Part II: Russia as a Non-mode of Production

Having disposed of the theory of the USSR as a 'degenerated workers' state', Ticktin's theory presents itself as the most persuasive alternative to the understanding of the USSR as capitalist.

Its strength is its attention to the empirical reality of the USSR and its consideration of the specific forms of class struggle it was subject to. However, while we acknowledge that the USSR must be understood as a malfunctioning system, we argue that, because Ticktin doesn't relate his categories of 'political economy' to the class struggle, he fails to grasp the capitalist nature of the USSR.

Introduction

Here we present the second part of our article ‘What was the USSR?’. In our last issue, we dealt with Trotsky’s theory that it was a ‘degenerated workers’ state’, and the best known theory of state capitalism which has emerged within Trotskyism — that of Tony Cliff. Our original intention was to follow that up by dealing with both the less well-known theories of state capitalism developed by the left communists and with Hillel Ticktin’s theory that sees itself as going beyond both Trotsky’s theory and the state capitalist alternative. Due to foreseeable circumstances totally within our control, we have been unable to do this. Therefore we have decided not to combine these sections, and instead here complete the trajectory of Trotskyism with an account and critique of Ticktin’s theory, and put off our treatment of the left communists till our next issue. However, this effective extension of the article’s length leads us to answer some questions readers may have. It can be asked: Why bother giving such an extended treatment to this question? Isn’t the Russian Revolution and the regime that emerged from it now merely of historical interest? Shouldn’t we be writing about what is going on in Russia now? One response would be to say that it is not possible to understand what is happening in Russia now without grasping the history of the USSR. But, while that is true to an extent, the detail we are choosing to give this issue does deserve more explanation.

As Loren Goldner puts it, in a very interesting article published in 1991:

Into the mid-1970s, the ‘Russian question’ and its implications was the inescapable ‘paradigm’ of political perspective on the left, in Europe and the U.S. and yet 15 years later seems like such ancient history. This was a political milieu where the minute study of the month-to-month history of the Russian Revolution and the Comintern from 1917–1928 seemed the key to the universe as a whole. If someone said they believed that the Russian Revolution had been defeated in 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, or 1936, or 1953, one had a pretty good sense of what they would think on just about every other political question in the world: the nature of the Soviet Union, of China, the nature of the world CPs, the nature of Social Democracy, the nature of trade unions, the United Front, the Popular Front, national liberation movements, esthetics and philosophy, the relationship of party and class, the significance of soviets and workers’ councils, and whether Luxemburg or Bukharin was right about imperialism.[41]

However, that period seems to be at a close. It seems clear that the Russian Revolution and the arguments around it will not have the same significance for those becoming involved in the revolutionary project now as it did for previous generations.

Posing the issue slightly differently, Camatte wrote in 1972: “The Russian Revolution and its involution are indeed some of the greatest events of our century. Thanks to them, a horde of thinkers, writers and politicians are not unemployed.“[42] Camatte usefully then draws attention to the way that the production of theories on the USSR has very often served purposes quite opposed to that of clarification of the question. To be acknowledged as a proper political group or — as Camatte would say — gang, it was seen as an essential requirement to have a distinctive position or theory on the Soviet Union. But if Camatte expressed reluctance to “place some new goods on the over-saturated market”, he nonetheless and justifiably thought it worthwhile to do so. But is our purpose as clear? For revolutionaries, hasn’t the position that the Soviet Union was (state-) capitalist and opposed to human liberation become fairly basic since ’68? Haven’t theories like Trotsky’s that gave critical support to the Soviet Union been comprehensively exposed? Well, yes and no. To simply assert that the USSR was another form of capitalism and that little more need be said is not convincing.

Around the same time as Camatte’s comments, the Trotskyist academic Hillel Ticktin began to develop a theory of the nature and crisis of the Soviet system which has come to hold a significant status and influence.[43] Ticktin’s theory, with its attention to the empirical reality of the USSR and its consideration of the specific forms of class struggle it was subject to, is certainly the most persuasive alternative to the understanding of the USSR as capitalist. But again it can be asked who really cares about this issue? Ultimately we are writing for ourselves, answering questions we feel important. To many it seems intuitively the politically revolutionary position — to say the Soviet Union was (state) capitalist and that is enough. We’d contend, however, that a position appears to be revolutionary does not make it true, while what is true will show itself to be revolutionary. For us, to know that Russia was exploitative and opposed to human liberation and to call it capitalist to make one’s condemnation clear is not enough. The importance of Marx’s critique of political economy is not just that it condemns capitalism, but that it understands it better than the bourgeoisie and explains it better than moralistic forms of criticism. The events in Russia at the moment, which reflect a profound failure to turn it into an area for the successful accumulation of value, show that in some ways the question of the USSR is not over. In dealing with this issue we are not attempting to provide the final definitive solution to the Russian question. Theory — the search for practical truth — is not something that once arrived at is given from then on; it must always be renewed or it becomes ideology.