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 Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2006 8:31 pm
Another M-Mann thread.
How do you view the Soviet Union? Did it start okay under Lenin and then go horribly wrong under Stalin? Was it good under Lenin, then Stalin but after his death do bad? Or was it crappy straight from the begining.
Me I had some problems with it during Stalin and saw the Expierement go horrible wrong. What went wrong?
What went wrong with the Soviet Union?
-Soviet workers' councils abolished in favor of state bureaucracy for all or most industries.
-Community farms abolished in favor of bureaucratically controlled farms.
-Centralization of authority and economy.
-Centralization of the state.
-Government representatives composed of members from an elite techno-bureaucratic class instead of the government being composed of delegates chosen from within the ranks of the proletariat.
-Hierarchicalization of trade unions.
-Democratic centralization of unions, they grew to resemble the pyramid-like capitalist structure.
-The bureaucracy became an elite class uncontrolled and not composed of the proletariat. It became a closed-party class system.
-Constant aggression and pressure from the West.
-Getting into an arms race with the West and scrambling to mimic Western imperialism.
-Expensive Space Race.
-Mass discontent from the working class and constant civil political upheaval.
-Abandonment of internationalism in favor of a type of mock-imperialism.
-Economic and political sabotage from the capitalist West.
-Rapid industrialization which caused mass discontent (but ironically was necessary for the Soviets to win the war against Nazi Germany).
-As the economy became more advanced and diversified, the government refused to decentralize.
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:02 pm
Quote: -Soviet workers' councils abolished in favor of state bureaucracy for all or most industries. if the industry was looked after by the bureaucracy which was completely dominated by the soviets, there would be no problem. i think you have a little too much anti-bureaucracy bent in you... Quote: -Community farms abolished in favor of bureaucratically controlled farms. incorrect. the peasants had private farms based on the family unit, just like normal peasants. stalin forcibly collectivised them. the problem was not the collectivisation, but the forcoble nature of it. Quote: -Centralization of authority and economy. this is nessessary, otherwise you have little local units oppoerating by themselves. if all industry is unified in one political structure, one can have efficient central planning. please note: i do realise the inneficiencies of the stalinist bureaucracy, i am merely stating that central planning is preferable to local, and when done democraticaly as opposed to bureaucraticaly, it is actually highly efficient. Quote: -Centralization of the state. there is nothing wrong with this in itself, but rather the stalinist degeneration which this was occasioned by. Quote: -The bureaucracy became an elite class uncontrolled and not composed of the proletariat. It became a closed-party class system. the bureaucracy was not a class. it had not property rights specific to itself. this is shown that such a caste can only arise in a backward period in a workers state. it requires the proletarian property forms to exist, but these very property forms prevent any monopolisation of property in antagonism to the workers. the ruling bureaucracy in the degenerated and deformed workers states has political control, that is, it controles the functions of the state -army, legislative, judiciary- but not property. Quote: -Getting into an arms race with the West and scrambling to mimic Western imperialism. the getting into an arms race was inevitable once the option of 'socialism in one country' was chosen. and how did it mimic imperialism? imperialism is the annexation and controle through both overt and covert political and economic means in order to secure cheap labour. the soviet union did not use cheap labour, all labour of the same type was given the same remuneration. Quote: -Abandonment of internationalism in favor of a type of mock-imperialism. i repeate again, what imperialism? Quote: -Economic and political sabotage from the capitalist West. it was not until the end that imperialism had any penetration into the SU... Quote: -Rapid industrialization which caused mass discontent (but ironically was necessary for the Soviets to win the war against Nazi Germany). no, this was good. it was just the manner which caused the discontent, not the industrialisation. and anyway, are we sposed to have a workers state in which the majority of the workers were killed trying to defend it, leaving the state with no industry and no proletariat? would you have us base socialism on the peasants alone? Quote: -As the economy became more advanced and diversified, the government refused to decentralize. 1: why should the state decentralise if the economy gets modernised? 2: do you really expect the stalinists to actually do it?
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Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:53 pm
Well, a few thoughts here. I'm going to take this time to address the early Soviet Union, I'll deal with the later SU at a later date. Note as well that this deals solely on what went wrong, rather than what went right.
Part of the inherent weakness began at the beginning, with Lenin. To quote an old proverb, one should not count one's chickens before they hatch. The same applies to worldwide socialist revolutions. Lenin was counting on aid from European nations such as Germany, so when their revolutions didn't succeed, he had no supply of resources. So of course there weren't enough resources to ease the transition, there wasn't enough food to provide for the people. So, Lenin was pretty much forced into backsliding from socialism through the NEP, in order to save the economy from a total collapse.
Personally I think Lenin liked his dictatorship a little too much as well, but that's just my opinion, and aside from that he was a fairly good leader. Pity he didn't live long enough to put all of his theories into practice though.
And I'll address other leaders, as mentioned, at a later time.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:02 pm
ok, i have a few things to say about what you said:
1. are you saying that the october revolution should not have happened?
2.it is not the leaders that actually matter, but the bureaucracy. if the bureaucracy didnt like the leaders, they got rid of them. so the leaders are not the problem. the problem is the policies themselves and the bureaucracy which allows them.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:14 pm
Gracchvs ok, i have a few things to say about what you said: 1. are you saying that the october revolution should not have happened? 2.it is not the leaders that actually matter, but the bureaucracy. if the bureaucracy didnt like the leaders, they got rid of them. so the leaders are not the problem. the problem is the policies themselves and the bureaucracy which allows them. No, I am saying that it could have been carried out more effectively if some foresight would have been used. There were a lot of problems in Tsarist Russia, and even when one looks at the dreaded KGB of the Soviet system one often fails to remember the also dreaded Ohkrana under the tsars, and the oppression which occurred. And then after the February Revolution, the government was backsliding in the same direction. But the October Revolution could have been even more effective if plans for provisions for the nation could have been made, if some foresight were exercised perhaps the famines could have been averted, and the entire need for the NEP. And although the bureacracy was a major factor, under the Stalin years, and the Great Terror, Stalin was the one with the power, and he could control the bureacracy through force.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:28 pm
how do you provision a state in which there is almost no food, which you are appealing to the lack of food as a means to power? if there was food enough to feed people and make provisions, the revolution would not have happened, at least not in october. Quote: And although the bureacracy was a major factor, under the Stalin years, and the Great Terror, Stalin was the one with the power, and he could control the bureacracy through force. it was throughout the whole history of the union, from late 22 when it started to become a factor, and 24 when it won controle, all the way through to 91 when the state was finaly declare dead. stalin could not use his power without the will of the bureaucracy, that and his leadership was exercised in favour of the bureaucracy. it was due to the victory of the bureaucracy over the workers democracy in 24 that resulted in stalin getting power. it was not some sort of 'will to power' as the bourgeoisie would have you believe.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:40 pm
Gracchvs how do you provision a state in which there is almost no food, which you are appealing to the lack of food as a means to power? if there was food enough to feed people and make provisions, the revolution would not have happened, at least not in october. Quote: And although the bureacracy was a major factor, under the Stalin years, and the Great Terror, Stalin was the one with the power, and he could control the bureacracy through force. it was throughout the whole history of the union, from late 22 when it started to become a factor, and 24 when it won controle, all the way through to 91 when the state was finaly declare dead. stalin could not use his power without the will of the bureaucracy, that and his leadership was exercised in favour of the bureaucracy. it was due to the victory of the bureaucracy over the workers democracy in 24 that resulted in stalin getting power. it was not some sort of 'will to power' as the bourgeoisie would have you believe. You make provisions by carefully budgeting what resources you do have in order to provide at least a bare minimum to as many people as possible. You form alliances, you encourage production, you make your plans so that you can get your economy back on track as soon as possible. You rely on noone else if you can help it when making plans. When help comes through, view it as a plus, but don't count on it.
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Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 10:56 pm
that would work in a country that wasnt suffering from an inter-imperialist war at the same time as a civil war, peasant unrest and droughts
too bad the revolution didnt happen in that universe.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:18 am
I think the CCCP went down hill after Stalin became Party Secretary and Lenin died. He (Lenin) regreted on his death bed that he put Stalin in such a powerful position and didn't want him in charge. It should have been Trotsky after the death of Lenin, not Stalin.
Also, there were some serious ills after and during Stalin's rule. The internal power structure within the party and in the Kremlin were in constant chaos. A subtle chaos in which the only sure position was Stalin's. And after he died (Stalin), there was no set or fair way to control the country.
After Stalin's death, the leaders didn't put forward any new ten year plans that had rallied the youth. They did the same thing year after year and the system stopped growing.
Lenin saw the train off at the station, Stalin killed the driver because it was going to slow. Krustev(sp) said "Let's try to revive the driver," Breznev(sp) said "Wait, lets turn on some music and pretend the train is going". Gorbachev then said "Gentlemen, let's get out and push."
That's a joke I heard in a book made in 1990, sorry about butchering the names.
Lenin made one big mistake in my opinion, he promised the nations they're independance then never followed through. Really big mistake that would rear it's ugly head in 1989...
I have more complaints on what they did... but most of it can be traced back to Stalin, I don't like him if you haven't noticed.
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Posted: Wed Jul 19, 2006 8:18 pm
Dark_Lord_Takai I have more complaints on what they did... but most of it can be traced back to Stalin, I don't like him if you haven't noticed. Most of us don't. He was a paranoid psychopath whose actions were in no way representative of his ideology but yet continue to give we as communists a bad name.
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