Re: [Marxism] If Marxism is a Science then its Predictions ShouldMatter...

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Paddy Apling wrote:

> At 13:32 01/12/2005, Einde Callaghan wrote:
>
> In addition, if the there was a counter-revolution (i.e. the replacement
> of one ruling class by another), as claimed by various workers statists,
> why is it that the present Russian capitalist class (or elite, if you
> prefer, although I prefer to think of them as robber barons like their
> counterparts in the late 19th century US) is essentially made up of
> former members of the ruling elite or nomenklatura and the working
> class, supposedly the ruling class before 1989-1991, allowed this to
> happen without any noticeable resistance?
>
> Paddy:
> How the Russian working-class allowed this to happen IS the big question
> - and the second question, deeply involved in the first - is how their
> so-called representatives (leaders? !!) in the ruling elite or
> nomenklatura came to be so involved with the incipient(?) bourgeois
> mentality of the expanding black market.
>
> But surely there is no question that objectively the change WAS a
> counter-revolution?
If Russia was a capitalist society of some form and the same people
ruled before and afterwards then it wasn't a counterrevolution in the
sense normally used, i.e. the suppression of the rising class by the
ruling class in decline or the replacement of a higher level of social
development by a lower one. What occurred was a change in the form of
class rule - admittedly a relatively weak form of rule was replaced by a
more rabid one and the more or less complete fusion of economic and
political power was replaced by a division of labour between the
economic and the political elites, even if they are still intimately
connected with each other. But this has also occurred in other
developing countries that have never been classified as "socialist" by
anybody.

Einde O'Callaghan

________________________________________________
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