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Reform as the only game in town? (was "Why Ukraine may embrace China's peace plan"
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Mark Baugher
This is off the top of my head, at the end of a long day.
On Mar 29, 2023, at 3:50 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote:Trotsky via the SWP is my pedigree as well. In my view, this tradition deserves reconsideration regarding the nature of post-revolutionary states, their levels of development, the pressures of the world capitalist system on them, the revolutionary party and other political formations in the post-revolutionary period, and the role of a variety of factors in addition to class such as caste, generational, and other historic-cultural factors. A couple of these points were made by Gil. Michael's observation about the impermanence of revolutionary transformation could be added to this list. But it's striking how China is on its third "emperor" since the twentieth century and Russia has its third czar despite the radical changes that took place in class relationships, productive and market relations, and industrial transformation. Mark |
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Dayne Goodwin
On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 11:01 PM Mark Baugher <mark@...> wrote: > This is off the top of my head, at the end of a long day. > > On Mar 29, 2023, at 3:50 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote: > > Take Leon Trotsky in 1938 . . . What was it Leon Trotsky wrote in 1938? Oh yes: "The Soviet Union emerged from the October Revolution as a workers’ state. State ownership of the means of production, a necessary prerequisite to socialist development, opened up the possibility of rapid growth of the productive forces. But the apparatus of the workers’ state underwent a complete degeneration at the same time: it was transformed from a weapon of the working class into a weapon of bureaucratic violence against the working class and more and more a weapon for the sabotage of the country’s economy. The bureaucratization of a backward and isolated workers’ state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste constitute the most convincing refutation – not only theoretically, but this time, practically – of the theory of socialism in one country. "The USSR thus embodies terrific contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism." On Wed, Mar 29, 2023 at 11:01 PM Mark Baugher <mark@...> wrote: > > This is off the top of my head, at the end of a long day. > > > On Mar 29, 2023, at 3:50 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote: > > > > Take Leon Trotsky in 1938 > > Trotsky via the SWP is my pedigree as well. In my view, this tradition deserves reconsideration regarding the nature of post-revolutionary states, their levels of development, the pressures of the world capitalist system on them, the revolutionary party and other political formations in the post-revolutionary period, and the role of a variety of factors in addition to class such as caste, generational, and other historic-cultural factors. A couple of these points were made by Gil. Michael's observation about the impermanence of revolutionary transformation could be added to this list. > > But it's striking how China is on its third "emperor" since the twentieth century and Russia has its third czar despite the radical changes that took place in class relationships, productive and market relations, and industrial transformation. > |
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Mark Baugher
On Mar 30, 2023, at 4:34 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote:I wonder if he would agree with those writings today? He was assassinated on the cusp of WWII, where the USSR saw great suffering followed by victory and occupied much of Europe so oppressively that they rebelled in Hungary, Poland, and other places until the collapse of that rule in 1989 before the dissolution of the USSR two years later. That was the "workers states" in the west. In the east, one of the "deformed workers states" battled the US to a north/south stalemate and the other defeated the US and reunited Vietnam before the biggest "deformed workers state," China, invaded it. Would he call it the "first Socialist War" or explain it as a border skirmish or attempt to affect foreign policy? The argument for a new, third international was issued by the second's left wing, Trotsky and others, in part because the social democrats voted to go to war with each other. That's parties, I don't know what to cal it when "socialist" states do it. I also wonder what Trotsky would say when the "bureaucracies" running these workers states turned themselves into state capitalists with ownership of large portions of private enterprises. Maybe he would note that these "workers states" had no participation from workers, let alone independent trade unions or any way for people to voice their opinions let allow exert control. And that might be part of the problem. We know know that planned economies failed to deliver goods desired by those workers, or caused famine, and often destroyed the earth in their domains? Maybe Trotsky would recall the the victorious Bolsheviks never allowed universal suffrage and regret that. Anyway, we don't know what he'd think about today's situation and reciting his words like dogma won't help us figure it out. Mark |
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Dayne Goodwin
You haven't commented on Trotsky's 1938 analysis, Mark. I initially brought it up in a discussion (before you changed the thread/subject line) where it was pertinent to show that there were contemporary observers who did not assume the Soviet Union as it was in 1938 would continue to exist into future generations. I did not refer to post-1938 developments, only you have. So your "dogma" insult is just a solipsistic wild pitch. Let's imagine that we were around in 1938 and we came across Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union as it was in 1938. I think it was a perceptive and valid analysis in 1938. Do you disagree? Dayne "The USSR thus embodies terrific
contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such
is the social diagnosis. The political prognosis has an alternative
character: either the bureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the
world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of
property and plunge the country back to capitalism; or the working
class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism." Leon Trotsky, 1938 On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 2:32 PM Mark Baugher <mark@...> wrote:
On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 5:34 AM Dayne Goodwin via groups.io <daynegoodwin=gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:
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Chris Slee
The debate about the nature of the former Soviet Union: Who was right? (This is an article I wrote some years ago, looking at the ideas of Trotsky, Tony Cliff and Albert Szymanski):
Chris Slee
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Mark Baugher
On Mar 31, 2023, at 4:24 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote:I don't know you, Dayne, and don't think you're dogmatic based on your posts. The last sentence of my message was out of line and I apologize for it. To your point, Trotsky likely would not have been surprised by the regression to capitalist property relations in the "degenerated workers states" or the deformed ones that were established after his death. I read a lot of Trotsky for years to the exclusion of his valid critics. Today, his quotes grate on me. The blaming of the bureaucracy for the rise of Stalin ignores the fact that most governments have bureaucracies, but the government he and the Bolsheviks created had no popular control over it. Nor was there membership control of the parties that were modeled on the Bolsheviks, or at least the Comintern's image of the Bolsheviks. His favorite party in the US degenerated into a cult centered around a leader who controlled the organization for decades and apparently robbed it of $20M (at least, I've seen no evidence from that crowd disputing the documents that have been published). The poverty and scarcity of Soviet Russia were factors that Trotsky emphasized for its degeneration. And when it degenerated, it took the world revolutionary movement with it. Today, I'm more interested in discovering what went wrong rather than what predictions came true. Mark |
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Dayne Goodwin
Excellent article Chris, thank you for sharing it here. And thank you for all the work that had to have gone into researching and writing it. It has two dates on it: "Moscow 2008" and "30 July 2012". It must have been shared on marxmail long ago and i must have read it at least once before. Partly because the subject line of this thread doesn't signal that it would lead to this topic i am going to recommend it with a new marxmail message. Dayne On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 6:44 AM Chris Slee <chris_w_slee@...> wrote:
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Dayne Goodwin
Thank you for your apology, Mark.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
It is sad that you still can't take a position on Trotsky's 1938 statement. I understand from your comments that you have emotional problems from past political experiences that get in the way of thoughtful intellectual work on some topics. In that regard my use of the word "solipsistic" may have been more relevant than i realized. Your confusion and lack of understanding on this topic is obvious even in this brief message, i.e. your statement "The blaming of the bureaucracy for the rise of Stalin ignores the fact that most governments have bureaucracies, but the government he and the Bolsheviks created had no popular control over it." shows that you don't understand Trotsky's exposition (or what actually happened). If you're interested in learning a useful step would be reading the article Chris Slee presented earlier in this email thread. Dayne On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 12:00 PM Mark Baugher <mark@...> wrote:
On Mar 31, 2023, at 4:24 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote:
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Mark Baugher
On Apr 1, 2023, at 5:11 AM, Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin@...> wrote:Thank you for the psychotherapy session, Dayne. Mark |
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David Walters
I think this is one of those weird discussions (both Mark and Dayne should stop making this about the other but focus on the content) that I've pretty much rejected as anything important beyond it's historical interest, and this, rather abstractly. The biggest problem with this quote and the way Dayne poised it, is that this is supposed to be significant. No "quote" is going to help at all. It is, fundamentally, anti-Marxist to approach discussions like this since we are materialists and discussing the actual situation in Russia then is the only significance, not what "Trotsky said". If I did this, then Lenin endorsed "Socialism in One country" based on his single utterance in two articles "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe" and "On Cooperation". We know it is a lot more complicated than that. In fact, Trotsky's position as it developed was more nuanced and in the collection of essays published after his death title In Defense of Marxism which at least doesn't abstract quotes willy-nilly but is a complete discussion, he pointed out that it is NOT property relations that were the most important aspect of the USSR being a "workers state" but rather the GOSPLAN, or the Central Planning Commission that sat over nationalized property. And of course it is necessary as Mark suggests to read Trotsky's opponents on this AND it is necessary, far more necessary, to draw on economic and political works on what was going on in Russia in this period. I've long since dropped textual references but instead look to actual and real history of what was going on regarding the class struggle in any one country. |
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