Mine,
So, which was the Brezhnev era: "Kremlin
bureaucracy," "socialist democracy," both or
neither? You are becoming incoherent. Your
response to Rod Hay suggesting that you are
the leading expert on other peoples' knowledge
of Marx is ludicrous.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 6:31 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:19494] Re: Re: from Marx to Brezhnev (fwd)
actually, just the reverse: when capitalism was introduced, the system
moved away from socialist democracy...
the topic of the thread (From "Marx to Brezhnev") strikes me as
avertly ideological. What Russia experienced under Brezhnev (and also
under Stalin) was Kremlin bureaucracy, not Marxism or Leninism of any
sort.
Mine
Barkley wrote:
> It is depressing that when democracy was introduced, the system moved
>away from socialism. So far, what has replaced socialism has not been
>anything particularly admirable on the economic front. I find it
>particularly depressing to read that Putin has just shut down Russia's
>admittedly ineffective environmental agency. Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message----- From: Charles Brown
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 12:08 PM Subject:
[PEN-L:19458] Re: from Marx to Brezhnev
>
>
>>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/21/00 04:04PM >>>
> I would like to take a broader overview of
>this whole question, rather than the sort of nitpicking
>that I and others have been engaging in, who said
>what when where and what did they mean by it, blah blah.
> There is both a broad link and a deep discontinuity
>between Marx and what followed in the USSR.
>
>________
>
>CB: This is a good way to start a more balanced critique of the SU,
Barkley.
>
>______
>
>
> Arguably,
>there is much continuity. Certainly most of the "platform"
>of the Marx-Engels CM was implemented in the USSR,
>however "temporary" a platform it was intended to be
>(I shall eschew getting into the Marx vs Engels debate
>other than to note that Engels wrote things that never appeared
>in Marx, some of them important such as the support of
>central planning in the Anti-Duhring, but none of which Marx
>ever openly repudiated while he was alive.)
> Marx clearly supported democracy of some sort or other,
>despite his arguably not entirely democratic behavior while
>running the First International. But then, that was a revolutionary
>organization, a movement, rather than a government.
>
>__________
>
>CB: I think Marx's democracy started with macro-democracy, democracy at the
level of a whole country, not the due process of small organizations like
the International. So, his main goal of elevating the working class, the
overwhelming majority of the population , to the ruling class ,even a more
authentic republican form, was a democratic advance over the "majority of a
minority ruling class" democracy of capitalism. He fulfilled his duty to
democracy thoroughly by that.
>
>_________
>
>
>
> Clearly, Lenin "deviated" from Marx in various ways, which
>may be linked, while at the same time deeply respecting him
>and drawing on him profoundly.
>
>____________
>
>CB: The euphemism for this dysphemism ( "deviated") is that Lenin was not a
dogmatic Marxist. He treated Marxism as a guide to action, not a dogma.
Contra the liberal image of Lenin as a rigid dogmatism, the opposite was
true. Lenin was more creative than all his liberal critics (even those
today)
>
>_____________
>
>
>
>
>As I have argued, and some
>others have agreed while others have disagreed, one such
>deviation involved this very issue of democracy, that Lenin
>argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat in effect needed
>to be more dictatorial and less democratic if a return to power
>by the capitalists was to be avoided.
>
>___________
>
>CB: The evidence is that on this issue in general Marx had the same
attitude as Lenin.
>
>This fact is basically all included in Marx's understanding of the state,
and his clear belief that the proletariat would have a state. A state is
not run by concensus of the totality, rather , at best, dictatorship of the
majority.
>
>Democracy is state dictatorship of the majority.
>
>Even Madison recognizes this, and then goes way too much in the other
direction, worried about the "tyranny" of the majority over the bourgeois
minority.
>
>
>___________
>
>
>
>This may or may not have
>been the case. It is difficult to say what would have happened
>if the SR-controlled Duma had sat and come to power. Would
>there have been a civil war? Would the tsar and his family
>have been executed? Would democratic and civil liberties
>have been recognized? There is no clear answer to any of these.
>
>__________
>
>CB: The Duma instituting socalled democratic and civil liberties would not
have been preferred by Marx over an effort to establish a proletarian
republic, socialist republic, with state repression of bourgeoisie.
>
>Repression of the bourgeoisie is a democratic step. That idea originates
with Marx.
>
>____________
>
>
>
> A more serious argument would be that Kerensky would
>in fact have implemented various positive social reforms if he
>had been able to maintain power. Perhaps he would not have
>been able to and would have been overthrown by overtly
>reactionary forces. But it is much less likely that there would
>have been a civil war if he had retained power, although who
>knows how long he would have dragged out Russia's participation
>in WW I.
>
>_________
>
>CB: I want to say "pulease", but won't.
>
>_______
>
> Now it is a truism that Lenin was more progressive than
>Stalin, as such discussions as the treatment of abstract art,
>alternative sexual lifestyles, etc. etc. make clear. Stalin was
>both horribly repressive and led a regime that engaged in
>mass murder. At the same time, the progressive aspects
>of the USSR, such as they were, and they were substantial,
>numerous and very real, were largely put in place under
>Stalin. And in various ways, as pointed out by Charles Brown,
>the USSR played a progressive role in parts of the rest of the
>world, even under Stalin, such as in the US civil rights movement.
>
>________
>
>CB: Thanks for acknowledging this aspect.
>
>_______
>
>
>
> Now there are folks like Adolfo Olaechea over on marxism-
>international (if that list even still exists) who consider the worst
>moment in the history of socialism to be the destalinization speech
>of 1956 and its aftermath by Nikita Khrushchev. Of course this
>was the effective end of the gulags, at least as a mass phenomenon,
>although some of them did continue later. Also, for all his
>vaguely market-oriented and decentralizing reforms, Khrushchev
>and his successor Brezhnev oversaw a substantial increase in
>income equality in the USSR. Wage inequality under Stalin was
>as great as in the US, with industrial workers paid far more than
>the less-than-subsistence that was being received (at least in
>the 1930s) on the kolkhozes.
>
>___________
>
>CB: Yes , most discussion of the history of the SU ignores the substantial
self-criticism and correction or efforts at correction
>
>________
>
>
>Of course, Khrushchev did send troops into Hungary and
>did build the Berlin Wall. And, more generally made a fool of
>himself, much to the disgust of his countrymen.
> Although it has been much derided as the "period of
>stagnation," the Brezhnev period is now rather fondly recalled
>by many former Soviets. Life was not so bad socio-economically.
>The safety net was in place, nobody was starving or homeless or
>jobless (unless fired for being a dissident). And real incomes
>were certainly higher than they are today for most citizens.
>Equality was substantial.
>
>_________
>
>CB: Sputnik, Dominating the Olympics, enormous gains in theoretical
physics and mathematics, These folks were not just a bunch of fuckups. The
damn space station is still up there. US doesn't have one, had to take the
SU's.
>
>
>________
>
>
>
>
> There was not democracy, and there was repression of
>dissidents and those questioning the system.
>
>_________
>
>CB: Ah, but what IS democracy ? Dissidents is not the first principle of
democracy. Majority rule is the first principle of democracy, vulgarly put.
A majority of the totality , the whole group. The rights of individuals is
the second tier of issues in evaluating democracy.
>
>_________
>
>
>But, there were
>no executions of dissidents (Beria was the last to be executed
>on such grounds, to the best of my knowledge, and he was not
>really a dissident). There were many rights that were not
>exercised by the citizens, some of which now are (e.g. freedom
>to marry a foreigner and emigrate, quasi-freedom of the press).
>But the suppression of dissent was very mild compared with
>what went on the Stalin period, which many remembered, of course.
>Life was not so bad, even if it could have been better in many ways.
> The colllapse of that system is a very complicated matter.
>I shall not discuss that here and now. But, we did see historically
>a movement in world socialism from support for democracy by
>Marx to its exact opposite under Stalin, followed by some
>movement back in the opposite direction. It appears that Gorbachev
>tried to achieve democratic socialism. Clearly, he failed.
>
>__________
>
>CB: Nice post ! I like your balance.
>
>
>CB
>
>
