RUSSIA IS STILL A TRANSITIONARY SOCIETY
cromwell
news:1166776416....@i12g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/6958-capitalism-0
>
> Articles for discussion as my view is that capitalism hasn't returned
> to
>
On Monday, October 19, 1987, world stock markets experience a spectacular
crash, as the law of value asserted itself. By the end of that month, wealth
evaporated across the major stock markets; the United States 22.68%, Hong
Kong 45.5%, the UK 26.4%, Australia 45.8%, Canada 22.5%. The surface cause
of the panic was the enormous budget and trade deficit of the US, which was
146 billion dollars in 1987, predicted to rise and a world economy awash
with ficticious value. This situation was intensified by the collapse of the
Tokyo stock market and the Asian crisis of 1997. The essence of these
events, discovered by Karl Marx, was the stagnating productive forces,
fettered by the old, out moded, social relations. It is out of the objective
association of these phenomenon, that the necessity of proletarian
dictatorship arises.
The impact of capitalism on Russia, was a double edged
sword. As it attracted investments and quickened market reforms, Russia
imported not the capitalism of 1917 but of the late 20th century, with all
it's contradictions. Various so-called 'Trotskyist groups' , confined
middle class impressionism and pessimism, began hailing the
'restoration of capitalism' during the Gorbachev period. With the experience
of 1998, one ponders the meaning of 'restoration'. The limits of this
concept soon became self-evident.
Between Jan and August 1998, as the Russian bourse, saw 72.6% of value wiped
off shares the rouble came under enormous pressure, throwing it into free
fall against other foreign currencies. As the rouble collapsed, the govt
announced a ninety-day freeze on repayment of its foreign
debt. By August 18th, the value of the rouble slid 34%. The Russian govt was
forced into devaluation. Ordinary Russians witnessed rampant inflation and
the shrinkage of their savings. This crisis then interpentrated back
into the world economy, as countries such as Germany and the US realized
their loans were in jeopardy.
Not everybody was as certain about this capitalist 'restoration'. A good
example of the response of bourgeois ideologists came with Kurt Schuler and
George A. Selgin from the Cato Institute. In an essay entitled "Replacing
Potemkin Capitalism" , our authors bemoan the lack of capitalism in Russia
,"that it remains fundamentally socialist, though it has superficial
capitalist features." The predominate proposal put forward, to resolve
Russia's lack of capitalism, was to make the dollar the official currency as
a permanent measure and abolish the rouble as a vestige of socialism. The
crisis of world capitalism has of course intensified since Schuler and
Selgin made their recommendations(1999) and the increasing US budget and
trade deficit, has transformed the US economy from world creditor into
debtor, reflected in the deprietiation of the dollar against world
currencies; the Schuler and Selgin solution appears stillborn.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa348.pdf
Trotsky's criteria had nothing in common with the dead comparison of this or
that facet of Russian reality, with capitalism in the West. Historically,
Russian capitalism NEVER looked the same as that of England,
France of America, has Trotsky himself noted. The article by Stanislav
Menshikov fails to make this point; it is in this very distinction, that the
necessity of the October revolution arose. In assimilating to the
relative backwardness of Russia, of the most modern capitalist techniques,
Russia did not,
"....take things in the same order. The privilege of historic backwardness -
and such a privilege exists - permits, or rather compels, the adoption of
whatever is ready in advance of any specified date, skipping a whole series
of intermediate stages."(Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution)
Russia imported the techniques of large scale industry wholesale. The
handicrafts remained entrenched in the countryside and this impacted on the
evolution of Russian towns, which remained centers of consumption rather
than
production. A high proportion of this economic development, was based on
foreign capital, which owned almost all of Russia's heavy industry and
almost half it's light industry.
The Russian bourgeois was therefore extremely weak, timid before Russian
absolutism, and incapable of furthering the development of Russia's economy.
Further more, whilst capitalism came late to the scene in Russia, once it
did so, it's tempo was extremely rapid, creating the most distinctive facet
of Russian development. In former bourgeois revolutions - the Netherlands,
England, France - the bourgeois class of these nations, took the stage as a
new class alone, drawing the rest of society behind, against the old order.
The Russian bourgeois in contrast, shared the stage with the Russian
proletariat. It is no accident therefore, that the most important episode,
of what Menshikov describes as the 'largely unsuccessful, bourgeois
revolution of 1905-1907' was the formation of the Petersburg Soviet, a
proletarian organisation, which was to play such a central role in the
October revolution of 1917.
Menshikov is correct when he observes that,
"That particular Russian capitalism was buried by the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution which, in its initial years, adhered to almost total
nationalization, at least in urban areas....Until the late 1980s,
there was no legally recognized capitalism or private enterprise in any
form--a lapse of well over half a century. The Russian capitalism of the
1990s appears therefore, at least on the
surface, to have no solid or discernible roots in the two previous
capitalist phases of this century."
(Menshikov, Stanislav
Source: Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine; Jul/Aug99,
Vol. 51 Issue 3)
This poses a problem for erstwhile 'Marxists' and 'Trotskyists': what is the
social character of the forces leading this new capitalist revolution in
Russia? What are the social routes of the Oligarchs? A study of Russia in
the post Yeltsin era provides a telling answer. The father of the child is
none other than the Stalinist bureaucracy - privileged bureaucrats who only
yesterday were the willing servants of the Communist Party, who stole the
surplus product and concealed their illegal acts and privileges behind
socialist phrases. These Stalinists are now hurridly trying to transform
themselves into 'new capitalists', yet in the process, resort to the old
methods. It is no wonder, that they are widely hated throughout Russian
society. If this is capitalism, then it is of a highly
contradictory character, displaying the most base features such as
widespread corruption and mafia violence. Most importantly, it prosides over
the 'rotting' of Russia's productive forces. In what sense is this new or
restorative?
In his classic work The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky wrote,
"The Soviet Union is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism and
socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from adequate
to give the state property a socialist character; (b) the tendency toward
primitive accumulation created by want breaks out through innumerable pores
of the planned economy; (c) norms of distribution preserving a bourgeois
character lie at the basis of a new differentiation of society; (d) the
economic growth, while slowly bettering the situation of the toilers,
promotes a swift formation of privileged strata; (e) exploiting the social
antagonisms, a bureaucracy has converted itself into an uncontrolled caste
alien to socialism; (f) the social revolution, betrayed by the ruling party,
still exists in property relations and in the consciousness of the toiling
masses; (g) a further development of the accumulating contradictions can as
well lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on the road to capitalism
the counterrevolution would have to break the resistance of the workers; (i)
on the road to socialism the workers would have to overthrow the
bureaucracy. In the last analysis, the question will be decided by a
struggle of living social forces, both on the national and the world arena."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/ch09.htm#ch09-2
Russia today still remains a society in transition, even if the pendulum
appears to have swung economically toward capitalism. In order to transform
itself into an independent bourgeois class, the fragmenting bureaucracy,
must work out it's own property forms and place itself at the head of Russia
society, drawing a sizable segment of Russia society in its wake. In the
context of a global capitalism, which is unable to address, any of the
fundamental political and economic questions confronting mankind, which is
sinking under the weight of ficiticous value, in which war and instability,
is seeping from every pore, this seems a very tall order indeed and there is
certainly no evidence in the changes that have taken place over the last two
decades. The opposite is the case; the experience of capitalism has
discredited it in the minds of ordinary Russians.
There is no reason to believe that the resistance of the Russian workers has
been broken and in common with the proletariat on a world scale, has yet to
be tested. The single most important factor is that proletarian revolution
still remains a task for the future. Trotsky's observation that Russia is 'a
contradictory society' in transition is still as potent as when he first
formulated it - quantity has not yet transformed into quality. Russia maybe
on the road to capitalism but in admiting this, we must also recall "to
define the Soviet regime as transitional, or intermediate, means to abandon
such finished social categories as capitalism (and therewith "state
capitalism") and also socialism" and thereby recognize that this road
contains the emergence of it's opposite, which as yet, has not been negated,
that this material process will be decided by 'a struggle of living social
forces.'
Geoff.
Vngelis
cromwell wrote:
> "Vngelis" <mebe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1166776416....@i12g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/6958-capitalism-0
> >
> > Articles for discussion as my view is that capitalism hasn't returned
> > to
> >
>
> appears to have swung economically toward capitalism. In order to transform
> itself into an independent bourgeois class, the fragmenting bureaucracy,
> must work out it's own property forms and place itself at the head of Russia
> society, drawing a sizable segment of Russia society in its wake. In the
> context of a global capitalism, which is unable to address, any of the
> fundamental political and economic questions confronting mankind, which is
> sinking under the weight of ficiticous value, in which war and instability,
> is seeping from every pore, this seems a very tall order indeed and there is
> certainly no evidence in the changes that have taken place over the last two
> decades. The opposite is the case; the experience of capitalism has
> discredited it in the minds of ordinary Russians.
>
I'm in agreement with your views.
I would just like to add flesh to your argument.
The oligarchs of the Yeltsin era are no more. All 16 of the big ones
have been
terminated. Anti-oligarchic feeling is high.
The pendulum is unnavoidably swinging back to centralisation and
control.
By not allowing the export of capital Putin has restored the monopoly
of foreign
trade. This stops the collapse of the ruble and indigenous production.
For foreign companies to work in Russia they have to make a loss.
McDonalds according to its own financial accounts which I have seen
reported
the biggest loss in its own corporate history in Russia. IN order to
exist they had
to be given land and despite being a tertiary provider became a primary
one as
well. The EXACT opposite of anything in the West where its raw
materials are sourced
from suppliers aren't owned directly by McDonalds.
Putin in my opinion is attempting to square the circle of restoration
via the vehicle
of state ownership. But nearly 3/4 of the russian state is
unproductive. It exports
nothing and earns no foreign currency. If the profitable sections were
just hived off
the state would collapse. A collapse of the Russian state would lead to
what is described
by Trotsky when he refers to a battle of living social forces. That is
ahead of us, not
behind us.
srd
wrote:
Did you write this, Cromwell?
srd
cromwell
"srd" <srd1...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:op.tl8mt...@jq0arm4.domain_not_set.invalid...
Yes.
Geoff.
Vngelis
Do you have a website and any other articles regarding Russia?