I don’t think it’s particularly productive to back up controversial claims within the Marxist current with statements like “it’s clear that xyz” or “it’s without question.” These topics are controversial because they aren’t clear and are questionable claims.
I really appreciate this and you are right - the claims I made do go against ML theory, and whether something is right or wrong in this case is dependent on one’s views and perspectives (as in intra-Marxism) rather than cold, hard, unquestionable facts. I will definitely try to avoid such loaded language in the future.
In essence, I do largely agree with you - the material conditions in the historically socialist countries (USSR specifically in this case but can also more or less be applied to others) be it their peasant problem or being isolated due to international revolutions failing did require them to do what they had done and develop using state capitalism or “building socialism in one state”, and they were successful in that regard. Same applies to the anti-colonial national liberation movements - they were successful and historically progressive and indeed should be celebrated.
However, the issue that this is a win for (state) capitalism and all the baggage that comes with it rather than actual socialism, given how socialist mode of production was never realized and arguments such as “people’s billionaires who will get punished by going against the party” or “the economy was nationalized” don’t define socialism. Wage labor remained (therefore surplus extraction too), commodity production and markets both within the country and interaction with international capitalist world market had remained (Why Russia isn’t socialist talks about this). One could also make an argument that even in those countries where capitalists got done away with (which is a proletarian W) but state capitalism persisted, the functions of the capitalist remained and were carried out by mere managers, like how Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific points out:
Partial recognition of the social character of the productive forces forced upon the capitalists themselves. Taking over of the great institutions for production and communication, first by joint-stock companies, later in by trusts, then by the State. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees.
And again to reiterate, rather than being a win for socialism, it’s instead a win for a regressive form of it which is state capitalism that’s comparable to social democracy.
As about your point about the rejection of AES, that’s not my argument at all - instead of rejecting any attempt outright and waiting for a perfect revolution, one should instead support all revolutionary attempts but, most importantly, realize when the revolution had failed/ended instead of clinging onto false hope which is something that ML’s tend to do at least from my perspective. Of course, when a revolution fails depends on ones perspective, but from mine it’s when the proletarian revolution (which must be internationalist) fails to spread and a country has to start fully focusing inwards for its survival within global capitalism and the inevitable participation in it, like what happened in USSR in 1920’s - at that point, it’s only a matter of time until the country falls to revisionism, degeneration of socialist ideas and the aforementioned full reintegration into global capitalist system.
That being said, I really do appreciate your responses, even though some of them might be too long for me to respond to.
I appreciate your POV. I still, however, think that, ultimately, the core of our disagreement still falls on your adoption of the One Drop Rule as both determiner of Socialism and as determination of whether or not something is a force for Socialism, or not.
Before I get into it, I want to address Engels’ statement in Socialism: Utopian and Scientitic. Engels is speaking of dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that nationalize industries while retaining their class character. Indeed, Norway as a Social Democracy nationalizing its energy industry to become a petro state is not Socialism, Private Property still dominates society and holds power. Engels further elaborates on that statement in a footnote:
For it is only when the means of production or communication have actually outgrown direction by joint-stock companies and therefore their nationalization has become economically inevitable – it is only then that this nationalization, even when carried out by the state of today, represents an economic advance, the attainment of another preliminary step towards the seizure of all the productive forces by society itself. But since Bismarck became keen on nationalizing, a certain spurious socialism has recently made its appearance – here and there even degenerating into a kind of flunkeyism – which without more ado declares all nationalization, even the Bismarckian kind, to be socialistic. To be sure, if the nationalization of the tobacco trade were socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would rank among the founders of socialism.
Engels point is that dogmatic nationalization does not outstrip the development level of the productive forces. Engels is saying that nationalizing, say, the railways, or other large scale production that outstrips production by corporations, does actually result in a progressive movement. This wraps around to the idea that you can’t abolish the Value form without developing out of it, and why the State whithers away, rather than rapidly vanishes.
The biggest wedge, though, is that you can see states like the PRC, which are increasingly becoming publicly owned and controlled, and represent a progressive movement for the Working Class, and deem it a failure since a world revolution isn’t here. However, even if you want to call it “State Capitalism” (which I will get into in a second), the undeniable progress it is making towards becoming a fully publicly owned economy and the role it plays in offering a multilateral alternative to the US Empire’s hegemony are important to recognize. By only recognizing world revolution immediately as a valid revolution, despite no practical or theoretical basis for it, it ties your hands up neatly.
But how else can we bring about world revolution, than by steadily creating more Socialist states, and overthrowing Imperialism? The theory of cascading world revolution has proven incorrect, world revolution is a battle fought stone by stone. It isn’t a grand societal revolution in a short period of time, but requires the proletariat in each country to organize and overthrow Capitalism. There’s nothing wrong inherently with those who build up Socialism domestically, rather, it’s important so that the progress towards building world Socialism is made.
Why is the One Drop Rule a problem? Because its anti-Dialectical. Marx considered states where Capitalism was dominant yet a minority of the economy to have already been Capitalist overall, because contradictions were being resolved in the bourgeoisie’s favor and private ownership was the principle aspect. All systems and things have contradictions, what matters is which class is resolving them in whose favor. Skipping down the section on “Left” errors in What is Socialism? talks about the errors in over-applying the term Capitalism.
In my opinion, it’s clear that AES countries are building towards Socialism, and trying to mark the changes they make as they learn more about Socialism by building it as “revisionism,” you’re wiping away the existing practice of Socialists in pursuit of ever-purer ideas. We can make a clear distinction between what happened in the later Soviet period and what is happening in the PRC because we can track how advancements in knowledge of theories like Special Economic Zones can be a useful tool for those building Socialism.
I really appreciate this and you are right - the claims I made do go against ML theory, and whether something is right or wrong in this case is dependent on one’s views and perspectives (as in intra-Marxism) rather than cold, hard, unquestionable facts. I will definitely try to avoid such loaded language in the future.
In essence, I do largely agree with you - the material conditions in the historically socialist countries (USSR specifically in this case but can also more or less be applied to others) be it their peasant problem or being isolated due to international revolutions failing did require them to do what they had done and develop using state capitalism or “building socialism in one state”, and they were successful in that regard. Same applies to the anti-colonial national liberation movements - they were successful and historically progressive and indeed should be celebrated.
However, the issue that this is a win for (state) capitalism and all the baggage that comes with it rather than actual socialism, given how socialist mode of production was never realized and arguments such as “people’s billionaires who will get punished by going against the party” or “the economy was nationalized” don’t define socialism. Wage labor remained (therefore surplus extraction too), commodity production and markets both within the country and interaction with international capitalist world market had remained (Why Russia isn’t socialist talks about this). One could also make an argument that even in those countries where capitalists got done away with (which is a proletarian W) but state capitalism persisted, the functions of the capitalist remained and were carried out by mere managers, like how Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific points out:
And again to reiterate, rather than being a win for socialism, it’s instead a win for a regressive form of it which is state capitalism that’s comparable to social democracy.
As about your point about the rejection of AES, that’s not my argument at all - instead of rejecting any attempt outright and waiting for a perfect revolution, one should instead support all revolutionary attempts but, most importantly, realize when the revolution had failed/ended instead of clinging onto false hope which is something that ML’s tend to do at least from my perspective. Of course, when a revolution fails depends on ones perspective, but from mine it’s when the proletarian revolution (which must be internationalist) fails to spread and a country has to start fully focusing inwards for its survival within global capitalism and the inevitable participation in it, like what happened in USSR in 1920’s - at that point, it’s only a matter of time until the country falls to revisionism, degeneration of socialist ideas and the aforementioned full reintegration into global capitalist system.
That being said, I really do appreciate your responses, even though some of them might be too long for me to respond to.
I appreciate your POV. I still, however, think that, ultimately, the core of our disagreement still falls on your adoption of the One Drop Rule as both determiner of Socialism and as determination of whether or not something is a force for Socialism, or not.
Before I get into it, I want to address Engels’ statement in Socialism: Utopian and Scientitic. Engels is speaking of dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that nationalize industries while retaining their class character. Indeed, Norway as a Social Democracy nationalizing its energy industry to become a petro state is not Socialism, Private Property still dominates society and holds power. Engels further elaborates on that statement in a footnote:
Engels point is that dogmatic nationalization does not outstrip the development level of the productive forces. Engels is saying that nationalizing, say, the railways, or other large scale production that outstrips production by corporations, does actually result in a progressive movement. This wraps around to the idea that you can’t abolish the Value form without developing out of it, and why the State whithers away, rather than rapidly vanishes.
The biggest wedge, though, is that you can see states like the PRC, which are increasingly becoming publicly owned and controlled, and represent a progressive movement for the Working Class, and deem it a failure since a world revolution isn’t here. However, even if you want to call it “State Capitalism” (which I will get into in a second), the undeniable progress it is making towards becoming a fully publicly owned economy and the role it plays in offering a multilateral alternative to the US Empire’s hegemony are important to recognize. By only recognizing world revolution immediately as a valid revolution, despite no practical or theoretical basis for it, it ties your hands up neatly.
But how else can we bring about world revolution, than by steadily creating more Socialist states, and overthrowing Imperialism? The theory of cascading world revolution has proven incorrect, world revolution is a battle fought stone by stone. It isn’t a grand societal revolution in a short period of time, but requires the proletariat in each country to organize and overthrow Capitalism. There’s nothing wrong inherently with those who build up Socialism domestically, rather, it’s important so that the progress towards building world Socialism is made.
Why is the One Drop Rule a problem? Because its anti-Dialectical. Marx considered states where Capitalism was dominant yet a minority of the economy to have already been Capitalist overall, because contradictions were being resolved in the bourgeoisie’s favor and private ownership was the principle aspect. All systems and things have contradictions, what matters is which class is resolving them in whose favor. Skipping down the section on “Left” errors in What is Socialism? talks about the errors in over-applying the term Capitalism.
In my opinion, it’s clear that AES countries are building towards Socialism, and trying to mark the changes they make as they learn more about Socialism by building it as “revisionism,” you’re wiping away the existing practice of Socialists in pursuit of ever-purer ideas. We can make a clear distinction between what happened in the later Soviet period and what is happening in the PRC because we can track how advancements in knowledge of theories like Special Economic Zones can be a useful tool for those building Socialism.