I wrote:>>so the USSR didn't have classes? what principles did it follow? was Stalin a benevolent despot?<<
LP: >reply: Jim, it is totally exhausting to reformat your email. Why can't you get somebody to configure your MS Outlook, or do it yourself. Here's how to do it: 1. Select tools/option 2. Select tab mail/format 3. Select Internet format 4. In 'automatically wrap text at -- characters', enter 76.< I've tried all this before (those specific instructions don't work with my MS Outlook 2000: SR-1, 9.0.0.3821) - and I've complained to the IT folks (and people on pen-l). So I'm trying to see how MS Word (2000, 9.0.3821 SR-1) works as my e-mail editor. Of course, the on-line version of MS Word that I used this morning to send the message that LP responds to doesn't have this option. >Turning to the substance, there were no classes in the USSR. A bureaucrat and a capitalist have nothing in common in Marxist terms.< If (1) the bureaucrat belongs to a social stratum that controls the state in a despotic way - enough to kill or imprison those who oppose their rule - and (2) the state owns the most important means of production, then doesn't that bureaucrat have a social power akin to other ruling classes? me:>>it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its "allies" independence until the USSR itself was falling apart.<< LP: >reply: The USSR certainly did control Poland, Hungary et al. The record is quite clear on that. What it did not do is extract value.< they may not have extracted value in the capitalist sense (exchange value), but the old USSR worked according to non-commodity-producing standards. As did several pre-capitalist empires. Jim Devine
