From: "ricardo" <davidb-AT-ak.planet.gen.nz>
Subject: M-I: Re: Money capital & Soviet Union
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:46:43 +1200


Rebecca,
I agree with some of your points, especially about the SU not being
capitalist until it re-establishes the role of money as a measure of value.
However, I think it is sufficient for the state to back the rouble as a
world currency  i.e. with an exchange rate against the dollar etc backed by
state intervention, for the rouble to act as a measure of value.  When the
state does this, and as well allows any private persons to import and
export commodities, whether or not it has succeeded in privatising state
corporations, it has declared itself to be a state which is actively
re-establishing the law of value, rather than suppressing it. At that point
the qualitative shift from a post-capitalist state to capitalist state has
occurred, even though it may take years for the rest of the economy to
undergo a complete privatisation, if it ever does. In my view the East
European states and the former SU had reached that point by 1992.  What we
are seeing today are crisis ridden capitalist states undergoing the throes
of the full impact of the law of value as it forcibly destroys the
use-values which have no exchange-value and the IMF/WB  structural
adjustment packages designed to cut back on state spending and eventually
balance the budget.
 Dave.

> Hi all. 
> 
> Below  are some of my views on the question of restoring capitalism in
> Russia. I just hope that someone offers comments on them. In this way I
> may be able to draw lessons from these comments.
> 
> I was a bit disappointed that nobody offered me help concerning what
> was in my last postings.
> 
> Please forgive any typing mistakes.
> 
> Capitalism has not been restored in Russia although a sustained attempt
> to restore it has been undertaken by the state. However having said
> this let me say that capitalism does exist in Russian. There is
> capitalism in Russia but Russian is not capitalist.
> 
> Russia has formed part of a system in which property was predominantly
> owned by the state. State property was the predominant form of
> property. The production process, both agricultural and industrial,
> constituted forms of state property. This meant the law of value did
> not operate there. There did not exist any exchange relations. 
> 
> Consequently capital did not exist in the Soviet Union. This meant that
> capital in the form of productive, commodity and money capital did not
> exist. However in its relations with capitalist countries exchange
> relations did exist. In so far as the SU was effected by the law of
> value it was in relation to its trading relations with the West. 
> 
> The SU was also a principal producer of gold, the money commodity.
> Consequently it could produce gold which it was then able to exchange
> on the world market for commodities of one sort or another. It was also
> able to accumulate gold reserves as a means of maintaining its economic
> power in the world with particular reference to the capitalist world.
> These reserves constituted a form of money capital which could be used
> to influence events in the financial world of the capitalist West for
> political ends. However it must be stressed that Soviet gold reserves
> could not function as money capital within the Soviet Union itself. The
> not capitals property forms precluded any such development. It could
> only serve as money capital within the capitalist West.
> 
> In so far as the SU engaged in trading relations with the West they
> were of a purely simple kind entailing the purchase of commodities
> within the context of simple commodity circulation. There was no
> advancement of money as capital. The money was exchanged in the form of
> money capital.
> 
> In so far as gold functioned for the SU in the form of money capital it
> merely functioned as such for political reasons: to destabilise the
> financial markets of the West or whatever. The gold of the SU did not
> function as money capital, as an integral part of  the accumulation of
> capital. Consequently in the context of the Soviet economy, as such, it
> carried no significance.
> 
> Now if the capitalist system is to be established within the Russia
> then certain conditions are indispensable.
> 
> There must exist a sufficient amount of money capital to make this
> possible. Money capital is the form of capital indispensable if capital
> is to circulate and function as productive and commodity capital.
> Without money capital in its productive and commodity form cannot
> exist. If the state is unable to create conditions that lead to the
> existence of money capital itself together with a sufficient amount of
> it then capitalism cannot establish itself.
> 
> If money capital is to exist in sufficient quantity then an entire
> network of institutions and relations must correspondingly exist. Money
> capital cannot just exist in thin air. It must be supported by the kind
> of institutions that correspond to the function of capital in the form
> of money.
> 
> Clearly then in any attempt to establish capitalism as the mode of
> production in Russia it is necessary to establish the existence of
> capital in the form of money and the institutional network that
> corresponds to it. To simply privatise industry in the absence of money
> capital is an absurd programme if capitalism if a serious attempt is
> made to establish capitalism as a social form within Russia. 
> 
> It is apparently precisely this that Yeltsin and company did which is
> substantially why capitalism has not  as yet established itself in
> Russia. It may help explain why economic stability has taken on the
> proportions it has. Money capital has not established itself in Russia.
> Without money capital  cannot  industrial capital cannot exist.
> Consequently there is no capitalist production process in Russia. There
> may be individual capitalist production processes but there is no
> general valorisation process.
> 
> Now for money capital to significantly exist in Russia it is necessary
> that there exist money capitalists within or without Russia who can
> advance money capital. Clear there have no such money capitalist within
> Russia. Consequently we can count this consideration out. Obviously
> there are money capitalists in the West with the capacity to advance
> large amounts of money capital in Russia.
> 
> The problem, as it appears to me, is that the Western states will not
> for strategic reasons  permit the money capitalists to make such
> enormous advancements. There may be economic reasons for this too which
> it is not necessary to consider at this stage.
> 
> A second problem is that the Russian government will not permit the
> mass export of money capital from the West, for its own reasons, which
> it is not necessary to go into here. This is not to say that both the
> Western states and the Russian state don't permit a certain moderate
> amount of money capital to be exported into Russia. However the
> advances are not economical significant.
> 
> A third problem is that Western money capitalists are not prepared to
> export money capital to Russia given the very unstable and quasi
> anarchic conditions that obtain there. If the Russian state was
> prepared to cooperate with money capitalism concerning establishing the
> necessary economic conditions for the establishment of capitalism there
> then doubtlessly they would have no trouble exporting capital to
> Russian. However this would in effect mean that the Russian state would
> be in the hands of foreign imperials capitalism. It would ultimately
> mean the successful invasion of imperialism onto Russian soil in a way
> that would prove unprecedented.
> 
> Clearly the Russian state through its gold reserves small as they be
> has been a position to provide money capital. But this means that the
> state is, in a sense, playing the very same role that it wants to get
> away from. In advancing money capital it is heading in the direction of
> acting as state capitalist. 
> 
> 
> Best wishes,
>             Rebecca  
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