Re: Subject: Was Lenin/very long reply

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

Melvin P. wrote:

Nevertheless, the only antagonism existing between bourgeois industrial
imperialism and proletarian industrialism socialism was in the political
arena.

My comment:

>This is a loaded statement.  It seems to mean, if I understood
correctlyMelvin's theory of proletarian revolution proper, that Russian 
revolution was an
aberration of history, a "miracle" out of the natural course of things simply
because a true socialist revolution can come only after the "industrial
capitalism" ushered in its "post-industrial" phase of decline and fall.  This 
reminds
me a return to the optimistic stagism of European social democracy. <


Reply

The miracle is that the political revolution to abolish the bourgeois
property relations occurred in a very economically backwards country. The Soviet
Revolution was an authentic socialist revolution. The miracle is its 71 years of
existence. Soviet socialism was socialism or rather industrial socialism.
Soviet socialism was not "state capitalism," - a term Lenin used cautiously in
debate with the left communist over the methods of the Taylor system and the
direction to take in building the foundation for heavy industry.

The term industrial socialism is used because industrial society is a
distinct configuration and a value producing system. The law of value does not
operate with the same force or scope as under the bourgeois property relations. 
The
real question is why the antagonism between imperialism and Soviet power is
located in the political sphere and not between their economic bases. The answer
is that both economic bases were industrial and value producing systems.

Marx speaks of communism and the abolition of bourgeois property. Proletarian
revolution is in the last instance compelled to conform to the law that
governs the development of the industrial curve of society at its various 
stages of
growth and development.
___________________________________________________

>Two objections come to my mind at once.  What will make US capitalists to
invest in further mechanization, robotization, and computerization of production
if they have the inexhaustible labor force in countries like China ready to
work 100 hours a week for as little as 11 cents per hour? <

Reply

Answer: The law of value. Marx calls the bourgeoisie the involuntary promoter
of industry, meaning he has no choice. The auto industry had the ability to
bring on line fully automated engine plants in the late 1960 and early 1970 and
General Motors built prototypes. They did not bring these plants on line
because it would unravel the value form by placing to many workers on the 
street,
which in turn further restricts the market, which in turn compels the other
automakers to adopt the new standards to reduce their labor cost. This is not
how the actual process takes place but merely a description of the competition
between capitals in the hands of individuals. Not in the hands of real
individuals but operating on the principle of bourgeois property.

American is a continent country - a huge market. It is not as if all of its
productive capacity is being sent to China and even if such a feat was possible
- which it is not, China would be compelled by the law of value to
revolutionize its productive forces. The maximization of profit is the prime 
directive
of capitalism. The penalty for the capitalist that fail to observe this simple
premise is severe - being driven from the marketplace or the production site
into the ranks of the property less by some other capitalist who does achieve
the maximum profit. This striving pushes the application of electronic
technology to every corner of the globe. The competition is global.

In this regard Putin is burning the midnight oil. Russia cannot compete and
field commodities in the world market and its society was not geared to do
this. The law of value does not have free play under socialism. The overthrow of
the degenerates in the bureaucracy was on the historical agenda but the
overthrow of socialist property relations was not. The former Soviet workers are
learning the difference between the two. It would not surprise me if the Russia
workers lead the next revolutionary assault on the citadels of capital. Russia
still possesses a certain military capacity that is closely watched by
imperialism.
__________________________________________________________________

>Secondly. What if the "post-industrial" society is also a post-revolutionary
one, with
the proletarian movement gone forever, perhaps, even a pre-bourgeois?  Is a
return to pre-capitalist forms of production and power on the higher level of
productive forces theoretically impossible?  As someone living in the country
that has become de- rather than post-industrialized, I clearly see around me
the many-sided regression to seemingly archaic social practices.  The fascist
movement showed that bourgeois society produces not only its socialist negation.

  Finally, in the context of the raised topic of social imperialism, the
determinism of Melvin's theory can serve to rationalize the political 
backwardness
of US labor.<


Reply

Facts are stubborn things. The technological revolution is happening within
capitalist production relations. The drive to maximize profits pushes the
technology revolution forward, but electronic based production undermines value
production. Value is the amount of socially necessary labor in commodities. This
is a profound contradiction. The process unfolds uneven. The proletarian
movement cannot be abolished, because people have to live, eat, be housed and
educated. The means to do this exist and people know this. Society leaps 
forward or
leaps to a new political basis or passes through political revolution under
extreme pains. I do not believe that American workers can be pushed down to the
level of the sharecropper, which is why our bourgeoisie is planning on
jailing millions of people. Millions means 10-20 million people. This will not 
solve
the crisis. Distribution of the social products outside the buying and sale
of labor power is the answer to America's questions

I am not sure what "pre-capitalist forms of production" means. Here is my I
use a different conceptual framework and speak of the bourgeois property
relations, industrial society, industrial socialism, etc.  Do you mean 
handicraft or
manufacture? People will do what ever they are compelled to do to survive.

An aspect of the relatively backwardness of the US workers is a historical
bribery. White chauvinism is the main form that the social bribery took to the
Anglo-American people that broke the unity of the working class in our history.
Backwardness is relative and once our class is in motion its political
consciousness will be shaped very quickly, deepening on how the revolutionaries
shape the social questions.

____________________________________

>Anyway, I do not understand what was it that "objectively" prevented the US
workers to take over the "industrial" phase some time in the 1930s and do away
with the "only antagonism" that separated this industrialism from the Soviet.<

Reply

There are profound difference on this question and some blame the CPUSA. My
opinion is totally different and both wings of the "communist movement" evolved
from a semi-fascist thread in our history and were no more than basically
anarcho-syndicalist in the manner that, Vladimir Lenin describes them. If this
motley crew were perfect revolutionaries they would have still face the
composition of American society and the fact that many folks escaped the 
harshness of
the Great depression living on the land. Unlike Russian society in 1917
America has never faced a wartime collapse other than during the Civil War and 
in
this instance the South - plantation area, took the hit.

Do not misunderstand, many of these industrial warriors were brave men and
women and fought on the side of the workers, giving their lives at times. I
reject the notion that what was wrong with our communist movement was Moscow. 
What
was wrong is its semi-fascist thread and deeply ingrained white chauvinism.

Sections of the American workers were radicalized but this was not the class
struggle. American imperialism had plenty of maneuvering room and with war on
the horizon extended real concessions to the working class.
_________________________________________


>It is true that some important features of the modern system of industrial
production, perfected in the US, were consciously transplanted to the Soviet
Union, simply because they promised higher productivity. For obvious reasons the
Soviet Union lacked the necessary means and time to develop the methods of
production more conforming to the ideals of socialism.  The introduction of the
assembly line and some other elements of Taylorism met with some serious
objections of ideological nature but won over them. Piecework was hated by
workers.  The socialist primitive accumulation under the conditions of siege
hit not only peasants.  Factory hierarchy and discipline in many ways
resembled those in capitalist countries and at times were supplemented even by
precapitalist forms of coercion.  Preparing for the coming war with Nazi 
Germany (and
as we now know for the very possible war with Britain and France), the Soviet
government banned the free movement of workers in the labor market and
criminalized breaches of factory discipline.  In 1939 being 20 minutes late for 
work
the second time could land the worker a prison term (usually served in the
same factory).<

Reply

Perhaps the most profound less of political theory and politics I have learnt
in y life came from the last groups of Soviet Bolsheviks. They stated,

"It is quite easy to understand a physical reaction resulting from a physical
attack. But this question becomes much more complex in the class struggle, in
which a particular political act may not have any direct result until many
years later. To build industry in the Soviet Union wasn't it necessary to exert
the greatest efforts and undergo the most incredible hardships? Wasn't Stalin
right when he said: 'That is what we must do or we will be crushed.' We think
the best answer to that question was given in the patriotic war by our armed
forces, who carried in their hands the weapons forged by the Stalinist policy
of industrialization. And it was precisely the policy of industrialization that
the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s attempted to sabotage. They screeched that
agriculture was being sacrificed to industry, but in actuality they wanted the
Russian peasantry to submit to fascism enslavement. Stalin attacked the main 
body
of petty bourgeois ideologist who hypocritically attempted to hide from the
Bolsheviks."

I do not write the next sentence because it will probably get me kicked off
Marxline.

The point is that it requires political learning and a grasp of process logic
to understand political projections and where a line of advance will lead
one. The historic line of advance of the "communist" was anarcho-syndicalism,
which in our country ended up being the trade union movement, which for reasons
of our history was Anglo-American in the main. The strategy should always be
factory work buttressed by ceaseless work amongst the lowest section of the
working class and that sector driven into conflict and confrontation with state.
Given the political and economic history of the American Union work within the
South and plantation areas is critical to defeating the fascist advance.

The harshness of some of my critical remarks comes from the political logic
of the Bolsheviks. All the theory debate contains political logic and a line of
march - advance.
-______________________________________________________

>Yet many ordinary Soviet people remember the "Iron Age" of the Soviet Union
as a time of unsurpassed public optimism and idealism, strikingly different
from the uniformly grim Orwellian picture of that period that Western public
has.  What fueled that idealism?  Nationalism?  It remained a powerful force in
the backward majority of Soviet population, but not its industrial vanguard.
No, the "socialist
industrialism" was not only politically, but socially different from its
capitalist opponent.  The modern system of industrial production was inserted 
into
a new type of social relations in the center of which was a socialist
collective.  The point of industrial production was also a point of production 
of a
new socialist man as a part of a new type of collectivity.  This is something
that "bourgeois industrialism" and its worker never knew. Today, when millions
of former Soviet citizens work in the West they begin to discover the
difference between the atomized "workplace" of capitalism and the socialist 
productive
collective.<

Reply

I first went to work in large-scale industry - the auto plants - General
Motors, at age 16 against the wishes of my father who wanted me to study law of
something or enter the skilled trades. When I read the literature of the Soviet
past the difference in its internal organization is remarkable, something the
petty bourgeois left cannot understand. One must understand that these people
are haters of the Soviet proletariat and scream "violation of proletarian
democracy."

It took me seven years to adjust to industrial production - being pined to
the machine, and 15 years to master its logic. After 25 years a 10-hour day went
very fast. It is not only the internal social life that was democratic in the
Soviet Union but the specific configuration of the production process that
reveal the property relations. The principle of intensive and extensive
development of machinery operates different under socialism.

Under Soviet socialism - real industrial socialism, machinery and tools are
configured to carry out various tasks. One day building automobiles and then
bicycles, and various products that have no internal relationship to one
another. Under capitalism - the bourgeois property relations, the more things a
machine or tool is configured to do the less effective it becomes because of the
law of value. In other words here is the basis of the law of the intensive and
extensive development of industry. Capitalist purchase equipment to carry out
one basis function endlessly or as you state the organization of production is
atomized. I have written on this before but the ideologists have not a clue
and proceed from the interior of their mind and the bourgeois concept of
democracy. Of course I understand what socialist organization is and why the 
same
machine under industrial socialism is reconfigured under industrial socialism.

The application of the principles of the Taylor system in the Soviet Union -
called "state capitalism" by the left communism gave the Soviets a start.
Vladimir Lenin was of course correct in his assessment. Today when the 
ideologist
speak of "state capitalism" they are talking about a category invented in the
head, whereas the "left communism" - who were wrong, was talking about a form
of organization internal to industry. "A sure mark of radical, ontological
difference between the two societies."
___________________________________________________________


>   Zinoviev, as so many of us, including myself, has traveled a long
distance from being an enemy of the Soviet system to the feeling of enormous and
irrevocable loss and personal guilt after it had been destroyed. I can think of 
no
historical parallel to this experience.   Isaac Deutscher warned the Soviet
people not to throw away the baby together with dirty water. There is something
clearly tragicomic about all this. VS <

Reply

We live and learn and do not repeat our errors.

I have read four, perahps five books by Issac Deutsher, incuding his trilogy
on Mr. L. Trotsky and it is very well written. I am not a fan of Mr. Deutsher
and disagree with his political logic.

Bolshevism is an advance political culture of the communist workers. Although
I am only 51 years old, I retain the historical memory of the 15th Party
Congress when the boss - for the first time, raised the question of building the
industrial system in the Soviet Union firmly and with absolute clarity. He
proposed to build industry outside the law system governing the competition
between individuals owning the social power of capital. The ideologists call 
this
"socialism in one country" and fought the plan to build industry outside the law
system governing the competition between individuals owning the social power
of capital. The question was not abstract but build industry and a military
capacity or be liquidated by imperialism.

Let us be clear: the question was "build industry outside the law system
governing the competition between individuals owning the social power of 
capital,"
which means a rapid expansion of heavy industry or bring the bourgeois
property relations in. Those who insisted in fighting the plan constituted a 
social
formation linking with bourgeois property and imperialism in the eyes of the
boss. The Boss could see very clear and think strategically. Here is the form
that the class struggle took.  The correctness of the Boss has been proven and
verified by history.

Many of the loyal communist workers in the Soviet Union could not distinguish
the bureaucracy from the property relations.  The question requires
theoretical insight and not ideological nonsense. It is one thing to have an 
unpleasant
bureaucratic social order led by Bolsheviks. It is totally different thing to
have a bureaucratic social order led by Nikita and those who followed him.
The various attempts to reorganize industry through schemes of regionalization
merely reorder the bureaucracy on the basis of support for the new bosses,
after the defeat of the last grouping of Bolsheviks around Molotov. I vaguely
remember his last interview. Humble Molotov and the big man - hammer and steel.

The Soviet people understood that "these people" were not communists.

The communist workers of my generation understood and understand what the
attacks against the Soviet state were. First came the ideological attack
spearheaded by USNA imperialism and then the disorganization caused internally 
by the
by Nikita and a string of bourgeois elements. Here is why by the late 1950's
virtually every element of the Boss regime was gone - removed.  Actually, I
would say the struggle entered its critical phase around 1957 and 1958.

Where the bourgeoisie could not defeat us, the opportunists did relying on
the strength of imperialism.

Then again, the Boss said the greatest enemies of the Soviet people held a
party card. By the early 1960s the Bolsheviks were scattered to the wind and not
a trace of the Boss regime remained. The seed took root in America among a
section of the industrial workers and the lowest strata of the working class.

The next assertion of the Soviet proletariat - with the Russian workers in
their historical vanguard formation, will extract a heavy toil from the
opportunist and the bourgeois nationalist. Such is the law of history and life.

Melvin P.


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