me: >> One example of the absence of democracy in the old USSR is that the >> ruling class's main organization (the CP, merged with the state) was >> able to abolish the old "socialist" system without any kind of consent >> from the workers.
CB responded: > I see I misread this comment by u. I agree that in abolishing the > Soviet socialist system the CPSU acted undemocratically. They > abolished social appropriation and reinstituted private appropriation. CB later added: >> This is not a Marxist way to understand it. This represents the kind of thing that drove Marx to say that he wasn't a Marxist. "This is not a Marxist way to understand it." That's not an argument for anything. The content of this sentence is equivalent to saying "I disagree with you and I'm right." >> Plus, it is not >> accurate that there was _no_ "consent" from the workers. The idea >> that there was no mass popularity of the decisions and actions of the >> CPSU is ridiculous. I thought that I had already answered this. To be stable, _all_ class systems have to have "mass popularity" (legitimacy). If not, the producers try to overthrow the system -- or the system is so busy using force to suppress the opposition that (almost) no surplus-labor is done. Force is never sufficient to maintain a class system. The Catholic religion helped legitimate feudalism in the serf's eyes, as did the pomp and circumstance of the lords' ceremonies. Patriotism, individualism, the fear of job loss, propaganda, etc., legitimate capitalism. The old USSR used patriotism, rhetoric about "socialism," "progress," etc. to legitimate their system, along with stuff about technocrats' superiority and fear of the US. Likely, the abolition of bureaucratic socialism also had some legitimacy, since by 1989 it was very clear that the Soviet system did not work very well, even by its own standards, while events like the lost war in Afghanistan and Chernobyl encouraged this fact to be more obvious. In the end, whether or not it was seen as legitimate, the workers were not consulted when the power elite decided to abolish top-down state planning and the like and to bring in capitalism. There was no vote and no petitions. The CP had gained class power at some point during the 1920s (or earlier) and, after several decades, used it to make a lot of their leaders rich in a capitalist way. (Mafia and "black" marketeers also won, big time.) -- Jim Devine "All science would be superfluous if the form of appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
