<<< via P_news >>> CONSERVATIVE STATE CAPITALISM IN THE USSR The original ideas of Marx have been distorted over time by various interpretations and altered by the dynamics of change. Various Marxist-like philosophical tendancies have often taken on new names such as Kautskyism, Trotskyism, Marxist-Leninism, Stalinism, Anarcho-Socialism, Social Democracy, Marxist Revisionism, and on and on, etc. But to lump them all together is like lumping all the various Capitalist applications together. Marx advocated that societies would be classless and stateless, societies free of public coercive institutions. What is and what ought to be are not the same and some always believed that these views were worthy goals but unrealistic and utopian. In the Soviet Union the core of power was the *nomenklatura*, a ruling class of bureaucrats. All has changed but the power elite, that ruling, managing nomenklatura. And as often happens with rapid political change, the pendulum swings too far before it settles back to the middle (or was there another motive for economic change?). In the CIS it would seem they have been, to use the metaphor, throwing out the baby with the bath water. And there is no democracy. Where are the "free" elections? At least it doesn't resemble what we would consider to be a democracy. And why were the coup plotters arrested and handed over to doctors? Now in jail (for common criminals) these political prisoners receive no visitors and no food packets from outside... A rule of law based on justice must be developed and some kind of Bill of Rights. Why has so little been written by the Soviets or any outside observers about the wellbeing and ulterior motives of these former men of power? But while that may not be so strange under the circumstances, especially if intrigue is involved, isn't it even a little bit suspicious that there is this conspiracy of silence? And even our own gutless, subservient to power, "mainstream" press is almost totally silent over these events. Not unlike they were during the Gulf War. Where is the "free press," afterall, that claims to be so open and invasive in a free society? What investigative reporter or team is ambitious enough or prepared to disclose the truth? Perhaps there was no conspiracy and these were just a natural unfolding of events, but I have worked long enough for our own military and government for men of power to know capitalist conspiracies do exist (and secret means are used to achieve their aims) here and most certainly they exist there. It would be interesting also to followup on these conspiracy theories. What intrigue precipitated the coup and the counter- coup? Or were the coup-plotters (so-called) really the counter-coup plotters? Or were they apart of a larger conspiracy to make them also rich men and they just got cold feet? Or were they jealous men who didn't like the way power was being divided? Will we ever know? Why have so many of them committed suicide under very suspicious circumstances? The Russians are very good at plotting. They play excellent chess. And isn't it ironic that Yeltsin invited Radio Free Europe to open up a bureau in Moscow immediately after the coup? The breadbasket of the USSR has become an importer of grain. The Soviet Union has become rife with drunks, thieves, absenteeism, drug abuse, organized crime. Social corrosion has occured rapidly. One day a society may look fine and almost overnight everything appears different. And divorce rates are up. More than half of all marriages end in divorce in Russia. There is widescale apathy and disatisfaction.... As with anyone, everyday problems rank the highest. When the counter-coup took place, there were not tremendous numbers of people in the streets. That only happened afterward. There wasn't the widescale strike that Yeltsin called for. People at first tend to go with the flow. When the Yeltsin victory was assured, they came into the streets, like mobs, to take down the statues. What about that spirit and pride most Soviets had for Lenin, that so many visited his tomb, and the tomb of the war heroes before the counter-revolution, and the adulation that was shown for their revolutinary founding fathers? Even Stalin? Has the mood really changed that much or did the power elite want to own the means of production instead of just managing them? Polls have been taken and most of the people do not favor Yeltsin's reforms. Nor do they appear to be in favor of a complete shift to capitalism, yet that is where they are headed. TV crews talked to people in the street and the most vocal of those people spoke out. But what of the silent majority? In 20 years of economic decline, the mood has certainly changed, but what of the millions of supporters of socialism? All this is showing us is there are opportunists, oppositionists and various tendancies within the Soviet Union, and now a shift in power, which surely also have had the clandestine support of Western capitalists. The West long viewed the communists as being a huge monolith, controlled from Moscow. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even "Marxists" have long been on opposing sides. There was Kautsky opposing Luxemburg , Plekhanov opposing Lenin, Stalin opposing Trotsky; The Anarchist, Emma Goldman, when she visited the Soviet Union disagreed with Lenin and most Marxists condemn Joe Stalin and Pol Pot. Western capitalists, the captains of industry and monopolists used that as a ruse to keep us from blaming them and a government that was never responsive to human needs. The "evil empire" was to be feared as the cause of all that was bad in the world. Engels said that Marxism was "not a dogma, but a guide to action." If indeed this is so, and I believe it is, then this philosophy of a classless society must evolve and is a developing theory to be based on "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Trotsky said that "Marxism is above all a method of analysis." I think the Swedish socialist model is a mixed economy that has some elements of socialism and they work. Of course Sweden is neither imperialist nor have they had war for 200 years... The socialism of Lenin and Stalin gave rise to a conservative state capitalism, wherein a social class, the nomenklatura was created to benefit from capital accumulation of the state, a class that played the same historical role as the bourgeoisie in other capitalist countries. Marx believed the state when it became an instrument of class rule would not succeed since the same contradictions would exist as exists under capitalism. And Trotsky called the "social-patriotism" of the Russians, the disintegration of socialism because it also promoted a crude nationalist chauvinism that was antagonistic to every national grouping within the USSR. The humanist existentialism of Marx, it seems as Marx predicted could not be realized in the Soviet Union. Did Gorbachev, the first lawyer to lead the Union since Lenin have some notion of this and attempted to reform the system? And during that process a conspiracy developed, led by members of the nomenklatura to make themselves very rich men. It remains yet to be seen what the outcome of all this change will be? More capitalism or Social Democracy. A despotic dictatorship? Another revolution? If anything remains certain there will be more upheaval in the former Soviet Union. Hank Roth odin@world.std.com ***************************************************************** P_news (Progressive News & Views), a national echo conference on FidoNETs. 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