Research project
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I am conducting some research into attitudes towards the Soviet Union. Having questioned some Stalinists already, I am now trying to get the other side of the story. I would be very grateful if anyone could answer the following questions:
When did you decide you were a communist?What turned you against the Soviet Union?
Why do you think some people still defend Stalin?
Do they and other defenders of the Soviet Union have any legitimate grounds for their beliefs?
In a time when capitalism is in crisis, why are communist parties in Europe failing to gain ground?
What future role do you think communism will play in British politics?
How do you respond to those who say that communism inevitably results in the type of dictatorship you so despise?
Is ‘state capitalism’ better or worse than free market capitalism, or are they equally bad in your view?
Is communism inevitable?
Thank you.
Hello Emily, Welcome to the forum and thanks for your post.Are you seeking answers from individual members or from the party as a whole?The Socialist party has had a consistent and indeed unique attutude to the Soviet Union since its inception. I am sure you will find our answers very interesting.
Hello,Thank you for your kind words. At the moment, I'm looking to hear from individual members.
Is communism inevitable? Short answer no! If it were we could all sit back and wait for it to happen.
I admit that one could have been phrased better. I only put it in because one Stalinist told me a proleterian revolution is inevitable and that without one Britain had no future. I admit I was sceptical. E.
I agree with Brian.Capitalism will not collapse and communism is not inevitable. The establishment of real communism ( and I am sure you will receive explanations of why and how the Soviet Union was NEVER communist) requires the democratic and conscious action of a majority of the working class. It will not just happen.
If you do not believe it to be possible, why do people still campaign for it? Is it just something to aspire to even though it will always be out-of-reach? E.
emily_chalmers wrote:If you do not believe it to be possible, why do people still campaign for it? Is it just something to aspire to even though it will always be out-of-reach? E.I am not saying it is not possible, it just hasn't happened yet. The material conditions for communism did not exist in Russia when the Bolsheviks took power. It was not failed communism; it was never communism. What developed under Lenin and Stalin was state capitalism. Here is an excellent book and would be of great help in your research. It is less than £2 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AQ24RHE
Is ‘state capitalism’ better or worse than free market capitalism, or are they equally bad in your view?Socialists do not make judgements on the different forms of capitalism. Capitalism is capitalism whatever spots you care to put on it? Historically, all forms of capitalism enter the world stage has and when the market conditions and social circumstances determine the particular preference and interests of the capitalist class.
Welcome Emily,I do not regard it helpful to view communism as an identity. I identified with ideas from the liberal tradition whilst still in education. I decided to pursue additional ideas identified with the communist tradition during a period of unemployment and then whilst beginning work under conditions of minimum wage.Nothing turned me against the Soviet Union, but I never found surrendering universal suffrage for democratic centralism convincing. It seems like a retrograde step in an industrialised country with a parliamentary tradition such as Britain.I think some people defend Stalin for a variety of reasons. An inability to grasp ideas that have never been implemented. Erich Fromm described the psychology as the fear of freedom. Hannah Arendt had something to say about the totalitarian mindset too. Some people just plump for the lesser of two evils and then tribalise and use a sort of reverse Cold War otherism ("if you're not with us then ergo you are against us") to demonise opponents. For some people politics is as sophisticated as reading a few atrocities then applying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". A lot of people don't think independently and join groups for herd mentality because their friends, family and acquaintances do (see the CPGB-ML).As to whether Stalin's defenders have any legitimate grounds for their beliefs. Only insofar as a stopped clock is correct at least twice a day. For example, opposition to Trotskyism and paying lipservice to Marx. Although these are extremely feeble "legitimising" factors.Communist parties in Europe are failing to gain ground in recession because older folk rightfully remember Bolshevism and the Soviet Union in a negative light. For younger people however, who are unfamiliar with the Soviet Union, are apathetic or still have reservations about communism. I'd be inclined to sympathise with the Frankfurt school's suggestion of a culture industry and Situationists' suggestion of a society of the spectacle. Some members think the time is simply not the right economic conditions, I'm not sure of this claim.The role I think communism will play in British politics, the most optimistically would be a mass socialist party which will be reflected politically, most comparable to the influence of the British SDF or early German SPD. There will be strikes in future, although union membership and the days lost to industrial action continues a trend downwards and this doesn't necessarily indicate class consciousness as other socialists might be keen to claim credit for. Assuming living standards continue to fall, the claim is made of the threat of fascism is bandied around too, which I'm not so sure grow in a particularly special way distinct from other political currents.As to whether communism results inevitably in dictatorship. Its a question that when posed by critics may carry a variety of assumptions. The main one is that the free market or economic freedom is a bulwark against dicatorship, that it somehow equates to political freedom and civil liberties. Well I'd argue this is a complete misnomer and probably a good example is the economic policy of General Pinochet in Chile in the 1980s. In general, a class conscious working-class inoculated against placing trust in great leaders is likely to defend civil liberties just as vehemently as its political power.The comparison between state capitalism and free market capitalism is not much different I'd suggest. Ruling-classes based in particular arbitrarily divided nations will want to manage capitalism as effectively as possible. Almost always this means using a state, more or less interference will depend on economic conditions. For many decades Keynesianism was the favoured management style. More recently, Republicanism in the US has been sold to the Tea Party libertarian (proprietarian) minded Koch brothers.On communism's inevitability, I'm inclined to regard capitalism as having outlived its usefulness (just as chattel slavery, feudalism has) in productive capacity. Other than free access I can't conceive of another productive system which hasn't already been tried or will work. Just as feudalism's ruling-class was insufficient support to introduce capitalism, a communist system of production will need sufficient support to introduce it. The party's job is to hurry it up by persuading a majority of workers to support communism.Any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. Good luck with your research project and tell us how it goes please.
Thank you so much for your response; it will be extremely helpful. I'll let you know how it went when I'm finished. I should be working on it for around another month. E.
emily_chalmers wrote:I am conducting some research into attitudes towards the Soviet Union. Having questioned some Stalinists already, I am now trying to get the other side of the story. I would be very grateful if anyone could answer the following questions: When did you decide you were a communist? What turned you against the Soviet Union?This suggests that you are assuming that "communism" existed in Russia, but as far as we're concerned it never did. As a Party and most of us as individuals we never were "for" the Soviet Union. Having said this, we will have some members who were in the so-called Communist Party or its youth section, the YCL, before they became socialists. I don't know if there are any of them here who could answer this part of your questionnaire.
Communism has never existed in Russia or anywhere else. The content of our monthly journal, the Socialist Standard, at the time and since, without the benefit of hindsight, is testament to the accuracy of the SPGB's analysis, including the unique claim (at the time) that it was state capitalism, not socialism or communism, that existed in Russia.‘Is this huge mass of people, numbering about 160,000,000 and spread over eight and a half millions of square miles, ready for socialism? Are the hunters of the north, the struggling peasant proprietors of the south, the agricultural wage slaves of the Central Provinces, and the industrial wage slaves of the towns convinced of the necessity and equipped with the knowledge required, for the establishment of the social ownership of the means of life? Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred immensely more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is “No!” ’ (Socialist Standard, August 1918.)‘We have often stated that because of a large anti-socialist peasantry and vast untrained population, Russia was a long way from socialism. Lenin has now to admit this by saying: “Reality says that State capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us” (The Chief Task of Our Times)… If we are to copy Bolshevik policy in other countries we should have to demand State capitalism, which is not a step to socialism’ (Socialist Standard, July 1920).‘Both Trotsky and Stalin draw up their programmes within the framework of state and private capitalism which prevails in Russia’ (Socialist Standard, December 1928).‘[all the Bolsheviks] have been able to do is to foster the growth of State capitalism and limit the growth of private capitalism’ (Socialist Standard, July 1929).Since the collapse of the Russian Empire after 1989, state capitalist monopoly has given way to a Western-style ‘mixed economy’, with many of the former Party bosses as bosses of the new privatised businesses. Now that the sham of Russian ‘socialism/communism’ has passed into history, workers in Russia can join in the struggle for the real thing.
emily_chalmers wrote:When did you decide you were a communist? What turned you against the Soviet Union? Why do you think some people still defend Stalin?'I first decided I was a communist' when working in a service sector job. I had grown up in dire financial circumstances and witnessed many people who were living in even worse conditions. I was lucky to be given a well paying job without any qualifications or experience. The job was in the high end service sector, acquiescing to the whims of London's super rich. I would wager there are few circumstances where the average worker and the average multi-millionaire spend more time in close proximity. This accentuated the vast sums of money that they were able squander, while at the same time trying to help my own homeless father and knowing many more people who were in dire financial trouble. Looking back I can also say that the vast disparity between my salary and how much value my labour created was also a large factor, although I wouldn't have phrased it like that at the time. To put it in perspective my salary was £25,000 per annum and I once made £110,000 in 10 minutes for my bosses. It was also the freedom of these multi-millionaires that shocked me the most. It was a revelation to see that the richer a person is the less they have to pay for things. I remember one instance where the daughter of a high ranking Communist party of China official was moving flat. Instead of her paying for removal men the bosses sent my colleagues, the doormen/drivers round with a fleet of cars to move her stuff for her. But it wasn't just the economic freedom of these people it was the social freedom to be able to treat people however they wanted, as lesser beings or as objects to be bought.I think my first steps to deciding to start calling myself a communist came when I started speculating on what the world would be like if workers controlled their places of work. I started thinking what would a supermarket be like if it were owned and run by workers? What would the underground be like if it were run by workers? What would my job be like if it were run by me and my colleagues? My conclusion to all of these thoughts was that life for the vast majority of people would obviously be much better. I then asked myself the most important question why aren't these things run by workers?For an uneducated or to steal a term from Tookie Williams diseducated young man the only communism I knew was the the Soviet Union more accurately the Soviet Union under Stalin. Anarchism to me was Johnny Rotten and punks, a hedonistic lifestyle choice which would result in the most common usage of the word anarchy. So I started a little flirtation with Stalinism. Anything bad about the Soviet Union was justified as a means to an end. Of getting rid of the rich, of punishing them for their excesses. At this stage I certainly wasn't an internationalist or really had any conception of what that was. Nor was I for a stateless, moneyless society, I was for more money for workers and better living conditions. The state was, to me, then, an absolute necessity. Society could not function without it and any suggestion that it could would have seemed preposterous. I cared about working class unity, but I didn't really care about other workers, anyone getting in the way would get their just deserved. I can now see that this was caused by alienation, the same alienation which causes people to become neo-nazi's. A lack of value of others value, a kind of narcissism where my interests must be met, at any cost. This is all quite a natural and all to common reaction to growing up in a capitalist society where we are all constantly forced to compete with one another.'What turned me against the Soviet Union?' This is the simplest to answer, reading Marx. At this stage in my development I hadn't actually read any Marx at all. It was just the idea of industry being run by workers that appealed to me and the only knowledge of that had been through the media and popular culture and so on. I really had no conception of what communism was other than a form of government where the freedoms of the rich were curtailed. So after a 6 year period without reading a single book I picked up the communist manifesto and started reading. It wasn't an overnight transformation but I certainly noticed a lot of contradictions to what I had previously assumed to be communism. For the next two years I read Marx and Engels almost obsessively, I can't say at what point I had a revelation but it was fairly early on that i realized that communism as I had known it, was absolute bollocks. I went on to read some Trotsky and then some Lenin and by this time the contradictions to Marxism were all too apparent. It was probably around then that I stopped calling myself a communist and actually became one.
emily_chalmers wrote:Do they and other defenders of the Soviet Union have any legitimate grounds for their beliefs?That would depend on the context of exactly what they were defending about the Soviet Union and what argument was being put forward. Say if they were defending the Soviet Union against an accusation of Stalin killing 200 million people then yeah they probably have some legitimacy. But if they are trying to say that the capitalism had been abolished in the Soviet Union then they have no legitimacy. As I alluded to previously the reason for Stalinism's existence as a surviving ideology is in large part down to alienation. A disconnect from positive social relations. A contempt for the rest of the working class believing them incapable of running society, they feel that the working class will not be able to come to the same conclusions that they have, so they must be led by them forcibly. They seem to be stuck in what a comrade aptly phrases 'private property thought'. In other words they have yet to become class conscious workers who know and understand that capitalism can never work in the interests of the working class. As history, economics and reality are all against them they freely change the facts whenever it suits them. In this way they are not that different to those who believe in an illuminati or lizard men or whatever, just with a red flag.
Actually, come to think of it, I was a teenage Russia-lover, reading Soviet Weekly and listening to Moscow Radio. I suppose this was because I accepted what both sides said: that Russia was the opposite of capitalism. I don't think I called myself a Communist (but everbody else did). Then when I was 16 I read the book The New Class by Milovan Djilas who had been vice-president of Yugoslavia whose title said it all: Russia wasn't a classless society.
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