To continue comrades,
Alan went on:
> Lenin did, that a developing or underdeveloped country cannot proceed
> directly, immediately, to socialism, since the economic base will not
> support it. The economic base has to be developed from capitalist forms
> which in the Soviet case had just emerged from feudalism. It was thus that a
> new alternative road to socialism had been embarked on, one that rejected
> the notion of the necessity of proceeding through the capitalist stage of
> economic development.
Surely this was what was predicted by Marx and Engels as a transition
to communism for all societies which matches my description of
Socialism and is completely consistent with the concept of a proper
socialist state as outlined in my quotations from the Communist
Manifesto and it prefaces. It is not new and alternative to that
predicted by Marxism (thought it was a new and alternative concrete
reality for humanity).
Also as you say, and as Marx and Engels noted even in the 1880s,
Russia had 'capitalist forms which...had just emerged from feudalism'
(Alan) 'In Russia we find...rapidly developing capitalist swindle and
bourgeois landed property' (Marx & Engels). So it is not as though it
was such a impossibility for it to be a socialist state immediately
making progress towards communism as a final goal. Even if this will
take more effort than it would for a full developed capitalist
country which had developed over several centuries.
> The other road to socialism
> that the proletariat in the developed imperialist countries will embark on,
> needs no comment here other to say that it does not contain the same
> contradictions as the former and most important is not prone to collapse and
> revert to capitalist restoration, since the economic base will not generate
> or support capitalism but on the contrary will generate and support
> socialism.
But this is also a transitional state on the road communism (which
also related to my definition of socialism'. What you seem to be
saying is NOT that it is a matter of degree, as it seems to me (i.e.
that some countries will find it easier and quicker to pass through
the socialist stage), but you say that they are completely different
roads (not in length but absolutely different - so much so that
Socialism ceases to be a valid term for both). Re-quoting the
Communist Manifest I would have thought that:
'These measures will of course be different in different countries.'
Also it seems that your whole theory misses one vital part of any
Marxist-Leninist understanding of such questions and that is the role
of Imperialism. It was not the internal economic backwardness of
Russia that was the problem in my view but that they had to build a
new society in the face of fierce attack from Imperialism. This meant
economic, political, military, diplomatic and ideological attack
right from the first days following Red October. Coupled with this
was the ineffectiveness of the Left in the rest of the world (other
than Iran, Hungry, etc) in not following the Bolshevik's lead as Marx
and Engels had hoped when they said that:
'The Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian
revolution in the west, so that both complement each other.'
This issue was most crucial in the question of the possibility of a
German Revolution after 1917. Far more important in the building of
socialism for Russia was it political and economic isolation and the
constant attack and undermining by Imperialism. I am not saying that
the internal economic difficult would have been easily overcome but
they were just another difficulty the Revolution faced.
> There is a need to clarify the 'Soviet'. The Soviets were formed I
> understand in the Feb. 1917 revolution and were for the objectives of 'Peace
> and Bread', their demands were not initially for socialism, they were
> nevertheless basically worker's councils.
Sorry, but weren't they set up following the 1905 revolution as I am
sure I have seen many reference to the in text and biographies well
before 1917. They are often contrasted to parliaments (but that may
say more about the specific nature of Russian Parliaments). And I
think in April 1917 Lenin attacks the slogan 'All power to the
Soviets' as this was at that specific point no more than an alliance
with a reactionary peti-bourgeois. Though I think he returned to a
pro-Soviet position shortly afterwards due to changes in the
political conditions rather than a change in his position.
I'm afraid I will need one more email to finish off my comments....
John
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