The CPGB’s USSR

[alanjjohnstone]

“What about the Soviet Union being an example of state capitalism, as variously argued by Karl Kautsky, Amadeo Bordiga, Paul Mattick and Tony Cliff?***  Yes there was international competition, draconian labour laws and slave labour. But no money, no wage labour, no capital. What this school does therefore is not only fail to explain the Soviet Union. It fails to grasp the basics of capitalism….Clearly we must reject guilty evasion, apologetic excuses and the twisting of facts to fit the label. Marxists have an obligation to come up with a coherent, scientific, fully theorised explanation of the Soviet Union.”

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/985/ussr-getting-the-soviet-union-right

 

 

Uh-huh…let us re-define the rouble as not being money, let us re-define wage-labour to not mean working for roubles and surrendering our surplus-labour, let us re-define capital not to mean the primitive accumulation of it by the State through collectivisation or taxation of enterprises to fill the coffers of the government  bank with roubles so the State can borrow capital to invest. Let's re-define capitalism!!

 

***I take the omission  to mention the SPGB as deliberate. 

 

I came across this link but cannot down-load the torrent. Perhaps some one can  and post a link of the text. 

 

http://kickass.to/cook-bank-structure-of-ussr-banking-system-in-state-capitalism-t3670433.html

 

“Cook's informative booklet The Bank Structure of the U.S.S.R. (1991) which describes a conventional and necessarily solvent banking system under a regime of absolute state capitalism that existed in Soviet Union. Marxian ideology has nothing to do with it as the principles, methods, techniques and even terms are all from the book of capitalism. For example: central bank, gold reserves, note issue, cash balances, working capital, long and short-term credit for industry and agriculture, savings, surplus, profit and loss. Almost you might think you were reading an elementary text on banking in a system of free private enterprise banking; and in fact the only technical difference is that here the state is everything. It owns the bank, all the cash balances, all the reserves, all the working capital. Industry belongs to the state-bank. All profits go to the state-bank. When there is borrowing and lending at interest, it is the state borrowing from itself and lending to itself. The author further makes a comparison of the Soviet "labor" monetizing money system, to that of the U.S. commercial banks "assets and taxes" monetizing money and banking system. Not generally recognized, that in the United States, the Federal Reserve supplies the national government with money (directly and indirectly) by monetizing (at high interest cost) government debt (bonds) and its taxing powers. Therefore, the socio-economic benefits, that the U.S. Government can afford to extend to the people, are limited by its taxing capability.”

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I take the omission  to mention the SPGB as deliberate

Maybe, but they do know about us and our analysis of Russia as capitalism, as can be seen from the following exchange of emails. Following a talk by one of our members (on Menshevism) at their summer school in August 2012 we proposed a debate on "which way forward for the working class?". They preferred something more theoretical and less of a public meeting: Here's an extract from an email we received on 17 September:

Quote:

We discuss this over the weekend and are generally happy with the idea of
further discussion. As I explained, I did not attend the meeting the
feedback from some of those who did was that they felt that SPGB comrades
did not really properly engage with the actually positions of our
organisation. Indeed, few comrades thought that your comrades did not seem
to have read much about us at all. Perhaps this is simply because we are
beginning the exchange between our two groups. However, we think that any
subsequent discussions should be informed by some background readings from
the two groups.
 A debate on the nature of the USSR would be of interest. It would help the debate if SPGB comrades who attend could study some of our published material on the subject. For instance:* Weekly Worker, 332, 333, 334 335 – the series on the ideas of Tony Cliff, including his theory of state capitalism.* We have a section on our website on 'Stalinism' that will give you a flavour of our take on the nature of Stalinist Russia – http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/categories/democracy-state/stalinism?recent_start=20

When we start to get concrete re: dates etc I will refer you to more
material your comrades could find useful including the major series by Jack
Conrad, 'Origins of bureaucratic socialism'. If you could also provide a
reading list for our comrades that would be great.

We replied on 24 September:

Quote:

While we have no objection to a meeting at which we explore each other's
view on the nature of Russian society during the USSR period, what we had
in mind was something aimed more at the general public, or at least at the
general "left" public rather than just the members of our respective
parties.
 So, is it not possible to do both? A "specialist" meeting on USSR society (for which we could offer the meeting room at our premises in Clapham) and a meeting on current events, to be held, for instance, in Conway Hall in central London.In the meantime, below is a reading list about our position on the Russian Revolution and Russian society.Bolshevism and the Russian Revolution:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/notes-mans-social-nature-and-capitalist-role-bolshevismhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/russian-revolution-and-bolshevik-dictatorship-and-labour-theory-valueUSSR society and economy:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/eastern-europe-collapse-kremlins-empire (especially chapter 2)http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/russia-1917-1967-socialist-analysis (especially chapter 7)Nature of class society and ruling class:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1981/no-917-january-1981/private-property-and-class-possessionhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1981/no-918-february-1981/are-managers-really-control-part-two

Despite two further emails from us nothing came of either proposal. A comrade had warned us that the "CPGB" had a reputation for wriggling out of public debates with other organisations.In any event, if they read the material we recommended they should be au fait with our position on Russia. But perhaps they consider Tony Cliff as an easier target since he thought Russia became state capitalist only in 1928 (the year of Trotsky's exile).

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