From: UticaRose-AT-aol.com Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 10:34:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Work in the mass organizations and the problems of Entrism In a message dated 97-04-13 06:16:20 EDT, malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki) writes: << Without the Stalinists states who defended in a way collectivized property forms and in fact were a super power until recently who could in a bizarre and deformed way stood in the way of capitalist restorationist forces has opened the door very wide for things to leap to the right in the Social Democracies. Nazi Germany "defended" the revisiting of unjust treaties (Versailles) and in a bizarre and deformed way provided a concrete demonstration that expanded government spending could bring prosperity along with deficits, continuing the social welfare tradition of Bismark. Didnt the Nazis, however, really advance the use of unjust treaties so one has to treat the anti-Versailles propaganda as a mere sham. Stalinists actually expropriated the surplus value of nations for the privileged clique so doesnt one have to question the nature of collectivism. I'm probably wrong but I thought that Lenin had conceptualized the nascent soviet power as, at times, analogous to state capitalism. I thought that Trotsky (maybe it was Preobazhensky -sp?-) had theorized about primitive accumulation problems when thinking about relations with the peasantry. Werent the stalinists just dishonest (price-rigging) capitalists ? Had to hide the truth about the actual nature of their operation, so kept up the clap trap about socialism, communism, etc. Can't a market be suppressed for a period and the system remain capitalist ? Isnt the relationship between worker and boss, vis a vis appropriation of the worker's surplus value, the defining characteristic of capitalism ? Lack of worker control ? Perhaps I have fallen into one of the heretical errors of Schactman or whoever but I can not see how the USSR or any stalinist state contained anything socialist, at least if you use the working definitions of any recognizable Marxist before the purges of the 20s and 30s. This also makes me suspicious of the genesis and uses of the term "actually existing socialism" during the past few decades. Sounds like too much of a cover for the stalinists. At what point does a change in form produce a change in kind ? At some point between 1917 and 1937, the bolsheviks crossed over into anti-communism. That is the only explanation for how they could butcher so many workers, communists and dissidents. Trotsky was not assasinated at the direction of a tribune of the people. The Social Democratic parties took their Great Leap Right earlier, it seems to me. <<In fact a gigantic vacuum on the left where no pressure is excerted on the Social Democracy to even pay lip service any longer to be a representative of the working class and its mass organizations. Because at present they feel no threat from the left. Why should they when everybody thinks that "Communism" has been destroyed. This is also contemporaneous with capitalism's decisive shift to the East. In the US there has been no threat from the left for decades. Was there really a "threat" from the left in Europe during the 70s of 80s ? I had thought the squelching of the 1968 uprisings had really underscored that. << But a secondary and important development in the Social Democracies (the entire left as well) is the quality and social background of the human material which makes up these parties. In the case of the mass social democratic parties their has been a decisive shift in the party organizations central political structure and power apparatus from the tradition trade union leaders who put on a tie and become bureaucrats in the party or parliamentary groups of these parties. Today the MAJORITY of the human material in the party organizations have never spent any time at all in and industry or a trade union but have been recruited direct from schools and universities and in many cases family relations direct into top positions in the party apparatus and structures. >> This is why I dont think the demise of the USSR has had much to do with the demise of the left. We just lost our biggest trojan horse manufacturer. You may see the shift clearer in other places. In US, trade unions have been on a depressing glide path since the 50s. Professionalization, commercialization. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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