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The Soviet Union Versus Socialism
by Noam Chomsky
When the world\u2019s two great propaganda systems agree on
some doctrine, it requires some intellectual e\ue000\ue000ort to escape
its shackles. One such doctrine is that the society created
by Lenin and Trotsky and molded \ue000urther by Stalin and his
successors has some relation to socialism in some meaning-
\ue001ul or historically accurate sense o\ue001 this concept. In \ue001act, i\ue001
there is a relation, it is the relation o\ue001 contradiction.
It is clear enough why both major propaganda systems
insist upon this \ue001antasy. Since its origins, the Soviet State
has attempted to harness the energies o\ue001 its own popula-
tion and oppressed people elsewhere in the service o\ue000
the men who took ad vantage o\ue001 the popular \ue001erment in
Russia in 1917 to seize State power. One major ideologi-

cal weapon employed to this end has been the claim that the State managers are leading their own society and the world towards the socialist ideal; an impossibility, as any

THE
Mor mon
Worker
\u201cI Teach Them Correct Principles and They Govern Themselves\u201d \u2013joseph smith
Issue 4
July 2008
\u25a0The Soviet Union Versus Socialismby Noam Chomsky
\u25a0N a t i o n a l \u201c Fl a g o p h i l i a\u201dby Ron Madson
\u25a0 Why an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified
by Norman G. Finkelstein
\u25a0 Interview with Stanley Hauerwas
Interviewed by Joshua Madson for The Mormon Worker
\u25a0 Racism, Violence and the United States, Pt. II:
Torture and Lynchingby Spencer Kingman

\u25a0 A Letter to the Presidentby Abdullah Mulhim
\u25a0 The Weapon Called the Wordby Jeremy Cloward
\u25a0 What Does It Mean To Follow Jesus Christ Today?

by Cory Bushman

\u25a0 The Resurrection of May Dayby Gregory Van Wagenen
\u25a0Why Would We Go To War With Iran?by Stephen Wellington
\u25a0 To Towel or Not to Towel?by Emily Bushman
\u25a0 A Brief History of US Efforts to Promote Civil War

in Iraqby William Van Wagenen
\u25a0 Book Review: Building the City of God Community and
Cooperation Among the MormonsReview by Jason Brown
\u25a0Co nt r i b u to r s
\u25a0N av i g at i o n
\u25baHold your mouse cursor on the name o\ue000 an author to see
a brie\ue000 bio and an introduction to his or her article
\u25baClick on the name o\ue000 an article to go there
\u25ba
INDEX
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2
The Mormon Worker\u25c6Issue 4
\u25ba
socialist\u2014surely any serious Marxist\u2014should have under-
stood at once (many did), and a lie o\ue001 mammoth propor-
tions as history has revealed since the earliest days o\ue001 the
Bolshevik regime. The taskmasters have attempted to gain
legitimacy and support by exploiting the aura o\ue001 socialist
ideals and the respect that is rightly accorded them, to
conceal their own ritual practice as they destroyed every
vestige o\ue001 socialism.
As \ue000or the world\u2019s second major propaganda system, as-
sociation o\ue000 socialism with the Soviet Union and its clients

serves as a power\ue001ul ideological weapon to en\ue001orce con- \ue001ormity and obedience to the State capitalist institutions, to ensure that the necessity to rent onesel\ue001 to the owners

and managers o\ue000 these institutions will be regarded as
virtually a natural law, the only alternative to the \u2018social-
ist\u2019 dungeon. The Soviet leadership thus portrays itsel\ue001 as
socialist to protect its right to wield the club, and Western

ideologists adopt the same pretense in order to \ue001orestall the threat o\ue001 a more \ue001ree and just society. This joint attack on socialism has been highly e\ue001\ue001ective in undermining it in the modern period.

One may take note o\ue001 another device used e\ue001\ue001ectively
by State capitalist ideologists in their service to exist-
ing power and privilege. The ritual denunciation o\ue000 the

so-called \u2018socialist\u2019 States is replete with distortions and o\ue001ten outright lies. Nothing is easier than to denounce the o\ue001\ue000cial enemy and to attribute to it any crime: there is no need to be burdened by the demands o\ue001 evidence or logic as one marches in the parade. Critics o\ue001 Western violence

A Note to Our Readers

The Mormon Worker is an independent newspaper/jour- nal devoted to Mormonism and radical politics. It is pub- lished by members o\ue001 the LDS Church. The paper is mod- eled a\ue001ter the legendary Catholic Worker which has been in publication \ue001or over seventy years.

The primary objective o\ue001 The Mormon Worker is to mean- ing\ue001ully connect core ideas o\ue001 Mormon theology with a host o\ue001 political, economic, ecological, philosophical, and social topics.

Although most contributors o\ue001 The Mormon Worker are members o\ue001 the LDS church, some are not, and we accept submissions \ue001rom people o\ue001 varying secular and religious backgrounds.

The opinions in The Mormon Worker are not the o\ue001\ue000cial
view o\ue001 The Church o\ue001 Jesus Christ o\ue001 Latter-day Saints.
In solidarity,
The Mormon Worker
THE MORMON WORKER
140 West Oak Circle
Woodland Hills, UT 84653
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The Soviet Union Versus Socialism
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INDEX
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The Mormon Worker\u25c6Issue 4
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and atrocities o\ue000ten try to set the record straight, recog-
nizing the criminal atrocities and repression that exist
while exposing the tales that are concocted in the service
o\ue000 Western violence. With predictable regularity, these
steps are at once interpreted as apologetics \ue000or the empire

o\ue001 evil and its minions. Thus the crucial Right to Lie in the Service o\ue001 the State is preserved, and the critique o\ue001 State violence and atrocities is undermined.

It is also worth noting the great appeal o\ue000 Leninist
doctrine to the modern intelligentsia in periods o\ue000 confict

and upheaval. This doctrine a\ue001\ue001ords the \u2018radical intellectu- als\u2019 the right to hold State power and to impose the harsh rule o\ue001 the \u2018Red Bureaucracy,\u2019 the \u2018new class,\u2019 in the terms

o\ue000 Bakunin\u2019s prescient analysis a century ago. As in the
Bonapartist State denounced by Marx, they become the
\u2018State priests,\u2019 and \u201cparasitical excrescence upon civil so-
ciety\u201d that rules it with an iron hand.
In periods when there is little challenge to State capital-

ist institutions, the same \ue001undamental commitments lead the \u2018new class\u2019 to serve as State managers and ideologists, \u201cbeating the people with the people\u2019s stick,\u201d in Bakunin\u2019s words. It is small wonder that intellectuals \ue000nd the transi-

tion \ue000rom \u2018revolutionary Communism\u2019 to \u2018celebration o\ue000 the
West\u2019 such an easy one, replaying a script that has evolved
\ue000rom tragedy to \ue000arce over the past hal\ue000 century. In essence,
all that has changed is the assessment o\ue000 where power lies.
Lenin\u2019s dictum that \u201csocialism is nothing but state capitalist
monopoly made to bene\ue000t the whole people,\u201d who must o\ue001
course trust the benevolence o\ue000 their leaders, expresses the
perversion o\ue001 \u2018socialism\u2019 to the needs o\ue001 the State priests,
and allows us to comprehend the rapid transition between
positions that super\ue000cially seem diametric opposites, but
in \ue001act are quite close.
The terminology o\ue000 political and social discourse is
vague and imprecise, and constantly debased by the contri-
butions o\ue001 ideologists o\ue001 one or another stripe. Still, these
terms have at least some residue o\ue001 meaning. Since its ori-
gins, socialism has meant the liberation o\ue000 working people

\ue001rom exploitation. As the Marxist theoretician Anton Pan- nekoek observed, \u201cthis goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class substitut-

ing itsel\ue000 \ue000or the bourgeoisie,\u201d but can only be \u201crealized
by the workers themselves being master over production.\u201d

Mastery over production by the producers is the essence o\ue001 socialism, and means to achieve this end have regularly been devised in periods o\ue001 revolutionary struggle, against the bitter opposition o\ue001 the traditional ruling classes and

the \u2018revolutionary intellectuals\u2019 guided by the common
principles o\ue000 Leninism and Western managerialism, as
adapted to changing circumstances. But the essential ele-
ment o\ue000 the socialist ideal remains: to convert the means o\ue000
production into the property o\ue000 \ue000reely associated producers

and thus the social property o\ue001 people who have liberated themselves \ue001rom exploitation by their master, as a \ue001unda- mental step towards a broader realm o\ue001 human \ue001reedom.

The Leninist intelligentsia have a di\ue000\ue000erent agenda. They
\ue000t Marx\u2019s description o\ue001 the \u2018conspirators\u2019 who \u201cpreempt
the developing revolutionary process\u201d and distort it to their
The Soviet Union Versus Socialism
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