Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 23:20:02 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Stalin explained (fwd)




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 03:38:08 +0200
From: Jorn Andersen <jorn.andersen-AT-vip.cybercity.dk>
To: marxism2-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: Stalin explained

At 22:26 18-08-96 +0100, Chris Burford wrote:
>Isn't the situation this? How can any modern governmental structure
>(under any social system in a techically advanced country - I wish to
>exclude the "democracy" of ancient Athens) run without
>full time paid officials?

Jorn:
The problem in my opinion is not *technical complexity* but rather *social
antagonism*. If you take a look at present day governmental structure, how
much of it is directly related to two basic features of modern day capitalism:

1. Managing class conflict, i.e. trying to keep it in a safe and regulated
framework, and if this is not possible making sure they have the necessary
means to impose their will by force.

2. Managing conflict and regulations *within* the ruling class itself.

My guess would be well above 80% - at the lowest. The point is that it is
*class society* which demands the need for massive regulation - not that
"society" taken in the abstract is "complex" etc.

But of course something has to be "managed", especially in the period
immediately after a socialist revolution. And there *will* be a need for
full time paid officials.

>And won't they form a bureaucracy?

No - bureau*cracy* means that they rule, or at least are in a position where
they can hope for or aim at this. This *can* be the outcome if the workers
are not socially strong enough to keep them checked - which was clearly the
case in Russia after 1917.

>So what do you do with that bureaucracy?"

+

>How in the Trotskyist tradition is this question about the official strata 
>answered?

Basically I think the experinces of the Paris Commune - as summarized by
Marx and in Lenin's small book "State and Revolution" - gives the best
answers. Trotsky's (and Lenin's before him) writings in the debates in the
early-mid 20's are really more about what to do to put workers in a position
where they are able to rule, not so much about what to do when they are in
that position.

Accountability and subjection to immediate recall are basic necessary
feautures of working class democracy. The rise of the bureaucracy as a
ruling class in Russia in the late 20's had to do away with the last
remnants of this. To make their class safe they had to develop a huge layer
of state bureaucrats. This, however, was not a problem of socialist
democracy, but of capitalist oppression.


Yours

Jorn


-------

Jorn Andersen

Internationale Socialister
Copenhagen, Denmark





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