Can someone explain to me how the USSR in the 1950s wasn't actually socialism?

can someone explain to me how the USSR in the 1950s wasn't actually socialism?
all the farms were pretty much collectivized after de-kulakization. you could vote for Supreme Soviets of the Soviet Union. the VTsSPS controlled most working life. workers were only exploited to the extent that they had to pay taxes, since everything was piece rate.
what is actually wrong with all this? how is it capitalism.

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It was actually socialism.

Ah you must be looking for the retard idealist liberal board. You meant to type >>>/leftpol/

Yeah no it was socialism

it was though.

also there were NO TAXES, look it up.

what? you may have not had to return actual currency to the government, but you were still payed slightly less than what you produced. that's pretty much taxation.

if you define socialism as worker control of the means of production then it wasnt

It was socialism because production didn't adhere to the law of value. Read Stalin.

it's a stateless classless society where things are produced for use-value rather than exchange-value

It was socialism but they kept up the secret police and party bureaucrats instead of reforming it towards communism.

also in the agricultural sector most workers did control how things were produced, they were collectivized during the first few 5 year plans.
while you can argue that because industrial workers didn't control everything directly that it wasn't socialism, but it certainly wasn't capitalism either. it's easy to look at the policies passed under Stalin and say that the Soviet Union was going to achieve full communism. unfortunately many leftists during that time didn't think that way and chose to oppose Stalin's diet socialism in favor of Khrushchev's full capitalism.

What the fuck was his problem?

sinistra.net/lib/pro/whyrusnsoc.html

??????????????????

no, it's revenue. corporations withhold revenue and THEN you get taxed on top of that. in the USSR there were no taxes. way more efficient, and the revenue actually went to good things like education and health care.

I bet you don't even know what the law of value is

What exactly did he do that was capitalist?

re-introduced normal exploitation
engaged in imperialism (Hungary)
allowed blatant american advertising inside moscow

What policies specifically?
And Stalin didn't do this? What about the Winter War or the fact he set up those governments in the first place. You honestly think if Hungary had undergone '56 while Stalin was alive he wouldn't have gone in?
Any pictures of this? Khruschjov was pretty bloody confrontational with the west.

standardising wages is one example
in the middle of a war where many of these countries were on the verge of fascist decadence. Stalin's military actions were deliberately to prevent third reich control. Krushchev's military actions were to prevent self-determination.
related

Any reading on this?
Then why did he try to kill Tito so many times? Also again that does not excuse the Winter War.
Wasn't in more a show of dick-waving? There was a soviet one in New York at the same time and iirc Khruschjov used the stage to show soviet science through Sputnik's launch.

Except that it was a single party state, so any candidates had to be pre-approved by the party (except for independents, but they never held a significant position). Not to mention that they could be purged for voting against the party line to much because of the ban on factions, and that rejecting the party line meant that you would never progress. It was effectively a dictatorship of the party elite rather than any kind of genuine democracy.

babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031359238;view=1up;seq=9
cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000497777.pdf
we're not even sure that he did that, but if he did I still wouldn't really give a shit. Tito is no communist.
the Winter War was blatantly to prevent German imperialism.

look, I know you're trying to paint Stalin as a demagogue who wanted nothing more than to expand his power, but he really wasn't. violent? yes. but he saw himself as nothing more than an agent of Marx.
whatever you want to call it. I call it advertising.

If Stalin was alive, there wouldn't have been an uprising in Hungary to begin with. Popular anti-government protests in Eastern Europe began only after Stalin's death, in response to the revisionist regime's new anti-worker policies.

Oh so that's why Stalin supported him up until 1948? I am not here to shill Tito but why would Stalin lend his support to him if he was obviously not a communist, then try to assassinate him. I mean at the time the only thing that seperated Tito from the rest of the Eastern Bloc states was that it had the balls to say no to the USSR at the time (ofc Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Albania & Romania did later)
Interesting take, elaborate.
Hold up there lad, I am just pointing things out. Also being pure of heart is not relevant.

That's a rather cyclical non-argument isn't it?

There was an uprising of construction workers in East Germany in June 1953 just a few months after Stalin died. Something tells me Kruschev hadn’t totally dismantled Stalin’s legacy by then.

Also that.

Le epic Tito himself was an imperialist who tried to annex Albania after WWII

Then why did Stalin support such an obvious Imperialist? Regardless, Tito really didn't: there was an agreement between him and Dimitrov about Bulgaria joining Yugoslavia as an equal republic (as was the wish of Yugoslavists throughout the 20th century) but the "lel he wanted to annex Albania" is just a meme that was not put forth by him, but the Chetniks.

The managerial bureaucracy began dismantling socialism as soon as Stalin died. If this is a wrong analysis, why were there no anti-government protests prior to Stalin's death?

Tito was a proto-Dengist and an anti-Albanian chauvinist. Read Hoxha.

it's not a "take", that was Russia's official statement. Stalin was paranoid that Germany would invade them via Finland.
was it a mistake? you could argue that. but it certainly wasn't unjustifiable. what was that thing people say about fairness in war?

And Barbarossa was justified by the Germans staging a shelling on a village in Poland by the soviets. Moscow saying "it is to prevent germans invading through Finland" is not actually a justification in itself, you realise this: yes?

The protests started due to economic conditions that resulted from policies put in place while Stalin was still in power (specifically increases in work quotas and raised prices), and it was Kruschev’s Government that urged restraint on the part of the GDR and eventually led to the Germans conceding some of the striker’s demands.

Any reading on this occurring within three months of Stalin dying?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uprising_of_1953_in_East_Germany#Background

Prior to the outbreak of large-scale protests, the Soviet Union pressured the GDR to change its policy.

On the protest itself:


This begs the question, if higher prices and increased work quotas were "economic conditions that resulted from policies put in place while Stalin was still in power", why were there no protests against these policies when Stalin was still alive?

I don't agree that increased work quotas and raised prices were Stalin's policies. Prices actually decreased consistently under Stalin. Increasing work quotas and increasing prices was a revisionist policy, designed to benefit the emerging managerial bourgeoisie.

There is more info on the Russian Wikipedia page regarding the "helpful advice" given by the USSR to the GDR prior to the outbreak of protests.


Translation via Google translate:


In other words, Beria and others encouraged the GDR to abandon its allegedly "unacceptably hurried" nationalization program. They were asked to abandon the policy of "accelerated construction of socialism" in favor of bureaucratic revisionism. They were also asked to decrease taxation of wealthy social strata.

If I was in the GDR in 1953, I would join the protests as well. Revisionist had just seized power in the USSR and through force and intimidation, forced the GDR to abandon socialism in favor of "technocratic" managerial capitalism and better relations with the imperialist West.

Wait, did you just call Beria a revisionist?

Beria was never a real Communist, he was just an opportunist, joining the Bolsheviks only when it was clear they would win. He was also a highly competent functionary, ending the Yezhovschina unjustified mass executions and helping develop the atomic bomb, which is why Stalin kept him around.

From what I've read, it seems he was terrified of the prospect of a US-Soviet conflict. I think he would have done anything to end the confrontation, even if that included the complete restoration of capitalism, like we was IRL in 1989.

Bureaucrats are not bourgeoisie, nor are they a class. This is where you completely abandon Marx.

They controlled the means of production, and operating firms on a for-profit basis. They were a de facto bourgeoisie.

Wait, they're using trotskyite analysis to show how Khruschjov was a revisionist compared to Stalin. This is a new one.

that's not making them private owners over the MoP, it just makes it a market economy and reversing progress while revisioning ML theory
it's revisionism, not capitalism

hoxha poster is a fanboy of dubcek, the proto-gorbachov of his days that in the 90s lead the social democratic party
while crying about "soviet imperialism"
because "tanks and big economy" is a good substitute for Lenins imperialism theory

I'm not Hoxhaposter, I am a Hoxhaist though.

Wouldn't you agree Stalin would call Khrushchev and Mikoyan capitalists?

It's ultimately a question of semantics. If you define capitalist as someone who exploits labor for profit, then they were capitalists. If you define capitalist as someone who privately owns the MOP, they weren't capitalist.

It wasnt socialism.

Thats communism.

...

It was state capitalism. The bourgeoisie were replaced by party bureaucrats.

Dude


BEGONE

Trot retard

So according to you, a CEO is bourgeoisie? A restaurant manager of McDonald's is bourgeoisie? You are not a Marxist.

Can you point me to a specific example? Surplus is not profit.

kek

It wasn’t even DotP since it wasn’t properly democratic. Socialism requires that the workers be the ruling class, but they can’t do this if there is no genuine proletarian democracy, which there wasn’t. A planned economy that maintains a hierarchical class structure is not socialism.

Technically he’s right, but tbh it’s pretty clear that a CEO doesn’t share the class interests of the workers.

A CEO is not a member of the bourgeoisie. He can be, if he's simultaneously a shareholder.


Fucking hell, I can't take this revisionism anymore

And yet you are the one who seems to think that socialism is when the government does things.

Almost every CEO in existence can sustain themselves on their property ownership, just because they earn a wage doesn't mean they are a prole. At best they might be petty bourg if there holdings can't completely sustain them.
This does not describe CEO's.

By that logic many people who we consider working class would not be proles, since they own shares in companies via pension funds, etc. Imo the strict 19th century definition is outdated and it is actually more about income levels today.

no, working class people can't live off of their property ownership, CEO's can. Jane down the street can't quit selling her labor power because of her little vanguard fund. CEO McPorky could quit his job and live just fine off of his assets.

ishygddt

Who cares, the terminology is firmly understood to mean that socialism refers to the first phase of communism.

CEOs, like supervisory boards, embody unproductive labor, Marx actually did talk about this when he described the agents of the capitalist state, such as politicians or cops, they are detached from production but are necessary to perpetuate the economic base. They are not proletarians but neither are they capitalists.

But he does so as the owner of his property, not because he's a CEO.


You must be a special type of autist to write "lower phase of communism" everytime you want to say socialism.

Well, that's what Third Worldists argue. That first world workers aren't strictly proletarians anybody because they are not forced to sell their labor to survive anymore.

What was wrong with dubcek again? What exactly is wrong with being able to criticize red capitalists without fear of being harassed by police and lose opportunity to train with weapon, being thrown out of university or even losing a job? What right CCCP had to violate decision of the party and agreements made between Gottwald and Stalin?

Bordiga had some interesting things to say imo.

It's literally because brainlets who haven't read vol 2 of Capital think that the essence of capitalist production is bound up in commodity production while it is actualy related to capitalist relations of production.

What did he mean by this?

Bourgeoise does not mean rich people, if you follow Marx's defintion that is.
It's about ownership. A CEO which only work as the boss on shareholders's behalf is technically a prole, unless he is himself a shareholder, which is the case most of the time thanks to stock options…

Yes? That's literally the point, they're not distinct.

No youre wrong actually. Dictatorship of the proletariat is right after the revolution when the proletariat take control of society. Socialism/communism is when they have abolished capitalism, when there are no more classes. You cant have a dictatorship of the proletariat in socialism, because the proletariat doesnt exist in socialism, because it is classless. In the DOTP the capitalist relations and mode of production still exists.

Even if he makes billions of dollars?

Lmao I don’t know if I can take you seriously. If the working class is not the ruling class then there is no working class revolution, and no dictatorship of the proletariat. Without that there is no meaningful socialism, only a new hierarchical class system that has replaced market capitalism with a state dominated system. The working class is not liberated.

It's capitalism.

Marx saw socialism and communism as the same

Here's what I found when I looked it up.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Taxation_in_the_Soviet_Union

There were some taxes in the USSR, but not really a classical progressive income tax like under capitalism, and the taxes that exist were supposed to be gradually abolished with increased computerization of planning - which, of course, never happened.

The only countries so far which completely abolished taxation were Albania and the DPRK.

I see, thanks for clarifying.