tpaine posted:

because you touch yourself at night.

Crow posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

i think your ideas are extremely consistent, i guess i just don't like it because it leads to some unpleasant ideas, like that China is still socialist or that Perestroika was simply a restructuring of socialism rather than introduction of market relations to reestablish the profit motive. if the soviet union was socialist until the Yeltsin coup and there were different factions in the USSR moving in different directions, why did all the reforms starting with Khruschev move towards capitalist relations (market reforms, private property relations, profit motive, bonus wage incentives) rather than back towards socialist relations (central planning, collectivization, moving towards abolishing the law of value, etc)? also why do these same reforms, which resemble capitalist relations, happen in various other socialist contexts like North Korea, Cuba, China, Vietnam?

well, why was the NEP carried out after War Communism and why did the Bolsheviks under Lenin see the need for state capitalism? And what is state capitalism and how does it function under the bourgeoisie and how does it function under the proletariat? Let's investigate!

Without big banks socialism would be impossible. The big banks are the 'state apparatus' which we need to bring about socialism, and which we take ready-made from capitalism; our task here is merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even more democratic, even more comprehensive. Quantity will be transformed into quality. A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods, this will be, so to speak, something like the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.

Lenin, October 1917

The state capitalism discussed in all books on economics is that which exists under the capitalist system, where the state brings under its direct control certain capitalist enterprises. But ours is a proletarian state it rests on the proletariat; it gives the proletariat all political privileges; and through the medium of the proletariat it attracts to itself the lower ranks of the peasantry (you remember that we began this work through the Poor Peasants Committees). That is why very many people are misled by the term state capitalism. To avoid this we must remember the fundamental thing that state capitalism in the form we have here is not dealt with in any theory, or in any books, for the simple reason that all the usual concepts connected with this term are associated with bourgeois rule in capitalist society. Our society is one which has left the rails of capitalism, but has not yet got on to new rails. The state in this society is not ruled by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat. We refuse to understand that when we say “state” we mean ourselves, the proletariat, the vanguard of the working class. State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.

Lenin, V.I., Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.), Mar 27th – Apr 2nd, 1922, Works, Volume 33, p.278, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973

The state capitalism that we have introduced in our country is of a special kind. It does not agree with the usual conception of state capitalism. We hold all the key positions. We hold the land; it belongs to the state. This is very important, although our opponents try to make out that it is of no importance at all. That is untrue. The fact that the land belongs to the state is extremely important, and economically it is also of great practical purport. This we have achieved, and I must say that all our future activities should develop only within that framework. We have already succeeded in making the peasantry content and in reviving both industry and trade. I have already said that our state capitalism differs from state capitalism in the literal sense of the term in that our proletarian state not only owns the land, but also all the vital branches of industry. To begin with, we have leased only a certain number of the small and medium plants, but all the rest remain in our hands. As regards trade, I want to re-emphasise that we are trying to found mixed companies, that we are already forming them, i.e., companies in which part of the capital belongs to private capitalists—and foreign capitalists at that—and the other part belongs to the state.

Lenin, V.I., Fourth Congress of the Communist International, November 5th to December 5th, 1922, Works, Volume 33, p.427-428, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973

It is in this field that the main struggle is being waged. Between what elements is this struggle being waged if we are to speak in terms of economic categories such as “state capitalism"? Between the fourth and the fifth in the order in which I have just enumerated them. Of course not. It is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie oppose every kind of state interference, accounting and control, whether it be state capitalist or state socialist. This is an absolutely unquestionable fact of reality, and the root of the economic mistake of the “Left Communists” is that they have failed to understand it. The profiteer, the commercial racketeer, the disrupter of monopoly—these are our principal “internal” enemies, the enemies of the economic measures of Soviet power. A hundred and twenty-five years ago it might have been excusable for the French petty bourgeoisie, the most ardent and sincere revolutionaries, to try to crush the profiteer by executing a few of the “chosen” and by making thunderous declamations. Today, however, the purely rhetorical attitude to this question assumed by some Left Socialist-Revolutionaries can rouse nothing but disgust and revulsion in every politically conscious revolutionary. We know perfectly well that the economic basis of profiteering is both the small proprietors, who are exceptionally widespread in Russia, and private capitalism, of which every petty bourgeois is an agent. We know that the million tentacles of this petty-bourgeois hydra now and again encircle various sections of the workers, that, instead of state monopoly, profiteering forces its way into every pore of our social and economic organism.

V. I. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Childishness. April 1918











David Laibman, "The 'State-Capitalist' and 'Bureaucratic-Exploitative' Interpretations of the Soviet Social Formation: A Critique," published in 'The Soviet Union: Socialist or Social-Imperialist?', 1983.

my ideas on modern China in my next post

Crow posted:

btw wrt to state capitalism, I just want to point out that multiple modes of production coexist side by side, but only one is dominant

As Lenin pointed out, there were, in the transitional period in the U.S.S.R., the following five forms of economy:

(1) Patriarchal peasant economy.
(2) Petty commodity production.
(3) The private economy of capitalism.
(4) State capitalism.
(5) Socialist economy.

Patriarchal peasant economy, based on personal labour, was a small-scale and largely natural economy. In other words, it produced almost exclusively for its own needs.

Petty commodity production was based on personal labour and connected to a greater or lesser degree with the market. This was primarily the middle-peasant economy, producing the bulk of marketed grain, as well as handicraft production without the use of hired labour. Petty commodity economy embraced the bulk of the population for a considerable part of the transitional period.

The private economy of capitalism was represented by the most numerous of the exploiting classes—the kulaks as well as by the owners of non-nationalised (mainly small and middling), industrial concerns and by traders. The capitalist concerns used hired labour, labour-power was a commodity, exploitation existed and surplus-value was appropriated by the capitalists.

State capitalism took the form mainly of concessions granted by the Soviet Government to foreign capitalists, and of certain State concerns rented to capitalists. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, State capitalism was essentially different from that existing under the domination of the bourgeoisie. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it is a form of economy which is strictly limited by the proletarian authority and is utilised by it in the struggle with petty-bourgeois disorganising influences and in the building of socialism. State capitalism occupied only a very small place in the economy of the U.S.S.R.

Socialist economy comprised, in the first place, the factories, mills, transport, banks, State farms, trading and other concerns belonging to the Soviet State. In the second place, it included the co-operatives—consumer, supply, credit and producer, including their highest form, the collective farms. The basis of socialist economy was large-scale machine industry. At the very outset of the transitional period, socialist economy, as the most advanced of these economic forms, began to playa leading role in the economy of the country.

In the socialist sector of the economy, labour-power ceased to be a commodity, labour lost the character of hired labour and became labour for the worker himself, for society. Surplus-value disappeared. The transition to planning of the work of nationalised concerns, first in particular industries and subsequently throughout the whole of the State sector, was gradually achieved. As a result of the establishment of social ownership of the means of production, the output of State concerns began to accrue to the State, that is to the whole of the working people, instead of the capitalists.

https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/pe/pe-ch23.htm

No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Socialist Soviet Republic implies the determination of Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the new economic system is recognised as a socialist order.

But what does the word “transition” mean? Does it not mean, as applied to an economy, that the present system contains elements, particles, fragments of both capitalism and socialism? Everyone will admit that it does. But not all who admit this take the trouble to consider what elements actually constitute the various socio-economic structures that exist in Russia at the present time. And this is the crux of the question.

Let us enumerate these elements:

1) patriarchal, i.e., to a considerable extent natural, peasant farming;

2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell their grain);

3) private capitalism;

4) state capitalism;

5) socialism.

Russia is so vast and so varied that all these different types of socio-economic structures are intermingled. This is what constitutes the specific features of the situation.

The question arises: what elements predominate? Clearly in a small-peasant country, the petty-bourgeois element predominates and it must predominate, for the great majority of those working the land are small commodity producers. The shell of our state capitalism (grain monopoly, state controlled entrepreneurs and traders, bourgeois co-operators) is pierced now in one place, now in another by profiteers, the chief object of profiteering being grain.

V. I. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Childishness. April 1918

In every form of society there is a particular [branch of] production which determines the position and importance of all the others, and the relations obtaining in this branch accordingly determine those in all other branches. It is the general light tingeing all other colours and modifying them in their specific quality; it is a special ether determining the specific gravity of everything found in it..

Marx, K. (2010). Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58. Marx & Engels Collected Works. Vol.28. Laurence and Wishart p.43

this should be taken in light of the modern socialist economies

Crow posted:

It is not state capitalism that is at war with socialism, but the petty bourgeoisie plus private capitalism fighting together against both state capitalism and socialism. The petty bourgeoisie oppose every kind of state interference, accounting and control, whether it be state capitalist or state socialist. This is an absolutely unquestionable fact of reality,

Lenin

"The production of capital and wage labourers is thus a chief product of capital’s valorization process. It is posited in the concept of capital, that the objective conditions of labour – and these are its own product – take on a personality towards it, or, what is the same, that they are posited as the property of a personality alien to the worker. The concept of capital contains the capitalist"

"The capitalist, as capitalist, is simply the personification of capital, that creation of labour endowed with its own will and personality which stands in opposition to labour. [. . .] But if one eliminates the capitalist, the means of production cease to be capital”

Marx, K. (2010). Economic Manuscript of 1861-1863. Marx & Engels Collected Works. Vol.32. Laurence and Wishart p.429)

"The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one."

(Marx, K. (2010). Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx & Engels Collected Works. Vol.24. Laurence and Wishart pp.87-88)

no state bourgeoisie existed in the ussr or cuba.

state capitalism cannot be the dominant MoP, as either private capitalism secured by the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie has to be dominant, or a proletarian state has to be in control of a dominant socialist MoP. a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie also must take power in a counterrevolution to destroy the concrete, proletarian organs of the state to secure a capitalist restoration, just as a proletarian state is built after revolution and the destruction of the bourgeois state.
Cheers,

HotCPotSU(B) chapter 9, pt 1 posted:

The Soviet state had been compelled to appropriate all surplus produce from the peasants for the needs of national defence. Victory in the Civil War would have been impossible without the surplus-appropriation system, without the policy of War Communism. This policy was necessitated by the war and intervention. As long as the war was on, the peasantry had acquiesced in the surplus-appropriation system and had paid no heed to the shortage of commodities; but when the war ended and there was no longer any danger of the landlords returning, the peasants began to express dissatisfaction with having to surrender all their surpluses, with the surplus-appropriation system, and to demand a sufficient supply of commodities.

As Lenin pointed out, the whole system of War Communism had come into collision with the interests of the peasantry.

The spirit of discontent affected the working class as well. The proletariat had borne the brunt of the Civil War, had heroically and self-sacrificingly fought the Whiteguard and foreign hordes, and the ravages of economic disruption and famine. The best, the most class-conscious, self-sacrificing and disciplined workers were inspired by Socialist enthusiasm. But the utter economic disruption had its influence on the working class, too. The few factories and plants still in operation were working spasmodically. The workers were reduced to doing odd jobs for a living, making cigarette lighters and engaging in petty bartering for food in the villages ("bag-trading"). The class basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat was being weakened; the workers were scattering, decamping for the villages, ceasing to be workers and becoming declassed. Some of the workers were beginning to show signs of discontent owing to hunger and weariness.

The Party was confronted with the necessity of working out a new line of policy on all questions affecting the economic life of the country, a line that would meet the new situation.

And the Party proceeded to work out such a line of policy on questions of economic development.

Victory in the war didnt mean an end to counter-revolutionary actions by a wide range of counter-rev forces though:

But the class enemy was not dozing. He tried to exploit the distressing economic situation and the discontent of the peasants for his own purposes. Kulak revolts, engineered by Whiteguards and Socialist-Revolutionaries, broke out in Siberia, the Ukraine and the Tambov province (Antonov's rebellion). All kinds of counter-revolutionary elements — Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Anarchists, Whiteguards, bourgeois nationalists—became active again. The enemy adopted new tactics of struggle against the Soviet power. He began to borrow a Soviet garb, and his slogan was no longer the old bankrupt "Down with the Soviets!" but a new slogan: "For the Soviets, but without Communists!"

A glaring instance of the new tactics of the class enemy was the counter-revolutionary mutiny in Kronstadt. It began in March 1921, a week before the Tenth Party Congress. Whiteguards, in complicity with Socialist-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and representatives of foreign states, assumed the lead of the mutiny. The mutineers at first used a "Soviet" signboard to camouflage their purpose of restoring the power and property of the capitalists and landlords. They raised the cry: "Soviets without Communists!" The counter-revolutionaries tried to exploit the discontent of the petty bourgeois masses in order to overthrow the power of the Soviets under a pseudo-Soviet slogan.

And so here's what they agreed to do to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat and strengthen peace and love between the workers and peasants:

HotCPotSU(B) chapter 9, pt 2 posted:

The Central Committee of the Party, its Leninist majority, saw clearly that now that the war was over and the country had turned to peaceful economic development, there was no longer any reason for maintaining the rigid regime of War Communism—the product of war and blockade.

The Central Committee realized that the need for the surplus-appropriation system had passed, that it was time to supersede it by a tax in kind so as to enable the peasants to use the greater part of their surpluses at their own discretion. The Central Committee realized that this measure would make it possible to revive agriculture, to extend the cultivation of grain and industrial crops required for the development of industry, to revive the circulation of commodities, to improve supplies to the towns, and to create a new foundation, an economic foundation for the alliance of workers and peasants.

The Central Committee realized also that the prime task was to revive industry, but considered that this could not be done without enlisting the support of the working class and its trade unions; it considered that the workers could be enlisted in this work by showing them that the economic disruption was just as dangerous an enemy of the people as the intervention and the blockade had been, and that the Party and the trade unions could certainly succeed in this work if they exercised their influence on the working class not by military commands, as had been the case at the front, where commands were really essential, but by methods of persuasion, by convincing it.

As for how it worked out:

HotCPotSU(B) chapter 9, pt 3 posted:

The correctness of the New Economic Policy was proved in its very first year. Its adoption served greatly to strengthen the alliance of workers and peasants on a new basis. The dictatorship of the proletariat gained in might and strength. Kulak banditry was almost completely liquidated. The middle peasants, now that the surplus-appropriation system had been abolished, helped the Soviet Government to fight the kulak bands. The Soviet Government retained all the key positions in the economic field: large-scale industry, the means of transport, the banks, the land, and home and foreign trade. The Party achieved a definite turn for the better on the economic front. Agriculture soon began to forge ahead. Industry and the railways could record their first successes. An economic revival began, still very slow but sure. The workers and the peasants felt and perceived that the Party was on the right track.

and dont forget that trotsky was a shit:

It was Trotsky who started the discussion and the fight against Lenin, against the Leninist majority of the Central Committee. With the intention of aggravating the situation, he came out at a meeting of Communist delegates to the Fifth All-Russian Trade Union Conference, held at the beginning of November 1920, with the dubious slogans of "tightening the screws" and "shaking up the trade unions." Trotsky demanded that the trade unions be immediately "governmentalized." He was against the use of persuasion in relations with the working class, and was in favour of introducing military methods in the trade unions. Trotsky was against any extension of democracy in the trade unions, against the principle of electing trade union bodies.

this is the book for you: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/

edit: 2 =/= 9

Edited by tears (May 20, 2016 21:49:41)

Synergy posted:

im a babby at revoluntionary politics so tell me why lenin seemed to embrace state capitalism

alternatively you could investigate why the NEP happened on your own by asking for specific books instead of lazily asking people to give you the same received history youve gotten for your entire life