Stagism refers to the old idea (associated with some in the 2nd & 3rd
Internationals) that history goes through mechanical stages, sort of like a
train on a track: feudal stage --> capitalist stage --> socialist stage
--> communist stage. The "train" can be sped up or slowed down (or maybe put
in reverse), but you can't "skip" stages.
Jim Devine
Jim Devine
^^^^^
CB: But surely the
2nd and 3rd Internationals discussed history going through _dialectical_, not
mechanical, stages.
But , anyway, hasn't
the history of the first efforts to build demonstrated that stage skipping is a
big problem in some sense. The roads/train tracks to socialism
bypassing capitalism have been pretty rocky. Much of the criticism of the SU is
based on the idea that it was a bit underadvanced to carryoff a rev alone, as
one country. Stalinism was , in part, the product of heavy feudal residues,
etc.
