State capitalism (fwd)

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 19 Jun 96 02:29:51 EDT
From: neil <74742.1651@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Marxism list-e-mail <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: IWW <jbekken@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "J.S.Daborn" <J.S.Daborn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
    Mauro <Mauro.jr@xxxxxx>, curtis price <cansv@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
    SLP <75702.1036@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: State capitalism

TO:     Marxism list-e-mail, INTERNET:marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CC:     curtis price, INTERNET:cansv@xxxxxxxxxxx

Re:     state capitalism vs. workers rule

Dear friends,

Sorry some of my recent  messages had word  wrap probs. and yes I do have the
Windows 3.1 system.

As to the politcial  debate.  Sorry Proyect  wishes to cry in his beer over my
admittedly sometimes   coarse  polemical style. But if he stops to look at the
polemics debates of other marxists in many and varied  periods , he would see 
that
many tend to  use a practically no holds barred approach to this as  day to day
and even in the end, these  issues debated  become life and death questions
for the mass movements of the working people against the capitalist   wage
slave system..

Adam (SWP-UK) is I think nitpicking a bit snarling about my mocking
ridicule of the "degenerated workers state" formula. Yes, Adam, the russian
workers state was degenerating in the main from the high price and
sacrifice to win the civil war 1918-20 AND the crushing of the post
WW1 workers/soldiers revolutionary wave by bourgeois reaction that
swept both W. and  E. europe in the aftermath 1918-21.

Still, as even Lenin and most the bolshevik leadership agreed, Russia
was at that time (circa 1921) a state capitalist/priv. capitalist  enonomy
 with bolshevik party/state control.Lenin's own works can clarify some of
the mystifications that still get bandied about about Russia being
 socialist , or achieving socialism via party control alone. Lenin
and the Bolshevik majority felt state capitalism was a stage they
must traverse  to get to socialism peculiar to Russian conditions.
I think the problem is that many marxists worldwide have turned
this view into mummified dogma applicable to all countries,
no matter what the stage of economic/cultural developement existing.

I don't expect forces on the list to just take my word for it.
So I refer you to the following parts of Lenin's collected works (LCW)
in which he deals with the vexed problems and contradictions the
Bolsheviks faced at that time , dealing with a new state  power
trying to hold the fort and an admitted administration of a
capitalist economic base.

LCWs -before civil war
Vol 27  Pg 248-9 (Immediate Tasks of Soviet Govt)
Vol 27  Pg 311 (Debate on Report of Immediate Tasks)
Vol 27, Pg 336 (Left-wing childishness)
  "     Pg 345-6
Vol 27, pg 255 (Struggle for country wide accounting and control)

LCWs -War communism
Vol 29  Pg 113-4 (Program of RCP (B).
Vol 30  Pg 108-10 (Econ. & Pol Of the DOP)
Vol 29  Pg 421    (Great Beginning)
Vol 30  Pg 286-7  (Report on Subotniks)

LCWs --War Communism to NEP 1921-3
Vol 32  Pg 296-7  (Report on Tax in Kind)
Vol 33  Pg 58     (4th Anniv. Bol Rev)
Vol 33  Pg 88     (7th Moscow Gubernia Conf.)
Vol 33  Pg 96-7       "       "
Vol 33  Pg 116    (Importance of Gold Now)
Vol 33  Pg 184-6  (Role and Functions of the Trade Unions)
Vol 33  Pg 407    (interview with Arthur Ransome)
Vol 33  Pg 278    (11th Cong. of RCP (B)  1922)
Vol 33  Pg 473-4  (On Co-operation) 1923)

This period is important as it seems that  many of the old communist
 movements achilles heels evolve from this period of struggle.
But I think this must of course be brought up to date
Source/ Debate in 'Communist Voice" Vol 2 # 3  6/1/96 Det. MI>

It is encouraging/necessary  when a number of forces on this list wish
to engage in serious debate on this mother of all socialist controversies.

The REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVES (old SERIES) from the left-communist
Communist Workers Organization, Box 338, Sheffield S3 9yx, UK ,is
quite sharp on this contrversy.

Walter Daum's  marerick LRP trotskyists have also done their homework.
See his book "THe Life and Death of Stalinism"

Neil










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