subject:"Re\: Why did the USSR fall"

-Original Message-
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 I fall half way between Chris  Lou.  A more social democratic
 government could alleviate poverty a la US New Deal, but in no way
 would it eliminate it.

It certainly won't _eliminate_ it. But poverty in Russia has diminished by a third 
since 1998. Pensions and wages for government employees (the biggest groups of poor) 
have doubled under Putin. BTW I notice that Steal This Idea got quoted recently in the 
Moscow Times.

On the other hand, from what I gather Putin is
 challenging a few of the oligarchs, but what is he doing about the
 general level of corruption?

Ha. Corruption if anything has probably increased under Putin. However, it is more 
predictable: Everybody knows it is going to cost x to get permit y. It is manageable. 
I attach an article by Peter at the bottom of this email on the subject.


 A friend's parents were trying to purchase an appartment, but had to
 pay all sorts of bribes just to make the papers go through.  Only an
 anectdote.

Yup, that sounds right.

 What chance do the poor have to attend elite colleges?

Very little, but they could attend Moscow State University.

Here's the article:

OPINION: The new and improved corruption equilibrium
Contributed by Peter Lavelle, Moscow-based analyst and columnist for The Russia Journal

MOSCOW, Feb 11 /Prime-TASS/ -- Russia s so-called middle class is an interesting 
beast. For some, it is not much different than its Western peers. For others it is a 
group of consumers who merely imitate a certain lifestyle found in the media without 
the commonly accepted social and moral values implied when using the term  middle 
class.

Last week, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov stated at a meeting of the ministry's board 
that the state had lost something approaching $1.57 billion due to economic crimes 
last year, a third more than in 2001. The same news report claims that  Two-thirds of 
bribe-takers were criminally prosecuted.  According to Gryzlov,  at the same time, 
some divisions only pretend to fight corruption. Active corruption-fighting must be 
executed at all levels of government.  Two-thirds of what number was not mentioned in 
the newswire report this writer read. My suspicion is that the number is rather small. 
Obviously, the number of bribe-takers was not highlighted in the same wire report.

One does not have to be an economist or bean-counter to apply some elementary logic 
when it comes to trying to identify who the culprits are in the Ministry s corruption 
estimates. The very rich remain above the law, and the poor (by definition) certainly 
can t afford to pay a bribe. There is only one social group that remains able to 
transact a bribe. The group is the  middle class  and/or mid-sized businesses.

What President Vladimir Putin thinks of corruption is one of those black boxes that 
surround him. The most we can discern from his public pronouncements is that he does 
not like it, while his actions inform us that he is ambivalent. Perhaps this 
ambivalence comes from complacency, due to the country's current relative economic and 
social stability.

The Yeltsin years are indistinguishable from the concept of corruption gone berserk. 
Apologists for this phenomenon remain notorious to this day. Anatoly Chubais and Boris 
Nemtsov would still have us believe that corruption is an unfortunate part of Russia's 
transformation to a market economy. This kind of reasoning might have resonated with 
the chaotic reality of the times, but today it is a barrier to Russia attaining the 
normality so many in this country   including the president himself   claim to 
desire.

Corruption is a very powerful disease, able to adapt to various conditions and 
environments, and the Russian strain is particularly virulent. During the first decade 
of Russia's exit from communism, the terms banditry and gangsterism were very 
appropriate. Society was weak, and the state was collapsing. The situation looks 
different today: The state is strengthening, business empires are consolidating and a 
fledgling  middle class  that works for them is coming into being. All seem to have 
come to a comfortable understanding concerning how the system should be greased in 
Putin's Russia.

Under Putin, corruption is being normalized in an entirely new and dangerous way. In 
reality, the level of corruption today is not much different from in Yeltsin's time. 
How many major figures   known to anyone who watches television or reads newspapers   
from the state bureaucracy or the business world have been prosecuted for gross 
embezzlement and misappropriation of funds during the Putin presidency? The answer is 
obvious. The difference between the two presidencies is that, under Putin, the state 
and society have found a new corruption equilibrium.

This equilibrium can be explained as follows: As long as there is a modicum of 
economic stability, most Russians   the fledgling  middle class

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

From James Devine:




 finally, the Chechens have figured out how to strike back in a decisive way!

:) Chechens have a large presence in the business elite (one of the big hotels in 
Moscow, I forget which one, is Chechen-owned). There are a million Chechens, and 
three-quarters of them do not leave in Chechnya. There are 200,000 Chechens just in 
Moscow. This is not some tiny minority we're talking about.


 Electrical appliances are mostly domestically produced.

 I remember seeing some of those in Cuba when I was there in the late 1970s. The 
 Cubans thought they were shit, too.


Maybe they've gotten better -- they're OK, nothing to go crazy over.



 how about investment goods? those are more crucial.

Could you define the term for economically-challenged me?



 The chinovniki _are_ the old bureaucratic-socialist system, or at least the part 
 before the hyphen

 I don't know the terminology. What are chinoniki?

Chinovnik is the Russian word for bureaucrat. It is derived from the word for 
China.


 but don't they want to be like the US, where Bush bought himself a government post?

Bush wasn't as direct about it, at least.

It's true, though, that mostly people use government posts to buy themselves jobs in 
the private sector as lobbyists, etc.

Government posts in Russia are mostly about getting access to flows of money. The 
average Duma deputy is paid only a few hundred dollars a month, yet manages to drive 
around in a Mercedes. Putin's official monthly salary is $800.



 Definitely. They Kremlin has been very clear that if you are a patriotic 
 businessman instead of a bandit capitalist, which means in effect doing what the 
 Kremlin says and not shipping assets abroad ...

 hmm.

Those are the terms used in Russian political discourse. They were the main theme in 
the runup to teh last Duma election, in which the liberal parties were trounced.


 thanks for the interesting article  the interesting conversation.


Reciprocally.

Re: Why did the USSR fall

Societal change in Russia has always almost always come from the top down. It has been 
Revolution from Above since the days of Peter the Great on through Catherine the 
Great, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, and thus it shall probably be 
until the end of time.


 it's not like a more social democratic government could have fallen from the sky. 
 There has been no such government because the working classes in the old USSR and 
 (now) Russia are poorly organized. Social democracy is a compromise that the ruling 
 classes (or developing ruling classes) accept when under pressure from below.
 Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall

I think this is absolutely correct:

I do not state that Putin is ideologically or emotionally against the bourgeois 
property relations and its unique signature of reproduction, but he is a product of 
Sovietism and has a certain dislike for the capitalist class in the flesh.

I do not believe Putin to be a Russian version of Bush Jr., or Clinton for that 
matter but something else. He has inherited recent Soviet history and as the send 
largest armaments exporter is going to remilitarize Russian society or get kicked out 
of office by a powerful wing of intelligence. He also inherited the economic 
relationship of Russia proper to its less developed regions - vassals, and this 
economic relationship will not be broken

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-05-02 Thread Devine, James

Asking about Russia's economic dependency, I asked:  how about investment goods? 
those are more crucial.

Chris D. asks:Could you define the term for economically-challenged me?

I'm talking about fixed produced means of production. If the machine tool (etc.) 
industry in Russia is non-existent or produces obsolescent equipment, then either all 
means of production need to be imported or industries that use domestically-produced 
ones will be at a competitive disadvantage. Either way, that means that Russia's 
economic growth (that's not based directly on domestically-produced raw materials) is 
dependent on imports.

Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-02 Thread Devine, James

Chris D writes:
Societal change in Russia has always almost always come from the top down. It has 
been Revolution from Above since the days of Peter the Great on through Catherine the 
Great, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, and thus it shall probably 
be until the end of time.

I disagree. In 1917, there was a huge from below component, as there had been in 
1905. The importance of from above initiatives rose after that, as the Soviet state 
minimized, atomized, and controlled the role of independent organizations of workers, 
peasants, etc. But even Gorby, Yeltsin, and Putin must have had some support from 
below for their from-above initiatives to have an effect.
Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-02 Thread Louis Proyect

Chris Doss wrote:
Societal change in Russia has always almost always come from the top down.
It has been Revolution from Above since the days of Peter the Great on
through Catherine the Great, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin and
Putin, and thus it shall probably be until the end of time.
Leaving aside the omission of 1905 and 1917, as Jim Devine pointed out, the
larger question is so what? Except for a brief period between 1917 and
1990, we have had capitalism everywhere in the world since the 1600s except
in Cuba and North Korea. Does this mean that we accept this state of
affairs? While Chris Doss takes great pains to cloak his posts in terms of
journalistic neutrality, there is a political subtext here. It seems that
he is saying that socialism was tried and did not work. Therefore, the best
that the Russian people (and presumably, the rest of the world) have to
hope for is capitalism managed by enlightened elites. We should reject this
stance.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall

Gorby was populat from around 1985-1988 (not now, boy). Yeltsin was hugely popular 
from around 1998-1992 (i.e., right after hyperinflation hit). Putin has an approval 
rating of about 70%.


 I disagree. In 1917, there was a huge from below component, as there had been in 
 1905. The importance of from above initiatives rose after that, as the Soviet 
 state minimized, atomized, and controlled the role of independent organizations of 
 workers, peasants, etc. But even Gorby, Yeltsin, and Putin must have had some 
 support from below for their from-above initiatives to have an effect.
 Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-02 Thread Michael Perelman

I can see how the conditions that Chris describes can help to alleviate
poverty somewhat, but the class conditions that he lays out would seem
to prevent serious improvement.

Can you really say much more than Putin is better than Yeltsin?
 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall

Just that he's MUCH better than Yeltsin. But then to talk about leaders who are WORSE 
than Yeltsin, you have to start wandering into Pol Pot territory. It's almost 
impossible to be worse than Yeltsin. Yeltsin brought GDP down to 55% of the 1989 level 
in 1998; it's at 80% now.


 Can you really say much more than Putin is better than Yeltsin?
  --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-02 Thread Devine, James

of course, wasn't Yeltsin following the lead of the IMF, the US Treasury, etc.? so he 
was our Pol Pot? 
JD

-Original Message- 
From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Sun 5/2/2004 9:17 AM 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Cc: 
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall

Just that he's MUCH better than Yeltsin. But then to talk about leaders who 
are WORSE than Yeltsin, you have to start wandering into Pol Pot territory. It's 
almost impossible to be worse than Yeltsin. Yeltsin brought GDP down to 55% of the 
1989 level in 1998; it's at 80% now.

 Can you really say much more than Putin is better than Yeltsin?
  --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall

:) Which, if you notice, Putin isn't doing, which probably has a lot to do with his 
being villified in the US press.

 of course, wasn't Yeltsin following the lead of the IMF, the US Treasury, etc.? so 
 he was our Pol Pot?
 JD

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Ooh, this is a little out of my territory. I know a bit about Russian business because 
I spent three years with a Russian business newspaper, but am sketchy on the broad 
picture.

Yes, most domestic equipment (with the big exception of arms) is out-of-date, I do 
know that light industry was one of the big growth sectors post-1998, but I do not 
know to what extent it recovered.

Domestic production is currently being protected by the high euro-ruble exchange rate, 
as most of Russia's imports come from the EU.


 I'm talking about fixed produced means of production. If the machine tool (etc.) 
 industry in Russia is non-existent or produces obsolescent equipment, then either 
 all means of production need to be imported or industries that use 
 domestically-produced ones will be at a competitive disadvantage. Either way, that 
 means that Russia's economic growth (that's not based directly on 
 domestically-produced raw materials) is dependent on imports.

 Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-05-02 Thread Ted Winslow

Charles Brown wrote:
CB: Is it Marx's meaning or the amended view of Marx that takes
account of
the irrational factors you mention ?
I think that Marx's meaning does, but that it doesn't do so adequately.
That it takes account of irrationality is demonstrated by the
contrasting, in the passage from the 18th Brumaire, of enlightenment
and judgment with prejudice and superstition so it's not just
self-consciousness per se that expresses conditions but the degree of
rationality, the degree of enlightenment, of self-consciousness.  The
prejudice and superstition are made a cause of the coup d'etat of
Napoleon III  They're also treated in the same passage as internally
related (which means more that just related) to the conditions of
peasant life, in particular, to peasant social relations.
Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-05-01 Thread Chris Doss

I replied to this message a while back, but for some reason it doesn't seem to have 
gone through. Therefore, I will try to reconstruct what I said as well as I can 
remember, operating as I am with a seemingly endless headache.

From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 I'd forgotten that. Of course, it's got a down-side, in that such exports help 
 destabilize the world and sap poor countries' civilian budgets. As my dad used to 
 say, every silver lining has a mushroom cloud...

The great majority of Russian arms go to two countries, China and India.


 (Ha! But the old USSR's nukes are used, in the sense that they were used as 
 deterrent -- and also in the sense that they have physically depreciated over time. 
 The latter was what I was thinking of.)

I keep hearing different things about this... Ostensibly, the state of the stockpile 
is deteriorating, but then they keep coming out with new stuff. For instance, the are 
developing bunkerbusters (in response to the US) and very recently announced a new 
ICBM that can change course in midflight, thereby circumventing ABM systems. Russia 
takes its nuclear shield very seriously.


 It's interesting that all of these exports (plus the military ones) were based on 
 the investment done during the Soviet period.

Put yourself in the shoes of a budding post-Soviet capitalist in the mid-90s. Do you 
build up a business from scratch, or do you try to get your hands on the huge Soviet 
enterprises that are already there? Clearly the latter.

Have the new capitalist rulers done nothing productive except political stabilization?


Theoretically, political stabilization creates the ground for economic development. 
Yeltsin would change the laws regulating business every other week, sometimes 
retroactively. That is not conducive to capitalist development.

 Further, the near-total focus on natural resource exports is a sign of economic 
 dependency. (The exception is the arms exports.)  It means that the vast majority of 
 fixed investment goods and even consumer goods bought in Russia are imported, no?

No. That was the case pre-1998, not today. Most consumer goods are Russian-made. In 
sectors outside the natural-resource industries, software is doing well, as are 
telecoms (BeeLine GSM and MTS being the big Moscow providers). Fast food is big (it 
seems like Moscow has about a billion fastfood chains, e.g., Russkoye Bistro, Kroshka 
Kartoshka, etc. Incidentally the head of McDonald's Russia is a Chechen.). Most 
Russians drive Russian-made cars. Electrical appliances are mostly domestically 
produced. Pharmaceuticals are domestic. Clothing is domestic, or imported from China 
or Belarus (mainly shoes, in the latter case. Belarus makes good footware.). Furniture 
is domestic, imported from Belarus or, in Moscow, purchased from IKEA. Vodka (a big 
seller) is domestic; so is beer--e.g. Baltika, Staryi Melnik, Klinskoye, 
Ochakova--though there is some foreign ownership. Foodstuffs are mostly deomstic, with 
the big exception of American meat, which is sold at very low prices and is consumed 
by the lowest strata of the poor, because it's awful. (Produce is mostly grown on 
collective farms that were privatized and given to their employees, resulting in a 
huge increase in productivity.) Entertainment, except for film, is mostly domestic. Of 
course nothing comes within spitting range of Big Oil, Gas or Metals.



 There are at least two status quos here. One is what's left of the old 
 bureaucratic-socialist system.

The chinovniki _are_ the old bureaucratic-socialist system, or at least the part 
before the hyphen. (By the way, Russia retains a lot of socialist characteristics that 
is generally supposed in the West -- it simply can't implement them well because the 
state is underfunded. My ex-girlfriend gets an all-expense-paid trip anywhere in 
Russia once a year from the state, because she is a widow.)

---
The other is the status quo of capitalism and the current distribution of power. The 
KGB types, I would guess, favor the latter but not the former.
--
I suspect they want a system in which they dominate big business is dominated, rather 
than vice versa, as was the case under Yeltsin, when Berezovsky could basically buy 
himself a government post.
---

The fact that they live off of rents (and seek more) suggests that their statist 
ideology will reflect their means of support. They may aim to bump off (figuratively 
and maybe literally) a couple of billionaires, but that would be in order to elevate 
themselves to that status rather than to end the existence of billionaires as a social 
category.

--
Definitely. They Kremlin has been very clear that if you are a patriotic businessman 
instead of a bandit capitalist, which means in effect doing what the Kremlin says 
and not shipping assets abroad (cf. this article from a few days ago, in which Putin 
designates Surgutneftegaz as a good, socially-responsible company, as opposed to 
Yukos:

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-01 Thread Louis Proyect

Chris Doss wrote:
No. That was the case pre-1998, not today. Most consumer goods are
Russian-made. In sectors outside the natural-resource industries, software
is doing well, as are telecoms (BeeLine GSM and MTS being the big Moscow
providers). Fast food is big (it seems like Moscow has about a billion
fastfood chains, e.g., Russkoye Bistro, Kroshka Kartoshka, etc.
Incidentally the head of McDonald's Russia is a Chechen.). Most Russians
drive Russian-made cars. Electrical appliances are mostly domestically
produced. Pharmaceuticals are domestic. Clothing is domestic, or imported
from China or Belarus (mainly shoes, in the latter case. Belarus makes
good footware.). Furniture is domestic, imported from Belarus or, in
Moscow, purchased from IKEA. Vodka (a big seller) is domestic; so is
beer--e.g. Baltika, Staryi Melnik, Klinskoye, Ochakova--though there is
some foreign ownership. Foodstuffs are mostly deomstic, with the big
exception of American meat, which is sold at very low prices and is
consumed by the lowest strata of the poor, because it's awful. (Produce is
mostly grown on collective farms that were privatized and given to their
employees, resulting in a huge increase in productivity.) Entertainment,
except for film, is mostly domestic. Of course nothing comes within
spitting range of Big Oil, Gas or Metals.
This beehive of economic activity must be placed within the context of how
other nations are faring. With a population of 10 million, Portugal has a
GDP of 195 billion dollars. Russia's population is 14 times the size of
Portugal's but the GDP is only 7 times as great. In other words, per capita
wealth production in the poorest Western European nation is *twice* that of
Russia's. Russia's economic output is roughly in line with Mexico's, which
has a population of 104 million that produces a GDP of 924 billion dollars.
Russia's 144 million people produce 1.2 trillion dollars in GDP. So we are
talking about a country that rates about the same as Mexico on the world
scale, a basket case by all definitions.
I am positive that there is nothing that Putin can do to eradicate poverty
despite promises of a New Deal and no matter how many Mafia/businessmen
he jails. The economic predicament of Russia is a function of exactly what
is delivering an uptick right now, namely the high prices of exported
natural resources. There has not been a single oil-exporting country in the
world that has not experienced an improvement in its economic situation
during a favorable period in the business cycle.
All this being said, when you consider Russia's take-off in light of what
went along with it, the results are even less impressive. With the breakup
of the Soviet Union, regions such as Mongolia et al could no longer depend
on subsidies. Chris is impressed with the quality of Belarus shoes. I am
far more concerned about other matters. Belarus has the same population as
Portugal but a GDP that is less than half. As you might expect, this
translates into statistics reflecting on general well-being. In Belarus,
there are 13.87 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In Portugal, the
figures are 5.73 deaths per 1,000 live births.
When I hear all this talk about how much better Putin is than Yeltsin, I
am reminded of the same rhetoric about the American elections. In the world
of politics, we must never lose sight of our goals. The Soviet Union came
into existence because it could not develop economically under the pressure
of global markets. Now that the clock has turned back, new contradictions
will eventually emerge that make that need imperative once again. It would
be a shame if those of those on the left limited our options for change in
that part of the world. Even though revolutionary socialism is a marginal
current in the former Soviet Union, it is the only one that can solve the
nation's long-standing economic problems. Putin can promise all sorts of
things, but socialism is not one of them.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-01 Thread Michael Perelman

I fall half way between Chris  Lou.  A more social democratic
government could alleviate poverty a la US New Deal, but in no way
would it eliminate it.  On the other hand, from what I gather Putin is
challenging a few of the oligarchs, but what is he doing about the
general level of corruption?

A friend's parents were trying to purchase an appartment, but had to
pay all sorts of bribes just to make the papers go through.  Only an
anectdote.

What chance do the poor have to attend elite colleges?

 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-01 Thread Devine, James

 Michael Perelman writes: 
I fall half way between Chris  Lou.  A more social democratic
government could alleviate poverty a la US New Deal, but in no way
would it eliminate it.  
 
it's not like a more social democratic government could have fallen from the sky. 
There has been no such government because the working classes in the old USSR and 
(now) Russia are poorly organized. Social democracy is a compromise that the ruling 
classes (or developing ruling classes) accept when under pressure from below. 
Jim D.

In a message dated 5/1/2004 11:14:46 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I fall half way between Chris Lou. A more social democraticgovernment could alleviate poverty a la US New Deal, but in no waywould it eliminate it. On the other hand, from what I gather Putin ischallenging a few of the oligarchs, but what is he doing about thegeneral level of corruption?A friend's parents were trying to purchase an appartment, but had topay all sorts of bribes just to make the papers go through. Only ananectdote.What chance do the poor have to attend elite colleges?
Comment

I abstracted more practical political conclusions from this exchange. The first has to do with the intelligence agencies from which Putin emerged. Intelligence as a bureaucracy or a bureaucratic structure in society has no real loyalty and gyrates on the basis of who is in power and in the case of Russia or rather the former Soviet Union, the existing property relations.

The good news is that we can most certainly count on a huge section of the intelligence agency defecting and going over so the side of the slow . . . but evolution Third Edition of the American Revolution.

Without question Putin serves the demands of bourgeois property in Russia, as he understands matters and is under intense pressure by various political grouping and the masses of Russian society who deeply feel the state is the employer and provider of last resort. In my estimate Putin will jail anyone not willing to dispense their wealth to uplift the Russian people and solidify his leadership as legitimate - according to his individual vision.

I do not state that Putin is ideologically or emotionally against the bourgeois property relations and its unique signature of reproduction, but he is a product of Sovietism and has a certain "dislike" for the capitalist class in the flesh.

I do not believe Putin to be a Russian version of Bush Jr., or Clinton for that matter but something else. He has inherited recent Soviet history and as the send largest armaments exporter is going to remilitarize Russian society or get kicked out of office by a powerful wing of intelligence. He also inherited the economic relationship of Russia proper to its less developed regions - vassals, and this economic relationship will not be broken.

This series of articleshave given us another opportunity to get a glimpse of the arms industry in Russia and what one would not be wrong to called the reemergence of another level of deterrence to American military might. The echo of the political antagonism between bourgeois America and Sovietism remains, because the strife between twovalue producing societies underlay the political antagonism. It was a question of markers and who controls what.

No, Marxist worth their salt despute the collaspe of Soviet power occurred as the precondition to overthrow its property relations and create a system of laws to allow, not simply the "integration of Russia into the world market," - it was already integrated into the world market, but rather its integration on the basis of the operation of the law of value under the bourgeois property relations. Its integration into the world market was on the basis of the identity of interest that all industrial societies must have in common as value producing society.

The reports from the from Soviet Union or rather Russia, indicates a certain recovery in internal consumption and production and the heritage of the Soviet system is to a large degree responsible for this. Unlike China the Soviets . . . pardon, Russian cannot field a wide array of products on the world market as the basis of exchange. Oil is bascially it, in respects to the economic centers of gravity in the imperial centers - Japan, America and the EU.

Bribery and corruption in the old Soviet Union and Russian society in general is legend. Nothing new here.

"Why did the USSR fall" is the title of the thread and that is the key thread I am looking at. Was it based on the "lack of revolution or socialism in rest of the world" - an external agent, or based on internal political factors generated on the basis of its internal economic logic?

I opt for the latter and not a mythical view of "world revolution."

I believe the latter although there is no Great wall of China that separated the fact of the industrial socialism being part of the world market. The economic factors has to do with the operation of the law of value and what wall the Soviets hit - not "socialism in one country." The Soviet Union was not "one country." How the political people - the "higher ups," sought to resolve the problems arising from the "wall" they hit is the flesh and blood story of real people.

Pen-L allows me to develop a deeper view of the meaning of property, exchange, accumulation and real time commerce. I wish I had signed on before my 401K went belly up, several years ago. Oh well.

I cannot predict the future and we have to see what unfolding in

Re: Why did the USSR fall

2004-05-01 Thread Michael Perelman

exactly what I was thinking.

On Sat, May 01, 2004 at 09:32:18AM -0700, Devine, James wrote:

 it's not like a more social democratic government could have fallen from the sky. 
 There has been no such government because the working classes in the old USSR and 
 (now) Russia are poorly organized. Social democracy is a compromise that the ruling 
 classes (or developing ruling classes) accept when under pressure from below.
 Jim D.

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-05-01 Thread Devine, James

I wrote:  I'd forgotten that [Russian military exports]. Of course, it's got a 
down-side, in that such exports help destabilize the world and sap poor countries' 
civilian budgets. As my dad used to say, every silver lining has a mushroom cloud...

Chris D writes:The great majority of Russian arms go to two countries, China and 
India.

those two have been at war before. But the small recipients are probably the ones we 
have to worry about. 

 (Ha! But the old USSR's nukes are used, in the sense that they were used as 
 deterrent -- and also in the sense that they have physically depreciated over time. 
 The latter was what I was thinking of.)

I keep hearing different things about this... Ostensibly, the state of the stockpile 
is deteriorating, but then they keep coming out with new stuff. For instance, the are 
developing bunkerbusters (in response to the US) and very recently announced a new 
ICBM that can change course in midflight, thereby circumventing ABM systems. Russia 
takes its nuclear shield very seriously.
 
great. The old arms rot (and become more unstable?) while the arms race goes on.
 
BTW, in a science-fiction novel I read recently (THE STONE CANAL, by McLeod), a 
country (part of the exUSSR) rents out its nuclear shield to other countries, so they 
can have a deterrent without having it based in their own territories. Interesting 
idea. Maybe Putin would like this idea?

 It's interesting that all of these exports (plus the military ones) were based on 
 the investment done during the Soviet period.

Put yourself in the shoes of a budding post-Soviet capitalist in the mid-90s. Do you 
build up a business from scratch, or do you try to get your hands on the huge Soviet 
enterprises that are already there? Clearly the latter.
 
I wasn't blaming them. I was just stating my understanding of what's going on.

Have the new capitalist rulers done nothing productive except political 
stabilization?

Theoretically, political stabilization creates the ground for economic development. 
Yeltsin would change the laws regulating business every other week, sometimes 
retroactively. That is not conducive to capitalist development.
 
it could also be stabilization of a stagnant comprador regime, once oil prices fall. 

 Further, the near-total focus on natural resource exports is a sign of economic 
 dependency. (The exception is the arms exports.)  It means that the vast majority 
 of fixed investment goods and even consumer goods bought in Russia are imported, 
 no?

No. That was the case pre-1998, not today. Most consumer goods are Russian-made. In 
sectors outside the natural-resource industries, software is doing well, as are 
telecoms (BeeLine GSM and MTS being the big Moscow providers). Fast food is big (it 
seems like Moscow has about a billion fastfood chains, e.g., Russkoye Bistro, Kroshka 
Kartoshka, etc. Incidentally the head of McDonald's Russia is a Chechen.).
 
finally, the Chechens have figured out how to strike back in a decisive way!
 
Most Russians drive Russian-made cars.
 
which doesn't involve much a domestic market for new production. Unless repairs are a 
big industry?
 
Electrical appliances are mostly domestically produced.
 
I remember seeing some of those in Cuba when I was there in the late 1970s. The Cubans 
thought they were shit, too.
 
 Pharmaceuticals are domestic. Clothing is domestic, or imported from China or 
 Belarus (mainly shoes, in the latter case. Belarus makes good footware.). Furniture 
 is domestic, imported from Belarus or, in Moscow, purchased from IKEA. Vodka (a big 
 seller) is domestic; so is beer--e.g. Baltika, Staryi Melnik, Klinskoye, 
 Ochakova--though there is some foreign ownership. Foodstuffs are mostly deomstic, 
 with the big exception of American meat, which is sold at very low prices and is 
 consumed by the lowest strata of the poor, because it's awful. (Produce is mostly 
 grown on collective farms that were privatized and given to their employees, 
 resulting in a huge increase in productivity.) Entertainment, except for film, is 
 mostly domestic. Of course nothing comes within spitting range of Big Oil, Gas or 
 Metals.
 
how about investment goods? those are more crucial. 

 There are at least two status quos here. One is what's left of the old 
 bureaucratic-socialist system.

The chinovniki _are_ the old bureaucratic-socialist system, or at least the part 
before the hyphen
 
I don't know the terminology. What are chinoniki? 

The other is the status quo of capitalism and the current distribution of power. The 
KGB types, I would guess, favor the latter but not the former.

 I suspect they want a system in which they dominate big business is dominated, 
 rather than vice versa, as was the case under Yeltsin, when Berezovsky could 
 basically buy himself a government post.

but don't they want to be like the US, where Bush bought himself a government post? 
It's true, though, that mostly people use government posts to buy

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-30 Thread Chris Doss

My impression is that it is continuing but greatly diminished. The big days of 
emigration were the early to mid 90s. Actually, Russia has net immigration (3 million 
people have left since 1991, and 6 million have come). The rate of emigrees who are 
returning has also greatly increased, most notably from Israel.

I am no scientist, but I have close contacts with the Russian Academy of Sciences, and 
the material I see there looks pretty impressive to my layperson's eye.

There is a lot of money for scientists working in the petroleum industry or otherwise 
connected with natural-resource extraction and processing, or in the arms industry, 
but very little for most other people. Anything connected with computers is an 
exception.

My experience is that most Russian university students are studying accounting, 
journalism, or economics (which means business). Computer programming and anything 
involving the Internet are another big draw, as are foreign languages. Theoretical 
sciences are way down on the list, except for psychology.

-Original Message-
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 08:31:06 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?


 Russia's strong educational tradition separates that country from most
 dependent economies -- especially if Russia can stem the brain drain.
 Is it still continuing?

 --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-30 Thread Ted Winslow

Jim wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, Ted is referring to the problem of the expression
of public opinion through plebiscites. If people are isolated, having
few or no popular organizations that allow popular discussion and
self-education, people tend to veer toward the most individualistic
ideologies. In 19th-century France, people voted for Napoleon III in
plebiscites not because it expressed their long-term, collective, or
class interest but because it expressed their isolated, atomized,
consciousness -- especially since there was little choice on the
ballot.
This is one factor.  The social relations within which individuals
develop and live provide more or less opportunity for contact with
other individuals with different perspectives and thus for the
development of what Kant calls enlarged thought (though what Kant
emphasizes is not so much contact with other perspectives as the
capacity to think about things from the perspective of others, to put
yourself in others' shoes).  Marx also claimed, though, that the coup
d'etat even more accuratley represented the self-consciousness of the
peasant class base.
The aspects of Marx I'm emphasizing, however, are the roles given to
(a) the potential for rational self-consciousness as the defining
feature of human being and as the key factor explaining human phenomena
(b) a developmental view of self-consciousness that allows for varying
degrees of rationality and (c) an internal relations - i.e
dialectical - view of this development, one that emphasizes relations
of production as the key developmental relations.
So class analysis in Marx's sense is a particular form of an analysis
of the role of self-consciousness in the determination of social
phenomena e.g. the coup d'etat of Napoleon III.  If this accurately
represents Marx's analytical approach, a Marxist answer to the
question why did the USSR fall would point to various kinds of more
or less rational self-consciousness and their relative importance in
the context where it occurred.
It seems to me, however, that the particular form of Marx's relational
treatment of the role of self-consciousness needs amending.  What
explains, for instance, the tenacious persistence of the irrational
religious self-consciousness that played an important role in the
election of Bush.  A significant part of this, apparently, is the
extreme Book of Revelation form found in Ashcroft.  These irrational
religious beliefs and feelings also play an important role, I would
argue, in what the Bush administration does (i.e. they aren't merely
camouflage for the instrumentally rational pursuit of surplus
extraction and accumulation - an idea that, in any event, doesn't, in
my judgment, accurately capture what Marx means by class or
dialectical analysis).
Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Chris Doss

James Devine wrote:

 Dependent countries can escape dependency (or at least its effects) if they have a 
 highly-priced export item. But if oil goes away (i.e., if prices fall back to 1980s 
 levels), the Russian economy would be in Big Trouble, since there's not much else to 
 export. (Used nukes anyone?)

I write:

Now that you mention nukes, Russia is the world's No. 2 arms exporter. (PS how can you 
have a used nuke? :) ) Sukhoi makes probably the best fighter planes in the world, 
and MiG is nothing to sneeze at either.

There is no question that oil exports are important to the Russian economy, but they 
are hardly the only factor. The main contributor to the federal budget is actually 
Gazprom, much exports (surprise) gas (something like half of the EU's gas comes via 
Gazprom). Russia also exports large amounts of timber, diamonds (ALROSA is the world's 
second-largest diamond company after De Beer's, I believe), and other natural 
resources (Norilsk Nickel being the world's largets nickel company). Obviously, 
though, exclusive reliance on natural resource exports is not the way to go in the 
longterm. (Interestingly, high oil prices had no such effect on the economy when they 
were high in 95-96. I personally think much of the economic rebound is the result of 
the devaluation of the ruble and political stablization of the country, not external 
factors.)

IMHO, if Russia breaks out of the Dutch Elm disease trap, it will be via high-tech, 
which is growing in Russia very rapidly, not surprisngly considering the technical 
expertise of the workforce. (Many Samsung products were actually designed by Russian 
technicians -- they have a sizeable Moscow office. A lot of Korean businesses do 
similar work in Russia.). Kaspersky Labs is the main domestic software company. If 
memory serves, which it may not be doing, Russia is the No. 1 source for IT 
outsourcing after India, Israel, and Ireland.




 It's very rare for a dependent mono-export country to use its bonanzas to develop 
 economically.

Russia's not mono-export -- see above.

---
It's only when left-wing nationalists such as Peron or Venezuela's Chavez decide to 
shake things up (under the pressure from the workers and peasants) that we see any 
move in that direction. And often opportunites are wasted.

 Jim D.

I think a notable difference between the examples you use and Russia -- correct me if 
I am wrong, for I am no expert on Latin America by any means -- is that, as far as I 
know, Argentina and Venezuela have relatively large elites committed to the status 
quo. The only people interested in the status quo in Russia are a few billionaires, 
who have either been exiled, jailed, or intimidated. The powers-that-be in the Kremlin 
are KGB people with a KGB mindset and KGB worldview (which is not neccessarily bad), 
not a comprador class, if I am using that term correctly. (I don't speak 
Marxism-Leninese.) They are etatist in ideology and rent-seekers in terms of 
livelihood.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Louis Proyect

Chris Doss wrote:
I think a notable difference between the examples you use and Russia
-- correct me if I am wrong, for I am no expert on Latin America by any
means -- is that, as far as I know, Argentina and Venezuela have
relatively large elites committed to the status quo. The only people
interested in the status quo in Russia are a few billionaires, who have
either been exiled, jailed, or intimidated. The powers-that-be in the
Kremlin are KGB people with a KGB mindset and KGB worldview (which is
not neccessarily bad), not a comprador class, if I am using that term
correctly. (I don't speak Marxism-Leninese.) They are etatist in
ideology and rent-seekers in terms of livelihood.
Chris, it is painfully obvious that you don't speak Marxism-Leninese,
if by this you mean the method of analysis pioneered by Karl Marx and
adopted by many intellectuals and activists over the past 150 years or
so. Russia's path will not be determined by who is the chief executive,
but by the underlying class dynamics. The fact that the CEO of Yukos is
in jail will have little impact on class formation in Russia, which has
essentially gone through two phases. In the first phase, Yeltsin
presided over a crony capitalism that undermined the geopolitical
aspirations of a layer of the former bureaucracy that was for capitalism
but opposed to the weaking of Russia's position in the world. Putin came
to power with the expectation that he would rein these forces in. This
he has done. But in the long run, a Russia bourgeoisie will continue to
coalesce because the economy is based on the private accumulation of
capital, no matter whether Gazprom is owned by the state or private
investors. Since this question of state ownership can be very confusing,
I urge PEN-L'ers to look at a piece I wrote on Algeria that was meant to
rebut State Capitalist theory. The interesting thing is that where
they place a minus, Chris places a plus.
===
The development model chosen by the new revolutionary government had
been conceived by Belgian economist Destane de Bernis whose goal it was
to address Algerian needs specifically and the Third World in general.
The FLN turned these ideas into a doctrine. The basic premise was that a
modernized Algerian economy that achieved rapid industrialization would
achieve a high degree of growth that would enable the peasant masses to
be absorbed into the new economy. To reach this goal, the most advanced
technology would have to be utilized. Not much analysis was done on the
impact this path would have on the working-class or peasantry of the
nation. It was the nation as nation that took precedent. Bernis would
not let anything stand in the way of this modernizing model. He said,
We have decided that our equipment has to be ultra-modern, because it
is more profitable in the middle term. We cannot accept machines dating
from the 1940s, even if their use would provide jobs for a greater
number of workers. The lack of sensitivity to the needs of the
working-class has to be understood in terms of the character of the new
state which is composed of bureaucratic-military cadre of the FLN and
officials from the colonial administration.
While gestures toward self-management of firms and farms were made, the
socialist government of Algeria appeared more interested in the
quantity of growth rather than its quality. In this respect, it shared
many of the characteristics of less progressive states in the region
that were following a modernizing agenda, such as Iran and Iraq.
Simultaneous with the technocratic approach to economic development that
was taking shape in huge oil and chemical state-owned enterprises,
Algeria began to witness the emergence of a private sector. The state
sector actually began to fuel the growth of the private sector.
Capitalism had never been abolished in Algeria, as it was in Cuba, so
there ample opportunities for it to grow in the booming energy-based
economy. An Algerian radical newspaper commented in 1983 that Not only
old agrarian and commercial capitalists have invested, but also party
cadres, veterans of the liberation war, and even public sector cadres.
Colonel Boumedienne hailed this process. National capital must play its
role and accomplish its duty to the nation, the state is disposed, on
its part, to supply it with all guarantees in a defined framework. It is
not in the interest of the country that (private) capital remain
unproductive. The private sector has grown steadily in Algeria. Charts
available in Rachid Tlemcani's book State and Revolution in Algeria,
the source of the information in this post, end prior to 1986, the
publication year. The trend is obvious, however. In 1982, private
industry accounted for 40% of all jobs in transportation, 70% in
agriculture and 75% in commerce.
The US embassy in Algiers published a report the same year that pointed
to the existence of 315,000 capitalist firms. There are class loyalties
between the bourgeoisie who run these firms and the

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Chris Doss

What's the point of disagreement? I didn't disagree with any of this. I believe that 
Russia is developing into a stabilized state capitalist society with a lot of unique 
characteristics, moving away from the anarchic oligarchic model into one governed by 
the bureaucracy. Did I say anything different?

Of COURSE it's a plus -- as compared to oligarchic capitalism.

Actually it is hard to place the Russian chinovniki into a class analysis, at first 
examination. They are an odd bird.

BTW the painfully comment is a bit arrogant.

---

Chris, it is painfully obvious that you don't speak Marxism-Leninese,
if by this you mean the method of analysis pioneered by Karl Marx and
adopted by many intellectuals and activists over the past 150 years or
so. Russia's path will not be determined by who is the chief executive,
but by the underlying class dynamics. The fact that the CEO of Yukos is
in jail will have little impact on class formation in Russia, which has
essentially gone through two phases. In the first phase, Yeltsin
presided over a crony capitalism that undermined the geopolitical
aspirations of a layer of the former bureaucracy that was for capitalism
but opposed to the weaking of Russia's position in the world. Putin came
to power with the expectation that he would rein these forces in. This
he has done. But in the long run, a Russia bourgeoisie will continue to
coalesce because the economy is based on the private accumulation of
capital, no matter whether Gazprom is owned by the state or private
investors. Since this question of state ownership can be very confusing,
I urge PEN-L'ers to look at a piece I wrote on Algeria that was meant to
rebut State Capitalist theory. The interesting thing is that where
they place a minus, Chris places a plus.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Louis Proyect

Chris Doss wrote:
Actually it is hard to place the Russian chinovniki into a class
analysis, at first examination. They are an odd bird.
The same thing is true of China's millionaire Communists. If I may be so
arrogant to say so, you really need to think dialectically to make sense
of this.
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Michael Perelman

Russia's strong educational tradition separates that country from most
dependent economies -- especially if Russia can stem the brain drain.
Is it still continuing?

--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread Devine, James

I wrote:
  Dependent countries can escape dependency (or at least its 
 effects) if they have a highly-priced export item. But if oil 
 goes away (i.e., if prices fall back to 1980s levels), the 
 Russian economy would be in Big Trouble, since there's not 
 much else to export. (Used nukes anyone?)

Chris D writes: 
 Now that you mention nukes, Russia is the world's No. 2 arms 
 exporter. (PS how can you have a used nuke? :) ) Sukhoi 
 makes probably the best fighter planes in the world, and MiG 
 is nothing to sneeze at either.

I'd forgotten that. Of course, it's got a down-side, in that such exports help 
destabilize the world and sap poor countries' civilian budgets. As my dad used to say, 
every silver lining has a mushroom cloud...

(Ha! But the old USSR's nukes are used, in the sense that they were used as deterrent 
-- and also in the sense that they have physically depreciated over time. The latter 
was what I was thinking of.) 

 There is no question that oil exports are important to the 
 Russian economy, but they are hardly the only factor. The 
 main contributor to the federal budget is actually Gazprom, 
 much exports (surprise) gas (something like half of the EU's 
 gas comes via Gazprom). Russia also exports large amounts of 
 timber, diamonds (ALROSA is the world's second-largest 
 diamond company after De Beer's, I believe), and other 
 natural resources (Norilsk Nickel being the world's largets 
 nickel company). Obviously, though, exclusive reliance on 
 natural resource exports is not the way to go in the 
 longterm. (Interestingly, high oil prices had no such effect 
 on the economy when they were high in 95-96. I personally 
 think much of the economic rebound is the result of the 
 devaluation of the ruble and political stablization of the 
 country, not external factors.)

It's interesting that all of these exports (plus the military ones) were based on the 
investment done during the Soviet period. Have the new capitalist rulers done nothing 
productive except political stabilization? 

Further, the near-total focus on natural resource exports is a sign of economic 
dependency. (The exception is the arms exports.)  It means that the vast majority of 
fixed investment goods and even consumer goods bought in Russia are imported, no? That 
means that the economy is outer-directed, with accelerator and multiplier effects 
largely leaking out to the world economy. Economic growth is a process that's mostly 
going to be determined internationally (exchange rates, price of oil, etc.) That's 
economic dependency!

(The US is trending toward being dependent, too, in  process that's often called 
globalization. But that's another question.) 

The devaluation _was_ very important. The overvalued exchange rate (thanks, IMF!) 
undermined all the positive effects. 
 
 IMHO, if Russia breaks out of the Dutch Elm disease trap, it 
 will be via high-tech, which is growing in Russia very 
 rapidly, not surprisngly considering the technical expertise 
 of the workforce. (Many Samsung products were actually 
 designed by Russian technicians -- they have a sizeable 
 Moscow office. A lot of Korean businesses do similar work in 
 Russia.). Kaspersky Labs is the main domestic software 
 company. If memory serves, which it may not be doing, Russia 
 is the No. 1 source for IT outsourcing after India, Israel, 
 and Ireland.

good luck to them on this, but this kind of thing seems to help a very small elite of 
workers.

...

me:  It's only when left-wing nationalists such as Peron or 
 Venezuela's Chavez decide to shake things up (under the 
 pressure from the workers and peasants) that we see any move 
 in that direction. And often opportunites are wasted.

Chris:  I think a notable difference between the examples you use and 
 Russia -- correct me if I am wrong, for I am no expert on 
 Latin America by any means -- is that, as far as I know, 
 Argentina and Venezuela have relatively large elites 
 committed to the status quo. The only people interested in 
 the status quo in Russia are a few billionaires, who have 
 either been exiled, jailed, or intimidated. The 
 powers-that-be in the Kremlin are KGB people with a KGB 
 mindset and KGB worldview (which is not neccessarily bad), 
 not a comprador class, if I am using that term correctly. (I 
 don't speak Marxism-Leninese.) They are etatist in ideology 
 and rent-seekers in terms of livelihood.

There are at least two status quos here. One is what's left of the old 
bureaucratic-socialist system. The other is the status quo of capitalism and the 
current distribution of power. The KGB types, I would guess, favor the latter but not 
the former. The fact that they live off of rents (and seek more) suggests that their 
statist ideology will reflect their means of support. They may aim to bump off 
(figuratively and maybe literally) a couple of billionaires, but that would be in 
order to elevate themselves to that status rather than to end the existence

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-29 Thread michael perelman

I think that we can learn from this discussion, even if we do not agree about
the context, but we should avoid loaded [painfully] language.

Louis Proyect wrote:


 Chris, it is painfully obvious that you don't speak Marxism-Leninese,
 if by this you mean the method of analysis pioneered by Karl Marx and
 adopted by many intellectuals and activists over the past 150 years or
 so. Russia's path will not be determined by who is the chief executive,
 but by the underlying class dynamics. --

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

: ) Yes, but it does help. For instance, I know that Moscow public transportation has 
not collapsed because I took it this morning. I mean, just LOOK at the thing: 
http://www.voentour.com/excursion/metro.shtml. I also know that wages for Russian 
public employees have doubled in the past 4 years because I know a lot of Russian 
public employees. (And American newspapers wonder why people like Putin. Ho hum. I 
find it telling that the same people who spent the 90s singing the praises of Russia's 
least popular leader ever now spend their time bashing Russia's most popular leader 
ever.)

It reminds of a (Russian) friend of mine who had an Internet-sex fling with an 
American women who thought that Moscow was built of mud huts.


 Chris Doss wrote:

  It's all a function of geographic location and knowledge of the
  relevant language. :)

 Perceiving others truly is a bit more complex than this suggests, isn't
 it? :)

 Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 By any chance is there any material you know of on line that talks about or
 detail the actual physical organization of the Soviet system of reproduction? I
 have some things I have thought over for a number of years that need to be
 confirmed or disproved concerning the mechanics of the rapid industrialization
 of Russia, which cannot be explained as forced industrialization or on the
 basis of the character of political regime.  Actually, all industrialization is
 forced.

 Thanks again.

 Melvin P.


Sorry, I can't hep you. I'm not a scholar, and I'm a Putin-era guy, not a Soviet-era 
guy. I _do_ know that, at least in 2000, the Russian bureaucracy had grown to 60% of 
the size of the Soviet brueaucracy, not just in the Russian SSR, but in the entire 
USSR. It may have declined since, if governmental statements about cutting chinovniki 
have translated into deeds.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

I wrote:

 It reminds of a (Russian) friend of mine who had an Internet-sex fling with an 
 American women who thought that Moscow was built of mud huts.

I add:

I think there is probably no country in the world about which more politically and 
ideologically motivated bullshit is uttered than Russia. The place seems to serve 
Westerners as a giant Rorschach inkblot in which they can see whatever they expect to 
see (and something against which they can dfeine themselves). This goes back to before 
the Cold War. This was maybe excusable when it was a closed country and nobody was 
able to factcheck you, but it is beyond justification nowadays. For instance, I have 
seen it repeated ad nauseum that higher education in Russia is for-pay. It is not, 
assuming that you are a good enough student not to have to pay a fee (translate: 
grease a palm). All one has to do to discover this is to learn a pittance of Russian 
and wander over to Moscow State University's website, something nobody ever seems to 
have bothered to have done.

It is for precisely this reason that the Western left has missed the pivotal events in 
Russian history over the past 5 days (missing a rather obvious economic boom and 
sticking the Chechnya conflict into some kind of goofy imperialism model derived 
from the experience of Latin America, where it doesn't belong, among them). Namely, 
the Russians were refusing to fit the morality play that people had concocted for 
themselves. It is the inverse situation as when the New York Times was playing the 90s 
up as a great ecoonomic boom period and getting misty over Yeltsin: People see what 
they want to see, and ignore what they don't. In this case, it is the Russia has 
joined the Third World mantra, which replaced the even more ridiculous Weimar 
Russia mantra in the early- to mid-90s.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

I wrote:


 It is for precisely this reason that the Western left has missed the pivotal events 
 in Russian history over the past 5 days

I meant to say years, obviously (although the past 5 days have been pretty big too!)

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

What Happened In Russia? a contribution to a discussion, December 11, 2000
by Ernest Tate
I'm sure I was not alone among socialists during the period of Gorbachev
and the final days of peroistroika, thinking that this was perhaps the
opening phase of the political revolution and that the Russian working
class would not permit the bureaucracy to dismantle the gains of the
Russian Revolution. The idea of political revolution, the need for the
working class to mobilize around a program of workers control to allow
it to realize its full creative possibility to overcome the crisis of
stagnation resulting from bureaucratic control, was an essential feature
of the analysis of the USSR developed by Leon Trotsky. This program for
political revolution, to which supporters of the degenerated workers
state theory subscribed, encompassed some of the demands of the
bourgeois democratic revolution such as freedom of speech and
association, the right to strike, demands for workers control around
which the working class would mobilize through workers councils, and wh!
ich would pose the question of political power.
There is little evidence of political revolution in the processes of
change in Russia and Eastern Europe since the collapse. Rather , the
drive for change, especially political change, has tended to come from
those layers in society who are outside the organized working class.
Looking at some of the changes in Russia, especially in the decades
before Gorbachev, we can understand why. From Kruschev in the early
1960s, social and economic changes under the bureaucracy began to cause
its disintegration. Despite Kruschev's claims that they would bypass the
standard of living of the capitalist countries, by the early 1970s
targets of the central plan for economic growth and labour productivity
were not met. Before 1960 rates of growth under the two five year plans
were 14% and 11% a year, respectively, remarkably high when compared to
Western capitalist economies. Projecting this growth rate into the
future, Kruschev could, with some justification say the USSR would
bypass capitalism. But the reality was something else. During the 70s
and 80s, the Russian growth rate fell to under 4%, says David Lane in
his book, The Rise and Fall of State Socialism. (1) At the same time,
important demographic shifts in the population began to undermine the
regime. Two thirds had become urban -- from 22,000,000 in 1922 to
186,800 in 1989. (2)
In 1950, the number of employees categorized as non-productive, that
is non-manual employees, in such sectors as science, education, culture,
health, insurance and tourism, totalled 6,260,000. In the space of 17
years, that figure had jumped almost four times to 23,812,000. (3) It
was this demographic group that had the most important impact on the
history of the last twenty years. There was the rapid growth of
television and other means of communication. David Lane writes that ,
The population's expectations rose: a consumer mentality matured as did
the bourgeoisification of aspirations.(4)
This led to a more wide-spread receptivity to alternate conceptions of
socialism at the same time as there was a pervasiveness of illegal as
well as private economic activity. Among petty -bourgeois layers in the
society there was an increase in the belief that they would capitalize
their special skills in a market relationship. It was a mechanism to
realize intellectual capital in monetary terms. Lane says.(5)
In general, there had been a deterioration in the standard of living of
these layers, compared to the pre-war period. There is a lot of
anecdotal evidence of truck drivers earning much more that highly
trained medical specialists. Loyalty and solidarity with the regime
began to break down, especially among professionals, who had become
disenchanted with their status: they were in turn cultivated by the
leadership. Lane gives data on the sociological shift in the membership
of the Communist Party from the late Breznev period to Gorbachev,
towards non-manual and professional layers and the influx of these
layers into the top leadership and a simultaneous decline in the number
of individuals from working-class backgrounds.
The implication here, he says, is that a dual class structure was
developing in which 'intellectuals' and professionals had much
potentially to gain from a market-type system. They had marketable
skills and were not dependent on a 'nomenklatura' system.(6)
It is undoubtedly the case, Lane says, that the reform leadership of
Gorbachev shifted its political fulcrum of support away from the manual
working class and the traditional party and state bureaucracy to an
alliance with the more technologically inclined and modernizing forces
of the intelligentsia...(7)
To deal with the crisis of the economy, two sets of solutions were
argued within the regime: the development of markets in Russia and a
reform of the economic mechanism. Gorbachev could have chosen to stay
with the central plan

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
It is for precisely this reason that the Western left has missed the
pivotal events in Russian history over the past 5 days (missing a rather
obvious economic boom and sticking the Chechnya conflict into some kind
of goofy imperialism model derived from the experience of Latin
America, where it doesn't belong, among them).
I take it you mean the past 5 years. In any case, I don't think that
there has been much in the way of a denial that the Russian economy is
expanding once again. That is how capitalism works after all. Argentina
is also going through a kind of recovery. But just as surely as night
follows day, these essentially *semiperipheral* nations will find
themselves on the skids once again. As far as the relationship between
Russia and Chechnya is concerned, I think the better analogy is with
Turkey and the Kurds--not the US and Venezuela, for example.
Namely, the Russians were refusing to fit the morality play that
people had concocted for themselves. It is the inverse situation as when
the New York Times was playing the 90s up as a great ecoonomic boom
period and getting misty over Yeltsin: People see what they want to see,
and ignore what they don't. In this case, it is the Russia has joined
the Third World mantra, which replaced the even more ridiculous Weimar
Russia mantra in the early- to mid-90s.
Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a nation that is
simultaneously colonizer and colonized.
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent social relations in Russia are similar to what 
they were in the tsarist era (of course the continuities between the tsarist and 
societ eras are notable too).

That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word is being used 
in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.


 Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a nation that is
 simultaneously colonizer and colonized.


 --

 The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-28 Thread Ted Winslow

Chris Doss wrote:
People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.
Earlier he wrote:
You were dissing the Russian public, something close to my heart.
As is true of the US public or the Canadian public, the Russian
public must consist of differing types characterized  by differing
degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
organization are not  suspended in the air; they are internally
related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You sometimes seem to
idealize the Russian public.
Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Well, a lot of Soviets were dissatisfied by their living conditions, especially the 
intelligentsia. Soviet consumer goods did tend to suck.

-Original Message-
From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:58:37 -0400
Subject: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?

 The USSR didn't fail economically, did it ? It failed politically.

 Charles

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Of course. However, it annoys me when some foreigner lambasts the inhabitants of a 
country in which he or she (presumably) has never been for not supporting his or her 
views. It is, well, arrogant. Russians have very good reasons for feeling as they do. 
(Incidentally, I hate using the word Russians in this context, since it sounds like 
an ethnic group, of which Russia contains dozens. Unfortunatelt there is no way in the 
English language to preserve the distinstion between russkii (ethnic Russian) and 
rossiyanin (member of the Russian linguistic-political community) without sounding 
goofy. Citizen of Russia doesn't cut it. Rossiyanye include Russians, Avars, 
Georgians, Chuvash, Ukrainians, Cossacks (a separate ethnic group since 2001), 
Chechens, Germans, Uzbeks, Ingush, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, Tajiks, Latvians, 
Bashkirs, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

-Original Message-
From: Ted Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:02:42 -0400
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?


 Chris Doss wrote:

  People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.

 Earlier he wrote:

  You were dissing the Russian public, something close to my heart.

 As is true of the US public or the Canadian public, the Russian
 public must consist of differing types characterized  by differing
 degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
 organization are not  suspended in the air; they are internally
 related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
 administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
 particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You sometimes seem to
 idealize the Russian public.

 Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

As far as the relationship between
Russia and Chechnya is concerned, I think the better analogy is with
Turkey and the Kurds--not the US and Venezuela, for example.
---
This analogy would hold only in a hypothetical world in which the Kurds had achieved 
de facto independence from Turkey, and then spent the next couple of years 
degenerating into a gangster state, raiding  and kidnapping its citizens and, then, 
international mujaheedin based in Kurdistan attempted to invade it.

BTW, Dagestanis tend to blame the Chechen incursions in 1999 on Ankara and the CIA.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word
is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.
I use the word colonized in the sense of dependency. The Russian economy
is subject to the same forces called globalization as every other
country, a euphemism for imperialism.
Check the UN Human Indicators report for 2003 and you'll see how Russia
compares to countries that are dominated by Wall Street and multinationals.
Russia ranks 63rd on the list, within the group of medium nations,
with GDP per capita of $7100. Mexico ranks 55 with GDP per capita of
$8,430. Argentina is actually in the high nations group at 34th place,
with per capita GDP of $11,320.
The numbers speak for themselves.
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/pdf/hdr03_HDI.pdf
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-28 Thread Ted Winslow

Chris Doss wrote:
it annoys me when some foreigner lambasts the inhabitants of a country
in which he or she (presumably) has never been for not supporting his
or her views. It is, well, arrogant. Russians have very good reasons
for feeling as they do.
This must apply generally, mustn't it e.g. Americans have very good
reasons for feeling as they do and foreigners who have never been to
the US have no basis for claiming otherwise.
Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
This analogy would hold only in a hypothetical world in which the
Kurds had achieved de facto independence from Turkey, and then spent the
next couple of years degenerating into a gangster state, raiding  and
kidnapping its citizens and, then, international mujaheedin based in
Kurdistan attempted to invade it.
Surely you are aware that Ankara uses the same exact language with
respect to the Kurds?
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

You don't need to be colonized to be relatively poor. The USSR's human development 
indicators weren't so hot either.

I think there is a difficulty with referring to Russia as a country in this sense 
just because everything on one side of the border is called Russia. It's more of a 
loosely-unified continent. Russia contains huge disparities in development -- if you 
read the Poverty in Russia thing I posted yesterday, you will have noticed that Moscow 
is at a European development, whereas Ingushetia is at the high end of the sub-Saharan 
Africa level.
Talking about living standards in Russia is not like talking about living standards in 
a small country like Germany; it is more like talking about living standards in East 
Asia, where you have Japan, China, Vietnam, and North Korea all in relatively close 
proximity to each other. A Muscovite usually earns about 7 times as much as a 
Siberian. Whence the notorious Muscovite snobbism.

-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:26:15 -0400
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?


 Chris Doss wrote:
  That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word
 is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.

 I use the word colonized in the sense of dependency. The Russian economy
 is subject to the same forces called globalization as every other
 country, a euphemism for imperialism.

 Check the UN Human Indicators report for 2003 and you'll see how Russia
 compares to countries that are dominated by Wall Street and multinationals.

 Russia ranks 63rd on the list, within the group of medium nations,
 with GDP per capita of $7100. Mexico ranks 55 with GDP per capita of
 $8,430. Argentina is actually in the high nations group at 34th place,
 with per capita GDP of $11,320.

 The numbers speak for themselves.

 http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2003/pdf/hdr03_HDI.pdf


 --

 The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Most foreigners have some knowledge about the US. Most Americans know nothing about 
Russia other than that it has a lot of snow.

-Original Message-
From: Ted Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 This must apply generally, mustn't it e.g. Americans have very good
 reasons for feeling as they do and foreigners who have never been to
 the US have no basis for claiming otherwise.

 Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

If I'm not mistaken, Ted is referring to the problem of the expression of public 
opinion through plebiscites. If people are isolated, having few or no popular 
organizations that allow popular discussion and self-education, people tend to veer 
toward the most individualistic ideologies. In 19th-century France, people voted for 
Napoleon III in plebiscites not because it expressed their long-term, collective, or 
class interest but because it expressed their isolated, atomized, consciousness -- 
especially since there was little choice on the ballot. 

Strictly speaking, the election of Putin wasn't a plebiscite, but it was pretty close 
in practice. Elections in the US would be a lot like plebiscites except that there are 
grass-roots organizations for both of the major political parties. Polling results -- 
as opposed to, say, focus groups -- are a lot like plebiscites. 

Rousseau seems to have suggested the problem with his distinction between the will of 
all (a majority vote expressing individual special interests) and the general will 
(nowadays called the public interest, based on the shared interests of all 
individuals, after collective discussion, etc.) Unfortunately, he never figured out 
how to reconcile these in a meaningful way. (He hoped that an all-wise Legislator 
could do the job.) 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




 -Original Message-
 From: Ted Winslow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:03 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
 
 Chris Doss wrote:
 
  People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.
 
 Earlier he wrote:
 
  You were dissing the Russian public, something close to my heart.
 
 As is true of the US public or the Canadian public, the Russian
 public must consist of differing types characterized  by differing
 degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
 organization are not  suspended in the air; they are internally
 related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
 administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
 particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You sometimes seem to
 idealize the Russian public.
 
 Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

I don't care about language. I care about facts. All those things happened with 
respect to Chechnya. Whether they are the case or not with respect to 
Turkey/Kurdistan I have no idea. I would not be surprised, mujaheedin being what 
they are.

Hey, wait a second, didn't Belgrade use the same language with respect to the 
Albanians? wait, no, that's different.


-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:42:33 -0400
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?


 Chris Doss wrote:
  This analogy would hold only in a hypothetical world in which the
 Kurds had achieved de facto independence from Turkey, and then spent the
 next couple of years degenerating into a gangster state, raiding  and
 kidnapping its citizens and, then, international mujaheedin based in
 Kurdistan attempted to invade it.

 Surely you are aware that Ankara uses the same exact language with
 respect to the Kurds?


 --

 The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

This is an excellent point, but I have a hard time seeing how Putin embodies an 
individualistic ideology. Could you explain?

I think it's very easy to see why people support Putin: mainly, they are voting with 
their pocketbooks. There has been a one-third drop in poverty in the last four years. 
Not to mention that the oligarchs are terrified. Also, the KPRF has been largely 
discredited, and everybody hates the liberal parties because of their association with 
teh Yeltsin era.

-Original Message-
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 08:55:07 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?

 If I'm not mistaken, Ted is referring to the problem of the expression of public 
 opinion through plebiscites. If people are isolated, having few or no popular 
 organizations that allow popular discussion and self-education, people tend to veer 
 toward the most individualistic ideologies. In 19th-century France, people voted for 
 Napoleon III in plebiscites not because it expressed their long-term, collective, or 
 class interest but because it expressed their isolated, atomized, consciousness -- 
 especially since there was little choice on the ballot.

 Strictly speaking, the election of Putin wasn't a plebiscite, but it was pretty 
 close in practice. Elections in the US would be a lot like plebiscites except that 
 there are grass-roots organizations for both of the major political parties. Polling 
 results -- as opposed to, say, focus groups -- are a lot like plebiscites.

 Rousseau seems to have suggested the problem with his distinction between the will 
 of all (a majority vote expressing individual special interests) and the general 
 will (nowadays called the public interest, based on the shared interests of all 
 individuals, after collective discussion, etc.) Unfortunately, he never figured out 
 how to reconcile these in a meaningful way. (He hoped that an all-wise Legislator 
 could do the job.)

 
 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




  -Original Message-
  From: Ted Winslow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:03 AM
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
 
  Chris Doss wrote:
 
   People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.
 
  Earlier he wrote:
 
   You were dissing the Russian public, something close to my heart.
 
  As is true of the US public or the Canadian public, the Russian
  public must consist of differing types characterized  by differing
  degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
  organization are not  suspended in the air; they are internally
  related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
  administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
  particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You sometimes seem to
  idealize the Russian public.
 
  Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris writes: it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word is being 
used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.

there are several degrees of the general phenomenon of colonialization or external 
domination, forming a spectrum: 

1. classic colonialism, i.e., the political and economic domination of one country by 
another. What the US is doing to Iraq. 

2. neo-colonialism, i.e., the formal poltical independence of a country combined with 
informal political and economic domination of that country by another. Informal 
colonization, as when Francophone countries of Africa formally were independent but 
were controlled via various multilateral organizations. 

3. (economic) dependency, i.e., the political independence of a country, which means 
little because the economic structure of that country (a leftover from colonialism) is 
so poor that the government has few good choices and the country ends up being 
dominated. Most Latin American countries fit this mold, having thrown off the Spanish 
colonists a long time ago and having gotten a lot of political independence from the 
US. 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




 -Original Message-
 From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 7:50 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
 
 Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent social relations in 
 Russia are similar to what they were in the tsarist era (of 
 course the continuities between the tsarist and societ eras 
 are notable too).
 
 That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless 
 the word is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.
 
 
  Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a nation that is
  simultaneously colonizer and colonized.
 
 
  --
 
  The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Thanks. I don't see how any of these definitions applies to Russia. In fact, according 
to criteria #2 and #3, Russia is the colonial power in the post-Soviet space.

-Original Message-
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:03:28 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?

 Chris writes: it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless the word is being 
 used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.

 there are several degrees of the general phenomenon of colonialization or external 
 domination, forming a spectrum:

 1. classic colonialism, i.e., the political and economic domination of one country 
 by another. What the US is doing to Iraq.

 2. neo-colonialism, i.e., the formal poltical independence of a country combined 
 with informal political and economic domination of that country by another. Informal 
 colonization, as when Francophone countries of Africa formally were independent but 
 were controlled via various multilateral organizations.

 3. (economic) dependency, i.e., the political independence of a country, which means 
 little because the economic structure of that country (a leftover from colonialism) 
 is so poor that the government has few good choices and the country ends up being 
 dominated. Most Latin American countries fit this mold, having thrown off the 
 Spanish colonists a long time ago and having gotten a lot of political independence 
 from the US.

 Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

  -Original Message-
  From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 7:50 AM
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?

  Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent social relations in
  Russia are similar to what they were in the tsarist era (of
  course the continuities between the tsarist and societ eras
  are notable too).

  That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless
  the word is being used in a technical sense, which I suspect it is.

   Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a nation that is
   simultaneously colonizer and colonized.

   --

   The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

 Chris Doss writes: 
 This is an excellent point, but I have a hard time seeing how 
 Putin embodies an individualistic ideology. Could you explain?
 
 I think it's very easy to see why people support Putin: 
 mainly, they are voting with their pocketbooks. There has 
 been a one-third drop in poverty in the last four years. Not 
 to mention that the oligarchs are terrified. Also, the KPRF 
 has been largely discredited, and everybody hates the liberal 
 parties because of their association with teh Yeltsin era.

voting with their pocketbooks is part of what I'm saying. Also, isolated people tend 
to vote for the allegedly good father (the man on the white horse) who will protect 
them from disorder, crime, terrorism, etc., even if it involves voting for a corrupt 
and repressive government.
Jim D. 

 -Original Message-
 From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 08:55:07 -0700
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
  If I'm not mistaken, Ted is referring to the problem of the 
 expression of public opinion through plebiscites. If people 
 are isolated, having few or no popular organizations that 
 allow popular discussion and self-education, people tend to 
 veer toward the most individualistic ideologies. In 
 19th-century France, people voted for Napoleon III in 
 plebiscites not because it expressed their long-term, 
 collective, or class interest but because it expressed their 
 isolated, atomized, consciousness -- especially since there 
 was little choice on the ballot.
 
  Strictly speaking, the election of Putin wasn't a 
 plebiscite, but it was pretty close in practice. Elections in 
 the US would be a lot like plebiscites except that there are 
 grass-roots organizations for both of the major political 
 parties. Polling results -- as opposed to, say, focus groups 
 -- are a lot like plebiscites.
 
  Rousseau seems to have suggested the problem with his 
 distinction between the will of all (a majority vote 
 expressing individual special interests) and the general 
 will (nowadays called the public interest, based on the 
 shared interests of all individuals, after collective 
 discussion, etc.) Unfortunately, he never figured out how to 
 reconcile these in a meaningful way. (He hoped that an 
 all-wise Legislator could do the job.)
 
  
  Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
 
 
 
 
   -Original Message-
   From: Ted Winslow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 8:03 AM
   To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
  
  
   Chris Doss wrote:
  
People see what they want to see, and ignore what they don't.
  
   Earlier he wrote:
  
You were dissing the Russian public, something close to 
 my heart.
  
   As is true of the US public or the Canadian public, 
 the Russian
   public must consist of differing types characterized  by 
 differing
   degrees of rational self-consciousness.  State power and economic
   organization are not  suspended in the air; they are internally
   related to this structure of self-consciousness.  The Bush
   administration, for instance, can be connected in this way to a
   particular kind of religious fundamentalism.  You 
 sometimes seem to
   idealize the Russian public.
  
   Ted

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Ah, very good explanation.

Two things:

1. Any Russian government will be corrupt. It's part of the political culture. 
Politicians are expected to be corrupt. It's been like that since the dawn of time. I 
think this probably has something to do with the loosely federated nature of the 
country, in which regional governments -- far from the center and so hard to check up 
on -- are usually allowed free reign as long as they pay tribute to Petersburg/Moscow. 
As a result, the further you are from Moscow, the more hostile the government usually 
is.

2. The Kremlin is not very repressive, unless you are an uppity oil executive. What IS 
repressive is the lawlessness and arbitrariness (cf. 1, above.) The average citizen 
has much more to fear from a cop or a petty bureaucrat than from the Kremlin.


 voting with their pocketbooks is part of what I'm saying. Also, isolated people 
 tend to vote for the allegedly good father (the man on the white horse) who will 
 protect them from disorder, crime, terrorism, etc., even if it involves voting for a 
 corrupt and repressive government.
 Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

I am not an expert on Russia (not even close!), but it seems that in structural terms, 
that country is economically dominated by the IMF and the US. However, it has won 
temporary respite from this domination due to the high price of oil. This suggests 
that it is a dependent country, though the structural problems of the Russian economy 
do not arise from formal colonialism. Rather, they come from the failure of the Soviet 
model (which was partly a response to earlier external domination). 

If Russia is able to use its temporary oil bonanza to develop its economy in a 
balanced way, perhaps it can move away from dependency. Is it doing so? 


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine




 -Original Message-
 From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 9:07 AM
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
 
 Thanks. I don't see how any of these definitions applies to 
 Russia. In fact, according to criteria #2 and #3, Russia is 
 the colonial power in the post-Soviet space.
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:03:28 -0700
 Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
 
  Chris writes: it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, 
 unless the word is being used in a technical sense, which I 
 suspect it is.
 
  there are several degrees of the general phenomenon of 
 colonialization or external domination, forming a spectrum:
 
  1. classic colonialism, i.e., the political and economic 
 domination of one country by another. What the US is doing to Iraq.
 
  2. neo-colonialism, i.e., the formal poltical independence 
 of a country combined with informal political and economic 
 domination of that country by another. Informal colonization, 
 as when Francophone countries of Africa formally were 
 independent but were controlled via various multilateral 
 organizations.
 
  3. (economic) dependency, i.e., the political independence 
 of a country, which means little because the economic 
 structure of that country (a leftover from colonialism) is so 
 poor that the government has few good choices and the country 
 ends up being dominated. Most Latin American countries fit 
 this mold, having thrown off the Spanish colonists a long 
 time ago and having gotten a lot of political independence 
 from the US.
 
  
  Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
 
 
 
 
   -Original Message-
   From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 7:50 AM
   To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?
  
  
   Indeed, it is remarkable to what extent social relations in
   Russia are similar to what they were in the tsarist era (of
   course the continuities between the tsarist and societ eras
   are notable too).
  
   That said, it is hard to see who is colonizing Russia, unless
   the word is being used in a technical sense, which I 
 suspect it is.
  
   
Russia seems to be back where it was a century ago, a 
 nation that is
simultaneously colonizer and colonized.
   
   
--
   
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

-Original Message-
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]


 I am not an expert on Russia (not even close!), but it seems that in structural 
 terms, that country is economically dominated by the IMF and the US.

--
How? US trade with Russia is almost zero. Russia's debt/GDP ratio is lower than 
Germany's. Indeed, Amb. Vershbow tried to threaten Russia economically over Iraq and 
quickly backed down when everybody laughed at them. I suppose it is possible that it 
the event of a crash in oil prices Russia would seek an IMF loan, although the 
government has said that it would take none.

---
Rather, they come from the failure of the Soviet model (which was partly a response 
to earlier external domination).

---
Yes.
---


 If Russia is able to use its temporary oil bonanza to develop its economy in a 
 balanced way, perhaps it can move away from dependency. Is it doing so?


This is one of the subtexts to the Khodorkovsky drama. The Kremlin wanted to hike 
taxes on oil and other natural resourse exports in order to put the proceeds into the 
rest of the economy. (Everybody in Russia knows how dependent the country is on world 
market prices for oil and other natural resources, and that that is not sustainable in 
the long run). Khodorkovsky was the main opponent of this plain. Now he is in jail. 
The tax hike was voted through the Duma the other day.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

I wrote: 
  I am not an expert on Russia (not even close!), but it 
 seems that in structural terms, that country is economically 
 dominated by the IMF and the US.

Chris D writes: 
 How? US trade with Russia is almost zero. Russia's debt/GDP 
 ratio is lower than Germany's. Indeed, Amb. Vershbow tried to 
 threaten Russia economically over Iraq and quickly backed 
 down when everybody laughed at them. I suppose it is possible 
 that it the event of a crash in oil prices Russia would seek 
 an IMF loan, although the government has said that it would take none.

Dependent countries can escape dependency (or at least its effects) if they have a 
highly-priced export item. But if oil goes away (i.e., if prices fall back to 1980s 
levels), the Russian economy would be in Big Trouble, since there's not much else to 
export. (Used nukes anyone?) The country's dependency would then hit with a vengeance. 
They would then _have to_ kow-tow to the US and the IMF, the leaders of the core 
(non-dependent countries) whether they want to or not. I think this is quite likely: 
oil prices never stay high forever. 

I wrote: 
  If Russia is able to use its temporary oil bonanza to 
 develop its economy in a balanced way, perhaps it can move 
 away from dependency. Is it doing so?

Chris: 
 This is one of the subtexts to the Khodorkovsky drama. The 
 Kremlin wanted to hike taxes on oil and other natural 
 resourse exports in order to put the proceeds into the rest 
 of the economy. (Everybody in Russia knows how dependent the 
 country is on world market prices for oil and other natural 
 resources, and that that is not sustainable in the long run). 
 Khodorkovsky was the main opponent of this plain. Now he is 
 in jail. The tax hike was voted through the Duma the other day.

It's very rare for a dependent mono-export country to use its bonanzas to develop 
economically. It's only when left-wing nationalists such as Peron or Venezuela's 
Chavez decide to shake things up (under the pressure from the workers and peasants) 
that we see any move in that direction. And often opportunites are wasted.

Jim D.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-28 Thread Carrol Cox

Devine, James wrote:


 It's very rare for a dependent mono-export country to use its bonanzas to develop 
 economically. It's only when left-wing nationalists such as Peron or Venezuela's 
 Chavez decide to shake things up (under the pressure from the workers and peasants) 
 that we see any move in that direction. And often opportunites are wasted.


One hopes it will change, some day, but currently the likes of Peron (or
even Khomeini or Ghadafi) seem to be the best hope of the peoples of the
non-core nations. Only an authoritarian state can subordinate the
interests of the U.S. to the interests of its own people. I would assume
that Chavez will eventually either establish such a state in Venezuela
or he, like other patriotic Latin American leaders of the last century,
will end up dead or in exile. I believe that is why columnists and
editorial writers can so confidently label Venzuela under Chavez a
dictatorship. They know it will become one or be destroyed.

Carrol

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

BTW the two big parties the interviewer refers to, SPS and Yabloko, or only big in 
comparison to my immediate family. They are miniscule, and everybody hates them. Well, 
Yabloko's more seen as irrelevant than actually hated.

I snipped out almost everything not related to the why did the USSR fall issue. I 
also find the interviewer's intro bemusing for a variety of reasons, e.g., who the 
Hell in Russia cares about Trotskyites?

INTERVIEW WITH ILYA PONOMAREV
March 24 - April 2, Moscow

Ilya Ponomarev is a director of the
information-technical center of the Communist Party of
the Russian Federation (CPRF) and an organizer of the
Youth Communist Front which is in a stage of
development. Formerly he was an IT-manager of Yukos
and other leading Russian and transnational
companies. I should add he's only 28. When he became a
CP Information-technical center director in early
2003, Ilya organized many provocative actions such as:
releasing balloons with CP symbols over the city; the
red flag over state Duma (a young activist infiltrated
the state parliament and raised a red flag on the
roof, replacing the three-color Russian flag, just
when the communist demonstration was passing in front
of the building on November 7, the anniversary Day of
the October Revolution); the political flash mob
(before the presidential elections in March, many
young people went to the former house of Putin in
Saint-Petersburg wearing Putin masks and T-shirts with
sarcastic slogans about the misdeeds of his regime,
and started to cry: Vova (diminutive of Vladimir)
come home!). Due to the efforts of Ilya Ponomarev the
whole IT-policy of the communist party has been
transformed and the http://www.kprf.ru site - which
includes materials on new leftists, antiglobalism, and
even Che-Guevara songs - became among the top 10
visited sites of political parties. Under Ilya's
curatorship two Forums of leftist forces were
organized (in June and November 2003) with a broad
representation of different organizations. When I
first learned about his remarkable activities, I was
experiencing a final disillusionment about the CP
(though it's hard to say if it wasn't final before
that) and had even written articles claiming that the
CP was becoming not only compromised, but also
spectacular

(see first of all the Nettime contribution at
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0311/msg00062.html).


But something that happened made me change my mind.
First of all, it was the installation of the
computerized alternative system for counting votes - -
FairGame - for the December'03 parliamentary
elections, which was initiated by Ilya and his
colleagues in the CP Information-technical center. The
FairGame system had revealed that approximately 3,5
million votes were faked during the elections, which
made it possible for the Kremlin to discount two big
parties because the faked numbers showed they were
under the 5% minimum barrier for inclusion. Due to the
data collected by the FairGame system, now we can more
clearly understand and explain what current Russian
politics is.

When Joanne Richardson came to Moscow in March, we had
many discussions about antiglobalism, and what kinds
of alliances antiglobalists should make and which
blocs it is better to avoid. Joanne was telling me
several stories about the refusal of alliances with
what is considered the old Leninist left both in
Romania and in Italy. For example, in Romania,
anarchists are criticizing the inclusion of members of
communist
parties and even Trotskyist groupuscules in
international demonstrations and forums, and in the
preparation of the first Romanian Social Forum several
individuals from different groups are protesting the
inclusion of the Romanian chapter of ATTAC because its
members are considered old-style Leninists who
advocate hierarchical structures and ideological
purity.

In Italy, the situation is more complex, as there is a
growing debate about whether or not to unite all the
leftist movements into a coalition led
by Rifondazione Communista. Although many activists
argue it is the only parliamentary chance for an
opposition to Berlusconi in the next election, many
others - especially people active in the centri
sociali
autogestiti (squats) and in the tactical media
networks - want nothing to do with such a coalition.
Even the voices among the alternative scene like Wu
Ming,
who initially supported Tute Bianche and their
reorganization into Disobedienti, now criticize
Disobedienti after their alliance with the RC.

So, when we had a chance to meet Ilya Ponomarev in
Moscow I immediately suggested we talk to him about
the recent changes within the CPRF and why many young
people with an interest in new technologies,
independent media and tactical street actions are
choosing to join what seems to be such an archaic
political organization.  The interview touches really
diverse issues from the fall of the USSR to the future
of new technologies. For the convenience of

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

This is actually probably even more relevant. From the horse's mouth.
(I was at a press conference with Gorby a few years ago, BYW, and boy does that guy 
ramble.)

TITLE:  PRESS CONFERENCE WITH MIKHAIL GORBACHEV
[GORBACHEV FUND OFFICE, 12:10, DECEMBER 21, 2001]
SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)
DATE:   12/21/01

 Moderator: Good morning, dear guests. Welcome to our press
conference. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev will make introductory
remarks and then we will have questions and answers. Before we
start I would like to invite you to our website. It is called
www.gorbie.ru. We have our Fund's news, the news tape, and news
archives. We have news most every day. So, if you want to know
about the activities of the Fund and, of course the activities of
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, you can find something on this site
every day. And now we go into our press conference. Mikhail
Sergeyevich.

 MG: The first topic is ten years of the break up of the Union, the
second topic. You may have noticed my article in Izvestia which has
also been published in La Stampa called The President Makes His
Choice dealing with the foreign and internal policy of the
President; and the third topic is the general world context, what
is happening to the world and in what context we live and work.

 Let me say something to warm up the engine, so to speak.

.


 First, regarding the disintegration of the Union. It's ten
years on and understandably the press writes about it and films are
coming out. I have seen some of them, but we have most of the films
and I will eventually get to see them. But from what I have seen I
have noticed that the keynote is an attempt to interpret what
happened and the causes of the disintegration and what is to be
done. The conversation drifts more and more in this direction.
There is less and less attention to details and it is
understandable that this is becoming more important. Why the
disintegration occurred may be kept on the agenda because it is
relevant to the present times, it may provide the key to what is
happening in Russia and in the post-Soviet space. Considering the
place occupied by the Soviet system and what came afterwards. it is
important for the Europeans and for the world.

 So, the first thing I would like to say about the breakup.
There are arguments as to whether it was an objective process or it
was the work of somebody bent on evil. I would like to say that
those who suggest that the breakup was programmed even in the
Soviet times, by the way it was created and what sustained it, that
this system was unrealistic from the start. Others say that it all
had started ten years before perestroika and that perestroika by
opening the floodgates for freedom, for the initiative of
individuals and political elites and so it came about by itself.

 In short, the empire was formed, it held somehow for a while
and, like all the empires, it had to collapse some day. I do not
share that point of view. What are the objective facts? It is an
objective fact that the USSR by the time of the start of
perestroika was overloaded with problems. A very complicated system
was malfunctioning and it could not react to internal problems, it
was incapable of restructuring -- and this was the path the world
followed in reacting to the scientific and technological revolution
--

 And I must say that objectively what happened was this. During
the Soviet period nation states had been formed in the Union
republics. Nations were consolidated, state institutions had been
formed and political elites, and most importantly, elites were
formed capable of running things in politics, economics, culture
and education were formed in the Union republics.

 And the over centralization that was inherent and that
continued because it was after all a totalitarian society was a
shackles on the country, on society which had changed and all these
processes were set in motion. Over bureaucratization, over
centralization outlived themselves and issue had to be addressed.
This was the objective imperative. But the scenarios for doing it
could have been different. The scenario that was realized here was
the worst possible. This despite the fact that those who were at
the top at the time believed that the main task was reform on the
basis of centralization.

 And the task was in fact to implement what was written in
Stalin's Constitution and in Brezhnev's Constitution. Namely, that
the Union republics are independent state entities enjoying
sovereignty, the right to self-determination not stopping short of
secession. I have more than once drawn your attention to this. It
might not be a bad idea to read them, you may find something there.

 We embarked on this path considering the real changes that
happened. The form that existed was simply splitting at the seams.
It had to be reformed. I think reform was the right strategy. It
made it possible to gradually, step by step

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
BTW the two big parties the interviewer refers to, SPS and Yabloko,
or only big in comparison to my immediate family. They are miniscule,
and everybody hates them. Well, Yabloko's more seen as irrelevant than
actually hated.
I snipped out almost everything not related to the why did the USSR
fall issue. I also find the interviewer's intro bemusing for a variety
of reasons, e.g., who the Hell in Russia cares about Trotskyites?
Interesting that you should mention Trotskyites. What's missing from
this analysis is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky focused on, namely the
need for socialism to triumph in more developed societies. Ponomarev
approaches the question as a personnel director rather than a
revolutionary (of course, this is what you would expect):
The managers of the different industries were quite strong specialists
in their areas. But the system in general was very inertial - there was
a very limited inflow of energetic and young people who could make some
new initiatives. In general in the Soviet Union the system of vertical
mobility was strong but it was tending toward later ages, and when you
have seventy year old people making decisions it's not good. So I think
this was one of the major reasons. Also it has to do with economic laws.
 The Soviet Union always tried to create an economy which was closed
and had no connections with the rest of the world, which was possible at
the beginning of the twentieth century. But the globalization process
started because of the changes of technology and this meant that the
number of people who needed to live on your territory to make the
economy self-sufficient was always increasing at a higher rate than the
actual rate of the population.
If in the 1940s, the Soviet bureaucracy had simply allowed the French
and Greek resistance fighters to achieve a victory that was in their
grasp, the USSR would have survived. The irony of the USSR is that the
official leadership that was trying to build socialism in a single
country was simultaneously undermining its chances of success.
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Well, he's a former oil company guy. What do you expect?

Painting with a light-year-wide brush, I would say that Russian public opinion is 
divided into people who think the Brezhnev era was the best thing since sliced bread 
(which, come to think of it, I don't think exists in Russia) and people who think the 
Bolsheviks derailed the country from its natural course of development and that Russia 
would otherwise today look like Sweden. In neither interpretation of 20th century 
Russian history does Trotsky look good. (There are also the nationalists who think 
Russia gave too much to the other republics and wasted money spreading world 
communism when it should have been helping Russians. Zhrinovsky falls into this 
group, insofar as he believes his own rhetoric, which I believe is almost not at all.)

I personally don't like to get into counterfactuals and have no opinion on the matter.


 Interesting that you should mention Trotskyites. What's missing from
 this analysis is exactly what Lenin and Trotsky focused on, namely the
 need for socialism to triumph in more developed societies. Ponomarev
 approaches the question as a personnel director rather than a
 revolutionary (of course, this is what you would expect):

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-27 Thread Waistline2

In a message dated 4/27/2004 5:53:12 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
A very complicated systemwas malfunctioning and it could not react to internal problems, itwas incapable of restructuring -- and this was the path the worldfollowed in reacting to the scientific and technological revolution-- And I must say that objectively what happened was this. Duringthe Soviet period nation states had been formed in the Unionrepublics. Nations were consolidated, state institutions had beenformed and political elites, and most importantly, elites wereformed capable of running things in politics, economics, cultureand education were formed in the Union republics. And the over centralization that was inherent and thatcontinued because it was after all a totalitarian society was ashackles on the country, on society which had changed and all theseprocesses were set in motion. Over bureaucratization, overcentralization outlived themselves and issue had to be addressed.This was the objective imperative.

Comment

All three post on this subject presented excellent material. Posing the question of why the Soviet Union lasted so long compels one to examine the mechanics of its internal operations as a value producing system and its internal political structures.

I am in agreement with much of the descriptions of the internal economic and political factors described only from a differet -another, political direction. In my estimate the enormous military pressure place on the Soviet system as the arms race, does not describe the internal logic the Soviet political establishment faced.

Apparently the internal economic integration of the Soviet Republic was not called into question but rather the form - not centralization, but more than less mechanical bureaucracy and its structures that allowed it to survive - "for so long," became impediments to its further development.

It would seem that various political groupings approach this scenario different, with some believing that integration into the world market would be the easiest route. Current events would tend to prove the "integrationist"wrong, in as much as the property form of their system of reproduction has been overthrown.

China's integration into the world market offers much food for thought and one would question if the Soviet peoples would deliberately seek a path that lowered there standard of living to that of millions of Chinese workers.

Interesting material.

Melvin P.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

China's integration into the world market offers much food for thought and one would 
question if the Soviet peoples would deliberately seek a path that lowered there 
standard of living to that of millions of Chinese workers.

Interesting material.


Melvin P.
--
BTW, even given the Soviet- and post-Soviet 1989-1998 economic collapse and China's 
high growth rates, there is still a lot of illegal Chinese immigration into Russia. 
They provide a cheap labor force in the Far East, and do a lot of shuttle trading. 
Moscow has a number of Chinese-language newspapers targeting that community.

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
Well, he's a former oil company guy. What do you expect?
Actually, Mark Jones worked for a Russian oil company.
Painting with a light-year-wide brush, I would say that Russian public
opinion is divided into people who think the Brezhnev era was the best
thing since sliced bread (which, come to think of it, I don't think
exists in Russia) and people who think the Bolsheviks derailed the
country from its natural course of development and that Russia would
otherwise today look like Sweden. In neither interpretation of 20th
century Russian history does Trotsky look good.
Well, public opinion in Russia is wrong. That's what you might expect
from a society that has lurched from Stalinist to neolibertarian
orthodoxy in a tightly controlled mass media.

--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

If you say so. I simply report. Though I might suggest a humbler and more receptive 
attitude if you want to actually learn anything.

Russian mass media is not tightly controlled. The _electronic_ mass media are 
_somewhat_ controlled. The print media are not. Russia is also far from neolibertarian 
(do you mean neoliberal?) orthodoxy. Practically all public services in Russia are 
either free or almost free (though they often suck). The Washington Consensus is 
deader than a doornail in Russia, occasional and usually contradictory public 
pronouncements notwithstanding. The Russian economy is hugely subsidized. The Duma 
voted to hugely raise taxes on oil companies just the other day.


 Well, public opinion in Russia is wrong. That's what you might expect
 from a society that has lurched from Stalinist to neolibertarian
 orthodoxy in a tightly controlled mass media.



 --

 The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

2004-04-27 Thread Michael Perelman

I want to express my gratitude to the information that Chris Doss has been bringing to 
the
list regarding Russia.  I don't always agree with him -- but then I don't always agree 
with
anybody on the list -- but he does bring in material from outside the circles that 
most of us
inhabit.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Chris Doss wrote:
If you say so. I simply report. Though I might suggest a humbler and
more receptive attitude if you want to actually learn anything.
My ideas on the former Soviet Union were shaped to a large extent by
Mark Jones, who I collaborated with closely for nearly 10 years. I was
always humble and receptive when he spoke. My attitude toward oil
company executives who are part of the Putin machinery is somewhat
different.
Russian mass media is not tightly controlled. The _electronic_ mass
media are _somewhat_ controlled. The print media are not.
I am not talking about censorship by government agency, although that
clearly is the case with television. I am talking about the kind of
censorship that exists in the USA, which is reflected in A.J. Liebling's
dictum that freedom of the press exists for those who can afford one.
Nobody needs to shut down Vadim Stolz's website. It is just too tiny to
be noticed. Same thing with Marxmail. At least for the time being.
Russia is also far from neolibertarian (do you mean neoliberal?)
orthodoxy. Practically all public services in Russia are either free or
almost free (though they often suck).
Yes, I meant neoliberal, although it is obvious that the top ranks of
the Russian government have read their Hayek as well. I am not referring
to public services like the subway, etc. I am referring to the
commanding heights of the economy, which are governed by the profit
motive--even when owned by the state.
The Washington Consensus is deader than a doornail in Russia,
occasional and usually contradictory public pronouncements
notwithstanding. The Russian economy is hugely subsidized. The Duma
voted to hugely raise taxes on oil companies just the other day.
This is what Tony Cliff called state capitalism. Even a stopped clock
can be right once a day!
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Thanks sincerely Michael. It's all a function of geographic location and knowledge of 
the relevant language. :)

-Original Message-
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 08:25:53 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Why did the USSR fall?

 I want to express my gratitude to the information that Chris Doss has been bringing 
 to the
 list regarding Russia.  I don't always agree with him -- but then I don't always 
 agree with
 anybody on the list -- but he does bring in material from outside the circles that 
 most of us
 inhabit.

 --
 Michael Perelman
 Economics Department
 California State University
 Chico, CA 95929

 Tel. 530-898-5321
 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: Why did the USSR fall?

Michael Perelman wrote:
I want to express my gratitude to the information that Chris Doss has been bringing to 
the
list regarding Russia.  I don't always agree with him -- but then I don't always agree 
with
anybody on the list -- but he does bring in material from outside the circles that 
most of us
inhabit.
Chris's information is interesting, but so was Ulhas's, who used to post
 from India. In either case, the problem is politics in my opinion--not
the value of the information. You get a kind of uncritical acceptance of
the modernizing mission of the Russian and Indian elites respectively.
It is utterly lacking in a class dimension, except that it pays homage
to the idea that the elites have a responsibility to the needs of those
at the bottom.
--
The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Why did the USSR fall?