On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 01:30 PM, hari kumar wrote: > > I hope that the final sentence of that para - namely "was it worth it?" - > is purely a rhetorical device?...if not - you must be in a severe period > of self-doubt...long time spans are needed to effect changes in > societies...we appear to be still discussing, whether or not what seems to > us (in the 'retrospectoscope') the supposedly dead and long ago answered > hoary question - to wit - "Is socialism in one country possible and did it > ever happen?"
It was a rhetorical device, Hari, aimed at those who lament the restoration of capitalism in China. The Chinese system is either a new and unanticipated higher stage of capitalism or the earliest stage of a transition to socialism. The answer depends on whether you see the PRC ruling on behalf of its capitalist class or using it to expand the productive forces on behalf of the masses, as Lenin described the NEP. I’m more persuaded by the latter, though I don’t exclude the possibilty that the capitalists could replace the CCP and one party state with a bourgeois democratic republic or the Chinese leadership itself could dismantle the atate sector and seize its assets, as happened in Russia in the early 90’s. This is still unclear, and it seems to me it is the PRC’s impatient critics who belong to the camp which doesn’t understand, as you put it, that “long time spans are needed to effect changes in societies” Does the restoration of capitalism in Russia mean the 1917 revolution wasn’t "worth it”? Given the situation in Russia at the time and the prospects for world revolution, I don’t think the Bolsheviks had any other choice, notwithstanding Plekhanov’s injunctions which Gojko previously copied to the list. It's only in hindsight that doubt arises whether the enormous sacrifices of successive Soviet generations were worth it, although fascism might well have triumphed but for those sacrifices for which we're all indebted. Finally, to your question “is socialism in one country possible and did it ever happen?”, I would say no. Despite their constitutions proclaimimg them to be “socialist”, I don’t believe the USSR or the PRC has ever reached that stage. My recall may be faulty here, but I believe Stalin and perhaps also Mao acknowledged this but set it aside in favour of "building socialism" and in anticipation that global capitalism would soon meet with inevitable defeat. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29732): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29732 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/105142448/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
