Re: [Marxism] The two souls of socialism

["Ian Pace" <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "Joaquín Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

> The Soviet Union was not just Stalin or the bureaucracy: it was also the
embodiment of certain conquests by the working people, not just of the
territories of the USSR, but of the world.

I can't accept that was the case during the Stalinist or subsequent eras.

> The overly simplistic
"socialism from below"/"state capitalism" analytical framework fails to
make this distinction.

> It's like the Teamsters: Hoffa himself might be a completely abominable
replica of the corporate executive, but that doesn't make the Teamsters
a company union, and even though this leadership does tremendously
undermine the IBT's effectiveness, lead it to take all sorts of crummy
positions, etc., it is still a union and its existence does protect
workers to a certain degree.

The parallel doesn't apply. Hoffa was still ultimately accountable to his 
members.

> Without the existence of the USSR it is very doubtful that many of the
anticolonial revolutions would have triumphed, and almost certainly the
Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban revolutions would have been stillborn or
murdered in their infancy.

I'm going to take a hard line on this and question whether, in the case of 
the Chinese revolution, it couldn't even have been better if it were 
stillborn. Or at least wouldn't have made any qualitative difference for the 
worse.

> The counterrevolutions of 1989-1991 were a catastrophe not just for the
working people of those countries but everywhere, as they represented a
fundamental shift in the relationship of class forces on a world scale.

The catastrophe comes from the now-unchecked nature of US power. Also indeed 
in the particular manifestation of the post-communist times in some of those 
countries. But I see it more as a shift from one branch of the ruling 
classes to another.

> I also question Callinicos's solution that to avoid this, only a
revolutionary movement "powerful enough ... to break the power of
capital globally" will do, anything short of that is a diversion. This
leads these comrades concretely not to see that Cuba and Venezuela,
rather than representing some weird peculiar phenomenon without major
significance, are in fact the vanguard of the world revolution today,
and that isn't a small thing.

How are they the 'vanguard of the world revolution' rather than small 
localised concerns? Venezuela is a social democratic revolution, and Cuba 
seems an anachronism from a very particular history, but of little greater 
relevance to the rest of the world.

> It tends to lead to workerist and
euro/america-centric errors that underestimate the centrality of the
national movements against imperialism in the fight for socialism.

Those aren't 'errors' in my book. We should certainly give support to 
progressive movements in the third world. However, I see little reason to 
suppose they won't ultimately go the way of the Sandinistas.

> This idea of a "socialism from below" current arose at a specific time
under specific historical circumstances. It has a degree of validity in
popularization of socialist ideas and educational work, but when taken
on as a fundamental analytical-theoretical framework, as Callinicos
does, it is deeply flawed.

It is fundamental to all those that think socialism can only be achieved 
starting in the developed world (which is in line with classical Marxist 
teaching).

Solidarity,
Ian




________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism