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.)

Problems of Ticktin’s ‘political economy of the USSR’
Problems of Ticktin’s ‘political economy of the USSR’ We have devoted considerable space to Ticktin’s theory of the USSR since it provides perhaps the most cogent explanation of the nature of the USSR and the causes of its decline which has arisen out of the Trotskyist tradition. Shorn of any apology for Stalinism, Ticktin is able to develop a theory which seeks to show the specific internal contradictions of the Soviet system. As such, it is a theory that not only goes beyond the traditional Trotskyist theory of the USSR as a degenerated workers’ state, it also provides a formidable challenge to any approach which sees the USSR as having been in some sense a capitalist system. Indeed, it would seem to us that ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The German/Dutch Communist Left
The German/Dutch Communist Left In Germany the beginning of the century was characterized by a tension between official and unofficial expressions of working class strength. On the one hand, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had founded and dominated the Second International, had grown to an unprecedented scale (almost becoming a ‘state within a state’), and was receiving steadily larger proportion of votes in elections. On the other, there was also an increased militancy and radicalization of class struggle, manifesting itself in more and more strikes and lockouts — struggles that in many cases went beyond economic demands and took on a mass and political character. While a left radical current within the SPD was t... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Conclusion
Conclusion As stated in the introduction, any analysis of the Russian revolution and the society that emerged from it cannot be separated from a conception of what communism is. Indeed one way in which all the left communists, unlike Trotsky, could go beyond Second International Marxism, was by insisting that neither the transition to communism nor communism itself should in any way be identified with state-control of the means of production. Indeed nothing short of their proper socialization or communization would do. It was this perspective that allowed them to distance themselves from, and criticize Russia as being state capitalist or, as Bordiga put it, simply capitalist. However, with regard to their specific answers to the question of... (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.)

Introduction
Part I: Trotsky and state capitalism The Russian Revolution and the subsequent establishment of the USSR as a ‘workers’ state’, has dominated political thinking for more than three generations. In the past, it seemed enough for communist revolutionaries to define their radical separation with much of the ‘left’ by denouncing the Soviet Union as state capitalist. This is no longer sufficient, if it ever was. Many Trotskyists, for example, now feel vindicated by the ‘restoration of capitalism’ in Russia. To transform society we not only have to understand what it is, we also have to understand how past attempts to transform it failed. In this and future issues we shall explore the inadequacies of the ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)