this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Capitalism drives pollution because the cheapest path to profit is also destructive towards the environment, and legislating against the profit motive is difficult because the state serves Capitalists.
Socialism fixes this by valuing needs and uses over profit.
The Soviet Union failed to properly implement environmental protections because climate science wasn't as developed and the Soviet Union was a developing country.
While yes, a socialist country would have other priorities but let's also not forget that the USSR wasn't socialist. Before Stalin it had the potential to be sometime in the future but that got sidelined at best.
The USSR was a Worker State, it was Socialist. It was a highly flawed Socialist State in many ways, but it was still fundamentally Socialist.
On what grounds do you believe the USSR was not Socialist? We can certainly debate effectiveness, but I haven't seen a genuine Marxist argument for why the USSR wasn't Socialist.
Workers had no control over the means of production. Those were owned by the party which was just another form of bourgeoisie rule. A good example of that was the insane amount of nepotism in the party leading to appointment of friends and relatives with no competency who went against the wishes of the workers. Trofim Lysenko for example was appointed by Stalin and his policies forced farmers to basically kill their crops leading to mass famines in the USSR and those that didn't were declared fascists, traitors or something along those lines.
It's not socialist if the workers lack any control.
It was a planned economy by the workers, expressed through the party. This is not bourgeois rule, that's vibes-based analysis. The Workers fundamentally had control, even if flawed.
It was corrupt, correct. That doesn't make it Capitalist.
Planned by the party, not the workers. Workers lacked any voice in the party, it was no different than any other authoritarian rule in that aspect.
I grew up in the USSR, nearby farms were controlled by a kolhoos which was headed by someone important in the party, the farmers had no say in what was to be produced or to who their produce goes to, only the party decided that. The same control existed for every other industry, party gave the orders with no input from a single worker, commonly even going against workers in their orders.
I would love a system where workers actually controlled the means of production but the USSR was not that.
The state was run by the party, and the party was run and elected by the workers. The concept of a dominant political party is in line with Marxism, and is not indicative of Capitalism.
The workers elected the people making decisions. They did not vote on the decisions themselves, correct. The USSR was not a direct democracy. Direct Democracy is not a requiremeny for Socialism.
I think it would do you good to revisit Marxism and better understand what a Class actually is. Yes, the USSR was flawed, but it was also Socialism. The former Soviet States are now Capitalist at best, and fascist at worst, and function completely differently from when they were in the USSR.
Additionally, unless you're extremely old, you experienced the period of liberalization before collapse, not the peak of Socialism.
I never said a direct democracy is needed but worker control of the means of production is, in the USSR workers did not have that. Pretty much all meaningful elections in the USSR were held within the party by the party, not by the workers. The party was a bourgeoisie ruling class with vastly different class interests which is why the USSR was not socialist.
That goes directly against historical records.
The party was of the workers and had open elections among the workers. Opposition parties were banned, but that does not mean it wasn't open.
The Party was absolutely not Bourgeoisie. The fact that workers owned the state and the party ran the state does not mean that the Party were bourgeois. This is a ridiculous notion, akin to saying middle-management in a Capitalist enterprise are bourgeoisie because they run much of Capitalist companies.
The party had the same class interests because there was no M-C-M' circuit by which state planners pocketed all of the profits. Production was directed by the state and flowed back to the workers in the form of free education, health care, pensions, and other worker-directed benefits. It was not used among competing Capitalists to gain monopoly and increase exploitation.
You should reread Marx, your understanding of class dynamics is highly flawed.
If you read your own source you will find that soviet democracy pretty much fell in 1921 and with the death of Lenin it was gone. Which was my original statement that with Stalin any hope for socialism was gone. So my point of it being bourgeoisie rule stands.
If you read the source you will see it continued, lol. Read the section by Pat Sloan.
Still more important, you have yet to explain why you believe the USSR was run by privatized corporations and Capitalists that competed in an open market producing commodities as the standard.
I did but that section definitely does not reflect what life was for a worker in the USSR after Stalin so I'm curious when he participated in that election.
I did not say that capitalists were in power what I said was that the party was in power. There aren't just 2 options, a monarchy for example is commonly neither capitalist nor socialist.
Hey, feel free to find scholarly sources, I'm down to read. Even you yourself said there were elections though.
You did say Capitalists were in power, you said the party was Bourgeoisie. That means they were Capitalists, which is obviously wrong and that's why I think you should read Marx.
Again, not saying the USSR was perfect. It was indeed corrupt and had multiple failures under its belt, but it was history's largest example of a Socialist society.
I already checked the book where the quote is from and it doesn't say when he participated in the election. At least I didn't find it but I can only assume it was before 1921.
I guess bourgeoisie does technically refer to a ruling class in a capitalist society but it's so commonly used to refer to just a ruling class or just who owns the means of production in general conversation that my usage is more colloquial. Like I would also refer to a monarch and the royal family as the bourgeoisie while the society isn't capitalist.
Read the Thurston quote, he directly states that while criticizing Stalin was a terrible idea, Workers had meaningful participation. Again, find sources, I am down to read, but right now it's your word vs historical evidence.
Bourgeoisie only refers to Capitalists in Marxian terms. The aristocracy was not Bourgeoisie, nor were slave owners. Read Marx, it's clear that you don't understand Class. If you refer to Monarchs as bourgeoisie then you've demonstrated that you haven't ever read Marx, because a huge amount of his writing is about how the Bourgeoisie differ from the aristocracy.
Even reading Principles of Communism by Engels could tell you that, and it's a pamphlet.
I'm old, I'm not going to reread all of the things I read in my youth. The usage of bourgeoisie has changed colloquially and I don't really care either, it's irrelevant to the USSR having worker control after Lenin.
The usage of Bourgeoisie has not changed colloquially, that's a deliberate copout. If you are okay to continue misunderstanding Marxism then that's your choice, but please don't pretend to know what you're talking about as it relates to Marxism if you're going to actively reject reading Marx.
As I have said I have read enough Marx in my youth and usage of one word does not change a single part of my argument or any point which was that post Lenin in the USSR workers did not own the means of production.
Also you earlier said that your opinion is supported by historians and I missed that comment then so let me address that: It's supported by one dissenting opinion on the Wikipedia article. The rest of the article agrees with my statement.
Misusing such a basic term such as Bourgeoisie reveals a fundamental lack of understanding of both Capitalism and Socialism, and makes everything else you say suspicious. You have repeatedly stated that Workers did not own the Means of Production without backing any of that up.
It's backed up by multiple sources, hence why I told you to read the Thurston quote, not just the Sloan quote. The USSR continued to have elections and the workers had control according to historical documents, none of the documents listed stated otherwise.
Please provide a source, all you've revealed thus far is a lack of understanding of Marxism on your part.
You provided one source which also lists the Thurston and Sloan quotes as a dissenting opinions to the rest of the article. The Wikipedia article itself states that worker councils lost both their power and ability to vote followed by protests by workers which were violently put down.
Why do I need to provide more sources when the one you provided almost fully agrees with my statement with the exception of one dissenting historian?
The dissent was about efficacy, not the actual presense of a democratic system. Reread the article, lol. Opposition parties were banned, not elections.
It does not agree with you, you misread the article. Both modern historians and opened soviet archives back me up. Since when is "Pat Sloan" and "Robert Thurston" a single historian?
You're deeply unserious.
You know the anarchist group I'm part of had people like you join from time to time that seem more interested in reading, purity testing and just calling other members "bad lefties" instead of taking part in local politics which is our main goal. Calling me unserious while complaining about definitions takes the cake though.
You seem to have misread it more. Yes, parties were banned but so were factions in the bolshevik party, elected city soviets and pretty much all groups outside the party. Meaningful elections happened only inside the party, the elections everyone took part in were for show, they gave no control to the workers. It's all in that source.
If you are interested in how elections were run in the USSR this is pretty much how I remember: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union From what I remember the candidates you could actually vote for were party picks that would do the same thing anyways so your vote was merely symbolic. Over time people cought on to that and voter turnout crashed so hard the party started handing out exotic fruit to people who show up, I got my first orange that way.
If you want to know what happened to the worker councils in the USSR read it here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_council
Pat Sloan probably took part in an election before Stalin, as I previously said, the election process after Lenin was very different. So, yea one dissenting historian.
I'm not purity testing, knowledge of the Bourgeoisie is the basic fundamental of Socialism. If you're rejecting reading and saying it doesn't matter, you probably are a bad leftist.
So now you agree with me, there were elections, and many sources support their efficacy.
You have no evidence about Pat Sloan, and given that his work was published in 1937, it's likely he was talking about the present day for him.
You are indeed deeply unserious.
What I wrote was that workers did not control the means of production, the party did. Having symbolic elections does not give workers any control.
You should find a local political group that actually takes part in local politics, that actually has a chance of bringing about socialist policy. Political book clubs are largely useless and only good for mutual mental masturbation.
You would have to prove the party and the workers entirely distinct.
Assuming I am not involved in local politics because I am more well-read than you is a silly ad hominem attack when logic is exhausted.
Are you saying that if the bolshevik party had 1% workers in it it would count as socialist even though the party had different class interests to the workers and workers had no control over the means of production? If the party was controlled by the workers there would be no need to violently put down mass worker protests.
The assumption was made based on how insufferable some of your ad hominems were and contact with other people who talk like that. Work in effective local politics groups tends to mellow people like this out and makes them less pedantic.
Who in the party represented another class? Workers, and who else? As the USSR liberalized towards the end, there were bourgeois elements added, but for most of the USSR's existence there was no other class.
Calling correcting your misconceptions "ad hominems" is goofy, lmao.
The Wikipedia article you started with had this info. The party was more interested with remaining in power and benefitting it's members than the working class after Lenin. They banned any dissenting voice and cracked down on the working class. They became closer to a royal family in a monarchy with Stalin. And I do repeat that the workers had no control of the means of production after 1924, potentially even after 1921.
So it still had elections, and workers still participated, got it. Via having elections and participating in government, workers can direct production.
What royal family is as large as the USSR's Communist Party and allowed new membership?
Flawed Socialism is still Socialism.
Are you being purposely optuse or bad faith? The elections were symbolic with no effect on production as I already said and provided sources for. It's not socialism if workers have no control over the means of production.
You did not provide sources. There are facts that they existed, and differing opinions on the extent to which workers controlled the Means of Production. The elections did not disappear under Stalin, opposition parties were banned. This means it was flawed, but ultimately still existed, which is my point.
You cannot say that the Means of Production were state owned, and elections regularly practiced, and still say it was not Socialist. We are not arguing with whether or not the USSR was Socialist, but its effectiveness in carrying out the will of the Working Class. That much is obviously not 100%, the party was corrupt, you will not find pushback from me there, but it was Socialist.
You are arguing off of vibes.
The Communist Party was fundamentally not a new class. They did not own the Means of Production any more than the average worker, any worker could join, and the party was massive. A royal family would have engaged in feudalism, but that wasn't the case.
I guess you missed the link I provided: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union
During those elections you were voting for local party picks that all had the same instructions from the party. Who won had no effect on how things were run. The high ups in the party controlled how the means of production were used, not the workers. As you may recall from your own link factions in the party were banned meaning dissent got you ousted.
Elections that don't give workers any control over the means of production are meaningless and not socialism. How many times do I have to repeat this?
Your source backs me up, I read it.
Workers did have control. It was not ironclad, but there also wasn't a separate class, and the interests of the workers were advanced, such as free education, healthcare, etc.
You can repeat that you believe 7 to be equal to 0 all you want, repeating it won't make you correct.
You are arguing off of vibes.
No it doesn't, I read it too. If this has degraded to you just going nuhuh we can call it a day, that's no longer fun.
I think you should look in the mirror before you attack me, lol