[Technology]

We see "Marxist analysis is correct, therefore I will throw my lot in with the proletarian cause" on the communist side, and on the bourgeois side we see "Marxist analysis is wrong, therefore I will throw my lot in with the liberal/other/anticommunist cause".

Has anyone ever said "Marxist analysis is correct, therefore I will throw my lot in with the bourgeois cause"?

I'm just starting to feel this out, but it seems to me that there is a divergence between the Marxist analysis of the economic reality, and how it should be changed. That adds a moral component for which your mileage may vary. Anticommunist Marxism seems to be a possible political framework that is of yet unexploited (or maybe we'd never be able to tell if it has been?)

What would that mean in practice? I feel like an anticommunist bourgeoisie who thinks in terms of Marxist analysis would move away from free market rhetoric, as they want to stave off a class overturning revolution, rather than just maximize profit. It would promote long term thinking on how to pacify the proletariat with social programs/social democracy, rather than trying to bite off more than they can chew. It would also include a plan for what to do if revolution becomes more likely. It would have to include tactics on how to avoid it, but also the riskier tactic of trying to switch sides early enough that it is before the revolution, to inoculate against being called a class enemy.

More radical bourgeois Marxists would be willing to cede ground all the way to the socialist mode, through entryism into a vanguard party. This would effectively be a false revolution. The Ceausescu family in Romania effectively lived like bourgeoisie, if not consciously, so there is a way.

The less radical bourgeois Marxism would simply stem from the acceptance that it is capitalism's internal contradictions which eventually give rise to socialism and then communism, and would try to avoid completely fulfilling free capitalism, so as to at least preserve their bourgeois status.

If the communist says that the capitalist will make the rope with which he will be hung, then the capitalist best make sure it's a shoddy rope.

[The Immortal Goon]

On the one hand, you're talking about the Harringtonites and other socialist-democrats.

This is very much, "long term thinking on how to pacify the proletariat with social programs/social democracy." One in action to promote Anti-Communist Marxism might be Ebert, or Kerensky. There are those who would call all of the above heroes of a kind of Anticommunist Marxism, but for a Leninist (like most Marxists on this board) they accomplished less than nothing. They fought for the bourgeoisie, even if they were trying, "to avoid completely fulfilling free capitalism."

Another direction might be academics like Francis Fukuyama, who used materialism and Hegelian dialectics like a Marxist to come up with his own, "End of History." He, like virtually every academic that tries this, was horribly wrong. He said it was because the United States government works a certain way with lobbyists, checks and balances, and three divided branches...the same way it has always worked. For some reason this was apparently left out of his analysis and would have been correct in a capitalist utopia had these things which have been true for three centuries been not true...or something. Basically he was wrong and won't admit it.

So they're out there. They don't make a huge e-presence.

[Cartertonian]

Another direction might be academics like Francis Fukuyama, who used materialism and Hegelian dialectics like a Marxist to come up with his own, "End of History." He, like virtually every academic that tries this, was horribly wrong.

TIG, I've been wanting to ask something specifically of your good self for some time, and your reference to academics applying Marxist principles in a novel way gives me the opportunity.

I defer entirely to your encyclopaedic understanding of the subject, when it comes to Marxism, by the way. I've read the Communist Manifesto but, as I often comment, there's a big difference between reading something and understanding it!

I teach all my students to question everything, trust no-one, gather the facts at their disposal and make their own judgement, yet (it seems) when it comes to Marxism any questioning or doubt is forbidden. I remember (you may, too, but it was quite a while ago) that we had a new member join who was studying politics at LSE and had just completed their Masters, was moving onto a PhD/Research Assistant post and was therefore anticipating teaching undergraduates. They unashamedly stated that they intended to indoctrinate all of their students into Marxist thinking because Marxism was some undeniable truth. I find this view to be so antithetical to academic practice that I feel bound, now,to ask the question; IS questioning Marx allowed?

[The Immortal Goon]

It's probably too late for me to go into great detail, but I think it's obvious that questioning Marx is allowed. Hell, I encourage it.

I also teach my students to gather all their facts and make their own judgement.

One of the issues with Marx, and those who followed him, I think comes down to the Prussian school of academics. Marx learned to argue and taunt like the Hegelians and other Prussians. Anyone that disagreed was a fool, an idiot, so on and so forth. Lenin picked this up from Marx, and many of those that followed Lenin did too. Some were more subtle than others, but that was how you argued. Lenin turned how whole thesis around at one point, thinking Russia couldn't have a socialist revolution into it could—but everyone that disagreed with him through the process was a dunderhead or a Judas. But that's true for all of them.

I don't think that some people grasp this and it translates from this rather archaic tradition into legitimately not questioning.

On the other hand, I do think there is truth to Marxism so it's hard for me to argue too much against it. But I would rather see my students come to that conclusion themselves after seeing evidence rather than me paint it that way. Some part of that I teach will be contaminated because it's what I think. That's fine. But it verifies my point of view when a student comes to see Marxism as a proper way to do things rather than is forced to do so.

My logic is simplified, but somewhat spelled out above. I think it's foolish to say that capitalism will always exist. No system like that has ever endured for infinity.

But I get the sense there's something I'm missing. Am I wrong?

[Cartertonian]

Thanks for that, TIG. An enlightening insight. I suppose (from what little I know) that the 'mechanics' of dialectical materialism foster polarisation and the path to synthesis requires strident difference of opinion along the way?

[The Immortal Goon]

I suppose that's about right. It's the same way of looking at the world, but with different interpretations and emphasis put in different places, I suppose. Some stuff is probably just political. Not to sidetrack things, but I feel like I've never had a good explanation for the mechanics and dialectics behind Socialism in One Country, for instance. It seems clearly not dialectical to say that contradictions within a world market didn't matter, but contradictions within a backward quasi-capitalist state produced full-board socialism; it seems immaterial to claim that socialism didn't have the technological grounding that the system before it had; and Marx, Engels, and Lenin all said such a thing was impossible and useless to consider. Yet on this board a majority of Marxists probably believe in the theory and I can only assume it's for politic's sake.

[Rich]

Socialism in One Country,

You see I really doubt how much Stalin believed in Marxist theory. If I'm correct his lack of belief in Marxist theory allowed him to lay a trap for Trotsky and others. Soiczalism in one country was clearly what they were all doing: Lenin, Stalin Trotsky etc, but he knew Trotsky would be uncomfortable with its bald statement. This forced Trotsky to invent a fundamental practical difference with Stalin where none existed. Trotsky was a slave to theory in this instance. In a similar way that I find it utterly contemptible how British Troskyists in World war II were engaging in defencist agitation while pretending to be following a defeatist line. - Gutless cowards!

The sterility of theory can be seen with Lenin and Trotsky after April 1917. Trotsky continued to follow a permanent revolution line, while Lenin continued to follow a Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry line. But this oh so important theoretical difference that had so exercised their supporters for over a decade made no practical difference what so ever. It was Stalin it should be noted who first came up with the idea of giving the land to the peasantry, ie instituting the agrarian programme of the Social Revolutionary Party and bollocks to Marxist theory.

[The Immortal Goon]

Yes, we all know you have no grasp on the history or theory. This has been noted numerous times, no reason to push our collective nose in it.

[Dagoth Ur]

Stalin is probably the only person simultaneously accused of arch-communism and secret anticommunism. It makes no sense and if it were true the USSR would resemble the DPRK or Democratic Kampuchea.

[Potemkin]

If one seriously studies Stalin's writings and career, it quickly becomes difficult to escape the conclusion that he was a sincere (even fanatical) Communist. One can question his interpretation of Communism, and one can certainly question the validity of his methods, but not his adherence to the Communist cause.

[Rich]

I wasn't suggesting that Stalin was an anti-Communist secret or otherwise, I am saying that he didn't really believe in Marxist theory and so was able to play fast and lose with it. Lenin liked to say "who, whom", but it was Stalin that really followed this. Its not often mentioned but the creation of the peoples Republic in East Germany after 1945, a fully industrialised state with a developed proletariat was the most outrageous Marxist revisionism. Marxist theory was merely a tool for Stalin in the ever on going political struggle for power.

[Potemkin]

Marxist theory was merely a tool for the proletariat in the ever on going political struggle for power.

There, fixed it for you.

[ThereBeDragons]

I suppose that's about right. It's the same way of looking at the world, but with different interpretations and emphasis put in different places, I suppose. Some stuff is probably just political. Not to sidetrack things, but I feel like I've never had a good explanation for the mechanics and dialectics behind Socialism in One Country, for instance. It seems clearly not dialectical to say that contradictions within a world market didn't matter, but contradictions within a backward quasi-capitalist state produced full-board socialism; it seems immaterial to claim that socialism didn't have the technological grounding that the system before it had; and Marx, Engels, and Lenin all said such a thing was impossible and useless to consider. Yet on this board a majority of Marxists probably believe in the theory and I can only assume it's for politic's sake.

What are the main arguments for the impossibility of Socialism in One Country?

[annatar1914]

On the one hand, you're talking about the Harringtonites and other socialist-democrats.

This is very much, "long term thinking on how to pacify the proletariat with social programs/social democracy." One in action to promote Anti-Communist Marxism might be Ebert, or Kerensky. There are those who would call all of the above heroes of a kind of Anticommunist Marxism, but for a Leninist (like most Marxists on this board) they accomplished less than nothing. They fought for the bourgeoisie, even if they were trying, "to avoid completely fulfilling free capitalism."

Another direction might be academics like Francis Fukuyama, who used materialism and Hegelian dialectics like a Marxist to come up with his own, "End of History." He, like virtually every academic that tries this, was horribly wrong. He said it was because the United States government works a certain way with lobbyists, checks and balances, and three divided branches...the same way it has always worked. For some reason this was apparently left out of his analysis and would have been correct in a capitalist utopia had these things which have been true for three centuries been not true...or something. Basically he was wrong and won't admit it.

So they're out there. They don't make a huge e-presence.

Staking out another kind of 'Third Position', just as the Fascists are, as the contradictions of global capitalism sharpen. I would imagine the latent paranoia of most bourgeoisie marxists leads them towards Fascism without much of an intellectual much less emotional leap. The people who voted for Ebert and his cronies voted for Hindenburg and then Hitler.

[The Immortal Goon]

What are the main arguments for the impossibility of Socialism in One Country?

My objection is mainly in that it'd not dialectic. Or if it is, it flushes Lenin completely down the toilet as imperialism as he observed it didn't exist. Dialectics dictate that something doesn't come from nothing, so does materialism. Everyone from Marx on up was in agreement that capitalism was a global system. A global system would have certain dialectic contradictions that should give rise to a new global system, just as a star imploding causes the star to implode instead of causes part of the star to implode. In short, the objections are as follows; I've written variations of this at least once before:

Marx's analysis is pretty heady, but he does make clear that capitalism is a world-wide system that will have a world-wide consequence.

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.

The logic here is simple enough; capitalism is a world-wide system. If socialism, as a system, is a higher form of production born from the contradictions of a world system - it too should be international in scope.

It's, of course, not that cut and dry as the struggle to create a socialist system, so Marx correctly implies, takes on a national scope. But he is also right to lampoon socialists claiming they have been socializing their own country exactly because it completely ignores the fact that capitalism is a global economy:

Lassalle, in opposition to the Communist Manifesto and to all earlier socialism, conceived the workers' movement from the narrowest national standpoint. He is being followed in this -- and that after the work of the International!

It is altogether self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own country is the immediate arena of its struggle -- insofar as its class struggle is national, not in substance, but, as the Communist Manifesto says, "in form". But the "framework of the present-day national state", for instance, the German Empire, is itself, in its turn, economically "within the framework" of the world market, politically "within the framework" of the system of states. Every businessman knows that German trade is at the same time foreign trade, and the greatness of Herr Bismarck consists, to be sure, precisely in his pursuing a kind of international policy.

And to what does the German Workers' party reduce its internationalism? To the consciousness that the result of its efforts will be "the international brotherhood of peoples" -- a phrase borrowed from the bourgeois League of Peace and Freedom, which is intended to pass as equivalent to the international brotherhood of working classes in the joint struggle against the ruling classes and their governments. Not a word, therefore, about the international functions of the German working class! And it is thus that it is to challenge its own bourgeoisie -- which is already linked up in brotherhood against it with the bourgeois of all other countries -- and Herr Bismarck's international policy of conspiracy.

In fact, the internationalism of the program stands even infinitely below that of the Free Trade party. The latter also asserts that the result of its efforts will be "the international brotherhood of peoples". But it also does something to make trade international and by no means contents itself with the consciousness that all people are carrying on trade at home.

The international activity of the working classes does not in any way depend on the existence of the International Working Men's Association. This was only the first attempt to create a central organ for the activity; an attempt which was a lasting success on account of the impulse which it gave but which was no longer realizable in its historical form after the fall of the Paris Commune.

Bismarck's Norddeutsche was absolutely right when it announced, to the satisfaction of its master, that the German Workers' party had sworn off internationalism in the new program.

Engels is more blunt:

Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

Lenin, especially toward the end of his life, condemned the party when it attempted to declare that they were making a socialist system in one country. This is actually pretty interesting to follow insofar as Agitprop and women's issues were concerned. Regardless, Lenin:

Socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries. As you know we have done very much in comparison with the past to bring about this condition, but far from enough to make it a reality.

The second condition is agreement between the proletariat, which is exercising its dictatorship, that is holds state power,and the majority of the peasant population

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism.

And there's little need to go in to Trotsky on this detail as he's become the poster-boy for it. In each of these cases it's important to point out that Trotsky - unlike some of his latterday admirers, did not see the Soviet Union as capitalist in any sense. He also saw that it had advances that needed to be protected from the outside world. It was a worker's state that needed to be defended - but in the same way Marx, Engels, and Lenin did not see it as being a socialist state - neither did he.

There's also a tendency to take this analysis as a direct refutation of everything Stalin and company did. This is also a simplification. The Soviet Union did modify the theoretical approach after they dropped the ridiculous Third Period garbage that would have been completely logical had one found that Socialism in One Country was a totally viable analysis.

It's funny, in a sense, that this is something that Trotsky gets saddled with. In fact, he thought the worker's revolution was further along in Russia than Lenin did. When debating what to do with labour unions, Trotsky and Lenin came to crossroads. Trotsky thought that, since the state was a worker's state that would later blossom into socialism, there was no real need for unions anymore since worker representation was already a manifestation of the state. Lenin disagreed:

Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. (Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets,[3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.

Trotsky eventually fell back into line. But this wasn't because he did whatever Lenin said, it was because he was wrong and Lenin was correct. It was not a socialist state or close to becoming a socialist state where labour unions could be safely said to be irrelevant.

Lenin continued, toward the end of his life, warning the communists against the "bureacratic twist" that he had conceived of before:

The main economic power is in our hands. All the vital large enterprises, the railways, etc., are in our hands. The number of leased enterprises, although considerable in places, is on the whole insignificant; altogether it is infinitesimal compared with the rest. The economic power in the hands of the proletarian state of Russia is quite adequate to ensure the transition to communism. What then is lacking? Obviously, what is lacking is culture among the stratum of the Communists who perform administrative functions. If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed. Some thing analogous happened here to what we were told in our history lessons when we were children: sometimes one nation conquers another, the nation that conquers is the conqueror and the nation that is vanquished is the conquered nation. This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture of these nations? Here things are not so simple. If the conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital of the R.S.F.S.R.? Have the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the very best) come under the influence of an alien culture? True, there may be the impression that the vanquished have a high level of culture. But that is not the case at all. Their culture is miserable, insignificant, but it is still at a higher level than ours. Miserable and low as it is, it is higher than that of our responsible Communist administrators, for the latter lack administrative ability. Communists who are put at the head of departments—and sometimes artful saboteurs deliberately put them in these positions in order to use them as a shield—are often fooled. This is a very unpleasant admission to make, or, at any rate, not a very pleasant one; but I think we must admit it, for at present this is the salient problem. I think that this is the political lesson of the past year; and it is around this that the struggle will rage in 1922.

Will the responsible Communists of the R.S.F.S.R. and of the Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer; that they only imagine they are directing, but are, actually, being directed? If they realise this they will learn, of course; for this business can be learnt. But one must study hard to learn it, and our people are not doing this. They scatter orders and decrees right and left, but the result is quite different from what they want.

It was only long after this that Trotsky put Lenin's ideological victory over his own, as well as Lenin's subsequent warnings to the party into a coherent theory that explained the general arc of Soviet history.

In doing so, he pulled from Lenin's conception of a worker's state that was not socialist - which had been counter to his own earlier conception. It was only then that the formalized theory of the Worker's State was made.

To go back to the beginning of the post, the worker's state - for all its flaws - was still worth protecting as it was a vanguard against the capitalist system and still had the potential to grow into a socialist state had capitalism itself been given another blow.

---

Staking out another kind of 'Third Position', just as the Fascists are, as the contradictions of global capitalism sharpen. I would imagine the latent paranoia of most bourgeoisie marxists leads them towards Fascism without much of an intellectual much less emotional leap. The people who voted for Ebert and his cronies voted for Hindenburg and then Hitler.

I don't know that it's fair to claim that the social-democrats were fascists. This is a position that even Stalin abandoned when it didn't turn out to be true. But capitalism is capitalism. Capitulating to capitalism instead of trying to smash it does tend to not be a good tactic.

[ThereBeDragons]

My objection is mainly in that it'd not dialectic. Or if it is, it flushes Lenin completely down the toilet as imperialism as he observed it didn't exist. Dialectics dictate that something doesn't come from nothing, so does materialism. Everyone from Marx on up was in agreement that capitalism was a global system. A global system would have certain dialectic contradictions that should give rise to a new global system.

Well, maybe it should, but they haven't (yet), as the year 1918 came and capitalism is still rolling along. People predict a new crisis within twenty years but people have been predicting the crisis for a while now.

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

People still antagonize each other all over the place. The opiate of the masses didn't die off either. The bourgeoisie have been around for what, three hundred years? Nations are still around.

The logic here is simple enough; capitalism is a world-wide system. If socialism, as a system, is a higher form of production born from the contradictions of a world system - it too should be international in scope.

It's, of course, not that cut and dry as the struggle to create a socialist system, so Marx correctly implies, takes on a national scope.

Sometimes you have to settle, yeah.

It is altogether self-evident that, to be able to fight at all, the working class must organize itself at home as a class and that its own country is the immediate arena of its struggle -- insofar as its class struggle is national, not in substance, but, as the Communist Manifesto says, "in form". But the "framework of the present-day national state", for instance, the German Empire, is itself, in its turn, economically "within the framework" of the world market, politically "within the framework" of the system of states. Every businessman knows that German trade is at the same time foreign trade, and the greatness of Herr Bismarck consists, to be sure, precisely in his pursuing a kind of international policy.

Countries which industrialize reap massive benefits from trade as they are able to benefit from the merchantilist policy (in the loosest sense of the term) of acquiring raw goods (whose prices very closely track that of production) while exporting finished goods (whose prices are not constrained by the iron law of wages). Furthermore even on more equal grounds trade benefits countries due to comparative advantage. But even so -

And to what does the German Workers' party reduce its internationalism? To the consciousness that the result of its efforts will be "the international brotherhood of peoples" -- a phrase borrowed from the bourgeois League of Peace and Freedom, which is intended to pass as equivalent to the international brotherhood of working classes in the joint struggle against the ruling classes and their governments. Not a word, therefore, about the international functions of the German working class! And it is thus that it is to challenge its own bourgeoisie -- which is already linked up in brotherhood against it with the bourgeois of all other countries -- and Herr Bismarck's international policy of conspiracy.

Autarky is hardly advantageous for national development but it rarely comes to that extreme. To be sure, if the capitalist countries of the world conspire to deny socialist countries access to markets, then it will complicate the issue, but often socialist countries have been able to trade within a common bloc and often even with supposedly "non-aligned" countries, and even in the (second-)worst eventuality national development is still possible in near-autarkic systems.

If the capitalist countries are to come together and crush socialism with jackboots and bombs that's another thing.

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

But he hasn't really explained "why" except that "peoples are not independent" to which I can give a resounding "I don't see how what you said next follows from that." My trust in his predictive capability is further eroded by the fact that if you were to give Britain and Germany "socialism scores", as meaningless as that is, Britain is scoring lower than Germany unless they're both getting zeroes.

Lenin, especially toward the end of his life, condemned the party when it attempted to declare that they were making a socialist system in one country. This is actually pretty interesting to follow insofar as Agitprop and women's issues were concerned. Regardless, Lenin:

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile power of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism - that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism.

And there's little need to go in to Trotsky on this detail as he's become the poster-boy for it. In each of these cases it's important to point out that Trotsky - unlike some of his latterday admirers, did not see the Soviet Union as capitalist in any sense. He also saw that it had advances that needed to be protected from the outside world. It was a worker's state that needed to be defended - but in the same way Marx, Engels, and Lenin did not see it as being a socialist state - neither did he.

Was this because the Soviet Union had been hijacked and directed by Lenin's "huge bureaucratic machine"? Or because it was impossible for the Soviet Union to be a socialist state as long as the capitalist West existed?

[The Immortal Goon]

Without going through every single response, most of which I (and I say this in a respectful way) I lack the understanding in seeing how they relate to the simple truth that just because you decide to call something socialism does not make it socialism.

You mention that capitalism was still going in 1918. That's quite true. It does not mean that a workers' state is suddenly a socialist system that rose the inherent instability of global capitalism. It means that there's a workers' state there.

The bourgeoisie have been around for what, three hundred years? Nations are still around.

This does not mean that a workers' state is suddenly a socialist system that rose from global capitalism simply because somebody said so.

Sometimes you have to settle, yeah

That's true. But that does not change the dialectic process that makes socialism a global system as it has always been understood until it was decreed that it no longer was with little to no theoretical basis for changing the meaning of words.

To be sure, if the capitalist countries of the world conspire to deny socialist countries access to markets, then it will complicate the issue, but often socialist countries have been able to trade within a common bloc and often even with supposedly "non-aligned" countries, and even in the (second-)worst eventuality national development is still possible in near-autarkic systems.

If the capitalist countries are to come together and crush socialism with jackboots and bombs that's another thing.

Again, this does not make it socialism in one country if there's a workers' state.

But he hasn't really explained "why" except that "peoples are not independent" to which I can give a resounding "I don't see how what you said next follows from that." My trust in his predictive capability is further eroded by the fact that if you were to give Britain and Germany "socialism scores", as meaningless as that is, Britain is scoring lower than Germany unless they're both getting zeroes.

Because capitalism is a global system. A global system will give rise to a global system because the contradictions within said systems will manifest in such a way. So no peoples are really independent.

This has to do with bringing Britain and Germany into the fold because they're in the world. You'll note that the Bolsheviks very much thought that bringing Germany into the Soviet system would be the next domino to fall, and they were nearly correct that it would happen. As Lenin mentioned below, in order to begin socialism, there had to be several advanced countries falling and going that way. Otherwise, there is no socialism being built. Just like Engels mentioned.

I have no idea what you mean by, "socialism scores," since an independent country, as Engles is actually actively explaining, cannot be socialist.

Was this because the Soviet Union had been hijacked and directed by Lenin's "huge bureaucratic machine"? Or because it was impossible for the Soviet Union to be a socialist state as long as the capitalist West existed?

Because it's impossible to have socialism in one country. Only the "joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries" can begin the building of socialism. Otherwise you have a workers' state in a holding pattern, as Lenin pointed out, that is not socialist and can only defend itself.

[ThereBeDragons]

What is the definition of socialism? Isn't it just the ownership of capital by the proletariat, in which people cannot profit from the private ownership of capital? I guess I'm in the Marxist Analysis forum so if socialism is being strictly defined as "the intermediate stage between world capitalism and world communism in which the dictatorship of the proletariat controls all capital, everywhere" then it's certainly not.

[The Immortal Goon]

Socialism, in the Marxist sense, had been defined as a world wide system that came dialectically from the contradictions of capitalism, another world system. It, by its nature, must be international, as everyone agrees.

Stalin even agreed with this up until right before he was ready to go against Trotsky:

In April 1924, in the first edition of his book Foundations of Leninism, Stalin had explicitly rejected the idea that socialism could be constructed in one country. He wrote: “Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one country, without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is not. The efforts of one country are enough for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. This is what the history of our revolution tells us. For the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially a peasant country like ours, are not enough. For this we must have the efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries. Such, on the whole, are the characteristic features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution.”

In August 1924, as Stalin was consolidating his power in the Soviet Union, a second edition of the same book was published. The text just quoted had been replaced with, in part, the following: “Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” And by November 1926, Stalin had completely revised history, stating: “The party always took as its starting point the idea that the victory of socialism ... can be accomplished with the forces of a single country.”

As for what socialism would look like, there's a lot of writing about that in some ways, but almost all of it is pretty heady because it has to do with dialectic processes and whatnot. Lenin simplifies it like this:

In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle's idea that under socialism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or "full product of his labor". Marx shows that from the whole of the social labor of society there must be deducted a reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the "wear and tear" of machinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people's homes, and so on.

Instead of Lassalle's hazy, obscure, general phrase ("the full product of his labor to the worker"), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs. Marx proceeds to make a concrete analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be no capitalism, and says:

"What we have to deal with here [in analyzing the programme of the workers' party] is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes."

It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.

The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it.

“Equality” apparently reigns supreme.

But when Lassalle, having in view such a social order (usually called socialism, but termed by Marx the first phase of communism), says that this is "equitable distribution", that this is "the equal right of all to an equal product of labor", Lassalle is mistaken and Marx exposes the mistake.

"Hence, the equal right," says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to "bourgeois law", which,like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the "equal right" is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product (after the above-mentioned deductions).

But people are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:

"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."

The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production--the factories, machines, land, etc.--and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).

The vulgar economists, including the bourgeois professors and “our” Tugan, constantly reproach the socialists with forgetting the inequality of people and with “dreaming” of eliminating this inequality. Such a reproach, as we see, only proves the extreme ignorance of the bourgeois ideologists.

Marx not only most scrupulously takes account of the inevitable inequality of men, but he also takes into account the fact that the mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed". Continuing, Marx says:

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.

However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

Lenin certainly didn't think he came close to getting there. And certainly none of this really comes to be in Stalin's version of, "socialism," that he conveniently left out of the next edition of his book when it was politically expedient to redefine socialism into, "whatever Stalin's policies are." I'm being flippant, but you can see how this would be an effective motive for dropping all Marxist theory and finding a definition instead that was explicitly not used by Marx, Engels, or Lenin.

I'm not even necessarily saying that we have to say it was a bad idea (though it was). There are arguments that something had to be done because the USSR was surrounded and propaganda was important and whatnot (though I feel it did more harm than good). But in any marxist analysis, "Socialism in one country," was at best exactly what Lenin called the Soviet Union just before he died: "a workers’ state with a bureaucratic twist."

It may be asked why this is even an important distinction. For one thing, Marxists should use Marxism to analyze history and concepts and not just put it to the side because it's politically scary or something in this one case. No. It's not socialism. Further, and less importantly, it's a loser politically to say that socialism is going to be a less efficient thing than we have now because we've seen socialism and what it looks like, if you buy into "Socialism in One Country." And it looks like the Soviet Union almost a 100 years ago, which while it certainly had its major successes (as workers' states are want to do) it is hardly anything that approaches, "the end of history."

I guess we shouldn't call it socialism mostly because it's not clearly socialism. Lying to each other and others about that doesn't help anyone.

[ingliz]

I see no particular reason to derail this thread any further

Neither do I, but

“... the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.”

— V.I. Lenin, On the Slogan for a United States of Europe. Sotsial-Demokrat No. 44, August 23, 1915.

“…when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The ‘final’ victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible.”

— V.I. Lenin, Speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets, 1918.