In discussion the Chapter our "ML" calls "Complete Victory of Socialism In
the USSR(!)," his exclamation point, we come face to face with the real theory
of the author. I maintain the article on the debate between Stalin and Trotsky
is not about Stalin or Trotsky but the critique personal point of view.
Critiquing this article means critiquing the critiquer.
He states:
"The piecework payment system strains nerves without visible external
compulsion; Marx had considered this system âthe most suitable to capitalistic
methods of production.â To a great degree, the Stakhanov movement meant
intensification of labor, and even to a lengthening of the working day. While some who
participated in the Stakhanov movement were genuine enthusiasts of socialism, the
great mass of the workers greeted this innovation not only without sympathy,
but with hostility. Which is why the State was forced to carry out mass
repressions against workers accused of resistance, sabotage, and in some cases,
even murder of Stakhanovites.
The raising of the productivity of labor, especially through piecework
payment, led to increase of the mass of commodities and rise in standard of living
of the population, but it also led to growth of inequality. The incomes of the
upper layer of the workers, especially the so-called Stakhanovists, rose
considerably. This was the real motive of the workers who strove to become
Stakhanovists; in the words of Molotov: âThe immediate impulse to high productivity
on
the part of the Stakhanovists is a simple interest in increasing their
earnings,â that is, the motive was not socialist ideals. On top of it, the
bureaucracy too accelerated the growth of a labor aristocracy by showering the
Stakhanovists with gifts and privileges. As a result, the real earnings of this
privileged stratum of the proletariat often exceeded by twenty or thirty times the
earnings of the lower categories of workers.
The Soviet ruling stratum still could not get along without a social
disguise. The restoration of the market was hailed as socialism!" (end of quote)
For the moment let us separate the forms of political compliance and the
harsh hand of the Stalin government and unravel what the author is saying. Quoting
the world's greatest proletarian statesman and diplomat, selfless Molotov, we
are told: âThe immediate impulse to high productivity on the part of the
Stakhanovists is a simple interest in increasing their earnings,â that is, the
motive was not socialist ideals."
In other words the motivation of the working class - not its vanguard or
party which recruits the vanguard to the cause of communism . . . ought to be or
should be "socialist ideals," - ideology, however the author defines socialist
ideas. Stated another way the working class ought to be motivated not by
material incentives but ideology.
Why should the working class not be motivated by material incentives? Not
simply capital but the entire history of the development of value or the
commodity form and exchange teaches the laboring masses the relationship between
expenditure of labor and exchange of items of the expenditure of labor that
different people produce. Under conditions of scarcity or shortage, why should one
not be motivated by material incentives? Why should the workers under Soviet
socialism not understand that an increase in their labor contribution directly
impacts and enlarge consumption.
The people are not fighting for ideas along, those things in someone else's
head. The people are fighting to see their lives go forward, to live in peace,
for justice and fair play, and see their children - each generation, achieve
more than the previous.
The swearing against and ideological hostility to material incentive has more
in common with Catholicism and various doctrines of the flesh.
Furthermore, in real time and real life rewarding workers at a greater rate
of exchange, in heavy industry and the energy infrastructure industry makes
practical sense, because these industries are critical to the growth of the
productive forces and reproduction on an expanding scale, which allows massive
quantities of labor and resources to be directed where it is critically needed.
To add to this ideology of "bad workers" striving for material incentives
instead of nice "socialist ideas," is the "theory" of "the bureaucracy . . .
accelerated the growth of a labor aristocracy by showering the Stakhanovists with
gifts and privileges."
"Labor aristocracy?"
In his profundity our "ML'" screams to the world "The Soviet ruling stratum
still could not get along without a social disguise. The restoration of the
market was hailed as socialism!"
The restoration of the market means the restoration of exchange, primarily
between town and country or between industrial and agriculture products, and
this was done on the basis of NEP. In Chapter 6 we encounter ideological
proclamations parading as theory analysis.
First of all, I am a former autoworker and trade union official that have
never felt it necessary to renounce my higher wages or communism. As an
autoworker I most certain could make a high wage, between 50K and 80K and this did not
make me or the other workers members of the labor aristocracy. The skilled
trade workers in the auto industry made between $2 and $5 an hour more than me
and this did not make them members of the labor aristocracy.
The economic question is "are wage differences a product of the bourgeois
property relations or the law of value and which is fundamental?" Better yet is
there a difference better how skilled labor and unskilled labor is compensated,
and how does this difference arise? Still more, is the value of industrial
labor compensated at a higher rate as exchange and consumption than say
agricultural labor and why? Is labor in heavy industry compensated at a different
rate than labor in light industry of the production of consumer good and why?
Here is the clincher. Does this difference in the rate of pay of the
Stakhanovists, constitute the meaning of the Leninists conception of the labor
aristocracy? In the hands of our "ML" the Stakhanovists went from material incentive
craving to the formation of a labor aristocracy.
This is lunacy.
Rather than back track and repeat eight years of the Leninist presentation of
these questions, suffice it to state that as an autoworker I was part of the
better paid section of the workers class but not a member of the labor
aristocracy. As an elected union official, the highest in my industrial facility I
became a real live member of the labor aristocracy.
Chapter 6 unfolds our "ML's" critique of Soviet socialism which is nothing
less than "repacked" Trotskyism, which is why this material is presented on
Marxmail. From attack on the Stakhanovists, the author proceeds to an attack on
the Soviet Constitution, and the concept âTo Each According To His Workâ in
the draft constitution and after this, proceeds to an all our attack on the
Soviet State itself.
On June 11, 1936, the Central Executive Committee approved the draft of a new
Soviet Constitution. Its very first section contained yet another theoretical
innovation: âIn the Soviet Union, the principle of socialism is realised:
>From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work.â[8]
. . . The backwardness of Soviet society in the mid-1930s can be gauged from
the fact that it had been forced to restore the market. Hence, it could not
even think of endowing each citizen âaccording to his needs.â . . . Instead,
it was obliged to keep in force piecework payment, the principle of which
could be expressed thus: âGet out of everybody as much as you can, and give him in
exchange as little as possible.â Wage labor even under the Soviet regime
does not cease to wear the humiliating label of slavery. Payment âaccording to
workâ benefits the intellectual at the expense of physical, and especially
unskilled, work; it is a source of injustice and oppression for the majority,
privileges for a minority.
Instead of frankly acknowledging that bourgeois norms of labor and
distribution still prevail in the Soviet Union, the authors of the constitution cut
this
integral Communist principle in two halves, postponed the second half to an
indefinite future, declared the first half already realized, mechanically
hitched on to it the capitalist norm of piecework payment, and named the whole
concoction a "principle of Socialism."[9] (End of Quote)
The logic of our "ML" turned Trotskyite needs to be understood.
First he maintain that socialism in one country, or establishing an
industrial system in the Soviet Union, that is not governed by the bourgeois property
relations is historically impossible.
Second: re-establishing the market and market relations means capitalism or
the bourgeois property relations.
Third: material incentives or wage differentials is proof of capitalism or a
misunderstanding of communist ideology or Marxism.
Fourth: The authors of the 1936 Soviet Constitution ("the authors of the
constitution cut this integral Communist principle in two halves,") suffer from
backwards theory and are not proceeding according to Marx.
If "socialism in one country" is historically impossible, then it is
historically impossible to establish a system of production and distribution of items
of consumption based on the principle "from each according to their ability,
to each according to their need" in 1936.
This principle of the Stalin-Soviet Constitution has been debated forever. I
hold that this principle of the 1936 Soviet Constitution are valid, for Soviet
society of the 1930s, as opposed to the 1924 Constitution, because it is a
constitutional principle and not a theoretical polemic or analysis of the future
communist society. A State Constitution is a declaration of the principles on
which a nation or country is governed.
The "Stalin Constitution" was adopted December 1936. One would do well to
read it for themselves. I did reread Chapter X "Fundamental Rights and Duties of
Citizens."
Article 118. Citizens of the USSR have the right to work, that is, are
guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance With its
quantity and quality.
The right to work is ensured by the socialist organization of the national
economy, the steady growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the
elimination of the possibility of economic crises, and the abolition of
unemployment.
Article 119. Citizens of the USSR have the right to rest and leisure. The
right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven
hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual
vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide
network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the
working people.
Article 120. Citizens of the USSR have the right to maintenance in old age
and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured
by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at
state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of
a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.
full: http://www.politicsforum.org/documents/constitution_ussr_1936.php
I am of course having difficulty locating the principle our "ML" cites and
implies is part of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, adopted December 1936. Is our
"ML" lying concerning the Soviet Constitution adopted in December 1936?
The real issue of course is the question of the market. Is there a market and
market relations during the transition from capitalism or industrial society
operating on the principle of bourgeois property and communist society of
which Marx speaks? Is the market a product of the bourgeois property relations or
did markets exists before the advent of the bourgeoisie and as such are
governed or take shape on the basis of the development of the law of value and the
commodity form?
I most certainly do not mean to condemn or criticize any Communist Party or
their members, but write this critique as one individual to another individual.
The author of this "Stalin verus Trotsky debate" has his facts wrong and
misunderstand Marxism. In the next section of this "trash" the authors condemns
the concept of the abolition of classes in Soviet society.
The authors statement below is hard to stomach. He states:
"Having been transformed into an appendage of the CPSU, the Seventh Congress
of the Communist International, dutifully, in a resolution of August 29, 1935,
solemnly affirmed that "the final and irrevocable triumph of socialism and
the all-sided reinforcement of the state of the proletarian dictatorship, is
achieved in the Soviet Union." This testimony of the Communist International was
wholly self-contradictory. If socialism had "finally and irrevocably"
triumphed, not as a principle but as a living social regime, then a renewed
"reinforcement" of the dictatorship was obvious nonsense. And on the contrary, if the
reinforcement of the dictatorship was being evoked by the real demands of the
regime, that meant that, the triumph of socialism was still remote. It is
elementary Marxism that the very necessity of reinforcing the dictatorship testifies
not to triumph of classless harmony, but to the growth of new social
antagonisms." (end of quote)
What does it mean to state that exploiting classes have been abolished in the
Soviet Union?
Earlier our Trotskyite "ML" states: "On April 4, 1936, Pravda declared: "In
the Soviet Union the parasitical classes of capitalists, landlords and kulaks
are completely liquidated, and thus is forever ended the exploitation of man by
man. The whole national economy has become socialistic, and the growing
Stakhanov movement is preparing the conditions for a transition from socialism to
communism."[ (end of quote)
To state that the exploiting class have been abolished first and foremost
means that the bourgeois property relations has been fundamentally shattered and
eradicated in the national industrial economy and that there no longer existed
a mechanism in Soviet society, where one could convert wealth or money into
ownership of the means of production. Class embodies property relations or
ownership rights and not simply ones "relationship to the means of production" but
the historically specific forms of organization of utilizing each distinct
stage of tools, instruments, machinery and energy source underlying the mode of
production.
Abolition of exploiting classes should speak for itself. There is a deeper
meaning to the Soviet formulation of abolition of exploiting classes. Marx
states that society moves in class antagonism, not simply contradiction. None other
than Comrade Lenin stated: "Antagonism and contradiction are by no means the
same. Under socialism the first will vanish, the second will remain."
For my "ML" comrades, many whom have developed into noble Marxists and
fearless communists, our historic critique of Chairman Mao's, "On the Correct
Handling of Contradictions Amongst the People," or better yet his marvelous "4 Essay
On Philosophy," which we did no publish until well after his death (1978),
concerns this question of antagonism. Antagonism does not mean violence,
although in English antagonism means violence. One has to ponder Lenin's meaning:
"Antagonism and contradiction are by no means the same. Under socialism the first
will vanish, the second will remain."
Why does society move, not simply in contradiction but class antagonism
according to Marx and Engles? The bottom line is that abolishing the social
mechanism and legal structures by which the bourgeoisie maintains itself as property
owners . . . as a class . . . means that "the parasitical classes of
capitalists, landlords and kulaks are completely liquidated."
Our "ML" that has morphed into a political swindler and not even a good
Trotskyite, "connects" the overthrow of the exploiting class and their liquidation
with the withering away of the state to prove that not only was Stalin
fundamentally incorrect in his political doctrine that an industrial society could be
built without the bourgeoisie property relations, but building socialism
means the death of the growth of the industrial bureaucracy.
I cringed when reading the statement below.
"If then, in 1936, nearly two decades after the Revolution, it was being
proclaimed that the exploiting classes had been eliminated, only petty speculators
and gossips remained, obviously the armed people would have laughingly
disposed them off, there was no need of a bureaucracy." (end)
This is stated to lead to this conclusion: "Since 1924, the Stalinist
bureaucracy had often expelled the Trotskyites as âmoral degeneratesâ and even as
â
White Guardsâ; having labeled them this way, it was easier to eliminate them!"
Well, in my 35 years in the revolutionary movement I have not shed one tear
over the expulsions of the Trotskyites, the Moscow Trials, or even obvious
mistakes and executions of the innocent. Nor do I sit awake at night pondering or
shedding tears over the terrible destruction of New World Slavery and the
destruction of over a billion human peoples in the rise of the bourgeoisie and the
industrial system.
1. The bureaucracy does not grow out of the state. The bureaucracy's growth
is mediated by the state and there is a difference in this conception. In
history the feudal bureaucracy is overthrown. It is overthrown because it embodies
a different mode of production, form of wealth and form of the laboring
process in society.
2. Soviet communists could not overthrow the bureaucracy, which is not the
meaning of the state, although the state is a bureaucratic organ of repression.
The so-called bureaucracy is not a bureaucracy but rather an industrial
bureaucracy, no matter what the form of organizations of its structures . . .
bureaus.
3. An industrial bureaucracy is overthrown not by political fiat, because it
is impossible, but on the basis of a qualitative change in the mode of
production that renders it obsolete. The serf and the landlord could not and did not
overthrow the feudal bureaucracy, because the two basis classes of a social
system cannot overthrow the system and structures of society of which they
constitute. It is impossible. The contradiction between these two classes is what
drives the quality called feudalism along quantitatively.
It is the antagonism or society moving in class antagonism that overthrows
and shatters the feudal bureaucracy. That is to say a new qualitative force,
substance or class arises on the basis of changes in the material power of
production, that evolves outside the system of feudal wealth creation and landed
property relations, and these classes were the bourgeoisie and proletariat. These
new classes are not simply in contradiction with feudal property relations
but the contradiction is replaced by antagonism and the new classes are
compelled to destroy the old property relations, forms of wealth and bureaucratic
structures of the old social order in order to gain ascendancy to develop based on
a law system unique to them.
4. The Soviet communists of every shade could not and did not overthrow the
bureaucracy, because it is impossible. The bureaucracy can be "hit" . . .
purged, or streamlined but never destroyed because it exist in the category of
history and not politics. The so-called bureaucracy was not a bureaucracy, but
rather an industrial bureaucracy, which is why the Russian communists could take
over the old bourgeois state in Russia in the first place.
This is a theoretical question. The bourgeoisie cannot simply take over the
old feudal bureaucracy, because it is based in a new form of wealth and mode of
production. Socialism is not and was not based in a new mode of production
during the past century. Socialism meant the industrial system without the
bourgeois property relations.
I understand that Stalin is hard to deal with and forever the bone in the
throat of the communist movement that can neither be swallowed or spit up. This
bone in our throat is dissolved by history . . . time, without any concessions
to the petty bourgeois ideologues and Trotskyite rats.
It is a fact that the growth of bureaucratism gradually formed a bureaucratic
sector - sector!, that divided the revolutionary center from the people and
prevented them from functioning in complete harmony. While setting up and
consolidating the State apparatus and thus carrying out a vital historical task,
one which made possible the Soviets economic success in building the foundations
of socialism, it was necessary to build an industrial bureaucracy to
administer an industrial society.
Stalin had to do two things at the same time -- use the bureaucratic
apparatus and fight it simultaneously. This explains the reason why it was impossible
to defeat the bureaucracy decisively. Not just Stalin but no one could defeat
the bureaucracy decisively. This issue has to be understood in a Marxists
manner.
Even today with the overthrow of the Soviet Union and the restoration of the
bourgeois property relations, the industrial bureaucracy was never decisively
defeated. In fact the bureaucracy today . . . right now . . . in the former
Soviet Union is several times larger than the old Soviet bureaucracy!
The question of the bureaucracy and the industrial bureaucracy has an
existence mediated by the state but quite independent of the property relations in an
industrial society. The question of the state as a state under socialism or
the transition between capitalism and communism is theoretical and practical.
The practical meaning of the state during the era of the dictatorship of the
proletariat meant and means its strengthening and enlargement.
Now, the historical task assigned to the Soviet State had to be carried out
in the face of a certain death. Were their mistakes committed? There might have
been mistakes. In fact there were many mistakes . . . mistakes we do not have
to repeat. Did the form of the struggle take the form of leading
personalities in the Soviet Union?
Yes, And there was no one more leading than Lenin. Here are the roots of the
"cult of the personality." So what if communist world wide loved Lenin and
would lay down their life for him. So what if that love was transferred to
whoever was the leader of the Soviet State.
We face some significant theoretical questions, that the previous generation
of communist could not adequately resolve, because of their place in the
development of the industrial system itself.
The industrial system itself is hostile to communism.
After engaging in an orgy of political nonsense and condemnation of the
Soviet State our "ML" turned Trotskyites ends this chapter on the following note:
"The new Constitution (meaning the December 1936 one. Melvin P.) this
represented an immense step backwards from socialist to bourgeois principles. It
fully conformed to the historic course charted by the new Soviet ruling stratum,
such as the abandonment of the world revolution in favour of the League of
Nations, the restoration of the bourgeois family, the resurrection of ranks and
decorations in the standing army, the justification of increasing inequality in
society under the label of a new concocted socialist principle of âto each
according to his work.â (end)
Does inequality increase under socialism? Is this a bad thing? Inequality
like everything else in the political arena is a class phenomenon. Should the
industrial workers with a wife and four children have access to more than the
single industrial worker of the same age, working the same hours?
Our "ML' turned Trotskyite loves to harp on what he calls "a new concocted
socialist principle of âto each according to his work.â
Could someone tell me where this is located in the 1936 Stalin Constitution.
At worse "according to his work" is directed against the exploiting class and
empowers the workers sovereign rights to bread, living quarters, medical care,
education, vacation time, and al the fruits of a society can provide.
Equality itself it a bourgeois concept. We speak of the abolition of class
antagonism.
Melvin P.
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