What was the USSR? : Towards a Theory of the Deformation of Value Under State Capitalism

Notes
For convenience we shall at times use the term ‘state capitalism’ for all theories that consider the Soviet Union to have been capitalist. As N. Fernandez points out in a forthcoming book, Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR, many theories, for example those of Bordiga and more recently Chattopadhyay, have for good theoretical reasons avoided the term ‘state capitalism’ in their accounts of the USSR. We will deal with some of the issues raised by the term ‘state capitalism’ in more detail in Aufheben 8. ‘Ultra-left’ is a loaded and ambiguous term. It was originally a term of abuse used by Lenin against communists and revolutionaries, particularly in West European countries such as Holland, Germany and Italy, who refused to accept the Bolshevik model of revolution and the right of the Russian Communist Party to determine the tactics and leadership of the world Communist movement. These communist... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 6
Conclusion As we pointed out in Part I, the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the first ‘workers state’ has had a profound impact in shaping our world. At first the apparent success of the Russian Revolution showed that there was a realistic alternative to capitalism. It showed that capitalism could be overthrown by the working classes and that a socialist, if not communist, society could be constructed on its ruins. As such it inspired generations of socialists and workers in their conflicts with the capitalism system, defining both their aims and methods. However, as the true nature of the USSR began to emerge the perception that it was ‘actually exiting socialism’ became an increasing barrier to the development of an opposition to capitalism. If the socialist alternative to capitalism was a totalitarian police state in which you still had to work for a boss then most workers concluded that it might be better to mer... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 5 : To what extent did the Commodity-form exist in the USSR?
To what extent did the Commodity-form exist in the USSR? As we have seen, Trotskyist theorists place great importance on property forms when it comes to the question of the nationalization of the means of production. State ownership of the means of production, and hence the abolition of private property, is seen as constituting the crucial advance over capitalism. However, although the state owned all the principal means of production in the USSR, the actual legal possession and operation of the means of production was left to the state enterprises and trusts, each of which was constituted as a distinct legal entity with its own set of accounts and responsibilities for production. While Trotskyists have tended to gloss over this, seeing these legal forms of the state enterprises as being merely formal, Bettleheim has argued that the existence of these separate state enterprises, which traded with each other and sold products to the working class, mean... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 4 : The deformation of Value
The deformation of Value The problem of the nature of the USSR restated As we seen, the traditional Marxism of the Second and Third Internationals saw state capitalism as the highest stage of capitalism. As such state capitalism could be seen as the first step in the transition to socialism. As a consequence, Lenin could consistently argue against the Left Communists — from the imposition of one-man management and the reintroduction of Taylorism to the introduction of the New Economic Policy — that the immediate task of the Revolutionary Government, given the backward conditions in Russia, was first and foremost the development of state capitalism. Of course, for Lenin the nationalization of the means of production and the introduction of state planning introduced by the Revolution marked a decisive advance. Under the control of a Workers’ State, state capitalism would be superseded by socialism. Subsequently, with the in... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 3 : Underdevelopment
Underdevelopment In The Communist Manifesto Marx remarks: The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication. draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. Of course, capital’s inherent tendency to reproduce itself on an ever greater scale has led to the relentless geographical expansion of capitalism to the point where its has... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The origins of Ticktin’s theory of the USSR
The origins of Ticktin’s theory of the USSR Introduction In Part I we gave a lengthy treatment of what has probably been the best known critical theory of the Soviet Union: Leon Trotsky’s theory of the ‘degenerated workers’ state’. While critical of the privileges of the Stalinist bureaucracy, lack of freedom and workers’ democracy, Trotsky took the view that the formal property relations of the USSR — i.e. that the means of production were not private property but the property of a workers’ state — meant that the USSR could not be seen as being capitalist, but was instead a transitory regime caught between capitalism and socialism which had degenerated. It followed from this that, for T... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Russia as a Non-mode of Production
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, w... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Italian Left
The Italian Left Origins We now turn to the other main left communist position, that of the Italian left. Like the German and Dutch Lefts the Italian Left originated, in the years before the first world war as a left opposition within a Second International party, in their case the Socialist Party of Italy (PSI). But whereas German social democracy had exposed itself as both reactionary and actively counter-revolutionary, the very radicality of the Italian working class, and consequent strength of the Left, meant that reformism in the PSI was not as hegemonic as in the SPD. In 1912 the party even expelled an ultra-reformist wing over its support for Italy’s Libyan war, and when the world war broke out and the Italian working class res... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Russian Left Communists
The Russian Left Communists What is striking about the Russian Left Communist current is that it emerged out of an environment that was both dissimilar and similar to the their European counterparts. As we will see in the following sections, the German and Italian Communist Lefts emerged as an opposition to social democracy’s accommodation with and incorporation into bourgeois society. In Russia the situation was somewhat different. Still being an overwhelmingly agricultural and peasant country under the autocratic rule of the czar, bourgeois society had not become dominant, let alone allowed the establishment of social democracy within it. In fact, the very repressive character of the czarist regime meant that the gradualist approach... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Introduction
Part III: Left Communism and the Russian Revolution In the previous articles we examined various Trotskyist and neo-Trotskyist positions on the nature of the USSR. We now turn to the theories of the less well known but more interesting Communist Left, who were among the first revolutionary Marxists to distance themselves from the Russian model by deeming it state capitalist or simply capitalist. The Russian Left Communists' critique remained at the level of an immediate response to how capitalist measures were affecting the class, whereas in both the German/Dutch and Italian Lefts, we see real attempts to ground revolutionary theory in Marx's categories in a way distinct from Second International orthodoxy. Introduction Any analysis of the ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)