Do you think it was really communism that drove the USSR into being a superpower?

Do you think it was really communism that drove the USSR into being a superpower?

Or was it merely Nationalism in the same sense Nationalism drove America through the gilded age as well as Nazi Germany?

Other urls found in this thread:

marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/12/02.htm#Political_Report_of_the_Central_Committee_
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/aug/27.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=F_8e_OUUA2s
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

...

Because it was one of the largest countries in the world with vast resources, even if they lacked some and were in a bad location.

no

no

This combined with ~140 million people in 1920 and a modest start on industrialisation (compared to India/China) means you have to spectacularly fuck up to not be a superpower

It was a mixture of both. You can't have full communism because there's no incentive for people to work, so you need nationalism to motivate people to work for the motherland. And you can't have full nationalism because then the country would just wage wars all the time and the economy would be bad if it were a permanent war economy forever, so you need some communism to promote peace and prosperity between workers.

That's why the Soviets were able to become a superpower– they struck a perfect balance between the two opposing sides. That's dialectics.

It was never communist, it was never even a movement with the potential to become communist. It was a mere continuation of Orthodox Marxist Social-Democracy, but more militant.

It established the exact same society as on the other side of the Iron Curtain, a class-collaborationist welfare/warfare society.


No surprise here.

are you implying nationalism has a side?

I can tell you right now that making people care enough for their country and their people enough to want to work, contribute to, and care for it is not narcissism to say tge very least.

Yeah, it's a major dichotomy, one seeks societal change and perceives the internal conflicts of the culture/nation. The other is inherently part of a system of internal control and stability, predominately used against exactly the former kind of thinking.

Marxism-(Leninism), if you are talking political ideology.
Socialism (central planning and direct democracy) - if you are talking state structure.

None of the resources were readily available. It's like saying "Greenland has vast resources". Sure it has. Under 2km thick ice sheet. Same goes for Russia - most of the resources were found only in 30s, because Soviets decided to check if they had anything. Then the infrastructure had to be built, factories created, and so on.

India didn't even exist at the time. Also, give numbers for "modest" - even Italy and (Austro)Hungary were more industrialized. Soviets had to literally build everything from the ground up.

To put things into perspective: in 1917 there were something like 10 millions wooden ploughs being used in Russian Empire (peasants didn't have money to buy proper metal ones - Malthusian trap, if it says anything to you). There were less than a thousand tractors (~500, IIRC). For comparison: by 1920 US had ~250 thousand of those.

By this logic it was impossible for British to become superpower. Read Marx, please. It's Capital (industrial capacity) that matters, not resources and people. The whole Africa is neck deep in people and resources. Do you see any superpowers there? What about India?

It's not narcissism. I would've said that it was real Nationalism, but it might've caused confusion - it had nothing to do with Nazi Nationalism. Bourgeois Nationalism is about fighting for something that does not belong to you. Soviet Patriotism has much more to do with people actually getting their own state. The one they were actually running.

Shitposting aside,
In the sense the socialist government "inherited a country of the wooden plow" and turned it into the second most powerful country on Earth with modern industry and infrastructure, yes.

"Nationalism" means a lot of different things. You can't compare America's civic nationalism to Germany's ethno-nationalism and consider them one in the same. Fighting for your nation's right to self-determination is also nationalism.
Regardless, nationalism itself doesn't make countries into superpowers.


Not necessarily. You could argue the British having domestic access to lots of coal to fuel their industry with contributed greatly to their success.

Against my point was that being "one of the largest countries in the world with vast resources" is hardly a recipe for success?

Well, you could. But it's a weak argument: contributing and being a game-changer are two different things.

However big coal industry was, it was hardly the deciding factor in the ascension of Britain to the rank of Empire. Lots of nations had coal at the time, but only Britain was capable of using it to gain advantage. Without a doubt that factor was industry.

Similarly enough, Russia's resources remained a non-factor until Soviets begun their industrialization - and this industrialization was not caused by access to resources. It was the other way round - resources were made available only because there was demand for them and there were means to get them.

Were "vast resources" necessary for Soviets to become Great Power? We can't know for certain.
Were "vast resources" sufficient? Absolutely not.

"Without waiting for the others, we begin and continue the struggle nationally, in the full confidence that our initiative will give an impetus to the struggle in other countries, but if this should not occur, it would be hopeless to think—as historical experience and theoretical considerations testify—that, for example, a revolutionary Russia could hold out in the face of a conservative Europe". . . . "To accept the perspective of a social revolution within national bounds is to fall a prey to that very national narrow-mindedness which constitutes the essence of social-patriotism." (Trotsky, The Year 1917, Vol. III, Part 1, p. 90.)

Such, comrades, was Trotsky's slight reservation, which goes far to explain to us the roots and the subsoil of his present bloc with Kamenev and Zi-noviev.

But how did Lenin, how did the Party, go towards the uprising? Also with a slight reservation? No, Lenin and his Party went towards the uprising without any reservations. Here is an excerpt from one of Lenin's splendid articles "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," published abroad in September 1917:

"The victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke altogether eliminate all war. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct striving on the part of the bourgeoisie of the other countries to crush the victorious proletariat of the socialist state. In such cases a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other peoples from the bourgeoisie." (Lenin, "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," Notes of the Lenin Institute, Part II, p. 7. 17)
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1927/12/02.htm#Political_Report_of_the_Central_Committee_

The picture of the struggle against deviations in the Party will not be complete if we do not touch upon the deviations that exist in the Party on the national question. I have in mind, firstly, the deviation towards Great-Russian chauvinism, and secondly, the deviation towards local nationalism. These deviations are not so conspicuous and assertive as the "Left" or the Right deviation. They could be called creeping deviations. But this does not mean that they do not exist. They do exist, and what is most important they are growing. There can be no doubt whatever about that. There can be no doubt about it, because the general atmosphere of more acute class struggle cannot fail to cause some intensification of national friction, which finds reflection in the Party. Therefore, the features of these deviations should be exposed and dragged into the light of day.

What is the essence of the deviation towards Great-Russian chauvinism under our present conditions?

The essence of the deviation towards Great-Russian chauvinism lies in the striving to ignore national differences in language, culture and way of life; in the striving to prepare for the liquidation of the national republics and regions; in the striving to undermine the principle of national equality and to discredit the Party's policy of nationalising the administrative apparatus, the press, the schools and other state and public organisations.

In this connection, the deviators of this type proceed from the view that since, with the victory of socialism, the nations must merge into one and their national languages must be transformed into a single common language, the time has come to abolish national differences and to abandon the policy of promoting the development of the national cultures of the formerly oppressed peoples.

In this connection, they refer to Lenin, misquoting him and sometimes deliberately distorting and slandering him.

Lenin said that under socialism the interests of the nationalities will merge into a single whole—does it not follow from this that it is time to put an end to the national republics and regions in the interests of
internationalism? Lenin said in 1913, in his controversy with the Bundists, that the slogan of national culture is a bourgeois slogan—does it not follow from this that it is time to put an end to the national cultures of the peoples of the USSR in the interests of . . . internationalism?

Lenin said that national oppression and national barriers are destroyed under socialism—does it not follow from this that it is time to put a stop to the policy of taking into account the specific national features of the peoples of the USSR and to go over to the policy of assimilation in the interests of . . . internationalism?

And so on and so forth.
[…]

There can be no doubt that this deviation on the national question, disguised, moreover, by a mask of internationalism and by the name of Lenin, is the most subtle and therefore the most dangerous species of Great-Russian nationalism.

Firstly, Lenin never said that national differences must disappear and that national languages must merge into one common language within the borders of a single state before the victory of socialism on a world scale. On the contrary, Lenin said something that was the very opposite of this, namely, that "national and state differences among peoples and countries … . will continue to exist for a very, very long time even after the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established on a world scale" (Original Comment: JVS: My italics) (Vol. XXV, p. 227). How can anyone refer to Lenin and forget about this fundamental statement of his?

True, Mr. Kautsky, an ex-Marxist and now a renegade and reformist, asserts something that is the very opposite of what Lenin teaches us. Despite Lenin, he asserts that the victory of the proletarian revolution in the Austro-German federal state in the middle of the last century would have led to the formation of a single, common German language and to the Germanisation of the Czechs, because "the mere force of unshackled intercourse, the mere force of modern culture of which the Germans were the vehicles, without any forcible Germanisation, would have converted into Germans the backward Czech petty bourgeois, peasants and proletarians who had nothing to gain from their decayed nationality" (see Preface to the German edition of Revolution and Counter-revolution).

It goes without saying that such a "conception" is in full accord with Kautsky's social-chauvinism. It was these views of Kautsky's that I combated in 1925 in my speech at the University of the Peoples of the East. (Original Footnote: This refers to the address delivered at a meeting of students of the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, May 18, 1925 (see J. V. Stalin, "The Political Tasks of the University of the Peoples of the East," Works, Vol. 7, pp. 141-42)

But can this anti-Marxist chatter of an arrogant German social-chauvinist have any positive significance for us Marxists, who want to remain consistent internationalists?

Who is right, Kautsky or Lenin?

If Kautsky is right, then how are we to explain the fact that relatively backward nationalities like the Byelorussians and Ukrainians, who are closer to the Great-Russians than the Czechs are to the Germans, have not become Russified as a result of the victory of the proletarian revolution in the USSR, but, on the contrary, have been regenerated and have developed as independent nations? How are we to explain the fact that nations like the Turkmenians, Kirghizians, Uzbeks, Tajiks (not to speak of the Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanians,- and others), in spite of their backwardness, far from becoming Russified as a result of the victory of socialism in the USSR, have, on the contrary, been regenerated and have developed into independent nations? Is it not evident that our worthy deviators, in their hunt after a sham internationalism, have fallen into the clutches of Kautskyan social-chanvinism? Is it not evident that in advocating a single, common language within the borders of a single state, within the borders of the USSR, they are, in essence, striving to restore the muh privileges of the formerly predominant language, namely, the Great-Russian language?

What has this to do with internationalism?

Secondly, Lenin never said that the abolition of national oppression and the merging of the interests of nationalities into one whole is tantamount to the abolition of national differences. We have abolished national oppression. We have abolished national muh privileges and have established national equality of rights. We have abolished state frontiers in the old sense of the term, frontier posts and customs barriers between the nationalities of the USSR We have established the unity of the economic and political interests of the peoples of the USSR But does this mean that we have thereby abolished national differences, national languages, culture, manner of life, etc.? Obviously it does not mean this. But if national differences, languages, culture, manner of life, etc.; have remained, is it not evident that the demand for the abolition of the national republics and regions in the present historical period is a reactionary demand directed against the interests of the dictatorship of the proletariat? Do our deviators understand that to abolish the national republics at the present time means depriving the vast masses of the peoples of the USSR of the possibility of receiving education in their native languages, depriving them of the possibility of having schools, courts, administration, public and other organisations and institutions in their native languages, depriving them of the possibility of being drawn into the work of socialist construction? Is it not evident that in their hunt after a sham internationalism our deviators have fallen into the clutches of the reactionary Great-Russian chauvinists and have forgotten, completely forgotten, the slogan of the cultural revolution in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat which applies equally to all the peoples of the USSR; both Great-Russian and non-Great-Russian?

Thirdly, Lenin never said that the slogan of developing national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a reactionary slogan. On the contrary, Lenin always stood for helping the peoples of the USSR to develop their national cultures. It was under the guidance of none other than Lenin that at the Tenth Congress of the Party, the resolution on the national question was drafted and adopted, in which it is plainly stated that: "The Party's task is to help the labouring masses of the non-Great Russian peoples to catch up with Central Russia, which has gone in front, to help them:

a) to develop and strengthen Soviet statehood among them in forms corresponding to the national conditions and manner of life of these peoples;
b) to develop and strengthen among them courts administrations, economic and government bodies functioning in their native language and staffed with local people familiar with the manner of life and mentality of the local inhabitants;
c) to develop among them press, schools, theatres, clubs, and cultural and educational institutions in general, functioning in the native languages;
d) to set up and develop a wide network of general-educational and trade and technical courses and schools, functioning in the native languages." (Original Footnote: See Resolutions and Decisions of CPSU Congresses, Confrences and Centrla Committee Plenums; Part 1, 1953, p.559).
Is it not obvious that Lenin stood wholly and entirely for the slogan of developing national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Is it not obvious that to deny the slogan of national culture under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat means denying the necessity of raising the cultural level of the non-Great-Russian peoples of the USSR, denying the necessity of compulsory universal education for these peoples, means putting these peoples into spiritual bondage to the reactionary nationalists?

Lenin did indeed qualify the slogan of national culture under the rule of the bourgeoisie as a reactionary slogan. But could it be otherwise?
What is national culture under the rule of the national bourgeoisie? It is culture that is bourgeois in content and national in form, having the object of doping the masses with the poison of nationalism and of strengthening the rule of the bourgeoisie.
What is national culture under the dictatorship of the proletariat? It is culture that is socialist in content and national in form, having the object of educating the masses in the spirit of socialism and internationalism.
How is it possible to confuse these two fundamentally different things without breaking with Marxism?
Is it not obvious that in combating the slogan of national culture under the bourgeois order, Lenin was striving at the bourgeois content of national culture and not at its national form?

It would be foolish to suppose that Lenin regarded socialist culture as non-national, as not having a particular national form. The Bundists did at one time actually ascribe this nonsense to Lenin. But it is known from the works of Lenin that he protested sharply against this slander, and emphatically dissociated himself from this nonsense. Have our worthy deviators really followed in the footsteps of the Bundists?
After all that has been said, what is left of the arguments of our deviators?
Nothing, except juggling with the flag of inter-nationalism and slander against Lenin.

Those who are deviating towards Great-Russian chauvinism are profoundly mistaken in believing that the period of building socialism in the USSR is the period of the collapse and abolition of national cultures. The very opposite is the case. In point of fact, the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the building of socialism in the USSR is a period of the flowering of national cultures that are socialist in content and national in form for under the Soviet system, the nations themselves are not the ordinary "modern" nations, but socialist nations just as in content their national cultures are not the ordinary bourgeois cultures, but socialist cultures.

They apparently fail to understand that national cultures are bound to develop with new strength with the introduction and firm establishment of compulsory universal elementary education in the native languages. They fail to understand that only if the national cultures are developed will it be possible really to draw the backward nationalities into the work of socialist construction.

They fail to understand that it is just this that is the basis of the Leninist policy of helping and promoting the development of the national cultures of the peoples of the USSR.

It may seem strange that we who stand for the future merging of national cultures into one common (both in form and content) culture, with one common language, should at the same time stand for the flowering of national cultures at the present moment, in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. But there is nothing strange about it. The national cultures must be allowed to develop and unfold, to reveal all their potentialities, in order to create the conditions for merging them into one common culture with one common language in the period of the victory of social-ism all over the world. The flowering of cultures that are national in form and socialist in content under the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country for the purpose of merging them into one common socialist (both in form and content) culture, with one common language, when the proletariat is victorious all over the world and when socialism becomes the way of life—it is just this that constitutes the dialectics of the Leninist presentation of the question of national culture.

It may be said that such a presentation of the question is "contradictory." But is there not the same "contradictoriness" in our presentation of the question of the state? We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state-power—such is the Marxist formula. Is this "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory." But this contradiction is bound up with life, and it fully reflects Marx's dialectics.

Or, for example, Lenin's presentation of the question of the right of nations to self-determination, including the right to secession. Lenin sometimes depicted the thesis on national self-determination in the guise of the simple formula: "disunion for union." Think of it—disunion for union. It even sounds like a paradox. And yet, this "contradictory', formula reflects that living truth of Marx's dialectics which enables the Bolsheviks to capture the most impregnable fortresses in the sphere of the national question.

The same may be said about the formula relating to national culture: the flowering of national cultures (and languages) in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country with the object of preparing the conditions for their withering away and merging into one common socialist culture (and into one common language) in the period of the victory of socialism all over the world.
Anyone who fails to understand this peculiar feature and "contradiction" of our transition period, anyone who fails to understand these dialectics of the historical processes, is dead as far as Marxism is concerned.
The misfortune of our deviators is that they do not understand, and do not wish to understand, Marx's dialectics.
That is how matters stand as regards the deviation towards Great-Russian chauvinism.
It is not difficult to understand that this deviation reflects the striving of the moribund classes of the formerly dominant Great-Russian nation to recover their lost muh privileges.
Hence the danger of Great-Russian chauvinism as the chief danger in the Party in the sphere of the national question.

What is the essence of the deviation towards local nationalism?

The essence of the deviation towards local nationalism is the endeavour to isolate and segregate oneself within the shell of one's own nation, the endeavour to slur over class contradictions within one's own nation, the endeavour to protect oneself from Great-Russian chauvinism by withdrawing from the general stream of socialist construction, the endeavour not to see what draws together and unites the labouring masses of the nations of the USSR and to see only what can draw them apart from one another.
The deviation towards local nationalism reflects the discontent of the moribund classes of the formerly oppressed nations with the regime of the dictatorship of the proletariat, their striving to isolate themselves in their national bourgeois state and to establish their class rule there.
The danger of this deviation is that it cultivates bourgeois nationalism, weakens the unity of the working people of the different nations of the USSR and plays into the hands of the interventionists.
Such is the essence of the deviation towards local nationalism.
The party's task is to wage a determined struggle against this deviation and to ensure the conditions necessary for the education of the labouring masses of the peoples of the USSR in the spirit of internationalism.
That is how matters stand with the deviations in our Party, with the "Left" and Right deviations in the sphere of general policy, and with the deviations in the sphere of the national question.
Such is our inner-Party situation.


see 2. Questions of the Guidance of Inner-Party Affairs
marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/aug/27.htm

Tsarist Russia had nationalism and it turned out more weaker then the Austrian Empire. The USSR became a superpower because it went through all of 19th century capitalism within a decade.

youtube.com/watch?v=F_8e_OUUA2s

wat

No that's not what that phrase means, you idiot.


m8
fucking hell

Reforms pushed by a centralist dictatorship did, I guess.

Many of these reforms were shit, but many also worked.

Kinda like with China in the last decades leading up to today.

I think the actual superpower-ness of the USSR is overstated. For sure, they were above the rebuilding Euro countries, but they were never really at the level of the US. The US ruling class played up the anti-Communist propaganda they were afraid of a revolution at home, not necessarily the USSR itself.

I'm sorry, but #2 on the planet is still a superpower.

USSR kinda represented the revolution. It's not like it wouldn't send help to the rebels, should they start revolution in US.

How many countries went into space during the cold war? How many had a nuclear arsenal capable of MAD?

Very nice video, but
pure propaganda

Most eastern and southern African countries came under the Soviet sphere of influence. When the Soviet Union failed it dragged Africa down with it. Now its "glorious" "democratic" leaders are despots with lifetime appointments. This is what happens when pseudo-rational theories are used to manage real lives.