An interesting thing, you've probably come across it in argument; when you argue "capitalism, J'accuse!" a rightwinger will retort something along the lines of "your moribund belief system has killed millions". Interesting: redbaiting as an argument is always burned on the outside, frozen on the inside, never properly cooked. Marxism is a moribund belief system, OK, but it's also vigourous enough to kill millions.
You can and should point out that stalinism in all its varieties is state capitalism. You offer that observation for a third party to contemplate. Rightist redbaiters can seldom cope with the concept, let alone accept it. The point of offering the Marxism Kills observation is to turn the tables. You have gone from attacking capitalism to defending socialism.
Think of things another way. If we are going to flatly condemn violence we must ask what political philosophy doesn't have blood on its hands? The current British government consists of Tories and Liberals. For centuries these two political traditions administered the British Empire, with all its wars, all its repression. They oversaw the slave trade, the Highland Clearances, the Potato Famine, the gassing of Kurds and the firebombing of Dresden to name a few incidents: and that only takes us up to 1944. Politics is the articulate expression of struggle, of violence. Every political philosophy is violent.
Even if we accept the dubious notion of continuity between Marx and Stalin (and the lesser Stalinist tyrants), the majority of humanity has been governed by bourgeois political philosophy for the last 400 years. The level violent death inflicted, from the grandest horror to the everyday holocaust of starvation, stretches far beyond Stalin's road of bones.
Showing posts with label Stalinism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stalinism. Show all posts
What is Stalinism and why does it matter?
1. Stalinism is a form of statecraft practiced in Russia somewhere between 1924 and 1953. It is a series of policies, some of which ended with Stalin's death, some of which endured. If Stalinism is this and nothing more then it is an historical curiosity.
2. Stalinism is a system of government best described as bureaucratic state capitalism, where the state is fused with the economy but the imperative is capital accumulation. Its value and necessity depends on your perspective. From the point of view of the group effectively governing Russia during the late 1920s Stalinism, as it came to be, was essential and justified. Stalinism was, from the point of view of Russian history, progressive. It made Russia into a modern society. But that's not our perspective. Capitalism is a global system, and was a global system back when the USSR was founded, even back when the Russian Revolution began. Capitalism did not need developing, it was ripe to fall. This has bearing on the 3rd point.
3. Stalinism is a political strategy whereby Communist Parties around the world were effectively agents of Russian foreign policy. This meant different things in different countries. The consistent theme was Russia need to survive and compete within the capitalist world. Though the Communist Party contained many serious revolutionaries it's political strategy was never revolutionary. Without having an Actually Existing Socialism to serve surviving Communist Parties in the core capitalist countries adapted their strategy only slightly, by positioning themselves as left social democrats, to the point where in several countries they are almost the only true surviving social democratic parties, the official social democrats having become social liberal.
4. So, ok, Stalinism is not a strategy for transcending capitalism, why does it matter? Firstly it matters for the simple, ideological point regarding all revolutions leading to tyranny/co-option. Secondly, it matters because the violent intervention from the top of Russian society around 1927/8, which created Stalinism, did lead to significant change. Can change from below compete, full democracy, self-government compete? The fact that the Russian Revolution ended up founding a bureaucratic command economy when it started as an experiment in communal democracy would suggest to some that such democracy is utopian. We can only make extrapolations from the present into the future, but there're three things worth noting:
(i) For centuries now significant mass movements that have challenged the status quo have developed communal forms of democracy, even if only in embryo. Why would a utopia keep cropping up throughout history?
(ii) The development of capitalism prepares us in part for communal democracy. An example; the republican ideal of citizenship, of popular sovereignty (even if deferred to an elected representative) means that each is able, or should be able, to take their place as head of state. This also applies (in an obviously more round-a-about way) to constitutional monarchies.
(iii) It's a sore day for humanity if it's still not capable of liberating itself. Without change from below, at this point in time, human civilisation is almost certainly doomed.
2. Stalinism is a system of government best described as bureaucratic state capitalism, where the state is fused with the economy but the imperative is capital accumulation. Its value and necessity depends on your perspective. From the point of view of the group effectively governing Russia during the late 1920s Stalinism, as it came to be, was essential and justified. Stalinism was, from the point of view of Russian history, progressive. It made Russia into a modern society. But that's not our perspective. Capitalism is a global system, and was a global system back when the USSR was founded, even back when the Russian Revolution began. Capitalism did not need developing, it was ripe to fall. This has bearing on the 3rd point.
3. Stalinism is a political strategy whereby Communist Parties around the world were effectively agents of Russian foreign policy. This meant different things in different countries. The consistent theme was Russia need to survive and compete within the capitalist world. Though the Communist Party contained many serious revolutionaries it's political strategy was never revolutionary. Without having an Actually Existing Socialism to serve surviving Communist Parties in the core capitalist countries adapted their strategy only slightly, by positioning themselves as left social democrats, to the point where in several countries they are almost the only true surviving social democratic parties, the official social democrats having become social liberal.
4. So, ok, Stalinism is not a strategy for transcending capitalism, why does it matter? Firstly it matters for the simple, ideological point regarding all revolutions leading to tyranny/co-option. Secondly, it matters because the violent intervention from the top of Russian society around 1927/8, which created Stalinism, did lead to significant change. Can change from below compete, full democracy, self-government compete? The fact that the Russian Revolution ended up founding a bureaucratic command economy when it started as an experiment in communal democracy would suggest to some that such democracy is utopian. We can only make extrapolations from the present into the future, but there're three things worth noting:
(i) For centuries now significant mass movements that have challenged the status quo have developed communal forms of democracy, even if only in embryo. Why would a utopia keep cropping up throughout history?
(ii) The development of capitalism prepares us in part for communal democracy. An example; the republican ideal of citizenship, of popular sovereignty (even if deferred to an elected representative) means that each is able, or should be able, to take their place as head of state. This also applies (in an obviously more round-a-about way) to constitutional monarchies.
(iii) It's a sore day for humanity if it's still not capable of liberating itself. Without change from below, at this point in time, human civilisation is almost certainly doomed.
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