How does calling the USSR "state capitalist" make any sense? They had social ownership...

How does calling the USSR "state capitalist" make any sense? They had social ownership, surplus value was accrued to the society as a whole and they eliminated markets for the most part.

Why is it so triggering to say that it was a flawed, early form of socialism that was eventually destroyed? Socialism isn't something that can only happen when we have superabundance, Marx didn't even think this, rationing happens in a post-revolutionary society depending on the conditions and level of development.

Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm
country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9558.html
youtube.com/watch?v=Okz2YMW1AwY
marxists.org/archive/mandel/1969/08/statecapitalism.htm
ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1951/theory_of_statecapitalism.htm
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How?

Because admitting the USSR was socialist would mean having to actually engage with its failures.

so you admit surplus value exists?
Guess it was capitalism after all.

Bullshit, there's been hundreds of different left wing critiques of the USSR which tried to examine why it failed and what needs to be done differently in the future.

Literally read Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Because socialism is the radical expansion of democracy into the workplace. No democracy, no socialism.

Where does he say this and also where can I read more about pre and post scarcity socialism

The Leftcom critiques are garbage, they all utopian and never take in account material conditions the USSR had to work with. According to Leftcom critiques, the USSR seized to be a DotP once war communism ended. The Hohxaist/Maoist critiques are way more useful, they are grounded in realty and analyze why and when the USSR abandoned its path to communism.

This, more or less.

Though I'd specify that the USSR (especially post-civil war USSR) is much more accurately described as in a transitory state between capitalism and socialism as commodity production and wage labor still existed.

But that's exactly what their analysis is based off of. You're basically saying that because it was a difficult task we should throw them a bone by deluding ourselves into thinking the USSR achieved socialism.

state capitalism was a transitioning period named by Lenin like this
marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm

nope


nope


nope, and markets aren't the only form of economy under capitalism.

Why would you ask this here instead of bothering to read a well stated argument, unless you're intentionally trying to find weak strawmen.

kys

Are you seriously claiming the USSR didn't have social ownership? That's a new low

state ownership=/=social ownership
the soviets functioned as rubber stamps, just look at how almost all eastern bloc leaders stayed in power till their death

The USSR had workplace democracy in various forms. Its workplace democracy wasn't as good as it is in North Korea, but it still existed.

...

this is the tankiest post I've ever seen

Queue Lenin's "dictatorship of the MOP quotes".

Quit drinking the tankie kool-aid retard

The go-to liberal argument against proletarian democracy. Witness accounts pretty much confirm you could say whatever you want in the Soviets and often the preferred party candidate wasn't elected. The USSR wasn't a parliamentarian representive democracy but a direct participatory democracy.

Also, what are trade unions, worker councils, cooperatives and the mass party?

country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9558.html
North Korea has workplace democracy.

The Critique of the Gotha programme.


Not only that but the whole state acted as a huge company with the purpose of accumulating capital and employed its citizens as wage labourers.

Literally you don't know what you're talking about. In the Grundrisse Marx says:

"In the succession of the economic categories, as in any other historical, social science, it must not be forgotten that their subject – here, modern bourgeois society – is always what is given, in the head as well as in reality, and that these categories therefore express the forms of being, the characteristics of existence"

Categories which correspond to Capitalist production like "value", "profit", "price" etc only appear on the basis of certain preconditions which must be met. It's why Marx spends time on the value-form in the beginning of Capital to try and show how by merely taking these categories for granted, we miss exactly what social relations lead to them arising. Marx never says anything about there being exchange or surplus value in socialism. This amounts to an absurdity, socialism is capitalism. When he says the same principle prevails which regulates commodity production he means that the community consciously regulates distribution of labour and material using the same principle which regulates exchange in a commodity producing society (i.e. an exchange of equivalents). This can only be interpreted as the law of value persisting into socialism if one conflates what stamps commodity production as a historically distinct mode of production - indirectly, universalized social labour - with direct social labour.

Who appoints the bureaucrats? Who recalls them? What even is a bureaucrat? It you define "bureaucrat" as "government worker who doesn't do manual labor" than a lot of actual fucking workers were bureaucrats. Ironically, Krushchevs reforms which were supposed to reduce central bureaucracy actually caused the rise of the latter, since the freedom of managers to act more capitalistic that is still interlodged with state planning caused the formation of a class of bureaucratic middleman between the factory managers and the state and party who functioned as allocators of goods and mediator. This wasn't the case under Stalin.

Screencaping this

Make sure you screencap the source I posted too, faggot.

one of the main problems with industrialization that Stalin had to deal with was with bureaucrats, especially bureaucrats stationed far away from Moscow, abusing their party positions for personal gain.

>country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9558.html


This doesn't sound democratic at all.

There's plenty to criticize the USSR for, but plenty of things it did right and should be recognized as well. Take what works and leave what failed, it's the only way we can learn to make a better future.

youtube.com/watch?v=Okz2YMW1AwY

This may be true (and debunks this idea of Stalin being the all-powerful dictator), but under Stalin, workers actually had the means to rid themselves of such types. Many corrupt and capitalistic managers were removed from their positions for power abuse and sabotage - and as you can imagine, being removed from your position under Stalin didn't just mean retirement. There was a lot of pioneer spirit in the USSR during Stalins reign.
How so? The factory committee is elected by the factory workers and unions. The party might have a say in it but the local party chapters are also elected.
Literally a cooperative socialist economy.

more like workers were encouraged to snitch on one another to maintain party loyalty. And the Stalinist definition of what counted as sabotage was incredibly broad.

state capitalism is egregiously misunderstood on the left and in my opinion seems to actually have multiple meanings

1. bourgeois state with heavy influence in industry and markets eg 'post war consensus' war economy and maybe fascism

2. nominally socialist state ie not liberal in state formation but rampantly capitalist in practice. (china)

3 Socialist state allowing private ownership and markets due to expediency (NEP russia)

4. a confused theoretical critique of the USSR which, as an user alluded to above, is a refusal to engage with its failures.

my main rebuttals with it as a theory.
1. no market for wage labour, value was not extracted only use values were produced
2. prices were an accounting mechanism and did not reflect changes in value
2. capital was not a commodity, investment was not directed by rate of profit
3. following on from 2 no economic crashes
4 property was not alienable, bureaucrats could only command increased use values not value itself.and this muh privilege was only gained by partaking in the management of socialised MoP

marxists.org/archive/mandel/1969/08/statecapitalism.htm
ernestmandel.org/en/works/txt/1951/theory_of_statecapitalism.htm

best works on it imo

Because there is the communism that gets you into power, and the communism you give that keeps you in power. Ideals get lost somewhere after the day of the rope.