To be, or not to be state capitalism, By The Socialist Party

[durruti02]

knotted you said

"Having said that Cuba is a real puzzle to me because you have an apparently socialist revolution without bottom up working class activity and without the top down involvement of a (degenerated) workers' state."

i don't understand why you see no "top down involvement"

 

[Knotted]

knotted you said

"Having said that Cuba is a real puzzle to me because you have an apparently socialist revolution without bottom up working class activity and without the top down involvement of a (degenerated) workers' state."

i don't understand why you see no "top down involvement"

The regime was not put into power or militarily helped into power by the USSR or China. Castro and co. were anti-communist peasant based bourgeois nationalists who turned to the Soviet Union only after deposing Batista. It shows that the bourgeoisie are so hopeless for carrying out agrarian reform and so politically feeble as a result that it only requires Soviet economic backing to expropriate them without any involvement of the working class. What happened in Cuba is absolutely astonishing IMO.

 

[durruti02]

.... My error was in assuming an overly rigid class characterisation of the state in Marxist theory. Incidently Tony Cliff made the same error. The error is thus: Marxist theory, particularly Lenin's State and Revolution deny the possibility that the same state apparatus can be used both by the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

no .. and this is the issue .. the Russian Revolution was not a proletarian revolution ( yes it held elements within it) but a radical bourgois revolution in a backward semi feudal country .. elements who wanted to create an actual proletarian revolution were not the Bolshevik tendancy .. read any Leninist work and that is obvious

where does that leave us now? we can say over and over that in the circumstances Leninism was the correct response and that may well be correect .. that Stalininsim followed can be explained byteh isolation fo the revolution

MY response that i have put a number of times ion Urban is that what i call 'crisis politics' is doomed .. and pretty well all leftism and @ism IS crisis politics .. it never appeals until times of crisis and then is easyly corrupted and perverted .. I like Luxembourg but the left has relied on crisis ever since she said e.g. "The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles." etc

we need to create a politics that actually appeals to the majority of people, crisis or no crisis .. that will convince people they should give up their life style they currently have for what is just a promise of a better life .. i believe it is possible and will be based in issues around power, autonomy and control starting from the base .. IWCA/O'Shea, elements in the old RCP and some @s are working in this area but too little

 

[durruti02]

The regime was not put into power or militarily helped into power by the USSR or China. Castro and co. were anti-communist peasant based bourgeois nationalists who turned to the Soviet Union only after deposing Batista. It shows that the bourgeoisie are so hopeless for carrying out agrarian reform and so politically feeble as a result that it only requires Soviet economic backing to expropriate them without any involvement of the working class. What happened in Cuba is absolutely astonishing IMO.

but it was not socialism/communism so i do not find it astonishing .. unusual yes

 

[Knotted]

cheers Knotted .. first i think state capitalism started in 1917 so i do not accept the thread is about the 1930s

ok i see where you are coming from .. you list of the broader picture is correct .. but that is just background .. what Smith uniquely does is look at peoples reactions to those issues where they were organised ..

to me the class nature of the revolution is illustrated by how that revolution is organised e.g. whether by factory committees running industry ( as the left supportted ) or the state and workers organised in TUs ( as the Bolsheviks came ot support )

As I said that's to do with what you expect to see not criteria for any objective assessment. But really you can have workers control of industry without capitalism even being threatened. You would still have different industries competing with each other driving down wages under workers' control. The planned economy is central to the question, not workers' control. Although workers' control is very important.

it is interesting that you and most of the left are not as interested in 1917-1918 as to the later period and i am guessing it is that you do not see the same problems then as later .. all the left accepts the issues by the 1930s ( though with have the debate in the thread title) , most fo the left agree the issues post 1921 but few on the left see issues before 1921 let alone in 1917

That's odd I see the left broadly agreeing about what happened in 1917-18 but disagreeing more as time goes on. I prefer to focus on disagreements, but I am interested in 1917-18 as well. If you can argue that Russia was a degenerated workers' state during the purges and the Moscow trials then its childs play to argue that it was some sort of workers' state in 1917-18. The 1930's test Dennisr and me much harder than 1917-18.

this is why i have pushed the issue to Dennis whihc i think he deflected tbh that IF ( and we all agree ) there was not communism in 1917 then what was there .. it can NOT have been deformed or degenerated by that time .. so what was it? to me it was a form of state capitalism .. many of the massive factories of Petrograd were under the Tsar state run and the Bolsheviks retained this

It was a workers' state. The economy was of course mainly capitalist and there were no plans to abolish all capitalist economic relations. Nobody pretended socialism was about to be established.

but it is clear if we look at two areas

1) organisation and management of the factories .. and most retained capitalist forms of organisation .. where the factory committees did take control ( by bolsheviks as much as lefts and @s ) this was soon rolled back under orders from the Kremlin

As I say, workers' control is perfectly consistent with capitalism. What's crucial is the expropriation of the capitalists and the organising of industry as a planned economy. That puts a stop to bourgeois rule, but even this does not abolish all capitalist property relations.

2) the form of exchange i asked dennis mayeb you could answer

" to show capitalism ( NOT just the capitalist state ) was destroyed you need to show

1 that exchange was not carried out based on money in russia after 1917
2 that money was abolished
3 that no financial surplus was extracted
4 that the wage wage system was destroyed
5 that what is generally regarded as communism, ' from each according to their ability or to each according to their needs' had been implemented

Capitalist property relations were not 'destroyed' that is communism was never established nobody even ever tried to implement communism. Not even Stalin.

so yes we agree that is was not communism .. but if a political system retains the key elements of capitalism how can we not call it such?

the issue of who runs it is irrelevent .. capitalism can run under all sorts of political control

It did not retain key elements of capitalism. It retained some elements of capitalism. Surely the key element of capitalism is the existence of capitalists. Production for the sake of profit for the investors - this had been abolished by the 1930's. Trotsky's formula in the 1930's: a contradictory society between capitalism and socialism.

Incidently communism is incompatable with workers' power/management/control. Communism is the abolition of class society and therefore the abolition of the working class.

 

[Knotted]

but it was not socialism/communism so i do not find it astonishing .. unusual yes

They expropriated the capitalist class without relying on the working class or on the soviet military. It shows how weak the capitalist class can be in developing countries.

 

[Knotted]

no .. and this is the issue .. the Russian Revolution was not a proletarian revolution ( yes it held elements within it) but a radical bourgois revolution in a backward semi feudal country .. elements who wanted to create an actual proletarian revolution were not the Bolshevik tendancy .. read any Leninist work and that is obvious

Well its a bit more complex than that...

where does that leave us now? we can say over and over that in the circumstances Leninism was the correct response and that may well be correect .. that Stalininsim followed can be explained byteh isolation fo the revolution

MY response that i have put a number of times ion Urban is that what i call 'crisis politics' is doomed .. and pretty well all leftism and @ism IS crisis politics .. it never appeals until times of crisis and then is easyly corrupted and perverted .. I like Luxembourg but the left has relied on crisis ever since she said e.g. "The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles." etc

we need to create a politics that actually appeals to the majority of people, crisis or no crisis .. that will convince people they should give up their life style they currently have for what is just a promise of a better life .. i believe it is possible and will be based in issues around power, autonomy and control starting from the base .. IWCA/O'Shea, elements in the old RCP and some @s are working in this area but too little

The Second International before WW1 fits your bill pretty closely - especially the SPD in Germany. Huge popular party Marxist party that grew during an economic upswing.

 

[durruti02]

1) As I said that's to do with what you expect to see not criteria for any objective assessment. But really you can have workers control of industry without capitalism even being threatened. You would still have different industries competing with each other driving down wages under workers' control. The planned economy is central to the question, not workers' control. Although workers' control is very important.

2) That's odd I see the left broadly agreeing about what happened in 1917-18 but disagreeing more as time goes on. I prefer to focus on disagreements, but I am interested in 1917-18 as well. If you can argue that Russia was a degenerated workers' state during the purges and the Moscow trials then its childs play to argue that it was some sort of workers' state in 1917-18. The 1930's test Dennisr and me much harder than 1917-18.

3) It was a workers' state. The economy was of course mainly capitalist and there were no plans to abolish all capitalist economic relations. Nobody pretended socialism was about to be established.

4) As I say, workers' control is perfectly consistent with capitalism. What's crucial is the expropriation of the capitalists and the organising of industry as a planned economy. That puts a stop to bourgeois rule, but even this does not abolish all capitalist property relations.

5 ) Capitalist property relations were not 'destroyed' that is communism was never established nobody even ever tried to implement communism. Not even Stalin.

6) It did not retain key elements of capitalism. It retained some elements of capitalism. Surely the key element of capitalism is the existence of capitalists. Production for the sake of profit for the investors - this had been abolished by the 1930's. Trotsky's formula in the 1930's: a contradictory society between capitalism and socialism.

7 ) Incidently communism is incompatable with workers' power/management/control. Communism is the abolition of class society and therefore the abolition of the working class.

1) ok i see where you are coming from .. imho the opposite is true that the planned economy is far more easily reconciable with capital .. yes i accept that the Factory Committees movement did NOT overthrow capitalism .. but it was moving to do that .. indeed the Bolsheviks were part of that movement till October when they demanded the end to disruption of industry and moved against the Factory Committees ,, the Factory Committees were accused of what you suggest but they were moving toward national co ordination

2) the issue is what sort of workers state ..

3) ditto .. and many were planning the abolition of capitalism or as a preliminary real workers control from the base

4) as for 1) i disagree .. as we have seen many times it is possible to have planned economies with elements of expropriation .. it is not particularly revolutionary and does not challenge capitalism ..

5 ) agree

6 ) no disagree .. capitalism is not the people but the system .. in Russia the capitalists were the planned state .. they became the investors that demanded a return .. capitalism is defined by the extraction of surplus value from labour .. this was never challenged ..

7 ) yes that is true but the key issue for us today is the path toward that .. the Factory Committees movement was a move toward the abolition of capital (incorporating the w/c) .. Bolshevism was not and is not today going to do that .. that a radical bourgois philosophy designed to modernise backward Russia still holds so much power today amongst the tiny left is bizarre

.. unsuprisingly it has little or no support in the wider class

Maurice Brintons seminal british commentary on workers power in Russia
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html

and anarchist perspective on state capitalism
http://www.struggle.ws/ppapers/statecap.html

 

[Knotted]

6 ) no disagree .. capitalism is not the people but the system .. in Russia the capitalists were the planned state .. they became the investors that demanded a return .. capitalism is defined by the extraction of surplus value from labour .. this was never challenged ..

This is the nub. If capitalism is defined by the extraction of suplus value then the tax collector is a capitalist, every state is state capitalist, everything the state runs is a capitalist enterprise - the army, the NHS, the welfare state. If you want to abolish capitalism in this sense then you want to abolish all this and more. This is just crazy!

 

[Knotted]

and anarchist perspective on state capitalism
http://www.struggle.ws/ppapers/statecap.html

The very simple problem with this is that it doesn't discuss the role of capital. Surplus value is not capital. What is being theorised is capitalism without any actual capital. But really aside from the terminology there is nothing here that I would disagree with. Its a fetishism of terminology. "Capitalism" is just a swear word, it tells us nothing.

 

[Knotted]

Maurice Brintons seminal british commentary on workers power in Russia
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html

Haven't read all of this yet, but it seems quite overblown and obscure. Why is factory committees versus trade unions given such a central place in the analysis? Why are these issues of such fundamental importance? Maurice Brinton tries to explain things by looking at the sociological make-up of the Bolsheviks. I think the explanation is much more straightforward - I suspect they wanted to coordinate industry nationally and the factory committees tended towards looking after more parochial interests.

 

[TremulousTetra]

The very simple problem with this is that it doesn't discuss the role of capital. Surplus value is not capital. What is being theorised is capitalism without any actual capital. But really aside from the terminology there is nothing here that I would disagree with. Its a fetishism of terminology. "Capitalism" is just a swear word, it tells us nothing.

is fudalism just a swear word?

In the 19th century, Marx described feudalism as the economic situation coming before the inevitable rise of capitalism. For Marx, what defined feudalism was that the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) rested on their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom.[7] "The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist."[8] Marx thus considered feudalism within a purely economic model.

you might like to note in assessing the mode of production Marx views to the base and the superstructure as indivisible.

In short, you assess what means of production is, you assess their class relations that exist, and the relationship they have to the means of production, and it is to those ascribe the label ie feudalism, capitalism, slave society etc.

 

[dennisr]

that Kronstadt link is fascinating .. A Kramer is an Israeli marxist of sorts ex IMG grouping apparrently ) his article has been copied all over the world if you look at google links .. yet no on else has seen or refered in english to his so called revelations ( apart from the SPart below) .. fair play so maybe he has a coup

Not evn the SP - its the TG split lot (Socialist Appeal)

 

[Knotted]

is fudalism just a swear word?

I don't think there are any precise definitions of feudalism or capitalism. When we use these terms we are being lazy or obscuring the actual economic relations.

you might like to note in assessing the mode of production Marx views to the base and the superstructure as indivisible.

In short, you assess what means of production is, you assess their class relations that exist, and the relationship they have to the means of production, and it is to those ascribe the label ie feudalism, capitalism, slave society etc.

Where did you get the quote from?

 

[dennisr]

The regime was not put into power or militarily helped into power by the USSR or China. Castro and co. were anti-communist peasant based bourgeois nationalists who turned to the Soviet Union only after deposing Batista. It shows that the bourgeoisie are so hopeless for carrying out agrarian reform and so politically feeble as a result that it only requires Soviet economic backing to expropriate them without any involvement of the working class. What happened in Cuba is absolutely astonishing IMO.

I'd recommend taffe's book on Cube: Socialism and Democracy (its online and linked to above in my earlier post)

 

[TremulousTetra]

I don't think there are any precise definitions of feudalism or capitalism. When we use these terms we are being lazy or obscuring the actual economic relations.



Where did you get the quote from?

wikipedia. But that it even appears there, shows there is a pretty broadly held assessment of how Marx defined feudalism.

Interesting topic, feudalism, in the context of what we are discussing, state capitalism.

The means of production was the land. The the relationship the lord and the King had to the means of production, was that they controlled it. The relationship the peasant had to the means of production was that the peasants worked the land as individual families, not as a collective. The relationship of the King and the lord had to the peasantry was basically that of the mafia relationship, they would extort from the peasantry by means of force a percentage of what they produced.

Now as time went on through selling basically pardons from heaven, the church became massively rich and controlled massive amounts of the means of production. The class relationships, and their relationships to the land remained exactly the same, and so it remained feudalism.

So in this case, liking state capitalism, the class relations, and therelationship to the means of production, defines the mode of production whether or not the means of production are controlled by a private individual, or on to collectively by a bureaucracy.

I have written the best part of a long post, thinking that was where our disagreement was situated. However, if you don't accept the way Marx defined different social epochs according to the methodology above, this is a big division too.

 

[TremulousTetra]

What each mode of production is for Marx, is a different set of class relationships. At 1st each mode of production, each set of class relationships, structures the superstructure in such a way as to best exploit the economic base. So the slavery means of production in Roman Society, was the best way of exploiting the economic base. But then those very same superstructures, become a fetter on the means of production. feudalism etc unfettered the economic base again, allowing a all sorts of technological development not possible within slave society, until it too became a fetter on society, and then we develop capitalism. [basically, marx stole this idea from Hegel.]

 

[nightbreed]

[basically, marx stole this idea from Hegel.]

Eh??

 

[durruti02]

This is the nub. If capitalism is defined by the extraction of suplus value then the tax collector is a capitalist, every state is state capitalist, everything the state runs is a capitalist enterprise - the army, the NHS, the welfare state. If you want to abolish capitalism in this sense then you want to abolish all this and more. This is just crazy!

no that is wrong .. it is the particular way of extracting surplus value that Marx described in Capital and the Grundrisse where workers produce more than their wages .. btw i am not an expert on it but i do not think you need to be .. it is fairly simple and differrent from e.g. feudal surplus value extraction

and i am a marxist! so i go with "from each, according to their abilities, and to each, according to their needs" i do not think that a society needs to create surplus value from labour if it is sustainable indeed the cioncpet becomes irrelevent ( though that is another debate entirely in which i am not confident! Marx was happy to have a poetry and fishing semi primitive communism .. most modern communists are so entralled by the amazing and continued advances of capitalism they find it hard to let those go .. indeed the RCP seems to have swopped communism for capitalism as their aim! )

and btw i did not define capitalism as purely the extraction of SV but it is key

 

[TremulousTetra]

Eh??

I knew that would get an eyebrow.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Knotted. Please forgive me for editing your post. I haven't done so to distort it, merely to hone in on some particular aspects which I think will illuminate the real state capitalist theory, and take the discussion forward.

OK I did contradict myself. I was wrong to suggest that Cliff thought that the superstructure determined the base. But I'm with Ted Grant in saying that he ignores the question. I think this doctrine of the political being identical with the economical makes the question meaningless.

My instinct is to say that Cliff was rejecting historical materialism or at least rejecting it as saying anything meaningful in the case of state capitalist Russia. If he was then I'm at least sympathetic. I'm going to read up on
Marx's formulations before coming to any conclusion.

I'm glad you've accepted that your theses, " state capitalist theory asserts that, the superstructure determines the base" is a strawman. My problem is, you then go on to flippantly dismiss the real socialist worker argument

Your anecdote is very interesting but doesn't need a reply.

With respect to the above to say that they form an indivisible whole is not to say that they do not stand in a certain causal relation with each other. (That is unless you mean to say that you cannot talk about them at all!)

For example a chameleon will change its colour depending on its mood. The chameleon's mood and the chameleon's colour are not seperate entities - they're not entities at all. Indeed you can only consider them with respect to the whole chameleon. But that's not important - it still makes sense to say the mood determines the colour.

you may not accept the argument, but to reply to a any other argument, is to behave like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills/strawmen, rather than fighting the true demons. This has been why it has taken me five pages before I would engage in this discussion. I don't mind engaging in a real discussion, about the real socialist worker position, but what has been presented by Dennis and yourself so far hasn't been the real socialist worker position.

Now we've already established who you and that Ted Grant assert that the real historical materialist position on the state is, the base determines the superstructure. To me this isn't historical materialism, it is newtonian materialist determinism. And it is this disagreement about the Marxist theoretical understanding of the state, that is underpinning the disagreement about workers' state verses state capitalism IMHO. And that is why I believe I feel discussion on this topic needs to start here, at the level of abstract theory.

At this point I just need to briefly explain my background. I read my first book when I was 21, basically Harold Robbins soft porn. I didn't start to read anything serious until I broke my neck in a car crash, and met a physiotherapist a member of the socialist workers party. Now, the reason I think this is pertinent, because what I brought to the academic study of Marxism, was a method of analysis inculcated by a Manual labour. [I will come back to this]

Now I vividly remember being sat in a pub, after two or three years of stripping down Marxism trying to understand it, and talking about Marxism with an older season comrade who is now dead. I had been introduced to imperialism, racism, and most recently at that time economics and particularly the postwar arms economy theory. I remembered describing to this older comrade, how "Marxism appeared to be a big spider's web, with different strands of analysis, which all seemed somehow mysteriously connected". At that point I was believing that it was economics which connected all the strands, however, in the autumn of 1989 i read an ISJ, which made me a Marxist. The autumn 1989 ISJ was the riveting story of the French revolution, but the ISJ culminated in the an article by John Rees, The Algebra Of Revolution. This made it clear to me, that what held together Marx's arguments, what connected the various strands, was not economics, alienation, but his philosophy.

little rant. What really pisses me off about Marxists is the way SOME write off people like Hegel, Newton, Socrates and Plato etc. etc. because of their superstitions. Which is ridiculous when you realise that religions superstitions is humankind worshipping themselves, their logic. I've never read Hegel, but I know the man was a fucking genius.

So, philosophy is the search for eternal truths. And if you look at philosophy from Socrates and Plato through to Newton and Hegel it is possible to sum up 2000 years of philosophic debate like this, Socrates and Newton etc. = "we are a product of our material existence. We are merely the sum total of our experiences of our senses" [the base]. Plato and Hegel etc. = "we are a product of our mind. It is only through our mind we can understand the true nature of things, for our senses can deceive laws." [the superstructure]
[now I know what I'm stretching the concept of base and superstructure to beyond the normal recognition, but if you will indulge me I think they will come back into focus.]

Marx was a hegelian student. What he did that Hegel couldn't was resolve this ancient contradiction of theses and anti theses into a reconcilable whole. The truth is both theses are correct, we are in truth a product of our material existence and our mind. And I think this is best summed up in Marx demonstration of how labour best defines human nature.

See next post.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Continue from post to 220

The individual creature, any insect or animal, is in constant contradiction with nature, that is the environment and other creatures. The creatures existence can only be understood in the context of its relationship to this whole, nature. Any change in this whole, nature, directly affects the fate of each individual species. So for example, without the extinction of the dinosaurs, mammals and humans couldn't have evolved. The creature seeks to exist, the environment constantly threatens the existence. Only a change in the creatures material existence, a genetic chance mutation, can increase or reduce the individual species chances of existence, given that all other factors in the whole, nature, remain the same. This is not true for humans.

The humans have two realms of existence. The first primitive humans [not modern humans] existed like all other creatures, they exercised their labour, like the bee etc., as they were genetically programmed. But once primitive humans were able to exist in another realm, once they were able to abstract the material existence as Plato through to Hegel point out, humans were able to evolve their relationship with nature, without a chance mutation. A process begins right back there, which is a continuum with today. There begins at chicken and egg situation, yes material existence determined consciousness, but then consciousness then changed material existence. You can't start this process in 1917, when it had already been going on for millennia.

Now none of this Bending of to stick to make the point is meant to contradict what Marx said about being determines consciousness, base determine superstructure so to speak, it is just to make the point that the relationship between base and superstructure is far more complicated than the simplistic and deterministic Ted Grant "base determines superstructure",,,,, period. If that's what Marx had wanted, historical materialism wouldn't be based upon the theory of dialectical materialism, the syntheses of theses and anti theses, the synthesis of Hegel and Newton, it would simply be based on newtonian materialism. Let me demonstrate this.

The philosophers of the English revolution, amongst whom was Newton, basically argued that the universe had been created by the great watchmaker. If we analysed it, counter to catholic orthodoxy, we could understand the universe. And it argued, from this understanding that we could see the English revolution was just the culmination of the great watchmakers design. In other words, our material existence created by god determines our being, base determines superstructure. That really fits with what Ted Grant is saying. But I believe this throws Hegel out with the bathwater. What Hegel brought to the party was an understanding of how the process took place.

So for the true historical materialist analysis, I don't think you can just throw out dialectics. In Hegels theory of dialectics there is a 'holy' Trinity of the truths.
1. Everything is part of the WHOLE. We cannot look at things in isolation. Everything is connected, and changes in one thing, can bring about changes in another. Changes in the base can affect the superstructure, and changes in the superstructure can affect the base. The same is true in nature.
2. There is nothing you can think of that is not involved in a process of CHANGE. This change is not omni-directional. Societies can develop into new more efficient modes of production, which make humanity more able to exploit the environment to satisfy its needs, but equally so change can be in the common ruin of the contending classes. The same is true in nature.
3. The dynamic behind change is CONTRADICTION. As I said earlier about the species in the environment, it is the contradiction to a species has with the environment, that is the driving force to evolution. It is the contradictory interests of the slave and the slave owner, the peasant and the feudal lord, the worker and the capitalist that is the driving force to social evolution. Even in philosophy it is the contradiction of theses of anti theses, are we a product of our material existence or a product of our mind, as has been the driving force behind philosophical evolution.



So in the end what I'm trying to say is, historical materialism, dialectical materialism, is a combination of BOTH newtonian and Hegelian philosophy. You cannot throw away Hegel and just say we are only a product of our material existence, in my opinion. When Karl Marx said " we see so far because we stand on the shoulders of giants", he wasn't just being modest, he was recognizing without Newton AND Hegel there would be no Marxism imo.

ps. Coming back to your point nightbreed, yes Hegel did recognise before Marx evolution in society, he just got his analysis upside down.

ps. I'm going to run for cover now, while people rip this apart.

 

[durruti02]

Haven't read all of this yet, but it seems quite overblown and obscure. Why is factory committees versus trade unions given such a central place in the analysis? Why are these issues of such fundamental importance? Maurice Brinton tries to explain things by looking at the sociological make-up of the Bolsheviks. I think the explanation is much more straightforward - I suspect they wanted to coordinate industry nationally and the factory committees tended towards looking after more parochial interests.

ok two entirely differrent things

.. trade unions (were) are an institution from class society and for negotiating in a situation where you have no control

.. factory committees were (are) about workers control entirely

.. this is a fundamental difference in what a revolution is, about what workers having power actually means ..

the FCs were regarded as key to the revolution by the Bolsheviks and all parties left, till after the October coup .. then yes there is a debate .. who is to run society? .. the Bolsheviks said it must be a central planned economy run by them, with trade unions as the representatives in the factories of the workers (so already there is a class division between Bolsheviks and workers) .. while the Factory Committee movement argues the workers must run society through where they work ( factory committees) and live (soviets)

your criticism that the FCs were parochial was used at the time and is valid but wrong .. the FC movement had swept russia like wildfire and co-ordination nationally was becoming institutionalised ( this was the real proletarian revolution .. though unlike with teh Bolsheviks it did lack a more political bent and this is why it lost) .. it was this that the Bolsheviks leadership feared .. and again this is why Smith is important as he describes how large numbers of the rank and file Bolsheviks were angered and disillusioned by the imposition of trade unions and the suppression of the FCs .. this was a critical period in building the revolution and the Bolsheviks lost massive support amongst their key industrial revolutionary base in this period .. who went left to the other parties and the Workers Opposition in 1920

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers'_Opposition)

btw the reason you feel it is overblown is maybe in this period ( early 7ts ) very very little was known of this period .. the dead weight of Stalinism had hidden almost all of this stuff .. Trotskyists were still few and while they talked of their histroy the FCs were not part of that .. and equally the basic stuff Smith digs out had been hidden all that time ..

and tbh it remains amazing to me how few of the trot left know anything of this movement, possibly the most important proletarian movement in our history, and hidden not just by stalinist but also by trotskyists .. the amount of conversations i have had with leftists ( who i do not blame in any way as we as individuals are not in control of most of what we see as history ) where the FCs are almost always confused with Soviets and i have had to explain what they were .. and this is NOT some obscure marxist economic theory but a mass/massive grassroots proletarian movement

 

[durruti02]

I don't think there are any precise definitions of feudalism or capitalism. When we use these terms we are being lazy or obscuring the actual economic relations.

disagree .. all the obscuring imho has been by contemporary leninist wishing to defend their revolution

"A society is capitalist if most production is carried on by employees working with means of production (equipment and materials) belonging to their employer, producing commodities which belong to the employer."

http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/y64l06.html

"How would I define 'capitalism'? I think you have to focus on the concept of surplus value. In Capital Marx wrote that "The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor power to the greatest possible extent."3 What is surplus value, then? Well, very briefly, it is the concept that workers produce more than they actually get paid for. For part of the day their labor goes towards their pay; for the rest of the day they work for free for the capitalist. (Officially they are usually paid for every hour they work, but the total amount they are paid still comes to only a fraction of the value they produce, so it amounts to the same thing.) Slightly more formally, surplus value is the increase in capital after the production process (i.e., after deducting wages, the cost of raw materials and machinery used up, and overhead). There are two excellent little pamphlets by Marx that explain this critically important concept of surplus value in careful detail, and answer the objections sometimes raised against the concept: "Wages, Price and Profit" and "Wage-Labor and Capital". No person who has not read at least one of these (or else vol. 1 of Capital) can really be said to have much of an understanding of Marxism."
http://massline.org/PolitEcon/ScottH/capitalism.htm


"..Capitalism is distinctive, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit. Marx claims that no previous theorist has been able adequately to explain how capitalism as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own solution relies on the idea of exploitation of the worker. In setting up conditions of production the capitalist purchases the worker's labour power — his ability to labour — for the day. The cost of this commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every other; i.e. in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour power required to produce it. In this case the value of a day's labour power is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the worker alive for a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours to produce. Thus the first four hours of the working day is spent on producing value equivalent to the value of the wages the worker will be paid. This is known as necessary labour. Any work the worker does above this is known as surplus labour, producing surplus value for the capitalist. Surplus value, according to Marx, is the source of all profit. In Marx's analysis labour power is the only commodity which can produce more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as variable capital. Other commodities simply pass their value on to the finished commodities, but do not create any extra value. They are known as constant capital. Profit, then, is the result of the labour performed by the worker beyond that necessary to create the value of his or her wages. This is the surplus value theory of profit..."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/

ok these are the first 3 links i clicked on a google search for 'marxist definition of capitalism' .. and they all say the same thing .. and by their definition there is no question that Russia was a capitalist and thus state capitalist post 1917 .. that it was also a form of workers state is debatable but it is in the mix i accept

 

[nightbreed]

Continue from post to 220

ps. Coming back to your point nightbreed, yes Hegel did recognise before Marx evolution in society, he just got his analysis upside down.

.

My understanding is that Marx turned Hegels Dialectics upside down. I dont recall him turning 'evolution in society' upside down. Marx was taking the philosophy of Hegel and turning it upside down, at least thats my limited understanding of it.

 

[durruti02]

Another book which been recommended highly is

"Origins of the Crisis in the Soviet Union" Hillel Ticktin

which i have not read Ticking argues that Russia was neither capitalist nor socialist .. an exception ..

small article here "No more historical abortions .. Hillel Ticktin highlights the bogus nature of planning in the Soviet Union and locates the central importance of Europe for the transition to socialism"

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/653/ticktin.htm

ISJ critique of this 'exceptionalist' theory here

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj64/haynes.htm.

good debate here

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-305714611434727244

 

[Knotted]

wikipedia. But that it even appears there, shows there is a pretty broadly held assessment of how Marx defined feudalism.

Interesting topic, feudalism, in the context of what we are discussing, state capitalism.

The means of production was the land. The the relationship the lord and the King had to the means of production, was that they controlled it. The relationship the peasant had to the means of production was that the peasants worked the land as individual families, not as a collective. The relationship of the King and the lord had to the peasantry was basically that of the mafia relationship, they would extort from the peasantry by means of force a percentage of what they produced.

Now as time went on through selling basically pardons from heaven, the church became massively rich and controlled massive amounts of the means of production. The class relationships, and their relationships to the land remained exactly the same, and so it remained feudalism.

So in this case, liking state capitalism, the class relations, and therelationship to the means of production, defines the mode of production whether or not the means of production are controlled by a private individual, or on to collectively by a bureaucracy.

I have written the best part of a long post, thinking that was where our disagreement was situated. However, if you don't accept the way Marx defined different social epochs according to the methodology above, this is a big division too.

I agree with what you say above.

Capitalism, feudalism etc. are vague terms. If we are talking about class rule, class analysis then it is fine. But trying to understand a society by trying to work out how capitalist or how feudalist it is is just like counting angels on pinheads. You have to look at class relations. I don't think Marx ever talked about 'capitalism' per se. Hope that answers durrutti as well.

 

[Knotted]

So for the true historical materialist analysis, I don't think you can just throw out dialectics. In Hegels theory of dialectics there is a 'holy' Trinity of the truths.
1. Everything is part of the WHOLE. We cannot look at things in isolation. Everything is connected, and changes in one thing, can bring about changes in another. Changes in the base can affect the superstructure, and changes in the superstructure can affect the base. The same is true in nature.
2. There is nothing you can think of that is not involved in a process of CHANGE. This change is not omni-directional. Societies can develop into new more efficient modes of production, which make humanity more able to exploit the environment to satisfy its needs, but equally so change can be in the common ruin of the contending classes. The same is true in nature.
3. The dynamic behind change is CONTRADICTION. As I said earlier about the species in the environment, it is the contradiction to a species has with the environment, that is the driving force to evolution. It is the contradictory interests of the slave and the slave owner, the peasant and the feudal lord, the worker and the capitalist that is the driving force to social evolution. Even in philosophy it is the contradiction of theses of anti theses, are we a product of our material existence or a product of our mind, as has been the driving force behind philosophical evolution.

There's a lot to reply to so I will focus on this for the minute.

You say you have never read Hegel but you know he's a genius. The problem is that I don't think Hegel is the philosopher you think he is. Marx and Engels do not paint a faithful picture of Hegel, later Marxists are much worse.

I would say that 1) above is flat out wrong. This is not what Hegel thought. At a stretch you could interpret Spinoza's philosophy and Eleactic philosophy as being something like 1) ie. the contemplation of the indeterminate absolute, contemplation of the infinite. This is important for Hegel, but Hegel wanted a role for God in his philosophy. What emerges is something more subtle, Hegel recognises distinctions. He would recognise that it is possible to consider determinations such as the economic superstructure but only in their relation to the absolute. However no part of Hegel's philosophy looks like what you have written. It is in no sense saying everything is causally connected. Hegel's philosophy deals in logic - the motion of thought - not in terms of causality - the motion of matter. See in particular:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hp/hpspinoz.htm

I think mythology around this point is what is leading you astray.

2) is sort of right. This is the Heraclitan aspect of Hegel. However, just as with 1) you are giving it a dynamic spin. Hegel's history, for example, is not very dynamical at all, in fact he considers societies in the most frozen way. Change in Hegel is the motion of the mind.

This brings us to 3). Contradiction is a logical concept, not a dynamical, mechanical concept.

 

[Knotted]

Marx was a hegelian student. What he did that Hegel couldn't was resolve this ancient contradiction of theses and anti theses into a reconcilable whole. The truth is both theses are correct, we are in truth a product of our material existence and our mind. And I think this is best summed up in Marx demonstration of how labour best defines human nature.

This begs the question, why did Marx consider himself a materialist?

 

[Knotted]

Now none of this Bending of to stick to make the point is meant to contradict what Marx said about being determines consciousness, base determine superstructure so to speak, it is just to make the point that the relationship between base and superstructure is far more complicated than the simplistic and deterministic Ted Grant "base determines superstructure",,,,, period. If that's what Marx had wanted, historical materialism wouldn't be based upon the theory of dialectical materialism, the syntheses of theses and anti theses, the synthesis of Hegel and Newton, it would simply be based on newtonian materialism. Let me demonstrate this.

How does this synthesis work, though?

I think the most damaging thing so called 'dialectical materialism' does it that it tricks you into thinking you have a method when you don't. No matter how much you talk about thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis you will not be able to establish any coherent point without first examining and theorising about the material under discussion. The dialectic is only ever established after the theory has been presented. The theory gives meaning to the dialectic not the other way round.

This might make the dialectic appear useless but I don't you need to conclude this either. Although the dialectic is not a theoretical tool, it is still a good tool for criticism. It is a critique of rigid metaphysical/scholastic/empiricist/rationalist modes of thought. What it doesn't do is assert a new mode of thought.

---

To go back to the question of economic base and the superstructure. It is perfectly propper to consider them as part of the same whole. However this consideration does very little for you. It does not deny that there is a certain causal relation between them. Marx is very clear about this causal relation.

"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

Now what did Tony Cliff mean when he said:
"Interdependence and mutual influence of class divisions and the emergence and strengthening of the state are so intricate as to make any separation of economics and politics impossible."

Cliff understood that there could be no physical separation of economics and politics, but then so does everyone. What is new here is the intricacies of the relation implying that there can be no sensible theoretical separation. I think he is saying that you cannot even consider one without considering the other. This is just like the tug of war analogy your comrade was talking about. But this leaves the whole framework of historical materialism in tatters not because it states the opposite but because it states that you cannot state anything at all.

 

[Knotted]

Marx:
"The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure."

This brings home the problem with Tony Cliff's theory of state capitalism. In Marx you have changes in the superstructure lagging behind changes in the economic foundation. In Cliff you have the two transforming at the same time. If you read Cliff's writings they do not look at the historical record, they rather compare and contrast models and the empirical reality. In so far as Cliff theorises about class rule at all he neglects the question of how this new state capitalist class seized power in 1928 - he does not even theorise about how it came into being before 1928.

Of course we could say Marx was wrong. I don't want to dogamatically trump Cliff with Marx's Preface, in fact I'm quite prepared to reject Marx. However showing where Cliff deviates from Marxism should hopefully help clarify the nature of Cliff's theories.