Re: [Marxism] writings of trotsky on second chinese revolution

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

>> Wait a minute, you're not asking those questions about the  soviets, you 
are 
asking that question about the Russian Revolution  itself.
 
There was nothing inadequate about the soviets in form or content, but  there 
was something incomplete, just as there was incompleteness in the  
revolution-- and that was/is the fact that the revolution could only  
complete itself internationally, through success in the more advanced  
capitalisms of Europe.

There was nothing inadequate about the  soviets in form or content, but there 
was something incomplete, just as there  was incompleteness in the 
revolution-- and that was/is the fact that the  revolution could only complete 
itself 
internationally, through success in the  more advanced capitalisms of Europe. 

The problem wasn't the  industrial system, but the relative isolation of the 
industrial system and the  great deviation between city and countryside, the 
impoverished and unproductive  condition of agriculture in Russia. 
Overcoming that deviation was possible  only with the extension of the 
revolution west.<<  

Reply

Even under conditions of world revolution, a  valid theoretical framework but 
merely a theoretical postulate, the "Russian"  Soviets, and all of Soviet 
society,  would have been reduced to being  backwards, in comparison with the 
advanced capitalist/industrial countries, as  the world existed in the 1920's. 
Soviet economic backwardness was the condition  for the state power itself to 
be 
the property holder. Even under conditions of  world revolution - in 1920's 
or 1930's, there is no reason to believe that the  Soviet experience would have 
NOT been reproduced in every single country, more  or less, that had not at 
least attained the level of development of the Soviets.  In the 1920's and 
1930's much of the world was still agricultural, with larges  areas still 
locked 
into the landed property relations. 

Even under  conditions of world revolution, industrial forms of socialism 
would have  been in force, with all this implies for town and country; until 
another  revolution in the mode of production took place. That is to say, world 
 
mechanization of agriculture would still have had to take place and it would  
have followed a Soviet model, more or less. World Revolution would basically  
have meant a world workers-peasant form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
 In all probability much of the bloodletting Russia experienced could 
probably be  changed. 

What was inadequate about the Soviets and trade  unions was the cultural 
backwardness of the people themselves, that corresponded  with/to the 
backwardness 
of Soviet society. Not in the book sense but as  producers schooled in the 
value relations. Then of course there was the Civil  War. 

***********

>> Our disagreement  centers on this:  "One overthrows the value relation in 
harmony with  the state as the   supreme bureaucratic organization and  
centralization of power. Under  conditions  of industrialism such  was not 
possible."
 
The historical origin of the bureaucracy is in the backwardness of  relations 
between city and countryside, a backwardness which is part and  parcel to be 
sure of the limits of capitalist industrialization, of the  constraints of 
private property.<< 

Reply

I  agree with the above, but draw a different conclusion. 

My  conclusion is that the origin of the bureaucracy, in human history is 
bound up  with the origins of the state and the rise of private property. The 
destruction  of bureaucracy is bound up with the withering away of the state. 
Bureaucratic  distortions always need to be fought, but the decisive - 
fundamental, defeat of  bureaucracy means the withering away of the state. 
There can 
exist no creature  as the non-bureaucratic state, as the actual organization of 
state power and the  guardian of the property relation.  Each mode of 
production has a form of  bureaucracy peculiar to it and corresponding to the 
actual 
organization of the  state power as authority. I agree that the backwardness of 
relations between  city and country side conditions, actualizes and define the 
rule and role of the  state, as it passes from one mode of production to 
another. Then of course human  subjectivity, follies and brilliance creates 
history. 
 
One must fight in the moment, all the time, even when a decisive -  
fundamental, victory is not possible. 
 
WL. 




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