Cowbee my friend, we are probably not gonna see eye to eye on this. Still mad respect.
The justification is also an accidental quirk of history. The administration of national sovereignty, especially during wartime, requires a layer of administrative workers. The og Bolsheviks were a pretty distinct org with their own character, made up of bourgeois educated intellectuals, a large bellicose element from Russian society, and since the Bolsheviks had the best penetration into the lives of the workers a significant proletarian membership that kept the party afloat during the years of severe tsarist repression from 1907-1912ish, that was itself blended between urban proletarians and peasants transitioning toward proletarianism. But when the time came to administer the Russian state, the intellectual Bolsheviks were spread extremely thin.
The period after the revolution saw a massive influx of members into the Bolsheviks. Were these members revolution hardened Marxists? No. The Bolsheviks were a micro minority up until the April thesis. They swelled in membership immediately prior to the revolution, but these new members were among the workers and soldiers. But after the revolution, they included intellectuals from all stripes: former Mensheviks, SRs and moderates (that is moderate toward the Tsar.) Many people resumed their former posts within the Russian government out of necessity for the state to function. The contradictions during this period were compounded again and again because of the civil war.
This moderate, self interested administrative body is what I refer to as “Stalinist”, since I don’t really consider the post revolutionary Russian bureaucracy a product of Stalin so much as I consider Stalin a product of this bureaucracy. Stalin and the bureaucracy became dynamically fused to one another via mutual self-interest. The banning of factions, one of the major fuck ups of the revolutionary government in 1921, only heightened these contradictions as the Bolshevik party became the primary avenue for naked opportunism.
The Russian revolution was revolutionary and proletariat via the soviets, but when the productive capacity was crushed and the soviets were banned, robbed of the productive base and therefore the concrete power of the workers, what was left? There was no proletarian power represented in the government, especially as Stalin started replacing the old Bolsheviks, who at least had an ideological commitment to worker power, with people loyal to him and the wider project. This bureaucracy had a bourgeois character because it was a middle administrative class ascentionist project, like we’ve seen historically overthrow and maintain power over aristocracies. And honestly I don’t hate this. Lenin would have accepted a bourgeois revolution that completely overthrew the Tsar over a socialist revolution that regressed back into Tsarism. Stalin was extremely moderate toward bourgeois revolution, and Trotsky would have been fine with it too if he had taken leadership. That was what existed, that was all that was left, and that is what persisted into the future. The ideological commitment to socialism was admirable but mixed in that where there was no material basis for socialism it could only exist ideologically.
Here we may run into conflict between definitions of socialism, since I know you define socialism in an AES kind of way, where as I define it as a practical progressive struggle. We’ve discussed this before. Socialism is a movement of the mass base for the class interests of this base, demcent is a way for the masses to appoint leaders in a transparent Democratic way, and communicate material conditions across the uneven development of the proletarian movement, not for leaders to institute top-down discipline. The leaders submit to the discipline of the mass movement, not the other way around, which is bourgeois centralism. In Russia, the proletarian mass movement was crushed by the Capitalists and Tsarists, and what was left over was admittedly much better than what would have come without the revolutionary leadership of the Bolsheviks. But when the base was crushed what was left was a deeply troubled state apparatus that had a distinct class character that could never have been proletarian. Like I said, this is a quirk of history, a consequence of a socialist worker revolution in a country that was deeply blended between peasant and proletarian in character.
My understanding comes from Trotsky’s works, so HRR, HRR through Brest Litovsk, and Revolution Betrayed; Paul Averich’s Kronstadt 1917; essays by Loren Goldner, and other sources. I find it a little annoying that you brought up the “justification” as if I’m just making shit up. I understand that my “left Trot” political orientation probably auto disqualifies me from a certain perspective. But I’ll def consider any other justifications, articles def appreciated if they pointedly address some of the points I’ve made.
There are more than a few problems I have with your portrayal of events and class composition. I respect your sticking to your principles, but I have some heavy departures, both theoretically and historically.
First, I am well aware that the composition of Bolsheviks became very mixed in a tumultuous wartime environment. This cannot really be denied, nor would I want to. What I want to push back on, however, is the notion that this resulted in a bourgeois character. The industrial base was destroyed, correct, and so it was rebuilt, first focusing on agrarian production, and next on industrial production. Soviets became the basis of the Soviet Union, and by 1936 the Soviet Union had established an industrial and agricultural base that far exceeded pre-war levels.
What happened was that soviet democracy was implemented, and the party became integrated and was composed of the working classes and the newly rejuvenated workers and peasants. Stalin was not some bourgeois figure, nor was the party in opposition to socialism. The bourgeois character did not appear until Khrushchev’s era, growing under Gorbachev and then succeeding in counter-revolution.
Second, the banning of factionalism was necessary and correct. Undermining democratic centralism and establishing wedges by which to break apart the unity of the socialist system would have been catastrophic, and the fifth column elements that existed within the Soviet Union represented a very clear demonstration of such a danger.
The actual class character of the CPSU was proletarian. The bourgeois elements of society, including kulaks, had been liquidated as a firm class by 1936 or so. The devastation of World War II severely weakened the Soviet Union, however, and these cracks grew into weaknesses exploited by the bourgeoisie that had risen again under Khrushchev, resulting in counterrevolution.
For recommended reading, I have 2 good, wildly different options. The first is This Soviet World, written in 1936 by a Statesian journalist named Anna Louise Strong. The earlier chapters are enormously beneficial for understanding the class composition of society and the party, how it integrated with the masses, their relationship, and more, though the whole book is great (mind the dated language surrounding ethnicity, though). The second recommendation is Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend. Written after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Losurdo gives a very compelling analysis of the legend of Stalin, moreso than a history of the figure himself. Through this framework, it becomes much easier to see a retrospective on the entire Stalin era of the USSR. Both taken together give a multi-sided view.
Cowbee my friend, we are probably not gonna see eye to eye on this. Still mad respect.
The justification is also an accidental quirk of history. The administration of national sovereignty, especially during wartime, requires a layer of administrative workers. The og Bolsheviks were a pretty distinct org with their own character, made up of bourgeois educated intellectuals, a large bellicose element from Russian society, and since the Bolsheviks had the best penetration into the lives of the workers a significant proletarian membership that kept the party afloat during the years of severe tsarist repression from 1907-1912ish, that was itself blended between urban proletarians and peasants transitioning toward proletarianism. But when the time came to administer the Russian state, the intellectual Bolsheviks were spread extremely thin.
The period after the revolution saw a massive influx of members into the Bolsheviks. Were these members revolution hardened Marxists? No. The Bolsheviks were a micro minority up until the April thesis. They swelled in membership immediately prior to the revolution, but these new members were among the workers and soldiers. But after the revolution, they included intellectuals from all stripes: former Mensheviks, SRs and moderates (that is moderate toward the Tsar.) Many people resumed their former posts within the Russian government out of necessity for the state to function. The contradictions during this period were compounded again and again because of the civil war.
This moderate, self interested administrative body is what I refer to as “Stalinist”, since I don’t really consider the post revolutionary Russian bureaucracy a product of Stalin so much as I consider Stalin a product of this bureaucracy. Stalin and the bureaucracy became dynamically fused to one another via mutual self-interest. The banning of factions, one of the major fuck ups of the revolutionary government in 1921, only heightened these contradictions as the Bolshevik party became the primary avenue for naked opportunism.
The Russian revolution was revolutionary and proletariat via the soviets, but when the productive capacity was crushed and the soviets were banned, robbed of the productive base and therefore the concrete power of the workers, what was left? There was no proletarian power represented in the government, especially as Stalin started replacing the old Bolsheviks, who at least had an ideological commitment to worker power, with people loyal to him and the wider project. This bureaucracy had a bourgeois character because it was a middle administrative class ascentionist project, like we’ve seen historically overthrow and maintain power over aristocracies. And honestly I don’t hate this. Lenin would have accepted a bourgeois revolution that completely overthrew the Tsar over a socialist revolution that regressed back into Tsarism. Stalin was extremely moderate toward bourgeois revolution, and Trotsky would have been fine with it too if he had taken leadership. That was what existed, that was all that was left, and that is what persisted into the future. The ideological commitment to socialism was admirable but mixed in that where there was no material basis for socialism it could only exist ideologically.
Here we may run into conflict between definitions of socialism, since I know you define socialism in an AES kind of way, where as I define it as a practical progressive struggle. We’ve discussed this before. Socialism is a movement of the mass base for the class interests of this base, demcent is a way for the masses to appoint leaders in a transparent Democratic way, and communicate material conditions across the uneven development of the proletarian movement, not for leaders to institute top-down discipline. The leaders submit to the discipline of the mass movement, not the other way around, which is bourgeois centralism. In Russia, the proletarian mass movement was crushed by the Capitalists and Tsarists, and what was left over was admittedly much better than what would have come without the revolutionary leadership of the Bolsheviks. But when the base was crushed what was left was a deeply troubled state apparatus that had a distinct class character that could never have been proletarian. Like I said, this is a quirk of history, a consequence of a socialist worker revolution in a country that was deeply blended between peasant and proletarian in character.
My understanding comes from Trotsky’s works, so HRR, HRR through Brest Litovsk, and Revolution Betrayed; Paul Averich’s Kronstadt 1917; essays by Loren Goldner, and other sources. I find it a little annoying that you brought up the “justification” as if I’m just making shit up. I understand that my “left Trot” political orientation probably auto disqualifies me from a certain perspective. But I’ll def consider any other justifications, articles def appreciated if they pointedly address some of the points I’ve made.
There are more than a few problems I have with your portrayal of events and class composition. I respect your sticking to your principles, but I have some heavy departures, both theoretically and historically.
First, I am well aware that the composition of Bolsheviks became very mixed in a tumultuous wartime environment. This cannot really be denied, nor would I want to. What I want to push back on, however, is the notion that this resulted in a bourgeois character. The industrial base was destroyed, correct, and so it was rebuilt, first focusing on agrarian production, and next on industrial production. Soviets became the basis of the Soviet Union, and by 1936 the Soviet Union had established an industrial and agricultural base that far exceeded pre-war levels.
What happened was that soviet democracy was implemented, and the party became integrated and was composed of the working classes and the newly rejuvenated workers and peasants. Stalin was not some bourgeois figure, nor was the party in opposition to socialism. The bourgeois character did not appear until Khrushchev’s era, growing under Gorbachev and then succeeding in counter-revolution.
Second, the banning of factionalism was necessary and correct. Undermining democratic centralism and establishing wedges by which to break apart the unity of the socialist system would have been catastrophic, and the fifth column elements that existed within the Soviet Union represented a very clear demonstration of such a danger.
The actual class character of the CPSU was proletarian. The bourgeois elements of society, including kulaks, had been liquidated as a firm class by 1936 or so. The devastation of World War II severely weakened the Soviet Union, however, and these cracks grew into weaknesses exploited by the bourgeoisie that had risen again under Khrushchev, resulting in counterrevolution.
For recommended reading, I have 2 good, wildly different options. The first is This Soviet World, written in 1936 by a Statesian journalist named Anna Louise Strong. The earlier chapters are enormously beneficial for understanding the class composition of society and the party, how it integrated with the masses, their relationship, and more, though the whole book is great (mind the dated language surrounding ethnicity, though). The second recommendation is Losurdo’s Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend. Written after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Losurdo gives a very compelling analysis of the legend of Stalin, moreso than a history of the figure himself. Through this framework, it becomes much easier to see a retrospective on the entire Stalin era of the USSR. Both taken together give a multi-sided view.