[Marxism] State capitalism or whatever

[Ernie & Jess <mackenzie.tate@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been following with some interest the various comments appearing on
the List recently about the ISO and the notions of state-capitalism, and
I'm struck by what seems to me a total absence any attempt at relating
the discussion to what's happening in Russia today. It's possible this
kind of discussion has already taken place on the List and I have missed
it, but I think we should at least do some basic spade work and look at
the data coming out of Russia and look at what serious academics,
Marxist or otherwise, are writing.  I'm not an academic, but that's what
I've tried to do in a recent long piece which Louis posted in the
Marxmail archives.  And anyone who reads it will notice I didn't event
attempt to talk about state capitalism or degenerated workers' states.

If socialists are to rise above what seems to me to be squabbles about
these positions, shouldn't we at least ask ourselves how the various
theories about the class nature of the Russian state, which were once
widely debated in the socialist left, stand up as tools for
understanding what's happening in Russia today?   And these theories
should not be the only issues discussed by Marxists.

 A big question for me is to explain how was it possible for a working
class to be pushed back into third world conditions without at the same
time organizing a sustained political resistance. Prior to the fall of
the USSR I don't think there was anyone who would have predicted the
success of neo-liberalism there. To say the least, it puts a question
mark about the working class being an agency for social change, and with
implications for the advanced capitalist countries. As Greg Albo asked
in our recent discussion with David Mandel in Toronto, why in the awful
circumstances of the recent history of Russia, didn't the class struggle
throw up a counter force to the new emerging capitalists?  Mandel, in
his book, "Labour After Communism", helps us understand this, but there
are a multitude of questions posed by the long counter-revolution in
Russia which Marxists have to discuss and explain.  The Russian story is
not over by a long shot and it can be somewhat discouraging to think
about what's happening, yet if we are unable to work out an
understanding of what took place there, I don't think we will be able to
solve the political and theoretical problems that will inevitably be
posed in the struggle for socialism in our own countries.

Ernest Tate



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