File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9706, message 183


From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 10:33:59 +0000
Subject: Re: M-I: state capitalism


> Date:          Tue, 10 Jun 1997 14:26:07 -0400 (EDT)
> From:          Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
> To:            marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject:       Re: M-I: state capitalism
> Reply-to:      marxism-international-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU

Andy,

Why try to reinvent the wheel? Its not necessary to debase the 
concept of socialism by applying it to the SU after the rise to power 
of the bureaucracy to account for the positive aspects of the 
post-capitalist character of the SU. The contradiction between, 
on the one hand  workers property and the international working 
class represented by these  gains, and on the other hand the rule of 
the bureaucracy mediating the rule of international capital, explains 
the complex concreteness of the actually existing SU before its 
collapse into restoration after 1991. 

Trotsky was a brilliant Marxist theoretician who was a key 
participant in the struggles thrown up by this contradiction. Why try 
to patch together post-hoc in a different period, especially when the 
restoration has confirmed Trotsky's analysis, some new amalgam?
If you try to use the term "socialist" to explain  this contradiction 
and drag in justifications such as "socialism does not need to be 
democratic" you are in danger of  singing to the tune of the stalinist 
apologists. 

Dave. 

> Jason,
> 
> It seems to me that you are presenting essentially a neo-Weberian analysis
> of the Soviet Union with a good bit of modernization theory thrown in. 
> Your argument is to be found in Skocpol and others (as well as in the
> propaganda of both right and left anti-communists and anarchists--in the
> dire warnings of elitist rule, the tyranny of bureaucracy, or "socialism
> of the barracks"). This is the old line about the projects of modernizing
> elites who either seek modernization for its own sake (the mad
> technocrat), or who seek power for the sake of power (and not for the sake
> of wealth or for the sake of the people)--the "authoritarian
> inevitability," the "iron law of oligarchy," and so forth. In this
> formulation, the Soviet leadership becomes a dark and evil cabal lying to
> the people and to the world, seeking legitimacy in the rhetoric of Marx
> and Engels, but really seeking power. All the slogans comes to bear. 
> Absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc..
> 
> But power is an outcome of social relations. Power is a social action,
> with a purpose and a direction. Power exists in structural arrangements.
> Power is the result of historical forces, the struggle over history.
> Structural arrangements that bring wealth bring power, the power to
> structure society to accumulate more wealth. The struggle over history
> brings revolution, revolution brings power to the formerly subordinated
> classes, power to transform the social order (if it is a true revolution). 
> The question is two-fold: what were the structural and historical forces
> that concentrated power in a bureaucratic stratum? and what did the
> bureaucrats do with the power once they possessed it? Did they use it to
> accumulate wealth and privilege? Or did they use it for the benefit of the
> people? If it is the former then they constitute a traditional ruling
> class, one whose power is rooted in class-structural arrangements. If it
> is the latter, then it is possible that they were a species of socialism.
> But it will not do to leave it at "bureaucratic collectivism" and go on
> about our business. This tells us very little, other than providing a mere
> superficial description of a complex industrial social formation.
> 
> Why was it that the socialist countries embarked on a project of raising
> the level of productive forces? In capitalism, technological developments
> and rationalization of production take place as the result of class
> struggle, where capitalists constantly seeks to reduce the amount of
> variable capital in production, raising the overall organic composition of
> capital. This is for the purpose of obtaining competitive advantage. This
> is a basic contradiction that leads to cyclical and secular crisis of the
> capitalist system. In the Soviet Union, it certainly was not profit motive
> (private gain) that replaced labor with machines, and such developments
> did not create surplus populations or lead to the impoverishment of the
> worker. Overall, these efforts increased Soviet living standards. This is
> the resolution of one of capitalism's contradictions. So we are left with
> a choice between these two questions. Did bureaucratic elites work towards
> these ends because there is some inherent merit in achieving an optimum
> level of rationalization of production and technological development? Or
> did they do so to hasten the transition to communism in social contexts
> where there was insufficient development of productive forces? 
> 
> Clearly there was a different dynamic driving the internal development of
> Soviet society, and a different motivation moving Soviet leadership to
> take the path of "modernization." Now this that has been established, it
> is up to you, Jason, to provide the class-dialectical analysis that can
> explain the character of the alleged non-socialist motivation driving the
> bureaucratic "class" to control the collectivized means of production in
> non-socialist ways. What was their logic? Why did they behave the way they
> did? What were the material forces moving in Soviet society that
> determined the bureaucrats objective "class" interests? Given their degree
> of consciousness, this is a crucial question to answer. ("Class," I would
> remind you, is a socioeconomic reality rooted in the base of society, not
> in the political superstructure.) 
> 
> You say the ruling elite were the bureaucrats. But they weren't the owning
> class. This makes the difference. Who did the ruling elites rule for in
> the Soviet Union? Themselves? But they did not benefit from their control
> of the means of production the way private owners do under capitalism.
> They did not benefit from their position the way lords and kings did under
> feudalism and monarchy. They did not benefit from their position the way
> the property owners in empires did. They didn't live opulent lives like
> the priestly caste under pharaoh did. All of those societies were
> class-structured, generally state-level societies. The ruling class and
> elites, in all these instances, were part of, and ruled for, the owning
> classes. But in the Soviet Union the productive means were nationalized. 
> The ruling class, despite undesirable insulation from the voice of the
> people, ruled in the name of the people, and generally made their
> decisions based on a socialist calculus of production and distribution,
> with little personal benefit. Because the Soviet Union wasn't the sort of
> socialist ideal you carry in your head doesn't mean they weren't
> socialist.
> 
> Just the claim itself, and the arguments thus far presented, that the
> Soviet Union was bureaucratic collectivist lacks a class-dialectical and
> historical materialist analysis. Moreover, the presentations I have seen
> do not rise past the descriptive synchronic level. Isn't it a bit
> dangerous (intellectually speaking) to answer the question of whether or
> not the Soviet Union was socialist with an analytical frame other than a
> Marxian one? Particularly when the frame appears to be based on the notion
> of status-"class"?
> 
> So I am skeptical. What was their motivation for seeking technological and
> economic advancement. Obviously there was little personal gain, wealth and
> privilege to be had. And although reality is often at odds with ideology,
> the leaders of the Soviet Union spoke, wrote, and planned around socialist
> and communist goals. There was the external context that presented an
> extremely powerful force on the development of the Soviet Union. The
> Soviet Union was under siege; a new socialist island in a capitalist world
> system with 400 years of development under its belt. And the argument for
> democratic management is not necessarily a condition of socialism. Marx
> argued that democratic management, or self-management, was a condition for
> communism, not the transitional phase, which might be properly called
> socialism, following Marx, Engels, and Lenin. A siege socialism would
> probably not be ideally democratic for several reasons already listed. My
> preference is for a democratic transformation to communism. Marx later in
> life began to entertain the possibility that the advanced capitalist
> nations (the US, Britain, and Germany) might make such a democratic
> transformation. But just because the transition might take the character
> of a state socialism, does not make it something other than socialist. My
> point is this, and it follows directly from the tenets of historical
> materialism: if, in the main, a social formation has generally abolished
> capitalist relations of production and suppressed bourgeois tendencies,
> and replaced these with enough features that may be regarded socialist,
> then that social formation may properly be labeled a species of socialism.
> The Soviet Union was not ideal socialism, it was one form that real
> socialism may take.
> 
> Andy Austin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 

Dave Bedggood


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