First, let's start with the word socialism and what it means. To me the minimum
would be some socialisation of the means of production (I distinquish this from
nationalisation). This entails the establishment of democratic institutions
capable of managing that control. I take this to be what Marx meant by the
withering away of the state. The state as a institution of a divided society
would be replaced, as those divisions were resolved, by alternative democratic
institutions (the division between the public and private sphere being one of
the most important divisions, would thus be overcome).
The Soviet Union did not attempt to construct these institution, (in fact, after
the initial period of the soviets, they did everything in their power to destroy
alternative centres of power.) Yugoslavia and Cuba did more in this and have a
greater claim to being socialist.
The Soviet Union was a society in which the division between capital and labour
was still strong. Capital, was for the main part, controlled by the bureaucracy,
but it still existed as an opposition to labour. Little was being done to
overcome this division. The Soviet Union was one of the world's most developed
welfare states but it was not socialist, it was most definitely a society in
which capital still ruled.
Rod
"J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote:
> Rod,
> In what way was it not? The USSR followed most of the
> "planks" in the platform at the end of the Communist
> Manifesto. It even, under Khrushchev, attempted to
> maintain greenbelts and carried out other policies
> motivated by the essentially utopian goal of eliminating
> the distinction between the city and the country.
> What it was not was communist. And neither it nor
> any other socialist state (that I am aware of, maybe Pol
> Pot made such claims) ever claimed so to be. The official
> line in the old USSR was that they were a socialist state
> "in transition" to a communist future that never arrived.
> BTW, to those who are getting upset that I have made
> some critical remarks about Marx, I say that I am a great
> admirer of Marx and fully agree that he was very perspicuitous
> about many matters, arguably the most brilliant economist
> of the nineteenth century, certainly one of the most. But, he
> was not a god or a messiah or a prophet. He was a human
> being subject to errors, no matter how brilliant or wise he was.
> Even if one wishes to designate him as "error-free," clearly
> his writings are open to many interpretations in many places,
> as we all well know.
> Barkley Rosser
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Hay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Thursday, May 18, 2000 7:49 PM
> Subject: [PEN-L:19253] : withering away of the state
>
> >Perhaps Marx was utopian. But we will have to wait until we have a
> socialists
> >society, in order to find out. The Soviet Union called itself socialist but
> it
> >wasn't.
> >
> >"J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote:
> >
> >> Jim,
> >> I did not mean that the vision was pathetic. I
> >> meant that the actual outcome in light of the vision/
> >> (forecast) was pathetic.
> >> Barkley Rosser
> >> --
> >
> >--
> >Rod Hay
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >The History of Economic Thought Archive
> >http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
> >Batoche Books
> >http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/
> >52 Eby Street South
> >Kitchener, Ontario
> >N2G 3L1
> >Canada
> >
> >
--
Rod Hay
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The History of Economic Thought Archive
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html
Batoche Books
http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/
52 Eby Street South
Kitchener, Ontario
N2G 3L1
Canada
