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frenchifries · 3 years

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inchresting & informative... (copy-pasted under the readmore)

Rosa Lichtenstein’s answer to “Why did socialism fail in Russia?”

[In what follows I am using "socialist" and "communist" (and their cognates) interchangeably and, in most cases, in conformity with Marx's understanding of those terms]

1) As Marx saw things, communism could only be built in countries capable of producing a massive abundance — the result of a very highly developed economy coupled with high levels of productivity, even if they actually failed to do so because of ‘market forces’. That wasn't the case in the fSU — or, indeed, in China, Cuba, much of E Europe, Vietnam, N Korea, Laos, Cambodia, and now in Venezuela. They were all backward economies or were recovering from war. Socialism can’t exist where there is scarcity; it can only be built on abundance.

[Why that is so will be explained on request.]

So Lenin and the Bolsheviks looked to the massive productive capacity of the German economy to come to the aid of their revolution -- on that, see below.

(2) Equally, if not more important: a communist society can only be built by the working class organised by themselves, acting democratically in their own interests, not relying on anyone else to do it for them. The Russian revolution was initially led by the urban working class (in alliance with the peasantry), but that class was cut to ribbons by WW1, and then all but destroyed as an effective social, political and economic force by the Russian Civil War and the famine that followed. Socialism can’t be built if there is no powerful and politically engaged proletariat (i.e., the urban working class under capitalism).

Why that is so has been explained here:

Why-did-Karl-Marx-believe-that-industrial-workers-would-be-the-ones-leading-the-revolution-not-peasants/answer/Rosa-Lichtenstein

So, Lenin and the Bolsheviks argued that their revolution was doomed unless the revolutions spreading across Europe at that time succeeded (in Hungary and Italy -- but more importantly in Germany). Those revolutions failed for various reasons, and with that the prospects for the Bolshevik revolution nose-dived.

The revolutions in China and Cuba many decades later weren't even proletarian revolutions (howsoever popular they might have been at the time), but were made by guerrilla armies comprised largely of peasants, students, and 'intellectuals', etc. Whatever emerged as a result -- and independently of the aims of those taking part, howsoever well-intentioned they might have been -- could in no way be called Marxist. His version of communism can only be created by the proletariat (again, follow the above link for an explanation).

More-or-less the same can be said about Vietnam (which, despite the rhetoric, was a nationalist, not a communist, revolutionary war, first against the French, and then against the USA), as well as Laos and Cambodia. North Korea was set up as a puppet regime which only existed and survived because of the backing of the red army (Russian and Chinese). The 'revolutions' in E Europe in the years following WW2 were the result of invading red army tanks, and so could only be called Marxist by someone with a twisted sense of humour.

Related to the above there are a few additional considerations, which are a little more theoretical, that differentiate Marx and Lenin’s approach to socialism from Stalin’s and Mao’s, the most important of which are the following factors:

(3) There are in fact two forms of socialism:

a) 'Socialism from above',

and

b) 'Socialism from below'.

The first form seeks to bring ‘socialism’ to the mass of the population, whether they want it or not. It is imposed from above (by a centralised, or even a democratically elected, state), as its name suggests.

This approach has been adopted and tried out by various political movements and ideologies, including Stalinism, Maoism, Castroism, Chavezism (as we have seen in Venezuela), Social Democracy [SD]. Democratic Socialism [DS], and conspiratorial Blanquism, which many confuse with Leninism.

Blanquism

Quite often, the population acquiesce to this form of socialism, and they might even welcome it at first — until they discover it doesn't work. That is because it leaves the mass of the population passive and unchanged (except where they are allowed, in some cases, to vote every now and then, or they are required to provide cannon fodder in defence of this new form of the state). Left like that they are always going to be a threat to the new ruling class that has been formed as a result of imposing socialism from above — as we saw in Russia, E Europe, and, indeed, much of the rest of the planet over the last hundred years. On that, follow this link:

Revolution

That is because 'Socialism from above' either:

(i) Leaves the class structure of society unchanged (as is the case with SD and DS), or

(ii) It introduces a new ruling elite (as was the case with all forms of ‘Communism’) -- but, in both cases, the mass of the population remains exploited and/or oppressed for their pains.

[Many confuse the above statist/corporatist forms of socialism with Marxism. They will struggle long and hard and to no avail to find anything in Marx’s writings that supports such a gross distortion of his ideas. It is also worth adding that ‘Communism’ and Marxism parted company in the fSU in the mid-1920s after Lenin died, and the Stalinists seized power.]

Every time this form of socialism has been tried it has failed, or is now failing. That because:

(iii) In the case of SD and DS, the rich and powerful will always fight such lukewarm forms of socialism, try to strangle them to death (as we are now witnessing in relation to Venezuela), or manoeuvre/force them to compromise what few principles they retain so that they are gradually transformed into a pale reflection of those parties that genuinely and openly represent the interests of the ruling elite — that is, so that they begin to resemble to some extent Conservative and other right-wing parties — as we have repeatedly seen in the USA, UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, S America, Scandinavia, Australia, Canada, etc., etc. So, SD and DS don’t change society in any fundamental way, and leave class division -- and hence the rich and powerful -- in place at the top.

Whoever is in office under this form of ‘socialism’, the top 1% and their political representatives are always in power (they control the army, the police, the courts, the media, etc.), which means that SD/DS politicians, no matter how well intentioned they might be, will either have to accommodate to the 1% and their ideologues in the media, or they will be out of office in no time.

These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies

The barrage of abuse and lies that the former leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, faced from the vast bulk of the UK media is only the most recent example of this:

Anti-Semitism. Orchestrated Offensive against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK

They are now trying to do the same with Bernie Sanders:

Campaign against Sanders on ‘antisemitism’ for his criticism of Israel begins in earnest

The pusillanimous and compromised nature of SD/DS is part of the reason for the rise of ‘populism’ across the globe right now, as the mass of the population reacts to the long-term failure of this form of ‘socialism from above’ coupled with the evident failure of ‘liberal democracy’ world-wide — which political currents have in general looked after the interests of the rich and powerful, not the working majority they claim to represent.

Some have claimed that Scandinavian forms of social democracy have worked, but as with the rest of the capitalist world, it, too, is now beginning to fail -- I have explained more here:

Do-you-hate-capitalism-if-so-then-why-is-that/answer/Rosa-Lichtenstein

(iv) On the other hand, Communist regimes leave the capitalist world largely intact, isolating themselves from the international division of labour, which in the long run renders their economies inefficient and totally incapable of competing with the rest of the world. Hence, they are also doomed to fail; the moment of their birth is the moment they begin to die (to paraphrase Hegel). They either (a) slowly strangle themselves to death (as we saw in E Europe and the fSU), (b) they adopt ‘market reforms’ and emulate ‘free market capitalism’ (as we are now seeing in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Cuba), or (c) they are smothered by the imperialist powers (as happened in Nicaragua, and might be about to happen in Venezuela — in relation to which dozens of countries supposedly committed to democracy seem quite happy to recognise an unelected no-mark, Guido, as President).

What-is-happening-in-Venezuela/answer/Rosa-Lichtenstein

As Engels, Lenin and Trotsky argued, islands of socialism can't be created in a sea of capitalism, and any attempt to do so will always fail. Post-1925 ‘communism’ disagreed, but history has shown that Engels, Lenin and Trotsky were right. That form of ‘communism’ has been refuted by history, many times over.

(v) The second form of socialism, 'Socialism from below', represents Marx, Lenin and Trotsky’s view. It involves the great mass of the population, the working class, creating a socialist society for themselves, not waiting for anyone, or any party, to do it for them.

Marx was quite clear about this in the Communist Manifesto:

========================

Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

========================

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 2)

Indeed, several years later he added:

“The emancipation of the working class will be won by the workers themselves.”

Self-Emancipation of the working class in Marx and Engels

Lenin agreed, insisting “All power to the soviets!” in October 1917 (the soviets were factory and army councils set up by the workers after the popular February 1917 revolution — indeed, Lenin had argued that their insurrection should only take place when the Bolsheviks had won a majority in those soviets, which happened in the autumn of that year):

In Defence of Lenin and the October Revolution

This form of socialism is inherently internationalist (“Workers of the world unite!”) — it has to spread and take over the core economies of capitalism so that it can't be strangled in the above manner, as the proletariat of each country rebel. Follow this link for more details and an explanation of how such a revolution will be international:

Revolution

We aren't talking about invasion here; an invasion by an external or foreign socialist country won't change the working class of the country invaded in the required manner -- they have to change themselves, in their own way, by their own revolution. Each strike, for example, is a mini-rehearsal for this (whether the strikers appreciate this or not), whereby workers have to learn to organise in their own communities, sharing ideas, money, clothing, food, shelter, etc. In effect they have to run a mini-socialist society for a few weeks or months. These are, in effect, mini-dress rehearsals for a working class revolution.

This is a basic fact about Marx’s form of socialism that SD-ers, Stalin, Mao, Castro and all the rest who advocate socialism from above, fail to comprehend, so determined are they to impose ‘socialism’ on other countries, or, indeed, on their own people.

(4) Again, connected with the above, and primarily in the case of the fSU, when Stalin and his henchmen seized power in the mid-1920s, they knew full well that the capitalist states would either strangle them to death or they would invade and destroy them.

This they would do in order to quarantine the Bolshevik revolution, guarantee it failed, or physically crush it in order to prevent the idea spreading that ordinary working people are capable of re-making society for themselves and in their own interests, expropriating the productive capacity of society by taking it out of the hands of the ruling elite.

But, the fSU in the mid-1920s was still economically backward, its industry and working population all but destroyed by WW1 and the Civil War that followed. As Stalin argued, they would have to make up the yawning gap between their economy and the rest of the capitalist world in a generation or they would be crushed.

[That is indeed what was attempted by Nazis in 1941, originally regarded by many in the UK and the USA, for example, as ‘good anti-communists’ — hence, we had appeasement (in the UK) and isolationism (in the US).]

This meant that the Stalinist regime would have to impose an anti-democratic, autocratic and oppressive system on the mass of the working population of the fSU. That is because, in order to catch up, the state would have to subject them to super-exploitation -- whereby, the proportion of wealth going to that section of society would be reduced almost to subsistence levels, and often even below that (hence the massive famines — for example in the Ukraine) -- so that investment in heavy industry could be maximised. This in turn meant that the state had to become totalitarian, executing and terrorising hundreds of thousands, including nearly every one of the leading revolutionaries of 1917, since working people would resist, as they always have done, such extreme economic deprivation and anti-democratic imposition. Only absolute terror would intimidate them enough.

‘Communism’ destroyed itself by such moves — moves forced on it by trying to create ‘socialism in one country’. Attempting to catch up with ‘the west’ forced the Stalinist regime to trample on every socialist principle it had once espoused. In order to compete with capitalism, it had to emulate it. It thus became its own opposite.

Tyrannies ruling in the name of socialism

To a greater or lesser extent, the same considerations applied right across the former ‘Communist Block’.

Who made China’s revolution?

Cuba, Castro and Socialism

Hence, these regimes were never popular; quite the reverse, in fact — and when they fell nearly 30 years ago, as they were always doomed to do, not one single proletarian hand was raised in their defence. Indeed, workers were glad to see the back of them, and many joined in their demolition.

A supporter of the old Stalinist regime in Russia has questioned the above allegation, that the Russian and E European working classes sat on their hands when the system collapsed between 1989 and the end of 1991. I have responded to his criticisms here:

Russian Workers Raised Not One Finger

So, Marxist socialism, socialism from below, hasn't itself failed; it just hasn't been road-tested yet. No one knows if it will work, but there are good reasons to suppose it will.

Can-any-other-economic-system-rival-capitalism/answer/Rosa-Lichtenstein

More details here:

Two souls of socialism - socialism from above vs socialism from below

State Capitalism in Russia

How Marxism Works

Finally, I have responded to several tired old criticisms of Marxism — including the ‘No True Scotsman’ canard, the ‘Socialism has killed 100 million’ slur, and the ‘You can’t change human nature’ ruse — here:

Why-didn’t-Marx-offer-a-better-form-of-government-than-dictatorship-of-the-proletariat-given-the-fallibility-of-human-nature/answer/Rosa-Lichtenstein

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