Was the USSR state capitalism or socialism?

Trotsky dedicated his entire life to the USSR and consistently heaped mountains of praise upon it well after it descended into Stalinist bureaucracy.

Please actually read the people you criticize.

This. Trotsky was a faggot, but to say he was just secret anti-communism fascism is ridiculous. He outright ordered his followers in the USSR NOT to interfere with Stalin as it could fracture the party and cause chaos. Not to mention his proposed policies, such as the labor army and forced collectivization were also supported by Stalin.

Imperialism was literally just describing the way capitalism had gone at the time of its writing and continues to be to the present day. There is not a single untrue thing written in that book.

If it 'revises' Marx (it doesn't), then Marx was wrong.

...

Not that guy, but I see a lot of tankies saying "USSR wasn't imperialist if we go by Lenin's definition", which sounds like bollocks to me

Did the workers control the means of production in any form? If they didn't then it's just state capitalism

Please read Marx before you come back, kiddo.

They're wrong.

It doesn't fit Lenin's definition of *capitalist* imperialism, but Lenin was very clear that imperialism can and does occur under different modes of production than capitalism.

Lenin's definition is not unique to Lenin it was developed first by pro-imperialist Americans and liberals like Hobson.

you obviously don't know what you're talking about. End products weren't produced for profit until the 60s.

It was lower-stage communism AKA socialism.

I should have been more specific. When Lenin writes in State and Revolution there is a passage he writes that goes " and so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent–and to that extent alone–"bourgeois law" disappears."

Isn't Lenin referring to Marx's writing of The Critique of Gotha Programme where he mentions "first stage" and a "higher stage" of communism?

I would say during the time the bolsheviks seized power and Lenin dying.

The USSR was not capitalist but had not yet reached the lower stage of communism. It was in the process of abolishing capitalism via the DotP state apparatus; it was a transitory state, a mode of production that couldn't (and didn't) last in its form indefinitely.

See pic

So there was no commodity production, state, classes, wage labor and private property? Interesting.

This is the issue I get stuck when I talk about this with LeftComs. They say marx never meant socialism to be the lower stage and quote me Engels' book Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

Well to say it's capitalist it's absolutely ludicrous. Most of the production was for us and not for exchange, there was no private property and no bourgeois class, no surplus extraction, no markets (obviously cause no production for exchange) and the workers collectively owned the means of production. To even assume this is capitalism one must go through a dozen mental gymnastics and actually revising Marx by narrowing him down in insane ways. Marx was very clear that the first stage communism (socialism) still carries on defects from the former capitalist society, and this is obviously the case when socialism isn't global.

Criticisms usually boil down to "muh law of value" and commodity production. The Bolsheviks themselves discussed it actually pretty intensely wether of not the USSR entertained commodity production, and their conclusion was that it had commodity production in some form, but not capitalist commodity production. Socialist commodity production is not for exchange in the capitalist sense, but since the law of value still operates in a planned economy, it is fair to speak of commodity production but its a socialist commodity production: Which means the labor market won't be under artifical pressure through a reserve army of labor, or incentives to push down wages and increase work days.

The two defining characteristics of capitalism are, class struggle between the capitalist class and the working class, and anarchy of production.

Neither of those two criteria existed in the USSR and therefore it can not be considered a capitalist state.

More like Dictator of the Party Elite, faggot.

Appending "dialectic" to everything won't make you right.

Fucking where?

LOL

You could only be nominated for a soviet by a cooperative, a worker council, a trade union, etc. Capitalists were oppressed in the USSR, such as workers get oppressed in a liberal democracy, which constitutionally guarantees private property and freedom of contract.

read this you moronic leftcoms
marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html

The Party was taken over by a self-interested bureaucracy, but it was still founded by the workers on the basis of proletarian interests.

The State was founded as the central mechanism of a collection soviets and communes, i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat.

It morphed, degenerated, and disfigured itself into a bureaucratic monstrosity, but its fundamental class nature never changed.

Nobody owned the surplus value created by the workers. Bureaucrats used it and abused it for their own gain, but it did NOT belong to them; they couldn't invest it or direct it of their own accord.

Read State and Revolution.
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

What exactly caused the downfall of the USSR?
And also, what kind of economic system the USSR had?
I swear, this stuff isn't specified anywhere on history books and my low knowledge of the english language prevents me from actually reading decent books (rather than the usual propaganda "eh it failed because they were reds") on the matter.
This seemed like a good thread to ask those questions.

Class struggle like in capitalism didn't exist because that would imply that the mode of production would operate against the workers interest. Since there was no unemployment and no profit motive to drive down wages and prolog work days, along with the fact that there was no surplus extraction. Class struggle existed insofar as the proletariat was actually in charge and smited surges of capitalism. Only in communism you will have absolutely no classes, and then the state will cease to exist.

It was bizarro socialism.
They had the revolution first and then industrialized.

I pretty much agree. But when I do look for sources like Richard Wolf's book New Departures in Marxian Theory he mentions The only sector that belonged to the "State" was the Industrial sector so any 'surplus' from that went to the government to decide how to use it. Any sources that can challenge this?

would this be just a transitory state? Where eventually the 'state' that operates in a planned economy wither away? Sorry if i am completely misinterpreting you.

pastebin.com/6xU1eqX9
read a book

Why is this even a question? Lenin coined the term State-Capitalism to describe the transition period he set up. Stalin halted that progress and basically just said "THIS is communism" from being lazy and wanting to stay in power.

They are not, that's a ridiculous statement. Capitalism is generalized commodity production. Whether class struggle and anarchy of production are minimized (not fully abolished as it will happen in communism) is irrelevant.

Stop samefagging, it's annoying.

the USSR left the socialist path in the 1950s and began restoring capitalism. Eventually this lead to complete restoration of capitalism in 1991.

Socialism is an unstable, transitional state between capitalism and communism and
the USSR, as well as the other socialist countries, eventually started transitioning back to capitalism due to errors in their leadership, the fact global revolution didn't spread fast enough, and due to imperialist pressures.

t. M-L-M perspective

It's just interchangeable terms. The key thing is that Marx already recognized that there would be remnants of capitalism in early stage communism, just as there were remnants of feudalism in early capitalism. Demanding pure communism from the USSR is ridiculous.

Pro-profiteering reforms did not happen until 1965, after Khrushchev was ousted. I'd like more from your perspective.

You are just wrong.

Commodity production is not the defining characteristic of capitalism. Marx did not say capitalism would collapse because commodity production sucks; he said it would collapse because of the irresolvable class antagonisms between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Cockshott guy here, I'm not samefagging. Are you really so fucking lazy you're unwilling to read a few paragraphs? Holla Forums tier tbh.
pastebin.com/6xU1eqX9
pastebin.com/6xU1eqX9
pastebin.com/6xU1eqX9

I'm not samefagging, stop deflecting.

TIL that collectivization was the result of Stalin stopping progress and being lazy.

Although the market reforms weren't introduced until after 1965, Khrushchev began implementing a distorted, nationalist application of marxism-lenininsm that gave rise to and made necessary the market reforms. You could argue that this actually started before Khrushchev, but the exact date is of little importance.

I don't have time to get into it too much but this can be best seen in Khrushchev's "peaceful competition", "Communism in 20 years", and "peaceful coexistence" lines.

I'm not even going to reply to this. I don't debate liberals.

Even if you aren't samefagging (which I doubt), you are as annoying and childish.

Yes, but the surplus was reinvested, not appropriated. Not sure what Wolff's point is? Economic planning through GOSPLAN involved thousends of individuals, not a bunch of Politburo members. I recommend Man and Plan in Soviet Economy:

archive.org/details/ManAndPlanInSovietEconomy

Yes, of course, but this has something to do with the fact that the USSR was in direct competition with the West. I don't really see how that could wither away unless there is a world revolution.

You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Marx viewed all previous and contemporary socioeconomic systems (at least in Western Europe) as stemming from and requiring a conflict between the interests of the ruling class and the interest of the ruled class. The specific nature of these classes, their interests, and the conflict between them is what defines the mode of production.

I'm seriously starting to suspect that you haven't actually read Marx.

Actually read Stalin before you strawman him

I'm glad Marx was actually more nuanced than you

A
FEW
PARAGRAPHS

Yes, I was confused at his definition also. He kept adding that other socialist see that the USSR did not follow what Marx said socialism was. Thank you for the source.

>archive.org/details/ManAndPlanInSovietEconomy
>ISMAIL
wtf is he a book scanner?

Yeah. I just googled it and the first result for it was a scan by Ismail lmao

I have read that. I guess I also meant if Lenin did concur with Marx and Engels' writings. The reason I ask is this is the issue i end up with leftcoms saying "No nation so far has even come close to building a real Marx Engels Communist society. " And that Lenin twisted their writings

Additionally to that, I'd like to add that the Soviet worker control was mostly organized via unions. Basic wage negotiations for the entire state-owned industry for example were carried out between the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the leading state economic authorities (GOSPLAN), with taking in account the entire nations income and the allocation thereof. By determining the total amount to be set as wages for the workers as a whole, the needs of the government for administration expenses, for national defense, expansion of industry, education, social insurance, etc. had also to be provided for. The final draft at was then sent out to the masses for discussion, which review it.

Wolff has this unhealthy fetish about turning every firm into a voting booth. Collective worker control in a planned economy is a little bit more complicated to organize (even though direct worker control through councils and democratic coops actually did exist as well).

for

Didn't Lenin say that socialism can start in one country?

It can START in one country, but it can't continue indefinitely in one country.

I'd say that this also depends on the country, the USA for example has the space, the resources, the military and the population to theoretically become completely autarcical from the outside world.

You'd have to be a utopian idiot to think that revolution will happen simultaneously worldwide.

Thank you this help cleared up misconceptions and more details of the what consisted in their economic planning process.

Interesting. Do you have documents on this? I'm sure a ton of people here would like to read up on it. Is there any documentation of how often or little they were overridden by the party? For example, early republican Libya had direct democratic councils, and Gadaffi heeded by them several times, but also ignored them whenever it concerned limiting his own power, and later (after an attempted coup) gutted them and used them primarily as a means of spying on potential enemies.

The law of value only operates when there is market exchange. Of course, this by itself does not mean that wherever there is any trace of the law of value there is capitalism. Markets existed long before capitalism (hence so too did an embryonic form of the law of value), and only when production for exchange became dominant under capitalism did the law of value become the governing principle of the economy.

Indeed, but he also spoke about which aspects remained and which were eliminated. In particular:
(Critique of the Gotha Programme)
which implies that market exchange and the law of value would not exist at all under communism/socialism. Based on what you describe, it seems you are essentially arguing that the USSR operated under a non-capitalistic mode of production which had some minimal forms of market exchange, but this would not be communism/socialism (at least according to Marx).

...

Which is true btw. That doesn't mean you can't criticise their foreign policy, it just wasn't imperialism, in the Leninist sense.

How wasn't it imperialism? By Lenin's definition, any sufficiently advanced capitalist country that seeks to monopolize resources/capital is imperialist in nature. USSR maintained the commodity form, maintained a central bank, maintained a form of currency and markets during and after Lenin. So tell me, how was the USSR not imperialist?

THAT WAS THE FUCKING NEP YOU MORON

A another thread about USSR.
stop the fetishization of that failed opportunity.

In what sense was the USSR socialist?
Here we base ourselves on the classical Marxist analysis of society. In Marx’s
view, the most basic distinguishing feature of different modes of social organisation
is the manner in which they ensure the ‘extraction of a surplus product’
from the direct producers. This requires a little explanation. The ‘necessary
product’, on this theory, is the product required to maintain and reproduce the
workforce itself. This will take the form of consumer goods and services for the
workers and their families, and the investment in plant, equipment and so on
that is needed simply to maintain the society’s means of production in working
order. The ‘surplus product’, on the other hand, is that portion of social output
used to maintain the non-producing members of society (a heterogeneous lot,
ranging from the idle rich, to politicians, to the armed forces, to retired working
people), plus that portion devoted to net expansion of the stock of means of
production. Any society capable of supporting non-producing members, and
of generating an economically progressive programme of net investment, must
have some mechanism for compelling or inducing the direct producers to produce
more than is needed simply to maintain themselves. The precise nature of
this mechanism is, according to Marxist theory, the key to understanding the
society as a whole—not just the ‘economy’, but also the general form of the state
and of politics. Our claim is that the Soviet system put into effect a mode of
extraction of the surplus product quite different from that of capitalism. To put
this point in context, some more general historical background may be useful.
Consider, first, the distinction between feudal and capitalist society. Under
feudalism, the extraction of a surplus product was plainly ‘visible’ to all.
The specific forms were various, but one typical method involved the peasants
working their own fields for so many days in the week, and the lord’s land for
the rest. Alternatively, the peasants might have to surrender a portion of the
produce of their own fields to the lord. If such a society is to reproduce itself,
the direct producers must be held in some form of direct subordination or servitude;
political and legal equality is out of the question. A religious ideology
that speaks of the distinct ‘places’ allotted to individuals on this earth and of
the virtues of knowing one’s proper place, and that promises a heavenly reward
for those who fulfill their role in God’s earthly scheme, will also be very useful.
Under capitalism, on the other hand, the extraction of the surplus product
becomes ‘invisible’ in the form of the wage contract. The parties to the contract
are legal equals, each bringing their property to the market and conducting a
voluntary transaction. No bell rings in the factory to announce the end of the
portion of the working day spent producing the equivalent of the workers’ wages,
and the beginning of the production of profits for the employer. Nonetheless,
the workers’ wages are substantially less than the total value of the product
they generate: this is the basis of Marx’s theory of exploitation. The degree
of exploitation that is realised depends on the struggle between workers and
capitalists, in its various forms: over the level of wages, over the pace of production
and the length of the working day, and over the changes in technology
that determine how much labour time is required to produce a given quantum
of wage-goods.

Soviet socialism, particularly following the introduction of the first five-year
plan under Stalin in the late 1920s, introduced a new and non-capitalist mode of
extraction of a surplus. This is somewhat obscured by the fact that workers were
still paid ruble wages, and that money continued in use as a unit of account in
the planned industries, but the social content of these ‘monetary forms’ changed
drastically. Under Soviet planning, the division between the necessary and
surplus portions of the social product was the result of political decisions. For
the most part, goods and labour were physically allocated to enterprises by
the planning authorities, who would always ensure that the enterprises had
enough money to ‘pay for’ the real goods allocated to them. If an enterprise
made monetary ‘losses’, and therefore had to have its money balances topped
up with ‘subsidies’, that was no matter. On the other hand, possession of
money as such was no guarantee of being able to get hold of real goods. By
the same token, the resources going into production of consumer goods were
centrally allocated. Suppose the workers won higher ruble wages: by itself this
would achieve nothing, since the flow of production of consumer goods was not
responsive to the monetary amount of consumer spending. Higher wages would
simply mean higher prices or shortages in the shops. The rate of production
of a surplus was fixed when the planners allocated resources to investment in
heavy industry and to the production of consumer goods respectively.
In very general terms this switch to a planned system, where the the division
of necessary and surplus product is the result of deliberate social decision, is
entirely in line with what Marx had hoped for. Only Marx had imagined this
‘social decision’ as being radically democratic, so that the production of the
surplus would have an intrinsic legitimacy. The people, having made the decision
to devote so much of their combined labour to net investment and the support of
non-producers, would then willingly implement their own decision. For reasons
both external and internal, Soviet society at the time of the introduction of
economic planning was far from democratic. How, then, could the workers be
induced or compelled to implement the plan (which, although it was supposedly
formulated in their interests, was certainly not of their making)?
We know that the plans were, by and large, implemented. The 1930s saw
the development of a heavy industrial base at unprecedented speed, a base that
would be severely tested in the successful resistance to the Nazi invasion. We are
also well aware of the characteristic features of the Stalin era, with its peculiar
mixture of terror and forced labour on the one hand, and genuine pioneering
fervour on the other. Starting from the question of how the extraction of a
surplus product was possible in a planned but undemocratic system, the cult
of Stalin’s personality appears not as a mere ‘aberration’, but as an integral
feature of the system. Stalin: at once the inspirational leader, making up in
determination and grit for what he lacked in eloquence and capable of promoting
a sense of participation in a great historic endeavour, and the stern and utterly
ruthless liquidator of any who failed so to participate (and many others besides).

Fucking hell you really should divided this into a few paragraphs.

(I know it's from TANS)

marxists.org/archive/mandel/1969/08/statecapitalism.htm

marxists.org/archive/mandel/1951/06/statecap.htm

Yes I probably should have done it

degenerated workers state

In terms of it's constitution/mission: yes
In terms of it's material conditions: not quite

communism > socialism > state capitalism > capitalism

How is this fucking fetishizing the USSR you stupid fuck? I just want to know what actually happened. If it was a failed opportunity as you call it. It would make sense to any Marxist to understand the USSR.

*to understand what actually happened in the USSR

...

I am seriously looking for sources. If you can't argue for or against the USSR then fuck off

Regular old capitalism. "State" capitalism would be justified if capital was under the whims of the State. Would be, because it wasn't just not the case in the USSR, but never will be: capital is a parasitic subject that must be violently attacked and done away with.

I find it hilarious to see arguments in favor of the USSR, notably with the belief that it is beyond the often-accused "state capitalism" and was indeed post-capitalistic and socialist, that look at how it rapidly grew GDP and other measurements of value representative of a total national capital. It would almost make one see that the USSR still knew wage-labourers; workers; proletarians, and that the capitalist productive relationship was nowhere done away with.

For opponents and supporters of the USSR alike, PDF related should be an interesting read. It examines the various Trotskyist characterizations of the USSR (usually as "state capitalist"), as well as some ultra-left characterizations (usually either a type of Taylorist capitalism, or just plain old capitalism).

OP here Thanks I will def take a look

But wasn't this because it was still under the phase "dictatorship of the proletariat"? so it would make sense that there were still remnants of capitalism like we still have remnants of feudalism?

A dictatorship of the proletariat only representatively proletarian in the upper echelons of the Politburo?

A proletarian dictatorship that never was let to smash the chains of the capitalistic productive relationship and was told to keep producing commodities the private State proprietor, with the promise that one day, scarcity (under value production LOL) would end and we would have those Full Communisms?

A proletarian dictatorship that actively repressed workers' autonomous attempts at going further left and beyond their productivistic reality of a pseudo-stagism towards nothing?

A proletarian dictatorship where the above was totally socialism, but ended when those darn revisionists had the bad ideas after Stalin died?

Please just read the text.

Nobody ITT actually argued with that. Strawman.
False. Proofs.
Proofs.
That maybe so but you should really try to make an actual argument in your post sometime. I mean you start with massive bait by saying that the USSR is like regular capitalism, which is quite a bold claim but then don't actually make a point people can argue against.

Ergo the law of value still exists in socialism when there still remnants from the previous mode of production.
What part of that quote contradicts the way production operated in the USSR?
Market exchange didn't exist in the USSR, and the law of value operated differently. Engels argued that in primitive socialist accumulation, the value form is almost identical to the use value, but deviations which occur in economic planning have to be taken in account, but the law of value has been utilized at that point, it doesn't as a "natural law" amongst producers.
The Method of Theoretical Analysis of Soviet Economy, Eugene Preobrazhensky

Bullshit. That's pure trotskyist propaganda. Only members of worker organizations, such as trade unions, cooperatives, worker councils etc. were eligible to be nominated for a soviet. I explained earlier how the trade union system worked.
First, arguments pls. Also, production and goods were allocated by use, and the GOSPLAN had a thousend people working for it. How can you argue that the state undertook the role of a private proprietor? It's not like the USSR was a kleptocracy,
The old argument of "it's only 'the real movement' when it gets the ultraleft sign of apporval"
Not every system is infailable, especially in the conditions the USSR was in. It is in now legit to deterministically claim that revisionism had to happen because it was somehow build in the system. You'll never fully erase the human element from history, especially in a state of insane pressure like the USSR.

It is in no way legit*

is this bait? pure idealism

I don't get where your hostility is coming from but besides the text where are the collaborating sources about this? I understand the issues with the USSR beaucracy however
I have yet to find many objective sources that claim workers did not have a say in production before the 1960s

when did this happen before Krushev?

this is disingenuous. I think many leftist agree Stalin was not perfect and do you deny Yeltsin and khrushchevv did not play a hand in turning the USSR to a complete capitlistic state? Or do you think that if Trosky was in power the USSR would have been successful?