An open question to all SWP members on u75

[butchersapron]

Or 'oh no!'

(Still no Pm though nate - waiting my darling)

 

[Flavour]

How about we say that Marx (who after all never finished all planned 6 volumes of Capital) left behind not a perfect, finished system (which is certainly what Engels presented in the Anti-Duhring) but an unfinished life's work, which contains somethings that were plain wrong, others that are outdated and obsolete, but also some genuine insights that are still true today?

would you care to outline what bits were plain wrong, which are outdated, and which are genuine insights that hold true today?

 

[butchersapron]

I'm sure no one could resist an ivitation like that could they? Tell us what - you tell us which biets of marx were plain right, which are not outdated, and which are genuine insights that hold true today? And where.

(Nothing yet Nate, you blowout - you did catch that cold after all eh?)

 

[Flavour]

do you think reversing questions make you look clever or something?

did you actually expect nate to reply haha - not in a million years

 

[butchersapron]

Never expected anything of him expect a snide attack in 6 weeks time. Same as what this one was.

The other point stands - you can't demand what you just did of Idris unless you can in turn back it up. Your original point is rubbish. If you're saying that people better not dismiss your ideology unless they have a very good grounding in it, then you yourself better have a fucking good grounding in it.

Have you?

 

[gurrier]

Webel, you really should read a bit of history. Marx did not create a coherent system of thought, he developed and refined various economic theories that had been emerging from a wide range of theorists in the mid 19th century. Neither the class nature of society, nor the ideas of surplus value, nor various other of his theories came from him. What marked him out was the amount of time and empirical research he put in to expounding these ideas.

My personal response to Flavour's question

Good bits of Marx: Historical materialism, class analysis, surplus value theory, copious empirical evidence
Questionable bits: Fetishisation of commodities, dialectics
Wrong bits: scientific determinism, complete absence of an analysis of power, anything to do with organisation
Terrible bits: Prose (definitely the worst writer I've ever read), personality.

 

[Flavour]

idris made the statement denouncing it - i didnt make one about it being the be all and end all. idris said some bits were "plain wrong" and some were "genuine insights"... i wanted to know which were which. i of course do not think everythin marx said was the absolute-truth-and-you-better-not-disagree-or-else but i know which bits i agree with.

so does idris think "the means of production should be owned collectively by the people" is "plain wrong" and that "communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance" is a "genuine insight".......

 

[butchersapron]

"anything to do with organisation"

of which there was buggerall other than quite explicit anti-vanguardist stuff.

 

[butchersapron]

idris made the statement denouncing it - i didnt make one about it being the be all and end all. idris said some bits were "plain wrong" and some were "genuine insights"... i wanted to know which were which. i of course do not think everythin marx said was the absolute-truth-and-you-better-not-disagree-or-else but i know which bits i agree with.

so does idris think "the means of production should be owned collectively by the people" is "plain wrong" and that "communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance" is a "genuine insight".......

Ask him - in that form if you like, but i think you'll find he has no need of a paraphraser.

Don't be such a dick in your original post when you ask the question is the lesson. Unless of course... but you're not are you.

 

[Flavour]

nope - there was no offence intended to idris.

 

[butchersapron]

Fair play then

 

[Flavour]

*

 

[butchersapron]

that max dunbar asking swp members to help him with his "novel".... a right cunt or a proper cunt?

A cunt, and one worth dealing with on his own thread.

(still nothing nate...)

 

[Flavour]

nates prefix ain't silent for nothing

 

[butchersapron]

Yep, gives it some and goes silent the next day. An admirable trait.

 

[Idris2002]

I can't leave you guys alone for a minute, can I?

(Flavour: all in good time, my lad)

 

[butchersapron]

We just get bored without an adult presence...

 

[Idris2002]

You said that, not me.

Here's one to start with.

While serious arguments can be made to the effect that the Soviet Union did not represent any form of socialism, it and its offshoots are still the only example we have of a long-term non-capitalist planned economy based on modern technology. (I can't agree that the SU was a form of capitalism, state or otherwise. The fact that the bureaucracy exploited the working class is not enough; if the exploitation of a subordinate class by a dominant one (and the bureaucracy was not a class, anyway) was the sole criterion by which an economy could be judged to be capitalist, Ancient Egypt would have been a capitalist society).

Marx had the creation of such an economy as his political horizon. He may not have desired or intended a system of the kind that emerged in the SU after 1917 . . . but as that system is our only example of a non-capitalist economy we have, and as that system collapsed after barely two generations, it calls into question not only Marx's political goals, but also his analysis of capitalist society itself.

It calls that analysis into question, because Marx assumed that the post-capitalist society was immanent in capitalist society itself. So the idea of a planned, non-market post-capitalist society depended on certain assumptions about the nature of market-based capitalist society. If there are now good reasons to question the viability of a post-capitalist society (though I accept the Soviet experience does not disprove such viability entirely, it merely calls it into question) there are good reasons to question Marx's conception of market-based capitalist society itself.

If you see what I mean . . .

 

[Flavour]

I think we're only arguing about the extent to which the Soviet Union realised the goals of Marx - i think the USSR was marxist in name only after the rise of stalin, whose Thermidorian reversal of the revolution to restore himself and his clique as the burearacy makes any comparison between that society and a real communist one invalid.
I agree that it is the only example of a Marxist-esque society that has existed, but where you see that as a failure of the Marxist system to be able to uphold an economy, i believe that we have to learn the lessons of the USSR, and not make the same mistakes. The failure of the USSR to survive is testament to the failiure of Stalinism, and only brings Marx's political goals into question insofar as the USSR was representative of marxism.

 

[Idris2002]

I agree that it is the only example of a Marxist-esque society that has existed, but where you see that as a failure of the Marxist system to be able to uphold an economy, i believe that we have to learn the lessons of the USSR, and not make the same mistakes. The failure of the USSR to survive is testament to the failiure of Stalinism, and only brings Marx's political goals into question insofar as the USSR was representative of marxism.

No, no, no! I didn't say it was a 'failure of the Marxist system' I said it called that system into question - which is not the same thing.

Yes, I agree that we have to learn the lessons of the USSR, but the thing is that we can only learn those lessons if we don't try and pre-judge the outcome of any inquiry. And that pre-judgement of the outcome is inherent in both the orthodox Trotskyist concept of a 'degenerated worker's state' or the Cliffite 'state capitalist' model.

As for the collapse of the USSR being a 'failure of Stalinism', well I agree that Stalinism wasn't what the original Bolsheviks desired or intended, but I don't agree that that lets the OBs off the hook either. There are both continuities and discontinuities between the USSR before and after the coming to power of Stalin.

As for the USSR being representative of marxism - well, the militarisation of labour during the civil war could find a precedent in the Manifesto of the CP.

 

[Flavour]

As for the collapse of the USSR being a 'failure of Stalinism', well I agree that Stalinism wasn't what the original Bolsheviks desired or intended, but I don't agree that that lets the OBs off the hook either. There are both continuities and discontinuities between the USSR before and after the coming to power of Stalin.

Stalin murdered all the OBs... their only fault was to let Stalin get into a posistion where he could liquidate them.... i'm not denying that if lenin had survived, of course things could have still gone pear shaped, even without Stalin- but as that didnt happen it would be foolish to try and imagine what might have been

As for the USSR being representative of marxism - well, the militarisation of labour during the civil war could find a precedent in the Manifesto of the CP.

The civil war militarisation was led by Trotsky - A marxist!

After the civil war, when trotsky was exiled and lenin was dead, i think we'd agree there was a substantial lack of Marxism in USSR policy.

 

[butchersapron]

"The civil war militarisation was led by Trotsky - A marxist!"

I think that you'll fnd that this was precisley is point.

 

[Idris2002]

Except was the militarisation of labour Trotsky demanded the same as that of the Manifesto?

Was the demand in the manifesto something Marx stood over for the rest of his career, or something he more or less dropped after 1848?

Can anyone tell me?

 

[gurrier]

I think that the argument that Stalin represented a clear break with Lenin is based on faith alone. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that there was a paradigm shift between the two. Even if there was, how desirable is a system where one bad guy can fuck it up so badly that it becomes a byword for tyranny and slavery?

The reason why the SU was refered to as State Capitalist, does not rest solely on the class exploitation as that is common to all post-agricultural societies (the history of human society is the history of class struggle...)

What marks the SU out as capitalist is that a surplus was extracted from workers and this surplus was reinvested with the aim of perpetual economic growth - the major factor that differentiates capitalism from previous economic systems. There are other factors - such as the particular concept of ownership of land which are also markedly different from older economic systems.

What marks it out as state-capitalist as against our private capitalist system is that the state controlled all the capital.

 

[rednblack]

stalin didnt fall from the moon

 

[fanciful]

you've never seen any evidence to suggest a paradigm shift between Lenin and Stalin? How about one slaughtered the vanguard of the working class to construct an alliance with imperialism (stalin in case you don't know) and one slaughtered the imperialists to construct an alliance with the vanguard of the working class (lenin)
maybe if you looked a little harder then you'd find a little more evidence. ignorance is no excuse for being pig headed.
And Lenin must've been a pretty kick arse individual if the degeneration of the USSR was his fault alone and so must've have Stalin for that matter. and he was a knob (though you probably haven't seen any evidence for that either!)
maybe if you looked for a little evidence you'd find it.
as for the USSR being state capitalist this position is no better now than in 1920. The soviet union abolished generalised commodity production, the basis of capitalist exploitation. it was a different mode of production to the post capitalist property relations established in the soviet union to describe it as state cap is just lazy. the reason state caps weren't particularly bothered about the scientific basis of their theory was they never had any particular intention of doing anything about it, hence it didn't matter. btw the abolition of the USSR saw the reintroduction of generalised commodity production in Russia and the former eastern bloc. but i suppose you haven't you noticed that either?

 

[Pickman's model]

you've never seen any evidence to suggest a paradigm shift between Lenin and Stalin? How about one slaughtered the vanguard of the working class to construct an alliance with imperialism (stalin in case you don't know) and one slaughtered the imperialists to construct an alliance with the vanguard of the working class (lenin)
maybe if you looked a little harder then you'd find a little more evidence. ignorance is no excuse for being pig headed.
And Lenin must've been a pretty kick arse individual if the degeneration of the USSR was his fault alone and so must've have Stalin for that matter. and he was a knob (though you probably haven't seen any evidence for that either!)
maybe if you looked for a little evidence you'd find it.
as for the USSR being state capitalist this position is no better now than in 1920. The soviet union abolished generalised commodity production, the basis of capitalist exploitation. it was a different mode of production to the post capitalist property relations established in the soviet union to describe it as state cap is just lazy. the reason state caps weren't particularly bothered about the scientific basis of their theory was they never had any particular intention of doing anything about it, hence it didn't matter. btw the abolition of the USSR saw the reintroduction of generalised commodity production in Russia and the former eastern bloc. but i suppose you haven't you noticed that either?

the working class in the ussr didn't look too emancipated to me...

 

[Idris2002]

What marks it out as state-capitalist as against our private capitalist system is that the state controlled all the capital.

OK, I see what you mean, but I don't think that's enough for a system to qualify as capitalist.

The criteria which managers in the capitalist west and in the SU struggled to meet were fundamentally in each case.

In the west, managers strove (directly or indirectly) for higher profits; in the east they struggled to meet (or appear to meet) the targets set for them by the central planners.

 

[gurrier]

It's quite indicative of the impoverishment of the Marxist intellectual tradition that I have to explain that when I talk about the lack of a paradigm shift between Lenin and Stalin, I have to explain to a Leninist that I am talking about it from a systemic point of view and that the personalities of the two individuals are really irrelevant.

Now, some of the key stages of the transformation of the Russian revolution of 1917 into a totalitarian dictatorship are the following:

* Creation of a secret, political police directed by the upper echelons of the communist party to be used against political opponents
* Re-introduction of an absolutist command model into the armed forces, again under the control of the upper echolons of the cp
* Destruction of the soviets and the introduction of one-man management into industry, again controlled by....
* Banning and criminalistion of opposition political forces both outside (SR's, anarchists) and inside the Bolshevik party
* Effective banning of all publications not under the control of ...
* Banning of strikes and all industrial action
* Large scale and completely unregulated use of capital punishment for a wide range of perceived offences, again under the control of...
* Active imperialism against neighbouring states.
* Widespread use of terror against recalcitrant sections of the population.

Now, every single one of these key stages towards the construction of the totalitarian dictatorship was completed before Stalin came to power.

With regards to their attitudes towards foreign imperialists, both Stalin and Lenin did deals with them when it suited them and fought them when they had to. In this context their behaviour is indistinguishable and no more principled than any other tyrant. If Peter the Great had been in Lenin's shoes there is no reason to think he would have acted any differently.

Finally, I am confused about your comment on generalised commodity production. You are presumably part of some funny little trot group which has their own strange interpretation of the SU, but please try to explain what you mean to me without assuming that I know your own particular groupspeak. It is my understanding that, economically, the introduction of the SU saw a marked increase in generalised commodity production as prior to the revolution a significant amount of commodity production was of the petty variety - ie not fully integrated into the market as a large proportion of peasant production was for consumption rather than for the market.

 

[sihhi]

How about one slaughtered the vanguard of the working class to construct an alliance with imperialism (stalin in case you don't know) and one slaughtered the imperialists to construct an alliance with the vanguard of the working class (lenin)

How do you explain Lenin's relationship with Mongolia and Mongolian workers?