Was the Soviet Union really socialist?

[Zelenius]

This question has been asked ever since the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 and transformed Czarist Russia into the Soviet Union. Although Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and all the other communist leaders claimed they were aiming to transform Russia into a socialist society, many political thinkers, especially socialists and far left-wingers strongly disagree with the view that the Soviet Union was actually a socialist state.

Among the evidence that they cite to establish that the Soviet Union wasn't really socialist:

1) Once they were in power, the Bolsheviks broke up the local workers councils(the soviets) in Russia and instead appointed managers loyal to the Communist state to run the country's industries and factories.

2) The common people did not truly own the means of production, which was instead owned by the state and therefore controlled by powerful bureaucrats and the communist party hierarchy. It is now well known how much better off the Soviet ruling class was compared to the Soviet workers and peasants. Workers couldn't unionize in the Soviet Union either, and the Soviet Union wasn't even remotely democratic.

Much the same thing could be said of other communist countries like Cuba, and North Korea.

To socialist critics of the USSR, this means that the Soviet Union actually practiced something called "state capitalism". The entire country was run like one giant corporation with various sub-corporations administering different industries, according to this view. Workers were ruthlessly exploited for profit by managers and communist bureaucrats, in a manner similar to the exploitation endured by workers in capitalist societies at the hands of private business owners.

I ask this now since the recent financial meltdown and bailouts have called into question what system the U.S actually practices. What do we call it? Some politicians and economists claim the bailouts are a form of "socialism". Others claim this is a form of "state capitalism", or that the bailouts are inherently undemocratic and are a form of theft. The word "conservative" seems to have lost so much of its meaning at the hands of Bush and the neoconservatives. I'm not an expert on this, but these bailouts seem to contradict Reaganism-Bushism very strongly. Most libertarians though seem to be consistent. Sometimes the word "fascism" is brought up, but not as often as "socialism". Some thinkers even claim capitalism has never been practiced(eerily similar to the idea that true socialism has never been practiced), at least not after the 1930s; the ideal of the "free market" has taken a beating in recent months, ironically, at the hands of those who advocate most strongly for "free markets". I realize that all economies are ultimately a mixture of "capitalism" and "socialism", but it is increasingly difficult to have discussions about the economies of various countries when different people use these words in very different ways.

So what is it that the U.S is practicing? And what did the Soviet Union practice? Chomsky made some interesting observations on all this - http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1986----.htm

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1991----02.htm

 

[CFLarsen]

Let's start with the facts first.

1. There is a difference between socialism and communism.

2. It wasn't the Bolsheviks who transformed Czarist Russia. The Czar was deposed due to civil unrest and the repercussions of WWI. It wasn't until months after that the Reds came into power. The Soviet Union wasn't formed until 1922.

3. In a communist state, there is no reason why workers should be in a union, since a union works to better the conditions for the workers, and protect against oppression from the capitalist owners. This is not needed in a communist state.

4. Since the Soviet state was the people, the people did own the means of production. Who controlled the means of production is quite another thing.

And then a crucial question:

If an entire country is run like one giant corporation with various sub-corporations administering different industries isn't communist, what is communist?

 

[balrog666]

Were people allowed to own businesses? To even own the land they tilled? To negotiate salaries for their jobs? Could they pursue employment wherever they wanted?

Could they own their homes? Could they buy and sell them and amass capital?

Could they save their money and earn interest freely? If they managed to save some money, could they freely invest it anywhere? And were they allowed to keep their capital gains if they did so?

Could they move freely within the country? Were they free to emigrate elsewhere?

Could they get information about the actual state of affairs of their town, province, or country or get news from outside the state?

Could they write about their plight freely without fear of a 9mm in the back of the head?




Gee, what would you call that?




I don't care what you call it as long as it stays dead.

 

[rhtufts]

"Workers were ruthlessly exploited for profit by managers and communist bureaucrats, in a manner similar to the exploitation endured by workers in capitalist societies at the hands of private business owners."

I admit I only have experience with one capitalist society, but in 32 years I have yet to meet someone who was "enduring" as they were being "exploited" by EVIL private business owners.

 

[balrog666]

"Workers were ruthlessly exploited for profit by managers and communist bureaucrats, in a manner similar to the exploitation endured by workers in capitalist societies at the hands of private business owners."

I admit I only have experience with one capitalist society, but in 32 years I have yet to meet someone who was "enduring" as they were being "exploited" by EVIL private business owners.

Ah, but you have to make the exploitation sound ignoble or it doesn't count.

 

[Gazpacho]

Whether it was socialist or not, Lenin and Stalin tried their best to make it so in the circumstances. I tend to think that is enough of an answer.

 

[Lonewulf]

I thought Stalin was more busy developing a cult of personality and wiping out anyone who could possibly get rid of his dictatorship-based power...

Either way, someone declaring themselves something and "trying" to do it doesn't really count for all THAT much, does it? I mean, there are a few countries today that call themselves "democratic" or a "republic", that are no such thing.

 

[CFLarsen]

Restrictions on movement and lack of freedom of speech have nothing to do with either socialism or communism. Those are just (some of) the tools by which those in power stay in power.

 

[Gazpacho]

I thought Stalin was more busy developing a cult of personality and wiping out anyone who could possibly get rid of his dictatorship-based power...

Well yes, but the circumstances required that, you see.

Either way, someone declaring themselves something and "trying" to do it doesn't really count for all THAT much, does it? I mean, there are a few countries today that call themselves "democratic" or a "republic", that are no such thing.

...and there are some that call themselves that, and can back it up.

I think if you check the record of any sweeping socialist experiment (including those where the US and Britain did not directly intervene), you'll find that in the early years it was hailed as the "future that works," then moved gradually to "give it some time," and then "the imperialists are ****ing it up." Finally, the former supporters declared it never had anything to do with socialism and moved onto some new experiment, or an earlier failed experiment now under new leadership.

I might consider an exception in the case of Yugoslavia.

 

[Gazpacho]

Restrictions on movement and lack of freedom of speech have nothing to do with either socialism or communism. Those are just (some of) the tools by which those in power stay in power.

Both of those measures were justified by the communist leaders at the time as necessary to protect socialism from reactionaries , foreign agents and sabotage.

 

[Toke]

It might be easier to take a longer historical view on how much the people are suppressed and how the money is distributed in society.

So instead of listening to assorted propaganda of how a country is run, you follow the money.

Do you have feudal lords/plantation owners?
Are you a serf, or can you leave as soon as you have paid your debt to the company shop?

Is the country run by a junta, president for life, or do the countrys owners buy the elected politicians?

 

[Toke]

Both of those measures were justified at the time as necessary to protect socialism from reactionaries , foreign agents and sabotage.

Or in capitalist dictatorships democracies to protect against evil subversive commies.

 

[CFLarsen]

It doesn't matter how the leaders justify methods, if the methods aren't specific to a certain type of society.

If a leader in a capitalist country justifies restrictions on movement and lack of freedom, that does not make that society communist.

If it did, Hitler was a communist, and Nazi Germany was communist. Saddam Hussein was a communist, and Iraq was communist.

 

[Gazpacho]

It doesn't matter how the leaders justify methods, if the methods aren't specific to a certain type of society.

If socialism stops being "true" socialism the moment the revolutionaries try to respond to actual circumstances (such as people running away from their glorious collective farms), then why pretend at all that there is such a thing as "true" socialism?

 

[Chaos]

If socialism stops being "true" socialism the moment the revolutionaries try to respond to actual circumstances (such as people running away from their glorious collective farms), then why pretend at all that there is such a thing as "true" socialism?

I think the more relevant question is, can an attempt to implement socialism on a national level have a result that is truer to the idea of socialism than the Soviet Union was?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The US are more socialists than what the Soviet Union used to be. At least for some this is.

In America the higher you are the bigger the mistakes you can make without having to worry about anything. Say you bet with the money of others while enjoying outrageous paychecks and bonuses. If, for whatever reason, you lose everything you can simply sit and relax, as the government will come to the rescue taking care of everything so you can keep all your precious stuff.

Thinking it twice, America has it all, communism for the rich and capitalism for the poors, doG bless America.

 

[Zelenius]

I think the more relevant question is, can an attempt to implement socialism on a national level have a result that is truer to the idea of socialism than the Soviet Union was?

That is the best point raised so far.

Based on how socialism is typically defined, I see no reason why the USSR could not be thought of as a socialist country. It may not fit the definition perfectly but it approximates it closely enough, even if the workers weren't really in control. The government owned or controlled almost everything; the private sector was small to non-existent. Soviet citizens couldn't start their own businesses, invest wherever they wanted, acquire or sell private property in any meaningful sense or travel to wherever they wanted.

The communist party bosses in the Soviet Union may have had "capitalist" intent in how they lived their own lives and how they advanced their careers, but they did so within a communist system.

I realize that there is a difference between communism and socialism. Communism seems to be a more extreme, militant form of socialism.

Another question that arises from all this is that if we accept that the Soviet Union was in fact a socialist state, why were so many socialists and communists against it? Do they have any good reason to claim it was not socialist besides the obvious reason that it embarrasses and discredits communism and maybe even socialism as a whole? Are they being unnecessarily nitpicky or dishonest? Was it the lack of democracy within the USSR or lack of socialism or both?

For what its worth, I'm glad the Soviet Union is no more, and I have always been against communism.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

No, the Soviet Union was not Socialist. It wasn't even Communist, but the closest to that was Lenin, who ruled over the empire during the first period of it's existance, when it wasn't a completely bloated and corrupt cesspit of backward and inward thinking.

Socialism does not involve communal farms, or the lack or property rights.

I know I shouldn't get so upset by this, but the sheer ignorance of the majority of people as to what Socialism is makes me really (expletive deleted) mad. There was no "people's toothbrush" in the Soviet Union, and there wouldn't be in a true Socialist state.

Socialism is the availability of the workers of the state regardless of economic strength to be able to recieve basic necessities like healthcare and food from a collective pot made from contributions by all in the society. There are no limits to economic expansion, no limits to property rights and no stripping of money from the people. Those earning more pay a higher proportion into the pot than those earning less at a scale that equates to a very much limited gap between rich and poor, based upon the high quality of life for the poorest residents.

A Communist state involves the expansion of these ideals by the collective pot also containing the property rights to all manufacturing power. Thus there would be a people's hammer, but not a people's toothbrush. The centralisation of the production capability is (supposedly) to put the manufacturing power back in the hands of the workforce and to eliminate the owning of all power by a few individuals who grow fat while the workers starve. There is no state as it is currently defined because everyone simply takes what they need from the central pot and works to expand it.

Since neither of these states applied to the Soviet Union in any more than a very passing way, and since very, VERY little of the socio-political philosophy of Communism and Socialism existed in the Soviet Union, I feel comfortable in saying that no, it was not.

For the record, I am a Socialist.

 

[Travis]

No, the Soviet Union was not Socialist. It wasn't even Communist, but the closest to that was Lenin, who ruled over the empire during the first period of it's existance, when it wasn't a completely bloated and corrupt cesspit of backward and inward thinking.

Socialism does not involve communal farms, or the lack or property rights.

I know I shouldn't get so upset by this, but the sheer ignorance of the majority of people as to what Socialism is makes me really (expletive deleted) mad. There was no "people's toothbrush" in the Soviet Union, and there wouldn't be in a true Socialist state.

Socialism is the availability of the workers of the state regardless of economic strength to be able to recieve basic necessities like healthcare and food from a collective pot made from contributions by all in the society. There are no limits to economic expansion, no limits to property rights and no stripping of money from the people. Those earning more pay a higher proportion into the pot than those earning less at a scale that equates to a very much limited gap between rich and poor, based upon the high quality of life for the poorest residents.

A Communist state involves the expansion of these ideals by the collective pot also containing the property rights to all manufacturing power. Thus there would be a people's hammer, but not a people's toothbrush. The centralisation of the production capability is (supposedly) to put the manufacturing power back in the hands of the workforce and to eliminate the owning of all power by a few individuals who grow fat while the workers starve. There is no state as it is currently defined because everyone simply takes what they need from the central pot and works to expand it.

Since neither of these states applied to the Soviet Union in any more than a very passing way, and since very, VERY little of the socio-political philosophy of Communism and Socialism existed in the Soviet Union, I feel comfortable in saying that no, it was not.

For the record, I am a Socialist.

For the record what do you think the Soviet Union actually was?

 

[balrog666]

If socialism stops being "true" socialism the moment the revolutionaries try to respond to actual circumstances (such as people running away from their glorious collective farms), then why pretend at all that there is such a thing as "true" socialism?

Well said.