In the Russian and Chinese cases then, an analysis in terms of these ideas would examine the extent to which peasant conditions in each case were productive of an "individuality" characterized by significant "superstition" and "prejudice" and the extent to which the "revolutions" in question led to a "more or less centralised despotism".
In so far as they were so productive and did so lead, they not only did not create "socialist" productive relations in Marx's sense, they instead created relations incapable of producing the degree of "integral development of every individual producer" required to create such relations. They would eventually lead, therefore, not to "socialism", but to a social form consistent with the actual kind of "individuality" they did produce. Ted ^^^^^^ CB: I don't think it is accurate to say that the influence of the Soviet state on the Russian peasants was to perpetuate or develop "superstition" and "prejudice" On the contrary, it developed a atheism, scientific and internationalist worldview in them, probably more than in the US even. Also, its influence was the opposite of perpetuating or causing isolation and the lack of connexion between the life of one commune (cooperatives) and that of the others. It de-localised and centralized. It was a Union. Thus, on your logic, the Soviet Union very much developed the old Russian peasant communes in a way that produced individuals capable of creating the penultimate state of communism, i.e. socialism. The problem with the SU was not inadequate or non-integrated individual development, but the world historic slaughter and material/economic destruction and threat of slaughter and destruction wrought on the SU by capitalism including especially Nazism and the US. The SU had to militarize its social structure and spend too much on defense, it being genuine defense given the history of gigantic assaults , not preparation for offense as in the US. This military threat was a critical factor in China's detour to capitalist relations of production,too. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
