" as merely
indicating that the USSR was temporary and unstable is (i) bloody obvious,
all societies are transient; (ii) wrong - where was the social upheaval in
the USSR before the late 1980's, or even after?
>> (Furedi)
>> While Marxists recognise that the capitalist system is the main barrier
to
>> the progress of humanity, the Soviet regime plays a significant role in
>> perpetuating the existing world order. The Soviet bureaucracy is
committed
>> to preserving the status quo both at home and abroad.
> (JH--there's some truth in this, while the Berlin Wall was still standing
> the mass slaughter, social chaos, and warfare in Bosnia, the Caucasus,
the
> Persian Gulf, Angola, etc. that ensued on the collapse of the Soviet
Union
> might not have happened...)
Oh dear, are you regretting the passing of Stalinism? Blaming the
Stalinists for the chaos this decade puts you firmly in the camp of the
bourgeoisie, who have excused the failure of capitalism in the East as the
fault of the Stalinists and the undemocratic natures of the local people.
With the possible exception of the Caucasus, all the conflicts you mention
have been the result of the market ... a market that your precious tankies
welcomed with opne arms.
>> The regressive
>> character of the Soviet social formation is shown by its basic failure
to
>> raise the productivity of labour. The cultural and moral backwardness
of
>> Soviet society corresponds to its wider failures of social development.
In
>> this sphere, the Soviet system can claim no superiority over
capitalism...
>> The Soviet bureaucracy promotes chauvinist attitudes towards women, just
as
>> it cultivates Great Russian nationalism and other reactionary
sentiments.
>> In such a society, progress is inconceivable without a social
revolution.
>> Western apologists for the Kremlin have generally avoided the cultural
>> backwardness of the Soviet Union...
> (JH -- yeah, Thatcher's England was sooo much nicer than Russia under
> Brezhnev, and those Russkies were sooo backward -- Furedi reminds me
> of those stand-up comics on TV during the Reagan era whose big laugh
> lines were about how Russians never take showers. It's no wonder
> snotty Thatcherite yuppies like "Living Marxism")
You really *do* regret the collapse of Stalinism, don't you? Actually, the
person who first assessed the cultural backwardness of the USSR, by looking
at its treatment of women, was Trotsky. The section previous to my quote
above examined Trotsky on this point - I didn't bother quoting it because I
thought, on a.p.s.t., it would be too obvious.
Now, can you explain why, when presented with an argument that the USSR
failed miserably to get rid of all the reactionary crap we have in the
West, you respond by complaining that neither has capitalism? That's what
I'd expect an unreconstructed Stalinist to do ... or is that your problem?
>From chapter 3, 'The emergence of the new society':-
>> Much of Trotsky's assessment of the Soviet Union was based on the belief
>> that the bureaucracy could plan the economy. He was aware of many of
the
>> defects of bureaucratic planning - he stressed, for example, the failure
of
>> the bureaucracy to solve the problem of quality. But in the end Trotsky
>> had no reservations about characterising the Soviet Union as a planned
>> economy. Trotsky never provided any arguments to back up his case, nor
>> could he. The disparity between planned targets and real output - even
in
>> the thirties - indicated the fictitous character of planning.
> (JH)
> And here I'm afraid I have to take back the mean things I said about
> Tony Cliff and the state capitalists. State capitalism is at least a
> conceivable form of social organization.
Disregarding any logical at all. Impressionistic rubbish. Marxists don't
begin from what's "conceivable" - that's how you end up with ridiculous
notions such as "state capitalism". Furedi analyses the USSR from the
basic raw data, not by first thinking up a silly label and then fitting
misunderstood "facts" to it.
> (Furedi's Burma & Syria, back in the '80s, could also have been described
> as "state capitalist," and if the economic system was less
self-destructive
> than that of Yeltsin's Russia, their governments were if anything even
> more murderous. Since the '80s, they have both gone private capitalist,
> without anybody even much noticing. And the reform-minded elements
> around Yeltsin would like to follow suit, which is why the Russian
? mafia likes to bump them off...)
Christ, you're all over the place. One minute its deformed workers states,
the next its state capitalism that becomes private capitalism that becomes
your backside in focus. We call this "eclecticism", by the way. Which
grouplet are you "ex" from, it's a dead giveaway ...
> But Furedi's idea -- which he must in fact have cribbed from Hillel
> Ticktin, I am pleased my guesswork was so accurate
Hardly guesswork, unless you don't know much about the debates. Furedi in
his introduction acknowledges Ticktin as one of the most stimulating
writers on the USSR.
-- that the Soviet
> Union is an *unplanned* non-capitalist economy, is truly absurd.
Care to explain why, Oh Keeper of the A Priori Truths? You have a
materialist analysis, based on primary sources, that demonstrates your
assertion, I suppose.
Better still - just tell us how economic activity was regulated in the old
USSR, and why the regime could produce food that only rotten in railway
sidings, thousands of shoes with two left feet, TVs with the screws
hammered into them at the end of the month etc etc. Anything concrete at
all, to back up your high-flown balderdash ...
> Such
> an economy could not last for more than a few years without
disintegrating
> -- indeed, that is precisely what happened when Gorbachev abolished
> central planning in 1987. The Stalinist USSR, by contrast, lasted half
> a century, and beat Hitler in WWII!
Exactly - when it came to focusing on a clear priority (the war effort),
the fact that the Stalinist command economy could mobilise resources
without worrying about profits as did the capitalists was an advantage.
But priorities, by definition, can only focus on a few things, such as
defence and space. The weakness of imperialism after the war provided a
permanent "breathing space" for the USSR, and opportunities for influence
abroad. But afterwards the system stagnated and within a generation
collapsed.
Of course, if it had been state capitalist, it ought to have gone on until
a working class uprising. And if it had been some variety of workers
state, it should have out-produced the imperialists, as Trotsky thought it
was doing in the 30's. It did none of these things, so where does that
leave your dogma?
>> (Furedi)
>> It is surprising that Trotsky considered the bureaucracy capable of
>> planning. The Bolsheviks never reduced planning to a technical
function;
>> they understood that it depended on a specific social relationship -
>> workers' management. Without this planning could be nothing more than
>> administrative regulation. From a Marxist perspective, a social
revolution
>> against the bureaucracy was needed to install workers' management of
>> production...
> (JH--Ha. The basic Bolshevik attitude was that the precondition for
> socialism was world revolution.
You don't say! You really have mastered the debates, haven't you?
> So, until they were forced to deal with the question by reality, they
simply didn't think very much about
> how to plan an economy.
LOL! They were forced to deal with this question, obviously. They wanted
to consume stuff to live. The problem was that they had great difficulty
even establishing workers' control, let alone workers' management ... by
the late 20's the economy was wildly out of control, with the kulaks
hoarding grain because there were not enough consumer goods for the
peasantry to buy ...
> How Lenin's "one man management" slogan can be reconciled with Furedi's
> warmed-over ex-Cliffite pseudo-Kollontaiite syndicalism I fail to see.
I fail to see how there's anything to "reconcile", myself.
> Still, Furedi's claim to be a "Leninist" is hilarious.
Er, where in the above is still claim made, or even implied? What has this
got to do with anything?
>From chapter 6, 'Laws of motion':-
>> Many radical critics of Soviet society have tried to explain it in terms
of
>> conflicting economic laws, generally pursuing the tension between the
law
>> of the plan and the law of value identified in the discussions of
>> Preobrazhensky and Trotsky. This dualistic model provided useful
insights
>> into developments in the twenties, but it mystifies the tendencies that
>> emerged with the rise of the Soviet social formation in the thirties...
>> Instead of discussing Soviet society in terms of conflicting economic
laws,
>> it is more useful to being from its peculiar form of social labour. The
>> Soviet social formation is characterised by the absence of control over
the
>> distribution of labour-time; hence the tendency towards spontaneity is
the
>> dominant trend.
>> The effects of this trend can be curbed through central
>> control over material resources and the system of priority allocations.
>> But spontaneity itself cannot be suppressed or overcome, and indeed most
>> patterns of social interaction are reproduced through the attempt to
curb
>> it. The autarchic patterns of Soviet economic life are themselves
created
>> and re-created through the attempt to come to terms with the forces of
>> spontaniety. This can also be seen in the way that the system of
priority
>> allocation has come into conflict with the standard institutions of the
>> central bureaucracy...
>> In the absence of both a market and a plan, the distribution of
labour-time
>> has the advantages of neither. Instead spontaneity breeds fragmentation
>> and successful state policy is the exception, not the rule...
> The above is actually a pretty good description of the Soviet economy
towards
> the end under Gorbachev. As a description of the Soviet economy under
Stalin,
> Khrushchev or even Brezhnev, it is simply laughable.
More laughs. Share the joke, please. And learn to think - I said that
this section was a brief comment on methodology, where to start in your
analysis. Only an idiot would think that the above is some kind of
definitive description of Stalinism ...
> -John Holmes-
Tie a knot in it, tankie.
Justin
John Holmes
(JH)
Mr. Flude's signal-to-noise ratio seems to have improved slightly, and in
any case, whatever his deficiencies, he seems to be the only poster on
a.p.s.t. seriously interested in arguing about what I'm interested in
discussing, so, this being the only game in town... I will try to stick
to the important issues instead of just berating Flude for his idiocies,
but that's hard, he's such an easy target.
On 7 Nov 1997, Justin Flude wrote:
> Date: 7 NOV 1997 18:27:40 GMT
> From: Justin Flude <jus...@xara.com>
> Newgroups: usenet.alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
> Subject: Re: The USSR, Trotsky, and Soviet laws of motion (was Re: Labor in the , "workers'" Hong Kong)
>
> John Holmes <jdho...@igc.apc.org> wrote in article
> <Pine.SUN.3.91.97110...@igc.apc.org>...
> > I mean, how seriously can you take somebody who can't figure out that
> > the late Ms. Spencer was a monarcho-feudalist?
>
> Er, run that past me again? Diana was a supporter of a return to feudal
> monarchy, are you saying? I can see that you have a desperate desire to
> pidgeon-hole things - a dangerous habit if you are a Marxist trying to
> understand new phenomena ...
Short-lived media fads are hardly "new phenomena." As the not-too-bright
Ms. Spencer probably never had a political thought in her entire life,
it would be meaningless to call her a monarchist, but in fact, I was
simply replying to your absurd assertion that "the Diana cult" was
somehow "anti-monarchist."
>
> > So I guess that speech by her
> > brother, who doesn't like South Africa anymore now that the blacks have
> > taken over, follows family tradition.
>
> He likes it enough to have moved there (Cape Town), after the ANC
> government took power. Where on Earth are you getting your facts???
Half a point for Flude. It is amusing that he went there after the ANC
took power, as according to American press accounts he's been complaining
loudly about rising crime, civil disorder etc.
Perhaps Mr. Spencer had heard that Mandela was descended from the Xhosa
royal family...
>
> > (Flude's hilarious delusion that the post-modernists dominate academia is
> > explicable, as he is essentially a prisoner of their mindset himself. If
> he
> > was American, he'd be obsessing about Madonna, like the American post-
> > modernists were, even after she stopped being popular.)
>
> Gosh, I was basing that idea on the way that post-modernism is uniformly
> promoted right across the humanities. It's got so bad that academics can
> no longer defend the notion of rationality, as was so dramatically
> confirmed by Derrida and the collapse of Anglo-American social
> constructionism. So what ideology does "dominate academia" then? Do tell
> ..
(JH) In America, Deweyan pragmatism as always. Post-modernism is essentially
an academic fad itself, admittedly one with longer legs than "the Diana
cult."
PC-bashing is a major contemporary American sport, and the post-modernists
are mostly seen out here, not too inaccurately, as a subdivision of PC.
Granted there are a lot of post-modernists in English lit. Post-modernist
forays into *other* humanities (especially history, the one I'm most
familiar with) have been rather unsuccessful.
In America,
The De Man affair nearly finished off post-modernism, in fact it would
have except for Derrida's authority as a child of holocaust survivors and
probably the most left-wing "famous intellectual" around except for
maybe Chomsky. The Alan Sokal business last year has made post-modernism
a laughing stock, and it is surviving now mostly on inertia, because
there are after all quite a few professors who got their appointments
on the strength of post-modernist Ph.D. theses. I rather expect, from
what I hear, that making fun of post-modernism is about to become a
major sport for the next generation of up-and-coming Ivory Tower denizens.
> >...
> > (JH) The very way Furedi poses the question about the USSR's "progressive
> > tendencies" proves that he is essentially a bureaucratic collectivist,
> > so much so that he cannot understand any other possible position.
>
> Run that past me again? How can the above quotation possibly "prove" that
> he is a bureacratic collectivist? And what exactly is wrong with posing
> the question "is the USSR progressive compared to capitalism"?
Why, nothing, if you think the USSR is a manifestation of a new form
of class society, different from all previous.
Indeed, nothing at all, if you are a "bureaucratic collectivist." But
I repeat myself...
>
> > Trotsky's analysis was that the Stalinism in the Soviet Union was a
> > *temporary unstable phenomenon.* Obviously, he was absolutely right,
> > the pitiful collapse of the Stalinist states like pricked balloons
> > proved that.
>
> We'll overlook here the fact that it took about 40 years longer than he
> expected, but that's explained by the chronic weakness of imperialism after
> the war ...
I suppose, from an English perspective, post-WWII imperialism looked awful
weak. British imperialism certainly was. From my American perspective, I
have to say it looked a lot stronger.
In any case, that's not why the USSR survived so much longer than Trotsky
expected. The reason is because of a development Trotsky *certainly*
did not expect -- namely that the world-historical task of defeating
and destroying Nazism was performed, not by European workers' insurrection
as he expected, but rather by the Soviet army.
> BTW your characterisation of "Trotsky's analysis" as merely
> indicating that the USSR was temporary and unstable is (i) bloody obvious,
> all societies are transient; (ii) wrong - where was the social upheaval in
> the USSR before the late 1980's, or even after?
(i) yes, but some are more transient than others.
(ii) A non-sequitur. Reread *Revolution Betrayed,* where Trotsky devotes
a lot of effort to answering your question. The "totalitarian" features
of the USSR under Stalin resulted from the pent-up social upheaval they
were intended to suppress. As soon as the lid came off, the ultra-unstable
USSR simply exploded.
>
> >> (Furedi)
> >> While Marxists recognise that the capitalist system is the main barrier
> to
> >> the progress of humanity, the Soviet regime plays a significant role in
> >> perpetuating the existing world order. The Soviet bureaucracy is
> committed
> >> to preserving the status quo both at home and abroad.
>
> > (JH--there's some truth in this, while the Berlin Wall was still standing
> > the mass slaughter, social chaos, and warfare in Bosnia, the Caucasus,
> the
> > Persian Gulf, Angola, etc. that ensued on the collapse of the Soviet
> Union
> > might not have happened...)
>
> Oh dear, are you regretting the passing of Stalinism? Blaming the
> Stalinists for the chaos this decade puts you firmly in the camp of the
> bourgeoisie, who have excused the failure of capitalism in the East as the
> fault of the Stalinists and the undemocratic natures of the local people.
> With the possible exception of the Caucasus, all the conflicts you mention
> have been the result of the market ... a market that your precious tankies
> welcomed with opne arms.
Again Flude becomes tiresome.
A) Stalinism we can all do without. The collapse of the Soviet workers'
state, however, is the single greatest defeat the world working class
has seen since the '30s.
B) "Blaming the Stalinists"? Well, sure, for *selling out* to "the camp
of the bourgeoisie."
C) As for the rest of the paragraph -- just what is he trying to say?
I would advise him to think before he posts next time, as insofar as
I can figure out what he's driving at, he's making a fool of himself.
> ...
> > (JH -- yeah, Thatcher's England was sooo much nicer than Russia under
> > Brezhnev, and those Russkies were sooo backward -- Furedi reminds me
> > of those stand-up comics on TV during the Reagan era whose big laugh
> > lines were about how Russians never take showers. It's no wonder
> > snotty Thatcherite yuppies like "Living Marxism")
>
> You really *do* regret the collapse of Stalinism, don't you? Actually, the
> person who first assessed the cultural backwardness of the USSR, by looking
> at its treatment of women, was Trotsky. The section previous to my quote
> above examined Trotsky on this point - I didn't bother quoting it because I
> thought, on a.p.s.t., it would be too obvious.
Flude is proving my point. Obviously, he really does think England is
culturally "more progressive" than the USSR, to which the best answer is
Ghandi's famous quip.
When asked what he thought of Western civilization, Ghandi answered:
"It would be a good idea."
As for Trotsky on Soviet social backwardness, his argument was that
under Stalin, "all the old crap" of *Czarist Russian* backwardness was
coming back! What relationship this may have to argumentation by Furedi-
Ticktin as to the social backwardness of their Burnham-style new form
of society I fail to see.
>
> > (JH)
> > And here I'm afraid I have to take back the mean things I said about
> > Tony Cliff and the state capitalists. State capitalism is at least a
> > conceivable form of social organization.
>
> Disregarding any logical at all. Impressionistic rubbish. Marxists don't
> begin from what's "conceivable" - that's how you end up with ridiculous
> notions such as "state capitalism". Furedi analyses the USSR from the
> basic raw data, not by first thinking up a silly label and then fitting
> misunderstood "facts" to it.
So you think *I'm* an impressionist? Try looking in the mirror.
No, indeed, Marxists should not "begin from what's conceivable." But
neither should they, like you and Furedi, *begin from what's inconceivable."!
>
> > (Furedi's Burma & Syria, back in the '80s, could also have been described
> > as "state capitalist," and if the economic system was less
> self-destructive
> > than that of Yeltsin's Russia, their governments were if anything even
> > more murderous. Since the '80s, they have both gone private capitalist,
> > without anybody even much noticing. And the reform-minded elements
> > around Yeltsin would like to follow suit, which is why the Russian
> ? mafia likes to bump them off...)
>
> Christ, you're all over the place. One minute its deformed workers states,
> the next its state capitalism that becomes private capitalism that becomes
> your backside in focus. We call this "eclecticism", by the way. Which
> grouplet are you "ex" from, it's a dead giveaway ...
Arrrggh! What *do* they teach in school in England these days?
(Oh, yes, that's right, you're a pupil of one of Popper's prize
pupils. And a walking argument against Popperism, I must say.)
Well, I'll give you a few hints.
(1) Maybe, just perhaps, there is a fundamental difference between the
USSR and Yeltsin's Russia. At any rate, about 99% of the politically
aware inhabitants of the planet between Venus and Mars *do* think so.
(2) Maybe, just perhaps, there is no fundamental difference between
private and state capitalism. That was, at any rate, Lenin's opinion
on the subject.
(3) As to where I stand on the political spectrum, if you can't figure
that out you are beyond help.
>
> > But Furedi's idea -- which he must in fact have cribbed from Hillel
> > Ticktin, I am pleased my guesswork was so accurate
>
> Hardly guesswork, unless you don't know much about the debates. Furedi in
> his introduction acknowledges Ticktin as one of the most stimulating
> writers on the USSR.
Absolutely everything I know about the RCP's position on the Russian question
comes from a.p.s.t. postings, so it was indeed 100% pure guesswork.
>
> -- that the Soviet
> > Union is an *unplanned* non-capitalist economy, is truly absurd.
>
> Care to explain why, Oh Keeper of the A Priori Truths? You have a
> materialist analysis, based on primary sources, that demonstrates your
> assertion, I suppose.
Only a British empiricist of the worst kind would think that one needs
evidence from primary sources to disprove a palpable absurdity.
I mean, just what do you think determined what was produced? Random chance?
>
> Better still - just tell us how economic activity was regulated in the old
> USSR, and why the regime could produce food that only rotten in railway
> sidings, thousands of shoes with two left feet, TVs with the screws
> hammered into them at the end of the month etc etc. Anything concrete at
> all, to back up your high-flown balderdash ...
How was economic activity regulated? By central planning authorities
like Vesenkha, of course. They came up with things they called "plans."
Five year plans, three year plans... If you don't know what the word
means, try a dictionary.
Why could these planning authorities generate the idiocies you describe?
Because, instead of workers' democracy, you had a narrow, privileged,
corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy running everything!
However, despite this, the Soviet Union under Stalin was transformed
into a superpower rivalling America, Eastern Europe was industrialized,
and China became a world power as well. In fact, until about 1970 or
so, economic growth rates in these countries were usually far ahead of
those in the West.
Why did the Soviet-style economies run out of gas? Well, that was the
subject of my original posting. My two "laws of motion" did have the
deficiencies of Popperian positivism, that's the only really worth-
while point you've managed to make -- albeit I said so myself in the
first place.
>...
> Of course, if it had been state capitalist, it ought to have gone on until
> a working class uprising. And if it had been some variety of workers
> state, it should have out-produced the imperialists, as Trotsky thought it
> was doing in the 30's. It did none of these things, so where does that
> leave your dogma?
Why state capitalism is more likely to generate working class uprising than
private I fail to see, that must be some piece of Cliffite dogma to explain
Hungary 1956 I suppose.
And if a workers state, even the finest, most democratic Leninist-Trotskyist
one conceivable, can out-produce the imperialists, in a backward country
like Russia, then why bother with international revolution? Wouldn't
building socialism in one country be easier and simpler?
And in the '30s, it was simply empirical fact that the Soviet Union was
growing by economic leaps and bounds, while the rest of the world was
mired in a huge economic depression (a little weaker, granted, in England
than elsewhere). In the early '30s, American autoworkers, like the Reuther
brothers, were emigrating from America to the Soviet Union to get jobs!
Trotsky never claimed that this was inevitable, indeed quite the opposite.
(the next section skipped, as Flude's arbitrary [without even the customary
three dots!] slicing out my primary point from his quoting of my posting
reduces the level of argument to academic haggling)
> ...
> > Still, Furedi's claim to be a "Leninist" is hilarious.
>
> Er, where in the above is still claim made, or even implied? What has this
> got to do with anything?
Well, if you're not Leninists, why are you running around calling yourselves
the "Revolutionary Communist Party"? To impress people at cocktail parties?
> (a lengthy slice of academic mumbo-jumbo with remarkably little relation
to Soviet reality before its final death throes cut out-JH)
...
> > The above is actually a pretty good description of the Soviet economy
> towards
> > the end under Gorbachev. As a description of the Soviet economy under
> Stalin,
> > Khrushchev or even Brezhnev, it is simply laughable.
>
> More laughs. Share the joke, please. And learn to think - I said that
> this section was a brief comment on methodology, where to start in your
> analysis. Only an idiot would think that the above is some kind of
> definitive description of Stalinism ...
Indeed not. For a critique of your and Furedi's methodology, which the
above sliced-out mumbo-jumbo simply "rendered more profound" through
obscurification, see above, and my previous posting.
>
> > -John Holmes-
>
> Tie a knot in it, tankie.
>
> Justin
>
"Tankie," I seem to recall, was an epithet directed at those who
supported the Soviets in Afghanistan against the Mujahedeen ultra-
reactionaries.
Now that the ultra-feudalist Taliban maniacs are in power, I would think
that anyone with a basic sense of human decency should recognize that the
withdrawal of the Soviet tanks from Afghanistan was the greatest disaster
in the history of this unhappy country. But then, who cares about Afghan
women being enslaved and murdered, when you can scribble about Lady Di?
After all, the Afghans have *had* their 15 minutes of fame, they're
old-fashioned and boring, like unions and workers...
-jh-
Justin Flude
John Holmes wrote in message ...
>(JH)
>Mr. Flude's signal-to-noise ratio seems to have improved slightly,
"Psssssssssssss - Earth to Holmes, Earth to Holmes - psssssssss...." No
improvement in reception at my end, John, you're as "way out there" as ever
...
>On 7 Nov 1997, Justin Flude wrote:
>> John Holmes <jdho...@igc.apc.org> wrote in article
>> <Pine.SUN.3.91.97110...@igc.apc.org>...
>> > I mean, how seriously can you take somebody who can't figure out that
>> > the late Ms. Spencer was a monarcho-feudalist?
>>
>> Er, run that past me again? Diana was a supporter of a return to feudal
>> monarchy, are you saying? I can see that you have a desperate desire to
>> pidgeon-hole things - a dangerous habit if you are a Marxist trying to
>> understand new phenomena ...
>
>Short-lived media fads are hardly "new phenomena." As the not-too-bright
>Ms. Spencer probably never had a political thought in her entire life,
>it would be meaningless to call her a monarchist, but in fact, I was
>simply replying to your absurd assertion that "the Diana cult" was
>somehow "anti-monarchist."
Which I never asserted, so perhaps you'd better recheck your attributions.
If you'd prefer we can look at *your* characterisation of Diana as a
"monarcho-feudalist", which should keep us all amused for hours.
>> > So I guess that speech by her
>> > brother, who doesn't like South Africa anymore now that the blacks have
>> > taken over, follows family tradition.
>>
>> He likes it enough to have moved there (Cape Town), after the ANC
>> government took power. Where on Earth are you getting your facts???
>
>Half a point for Flude. It is amusing that he went there after the ANC
>took power, as according to American press accounts he's been complaining
>loudly about rising crime, civil disorder etc.
Exactly what the ex-Stalinists in the ANC and the well-off South Africans
moan about, so why the surprise?
>I rather expect, from
>what I hear, that making fun of post-modernism is about to become a
>major sport for the next generation of up-and-coming Ivory Tower denizens.
Unlikely, as American academia is busy endorsing the premises of the
post-modernists, whatever their preferred intellectual labels. Celebrating
and naturalising difference and diversity would seem to be the staple of the
American humanities, whether its Murray with his "Bell Curve" explaining
that blacks are just, well, naturally different and inferior, or the turgid
bickering over ethnic history or the legacy of 1492 and whose "culture" is
"best" or the most "oppressive", or the philosophers inability to defend
Anglo-American positivism and social constructionism against Derrida's
tear-it-all-down anti-critique.
>> > (JH) The very way Furedi poses the question about the USSR's
"progressive
>> > tendencies" proves that he is essentially a bureaucratic collectivist,
>> > so much so that he cannot understand any other possible position.
>>
>> Run that past me again? How can the above quotation possibly "prove"
that
>> he is a bureacratic collectivist? And what exactly is wrong with posing
>> the question "is the USSR progressive compared to capitalism"?
>
>Why, nothing, if you think the USSR is a manifestation of a new form
>of class society, different from all previous.
The only assumption in the question is that the USSR is not capitalist,
hence suggesting a comparison between it and the West. You are not making
any sense, so I guess the only reasonable explanation is that people who
regret the passing of Stalinism are overly sensitive to questions that ask
whether it was reactionary.
>> > Trotsky's analysis was that the Stalinism in the Soviet Union was a
>> > *temporary unstable phenomenon.* Obviously, he was absolutely right,
>> > the pitiful collapse of the Stalinist states like pricked balloons
>> > proved that.
>>
>> We'll overlook here the fact that it took about 40 years longer than he
>> expected, but that's explained by the chronic weakness of imperialism
after
>> the war ...
>
>I suppose, from an English perspective, post-WWII imperialism looked awful
>weak. British imperialism certainly was. From my American perspective, I
>have to say it looked a lot stronger.
Really? Imperialism was so "strong" after WW2 that the Red Army could take
over half of Europe, China could achieved unity and independence, Korea
fought the imperialists to a standstill, Vietnam kicked out the French, the
British and French were forced to decolonise Africa, open racism and
imperialism became taboo after the experience of fascism and the Holocaust,
free-market thinkers like Hayek were banished to the margins etc etc etc.
You haven't got a clue.
>> BTW your characterisation of "Trotsky's analysis" as merely
>> indicating that the USSR was temporary and unstable is (i) bloody
obvious,
>> all societies are transient; (ii) wrong - where was the social upheaval
in
>> the USSR before the late 1980's, or even after?
>
>(i) yes, but some are more transient than others.
>
>(ii) A non-sequitur. Reread *Revolution Betrayed,* where Trotsky devotes
>a lot of effort to answering your question. The "totalitarian" features
>of the USSR under Stalin resulted from the pent-up social upheaval they
>were intended to suppress. As soon as the lid came off, the ultra-unstable
>USSR simply exploded.
Which is just the fashionable view nowadays that the ethnic conflicts in the
East are the product of long-repressed age-old irrational rivalries, rather
than the result of the fragmentation of the Stalinist economy and the
differential impact of the market. The "totalitarian features" you note
were much more the consequence of social chaos in the out-of-control Soviet
society, rather than a response to national upheaval. The bureacracy
attempted to substitute for its lack of an effective economic regulator by
employing an enormous "police" apparatus that could provide accurate
information on what was happening in the economy.
>> > (JH)
>> > And here I'm afraid I have to take back the mean things I said about
>> > Tony Cliff and the state capitalists. State capitalism is at least a
>> > conceivable form of social organization.
>>
>> Disregarding any logical at all. Impressionistic rubbish. Marxists
don't
>> begin from what's "conceivable" - that's how you end up with ridiculous
>> notions such as "state capitalism". Furedi analyses the USSR from the
>> basic raw data, not by first thinking up a silly label and then fitting
>> misunderstood "facts" to it.
>
>So you think *I'm* an impressionist? Try looking in the mirror.
>
>No, indeed, Marxists should not "begin from what's conceivable." But
>neither should they, like you and Furedi, *begin from what's
inconceivable."!
What Marxists should do is analyse the real changing material conditions of
Soviet society through its history, so as to work out its laws of motion and
development tendencies. That means studying Soviet society from the
original raw data, not beginning with "well it's not this, and its not this,
so it must be that" - the idealist methodology employed by the state-caps
and the deformed-workers-state theorists. Now you tell me what's
"inconceivable" about Füredi's materialist approach ...
>(2) Maybe, just perhaps, there is no fundamental difference between
>private and state capitalism. That was, at any rate, Lenin's opinion
>on the subject.
Twaddle. And don't make the idiotic mistake of confusing what Lenin termed
"state capitalism", which was a system of war measures adopted by some
bourgeois states in 1914-18, with the banal Cliffite thesis that the state
itself can be capital.
>(3) As to where I stand on the political spectrum, if you can't figure
>that out you are beyond help.
My guess is that you are an ex-Spart, hence your Stalinist-like attachment
to the "workers' state" thesis and your support for the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, your near-Biblical worship of Trotsky, and your gross
unfamiliarity with the Marxist method. As such you are probably the worst
of the worst - it's difficult to imagine a more dogmatic, out of touch and
brainless sect than the Spartacist League. I mean, just look at the
cockroaches in this NG. In the UK the Sparts used to have a reputation for
deliberately wrecking the meetings of other groups, rather than debating
them. Their miserable paper endlessly consisted of reprints of Lenin and
Trotsky, with very very occasionally a worthless 'original', often hailing
the Red Army or yakking on about "Pablo-ite" revisionism and a lot of other
incomprehensible guff.
>How was economic activity regulated? By central planning authorities
>like Vesenkha, of course. They came up with things they called "plans."
>Five year plans, three year plans... If you don't know what the word
>means, try a dictionary.
But as I explained in the original post, social planning is not a technical
function that can be performed by a state bureacracy if the working class is
excluded from it. How do you explain the huge disparity between planned
targets and the real achievements, if the economy was planned? How do you
explain how this "planned" economy systematically failed to outproduce the
West, if "planning" is meant to be an improvement on the law of value?
Bureacratic planning could set targets and assign priorities, but it could
never even begin to substitute for workers' management.
>Why could these planning authorities generate the idiocies you describe?
>Because, instead of workers' democracy, you had a narrow, privileged,
>corrupt Stalinist bureaucracy running everything!
I see, so the Soviet economy produced non-use values and put them in the
shops - unheard of and effectively impossible under capitalism - because the
Stalinists were "corrupt". Presumably someone bribed a bureaucrat to make
his factory produce 10,000 too many left shoes. And this garbage is what
you propose replacing an "empirical" materialist analysis? Even in the
30's, Trotsky has a better analysis of the problem of quality that the one
you're putting forward ...
>However, despite this, the Soviet Union under Stalin was transformed
>into a superpower rivalling America, Eastern Europe was industrialized,
>and China became a world power as well. In fact, until about 1970 or
>so, economic growth rates in these countries were usually far ahead of
>those in the West.
Rubbish. The USSR only *seemed* to outgrow the West during the West's most
profound crisis, the Depression of the 30's. And when did the USSR ever
seriously rival the USA? Eastern Europe was already industrialised to a
great extent, and where it was most advanced, such as Czechoslovakia,
Stalinism brought economic regression, not progress. China benefited from
Stalinism because it provided the basis for all-class unity and national
unity. As soon as the country was stabilised, they opened the door to Nixon
and the imperialists, and its only since the creation of the enterprise
zones that the Chinese economy has really taken off.
>> > Still, Furedi's claim to be a "Leninist" is hilarious.
>>
>> Er, where in the above is still claim made, or even implied? What has
this
>> got to do with anything?
>
>Well, if you're not Leninists, why are you running around calling
yourselves
>the "Revolutionary Communist Party"? To impress people at cocktail parties?
I'm not. To impress people at cocktail parties, I whip out a glossy copy of
"LM" and explain the modern politics of permanent panic, anti-science,
emotion over reason, and why the old left is a spent force of "ex"
lifestylists ...
The only reason I've used the label "RCP" in this NG is because the
dinosaurs on a.p.s.t. seem to like it, it perhaps makes my message easier to
comprehend. In the real world, all three of the words in the acronym are a
barrier to getting a hearing, so I don't place any stress on them or even
mention them, I prefer to promote the magazine. It's a reflection of the
reality that grand schemes, such as world revolution, are off the agenda for
the time being, what we must do today is revitalise, more broadly, the
belief in human reason, agency and progress.
>> > -John Holmes-
>>
>> Tie a knot in it, tankie.
>>
>> Justin
>>
>
>"Tankie," I seem to recall, was an epithet directed at those who
>supported the Soviets in Afghanistan against the Mujahedeen ultra-
>reactionaries.
Actually, it's a general term of abuse for the Stalinists, who like you
believe that there is a "tankist" road to socialism.
>Now that the ultra-feudalist Taliban maniacs are in power, I would think
>that anyone with a basic sense of human decency should recognize that the
>withdrawal of the Soviet tanks from Afghanistan was the greatest disaster
>in the history of this unhappy country.
Yes, that's the reactionary anti-Marxist politics I was refering to.
Progress was brought to the East Europeans and the Afghans by Stalinist
tanks, with much cheering from the Sparts. And then they wonder why people
can't see a difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism ...
> But then, who cares about Afghan
>women being enslaved and murdered, when you can scribble about Lady Di?
>After all, the Afghans have *had* their 15 minutes of fame, they're
>old-fashioned and boring, like unions and workers...
Wake up at the back! The Taliban are on their way out already, Afghan women
or anyone else benefitted not at all from the cynical and vicious Soviet war
against the country, and nowadays its Diana and the new politics that people
are interested in, not your long-lost battles from a bygone era.
Justin :)
Victor Khomenko
"Justin Flude" <jus...@xara.com> wrote:
>Yes, that's the reactionary anti-Marxist politics I was refering to.
>Progress was brought to the East Europeans and the Afghans by Stalinist
>tanks, with much cheering from the Sparts. And then they wonder why people
>can't see a difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism ...
People can't see a difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism because (gulp)
there isn't any in the fundamentsl sense. Both represented extremely vicious
kinds of bloodthirsty tyrans.
Now, one can embark on a comparative search, attempting to discover
some superficial differences in order to promote his favorite tyran over someone
else's one. Still, there seems to be little doubt that the two represented just
different shades of the same evil. One can only immagine what the life in
Russia might have been, had Trotsky outsmarted Stalin and grabbed the control
stick. I don't think it would be totally unreasonble to believe, that given all
his demagogary, Trotsky would have created something at least as ugly and
monstrous as the Stalin's Russia. The two would probably differ in their human
extermination techniques and patterns, in thier favorite paranoya, with end
result possibly being different number of millions murdered, but this is hardly
a fundamental difference.
It is a common trap to associate better intentions with a "fallen" murderer,
simply because the one who won was oh, so demonstrably bad. A very simple case
of two spiders in the glass jar - the one that got eaten was not better, only
weaker.
Victor.
Hunter Watson
In article <34686...@news.dca.net>, Victor Khomenko <in...@balanced.com> wrote:
> "Justin Flude" <jus...@xara.com> wrote:
>
> >Yes, that's the reactionary anti-Marxist politics I was refering to.
> >Progress was brought to the East Europeans and the Afghans by Stalinist
> >tanks, with much cheering from the Sparts. And then they wonder why people
> >can't see a difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism ...
>
>
> People can't see a difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism because
(gulp)
> there isn't any in the fundamentsl sense. Both represented extremely vicious
> kinds of bloodthirsty tyrans.
>
> Now, one can embark on a comparative search, attempting to discover
> some superficial differences in order to promote his favorite tyran over
someone
> else's one. Still, there seems to be little doubt that the two
represented just
> different shades of the same evil.
Having waded through the preceeding 4 or 5 posts in which John and Justin
swap observations about various aspects of *Soviet* political theory, it's
a relief to see it suggested that regardless of the contemporary posturing
and especially regardless of the disingenuous crap they both wrote, Stalin
and Trotsky were essentially alike in their on-the-ground methods while in
power. Their policies (and those of Lenin) were essentially equivalent when
judged objectively, i.e., in accord with the practical effects they had on
subject populations.
One can only immagine what the life in
> Russia might have been, had Trotsky outsmarted Stalin and grabbed the control
> stick. I don't think it would be totally unreasonble to believe, that
given all
> his demagogary, Trotsky would have created something at least as ugly and
> monstrous as the Stalin's Russia.
The evidence is flowing out of the archives in ever increasing volume.
Victor need not now *project* what Trotsky's future might have held after
1929. Several of the most brutal policies which were formally adopted in
the first two five year plans under Stalin were actually generated under
Trotsky and Lenin as far back as 1919-1920. I don't speak simply of the
overt terror,the reign of Chekists with their skull shattering Colt 38's.
We all know about that. More telling examples for putative Marxists are
found in the early history of Soviet agricultural and labor policies. The
roles of Trotsky and Lenin in the creation of "labour armies" in response
to what appeared to be the end of the Civil War in 1919 is a case in point.
It was certainly as "ugly and monstrous" as what happened in Stalin's
Russia.....By the way, Stalin was deeply involved in it, especially in the
Ukraine. It was a seamless web; it was THEIR policy. It was BOLSHEVIK
policy.
The two would probably differ in their human
> extermination techniques and patterns, in thier favorite paranoya, with end
> result possibly being different number of millions murdered, but this is
hardly
> a fundamental difference.
Exactly so.
Hunter Watson
Adam Hibbert
In article <hwatson-ya0231800...@news.up.net>,
hwa...@up.net (Hunter Watson) wrote:
* Stalin
* and Trotsky were essentially alike in their on-the-ground methods while in
* power. Their policies (and those of Lenin) were essentially equivalent when
* judged objectively, i.e., in accord with the practical effects they had on
* subject populations.
This argument is simply absurd: by extension, Hunter would have to be
arguing that he discerns no difference in politics between any of the
parties that have governed western democracies in the last 50 years.
'Judging objectively' is not a luxury any political analysis can afford -
if you won't admit that you're on one side or the other you're simply
obscuring your subjective stance. [If he must persist, would he explain
whether changes in 'subject' populations' attitudes are 'practical
effects', for example].
Apart from the absurdity, it's clear that Lenin was scathing about what
became Stalin's goal of 'socialism in one country'. Trotsky died opposing
it. To compare the emergency response Bolshevism had to take against
imperialist attack with the permanent state of terror Stalin introduced is
specious in the extreme. It blinds historical analysis to the fact that,
where Lenin intended to survive a brief siege prior to revolutions in the
main imperialist states, Stalin was content to deploy 'siege mentality'
permanently as a means to consolidating his own power. Lenin was prepared
to spill blood in pursuit of world revolution - Stalin was too, but only
in pursuit of his enslavement of the Russian people.
Essentially equivalent? Perhaps, in the sense that Bill Clinton and Saddam
Hussein are 'essentially equivalent'.
Adam
----- All your ideological problems discreetly resolved -----
----- a.hi...@ucl.ac.uk * http://www.informinc.co.uk -----
Victor Khomenko
nos...@ucl.ac.uk (Adam Hibbert) wrote:
>In article <hwatson-ya0231800...@news.up.net>,
>hwa...@up.net (Hunter Watson) wrote:
>
>* Stalin
>* and Trotsky were essentially alike in their on-the-ground methods while in
>* power. Their policies (and those of Lenin) were essentially equivalent when
>* judged objectively, i.e., in accord with the practical effects they had on
>* subject populations.
>
>This argument is simply absurd: by extension, Hunter would have to be
>arguing that he discerns no difference in politics between any of the
>parties that have governed western democracies in the last 50 years.
The absurdity is in extending the Lenin-Stalin-Trotsky agrument to include the
western democracies. So what there were differencies between Charles Manson and
Jeffrey Dahmer (sp?)? If discovering differencies is your only objective, then go
right ahead. The main difference between Stalin and Trotsky is that one murderer
was given a chance to practice his paranoya, while the other one was not. I don't
particularly care what "shade of horror" the life under Trotsky would have been.
Sometimes demonstrating minute differencies does not make the picture more clear,
but obfuscates it.
>'Judging objectively' is not a luxury any political analysis can afford -
>if you won't admit that you're on one side or the other you're simply
>obscuring your subjective stance. [If he must persist, would he explain
>whether changes in 'subject' populations' attitudes are 'practical
>effects', for example].
>
>Apart from the absurdity, it's clear that Lenin was scathing about what
>became Stalin's goal of 'socialism in one country'. Trotsky died opposing
>it. To compare the emergency response Bolshevism had to take against
>imperialist attack with the permanent state of terror Stalin introduced is
>specious in the extreme. It blinds historical analysis to the fact that,
>where Lenin intended to survive a brief siege prior to revolutions in the
>main imperialist states, Stalin was content to deploy 'siege mentality'
>permanently as a means to consolidating his own power.
The only thing that saves Lenin in this argument is the fact that he died soon
enough. Stalin lived longer, and, therefore, commited much more evil. Or did he?
More deaths, to be sure, but one may state that Lenin's evil was much more ugly
because he was blazing a new trail and without his fundamental preparatory work
Stalin would not be able to continue and really show us what communism is like. You
are simply hiding behind the superficial. Yes, they did different things because
they operated in different circumstances. But to imply that Lenin would never kill
as many people as Stalin did is simply idiotic. Of curse, this is the only way
*marxsism* can exist today - buy denying the similarity their current spiritual
leader of choice (Trotsky, Bucharin, Marx, etc.) has to Stalin.
Lenin was prepared
>to spill blood in pursuit of world revolution
Given good enough mind, (Lenin had one) ANYTHING could be put under this umbrella.
Lenin was better educated and a bit more sophisticated than Stalin, but he would not
even wince at the sight of millions of dead bodies.
- Stalin was too, but only
>in pursuit of his enslavement of the Russian people.
You are giving him toooo much credit.
>Essentially equivalent? Perhaps, in the sense that Bill Clinton and Saddam
>Hussein are 'essentially equivalent'.
You mean, you still don't know?
Victor.
Stephen R. Diamond
In article <649orl$ss1$1...@gaul.lattis.xara.net>, "Justin Flude"
<jus...@xara.com> wrote:
> I see, so the Soviet economy produced non-use values and put them in the
> shops - unheard of and effectively impossible under capitalism - because
> the Stalinists were "corrupt". Presumably someone bribed a bureaucrat
> to make his factory produce 10,000 too many left shoes. And this
> garbage is what you propose replacing an "empirical" materialist analysis?
> Even in the 30's, Trotsky has a better analysis of the problem
> of quality that the one you're putting forward ...
So HOW EXACTLY would the democratic participation of the masses avert
over-production of left shoes, where the bureaucratic command economy
could not?
> What Marxists should do is analyse the real changing material conditions
> of Soviet society through its history, so as to work out its laws of
> motion and development tendencies. That means studying Soviet society
> from the original raw data, not beginning with "well it's not this,
> and its not this, so it must be that" - the idealist methodology employed
> by the state-caps and the deformed-workers-state theorists. Now
> you tell me what's "inconceivable" about Füredi's materialist approach
> ...
I'm not sure I understand why you think using theoretical principles to
limit the possibilities is "unMarxist," or even what the alternative might
be.
What do you look for in this "raw data" that could answer the question of
the class nature of the Soviet Union, without invoking assumptions derived
from a more general sociological study? What do you find in Marxism that
requires each social formation to be investigated sui generis?
Stephen R. Diamond
Justin Flude
Stephen R. Diamond wrote in message ...
>> shops - unheard of and effectively impossible under capitalism - because
>> the Stalinists were "corrupt". Presumably someone bribed a bureaucrat
>> to make his factory produce 10,000 too many left shoes. And this
>> garbage is what you propose replacing an "empirical" materialist
analysis?
>> Even in the 30's, Trotsky has a better analysis of the problem
>> of quality that the one you're putting forward ...
>
>over-production of left shoes, where the bureaucratic command economy
>could not?
The fundamental reason why the bureaucratically "planned" economy could
produce such a silly output is because the local management simply had to
fulfill its centrally-allocated targets. So if the target was "produce
10,000 pairs of shoes this month", then as long as that many boxes of shoes
were shipped out at the end of the month, the "plan" had been met. It's not
surprising that in the Stalinist USSR, workers weren't too concerned if
their bosses made their targets or not, or if their factory output rubbish.
By contrast, under workers' management, the producers/managers themselves
would have an incentive to make sure that goods were genuine "use-values",
because it would be those very people who would consume the product. The
plant and its output would be seen as "theirs".
>> What Marxists should do is analyse the real changing material conditions
>> of Soviet society through its history, so as to work out its laws of
>> motion and development tendencies. That means studying Soviet society
>> from the original raw data, not beginning with "well it's not this,
>> and its not this, so it must be that" - the idealist methodology employed
>> by the state-caps and the deformed-workers-state theorists. Now
>> you tell me what's "inconceivable" about Füredi's materialist approach
>> ...
>
>I'm not sure I understand why you think using theoretical principles to
>limit the possibilities is "unMarxist," or even what the alternative might
>be.
Certain "theoretical principles" can limit "the possibilities", sure. After
all, you have to start your investigation somewhere, and theoretical
principles can help you find out where to start. But the state-cap/worker's
state theorist go far beyond that. They *begin* by assuming that the USSR
must be either one thing or another, before they've even started to analyse
how the society came about, what the decisive moments in its evolution were
etc:-
"When Trotsky defined Russia as a society in trasition, he emphasised
correctly that as such it must by its own immanent laws lead either to the
victory of socialism, or to the restoration of private capitalism. If the
latter is ruled out, one of three possibilities remains."
-- Tony Cliff, "Russia: A Marxist Analysis",
p142
That's an example of the methodology I'm referring to. A priori constructs
are worked out, essentially based on the analysis in "Capital", and then
retrospectively applied to Soviet society. Features of Soviet society that
appear to be similar to capitalist society are picked out and made to fit
the theory, eg. capitalist exploitation in the case of the state-caps.
Füredi explains that Marx and Engels countered this "speculative" mode of
reasoning during the debates on the "definition" of a socialist society. As
Engels put it:-
"... the method of distribution essentially depends on how much there is to
distribute, and that must surely change with the progress of production and
social organisation, and that therefore the method of distribution will also
change. But everyone who took pasrt in the discussion described 'socialist
society' not as somthing continuously changing and advancing but as
something stable and fixed once ands for all."
This passage also indicates why "historical specificity" is so important -
how can general formulae be applicable for all time if they must describe a
society that is constantly changing?
>What do you look for in this "raw data" that could answer the question of
>the class nature of the Soviet Union, without invoking assumptions derived
>from a more general sociological study?
From the "raw data" - rather than from the above kind of analysis - you
would aim to work out a historical-logical reconstruction of Soviet society,
one that showed how the prevailing material conditions necessarily affected
society and its laws of motion. Naturally, there *are* certain "general"
assumptions that apply, that follow on from the universal characteristics
that all human societies exhibit, such as the need for organised labour to
work on nature, the need to regulate economic activity somehow etc.
>What do you find in Marxism that
>requires each social formation to be investigated sui generis?
As I understand the key approach of Marxism, it's that each form of society
evolves according to its own, distinct social laws. It's not so much that
you muct always start from the beginning - Marx, after all, cites the work
of numerous bourgeois economists (or at least, observers of the economy) in
"Capital". It's rather that you do not assume that social laws applicable
in one form of society - such as the falling rate of profit - are applicable
to another.
Justin
Philip Ferguson
> Let's say instead one were discussing the class nature of Nazi Germany.
> How would one proceed? Would you go back to the "raw data," or would you
> proceed by analogy? Once you decide whether Nazi Germany was capitalist,
> socialist, or a new society, you would know (if you decided it was a new
> society) to go back to "raw data." You couldn't then legitimately assume
> capitalist laws of motion apply. But FIRST you must classify it.
I'm a former holder of the "degenerated workers' state" view, who these
days thinks Furedi likely got it more right than either the stock Trot
position or the state caps.
I think the problem with this paragraph Stephen is that it's not an
analogy. There wasn't a social revolution in Nazi Germany, so it is
clear that it remained capitalist. In Russia there was a social
revolution, so a new social formation came into being. That new social
formation was not able to develop into socialism for reasons most of us
are familiar with - so what did it become. As Marx pointed out often
enough, one has to start with the raw data and work through it in order
to come to conclusions NOT the other way around.
Most of the Trot left really never read Capital, the Grundrisse and so
on, and so are unfamiliar with Marxist methodology. They substitute a
priori judgements (something Marx scorned) for any real investigation of
the laws of motion, contradictions etc of objects, social formations and
processes.
Philip Ferguson
Philip Ferguson
Stephen R. Diamond writes:
> I think you may be looking for the analogy at the wrong point. There was a
> social revolution and Russia became a workers state. That's the starting
> point of everyone in this discussion - now that the SLP has left.
>
> The analogy is to the transfer of power to the Nazis in Germany and to the
> transfer to the *Stalinists* in Russia.
>
> In the first, we classify Nazi Germany as STILL capitalist - by means of a
> kind of analogical reasoning and formal criteria. Why are we suddenly not
> entitled to the same kind of reasoning in analyzing the Soviet Union -
> reasoning, in that case - that was STILL a workers state?
>
> You might even note that Burnham thought Nazi Germany represented a _new_
> form of exploitative society.
>
Yeh, your first para is a fair point. I took your analogy, as you say,
as referring to the first point.
But the difference still remains. In Nazi Germany the capitalist class
was the ruling class just as it was in the Weimar republic.
In the USSR I think you would be hard-pressed to show that the working
class was the ruling class under Stalinism. The working class scarcely
had time to become the ruling class even in the early years (witness
some of Lenin's formulations in the war communism and NEP periods about
the country still being more capitalist than socialist). The
revolutionary working class of 1917 basically was destroyed over the
following years. The soviets could not last as real organs of workers
power if they had no content, ie if the working class was largely
destroyed as a social force.
The class basis of Stalinism was the increasingly privileged state and
party functionaries, not the working class. A workers' state in which
the working class has no power EVER (under Stalinism, an actual
historical period) seems, to say the least, highly problematic. Can we
imagine, for instance, a capitalist state in which the capitalist class
had no power for the whole period of its existence (ie not just a brief
period of Bonapartism, but the whole historical period of such a state's
existence).
I have only browsed Furedi's book unfortunately; but his methodology
seems basically sound and avoids the errors and contradictions of the
state caps and the workers' states' positions by treating the Soviet
Union as a new social formation whose laws of motion have to be
understood through analyis of the raw material.
Maybe some of the RCPers who post on this news group could elucidate
further.
Philip Ferguson
PS: One of the strengths of the RCP position is also that it avoided the
state caps capitulation to imperialism. The RCP always argued that the
Stalinist states were no threat at all and that the enemy was
imperialism and, in particular, the imperialists at home. So they
concentrated on attacking British imperialism, particularly around
Ireland, while most of the left went for the soft issues.
Fred Ferguson: mprinter@earthlink.net
Philip Ferguson <pl...@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
If you don't mind my intruding, let me add something to the
discussion.
First, I have not read Furedi's book, I don't even own a copy (shame
on me).
However, I did read Trotsky and remain convinced of his position. You
can not decide the class nature of a particular *state* by the nature
of its *regime*. In fact, there was a great similarity between the
Nazi method of government and that of the Stalinists. The personality
cult, the brutal suppression of all political opposition, the
corruption, the prison camps, the attempted genocide of whole peoples
(Crimean Tartars etc.). Even the suppression of independent trade
unions.
It is however, in the final analysis, the class interests defended by
that state that determines its class nature. Look at the
impoverishment and immiseration of the working class in the ex-USSR
since the restoration of capitalism. Even in the former E. Germany.
Day care, abortion, unemployment. And that when they were taken over
by one of the richest countries in Europe.
But, more importantly the re-emergence of an indigenous capitalist
class in the former USSR and the (as-yet unsuccessful), attempt to
sell off the enormous system of state industries, set up during the
Stalinist rush to industrialize.
Both the Nazis and the Stalinists were a form of Bonapartism--each
however, served a different class. The Nazis ruled *over* the
capitalist class (but fundamentally in its interest) and the
Stalinists ruled over the workers, but fundamentally, if in a
distorted fashion, in the interest of the workers.
While it may seem something of an academic question now, after the
collapse, it is the method of analysis that is still important. There
will be other workers states (China and Cuba) that, barring a
revolutionary upsurge, will follow the road of the USSR, and it is
important to know when to and when not to defend them as historically
important acquisitions of the workers. This despite how nasty and
despicable bunch of political bandits as may be running the show.
Fraternally,
Fred Ferguson
If anyone knows of a book store in the US or on the Internet where
Furedi's book can be purchased, please e-mail me with the info.
Thanks,
FF