Louis Proyect wrote:
> After WWII, the USSR got a bunch of buffer states in return for its role
> in defeating Nazism.
What does it mean that the USSR "got a bunch of buffer states in return for
its role in defeating Nazism"? Someone gave it to the Soviet Union as a
reward? Who was entitled to grant such a reward? Or is this just another way
of saying that, during the defeat of Nazism, the Soviet army also brought
domination in its wake.
US imperialism also got influence around the world "in return for its role in
defeating Nazism". It's important that Nazism was defeated. But the exercise
of domination over other countries through a position gained by military
efforts is called imperialism.
> Were there any signs that it had ambitions to
> expand into Eastern Europe in the 1930s?
For the most part, the Soviet Union was worrying about military weakness in
the 1930s. However, as the Stalinist state-capitalist system congealed in the
1930s, there was a noted change in the relations with the non-Russian peoples
in the Soviet Union. The policy of indigenization and promoting the national
rights of the different peoples in the Soviet Union was reversed. This was
the change that led to such things as the mass deportations at the end of
World War II. And, for example, the 1930s was the time when Ukrainization was
reversed. The changed policy towards Ukraine still resonates in the policy of
Russia today.
>Oh, I forgot. There were no Russian corporations.
Are you sure about that? Actually, there were indeed something like
corporations in the Soviet Union. Back in the early 1920s the Soviet Union
began implementing "khozraschet" (the self-financing system) for state
enterprises, which became responsible for their profit and loss. Khozraschet
played an important role in the Soviet economy right from the 1920s through
the 1930s and on to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The competition
between these enterprises was a major feature of the Soviet economy.
Meanwhile the workers had lost control of either the party or the enterprise
management.
It's true that the Soviet enterprises weren't exactly the same as Western
corporations. The party, bureaucracy, and ministries exercised the overriding
influence that the traditional bourgeoisie has in the Western economy.
But capitalism has a number of forms. Capitalism has steadily evolved. It is
not like mid-19th century British capitalism. The changes are not minor. When
Marx saw the development of joint-stock companies, he thought this was
something new in capitalism. Instead of pooh-poohing the idea that capitalism
goes through different forms, he wrote that these new types of enterprise
amounted to "the abolition of capital as private property within the
framework of capitalist production itself". ("Capital", vol. III, Ch. XXVII
"The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production", pp. 437-8.) Today, we are so
used to giant corporations that it's easy to forget how dramatic a change
they were in the form of capitalism. Indeed, today, the giant corporations
are the very image of Western market capitalism. The fact is, capitalism has
changed, and will continue to change, and yet the basic laws of capitalism
remain, or are even intensified.
Soviet state-capitalism was also the development of something new in the
capitalist system. But the basic laws of capitalism remained and are
manifested in particularly striking ways. We shouldn't deny these changes,
but study them, determine the laws and nature of these new forms of
capitalism, and encourage the organization of an independent working class
movement within it.
This is important not simply as a historical matter for dealing with Soviet
history. It's important because capitalism is going to change again in this
century. If nothing else, if neo-liberalism doesn't strangle itself through
economic crisis, then the environmental crisis is going to force changes. To
deal with the tremendous problems of environmental disaster, and to take some
measures against more environmental problems, will require a change in the
form of capitalism. If we are to back working class interests, if the working
class is not to be lulled to sleep with the fairy tale that changes that
leave the bourgeoisie in power are "socialism", we had better have a
realistic idea of what capitalism is, and of how it manifests itself in
different forms.
-- Joseph Green
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Joseph Green
[email protected]
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