National Library of Russia, Plekhanov House

Association for Marxist Social Sciences, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation

International Scientific Conference: «Soviet Union: An Alternative of the Past, or
a Strategic Project for the Future?»
12-13November, 2021, St.-Petersburg

SOVIET UNION: SOCIO-ECONOMIC TYPE,

COLLAPSE AND LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE
Stavros Mavroudeas
Professor of Political Econom y
Panteion University, GREECE
E-m ail: s.m avroudeas@panteion.gr
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 This a hotly debated issue within the Marxist tradition from the very birth of the SU, during its life and
also after its collapse
 Main alternative explanations:
1) Socialist (supporters of the SU)
2) Degenerated workers’ state (main Trotskyist explanation [L.Trotsky, E.Mandel])
3) Degenerated capitalism: State Capitalism (Kautsky, Bordiga, dissenting Trotskyist explanation
[T.Cliff etc.], Bettelheim)
4) Degenerated socialism: State Socialism (Kotz)
5) A new bureaucratic social formation (bureaucratic collectivism [Sweezy], new barbarism [Rizzi,
Castoriades])
 I suggest a different explanation: SU was a socio-economic formation of the dictatorship of the
proletariat (that is a transitional socio-economic formation between capitalism and socialism
characterized by intense class struggle and non-predetermined outcome)
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 The main idea: behind this proposed explanation:

 In class-divided societies class struggle is the moving mechanism (the process that creates
changes and transformations
 In the case of the SU we have a transition back to capitalism and the explicit emergence of class
relations
 These new class relations cannot have appeared ex nihilo. There should bee a progenitor; even a
latent one.
 If this syllogism is correct, then classes and class struggle should have existed – even in latent
and modified forms – during the historical course of the SU
 If we stick to Marx & Engels’ definitions of socialism and communism then classes are abolished
in these two socio-economic formations. But in the immediately proceeding phase (the
dictatorship of the proletariat) classes are present and class struggle is intense.
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 Marx and Engels on the definition of socialism: Socialism is the first stage of communism. It is
characterized by:
 Abolition of classes but the existence of different groups within the workers (differences within the
body of the classless society): "from each according to his contribution, to each according to his
contribution’)
 Abolition of commodity and monetary relations (plan-based distribution)

 Therefore, the law of value operates only modified and only in the sphere of distribution:
remuneration according to the labor contribution, but not in the formation of prices based on
labor values. That is, wage (the price of labor power [but de-commodified] is determined by its
value [although in socialism this is the total labor contribution excluding surplus labor that goes
into investment to grow the socialist economy, that is, it is appropriated socially {by society as a
whole} and not privately {by the private owner of the means of production, i.e. the capitalist}

 Economic planning based on use values (physical quantities or their non-market labour
valuation)
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 Marx and Engels on the definition of communism: Communism is the upper stage of the post-
capitalist tansition. In Communism (the ‘kingdom of freedom’ restrictions on the ability of satisfying
all needs has been largely abolished (due to the rapid increase in labor productivity). Therefore, ‘from
each according to his contribution, to each according to his needs’. That is:

 Elimination of differences between workers

 The law of value is completely abolished (it does not exist even in a modified form).
 Economic plannins is based on use values (physical sizes or their non-market labor valuation)

 Additionally, the state is completely withered away

 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 However, Socialism is preceded by the transitional period (transition from capitalism to socialism)
which the classics called the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is not a short period and it depends
a lot on the initial conditions (ie the level of development and the special features of the specific
capitalism that was overthrown). It has the following characteristics:

 Classes exist and there is intense class struggle

 While the basic means of production must have been socialized, there are still private enterprises
(either from self-employed and/or by capitalists) that are strongly regulated by the state
 There are 2 sectors: the remaining capitalist sector and the newly created socialist sector
(Preohbrazhensky model). Conflict and co-operation. The general direction: transferring smoothly
resources from the former to the latter and gradually withering away the former.
 Market relations still exist but are controlled and regulated

 Economic planning is command-type but it is not completely universal (as a part of the economy
operates with controlled but commodity relations).
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 Struggle concerning the function and the future evolution of the economy (e.g. planning in
shadow prices or in labor and physical quantities?, extend and nature of planning)

 The danger of the restoration of capitalism is real. There is intense class struggle both with the
capitalist remnants and with new social groupings with vague characteristics. On this Mao’s
intervention is of paramount importance: ‘the bourgeoisie that is being reborn from within the
party’). Indeed, historical evidence suggests that the latter was largely born within the party and
from the directors of public enterprises

 Additional levers that foment pro-capitalist tendencies and restoration:

the continuing existence of small commodity production, which push for rebirth of capitalist
commodity production
Problems and contradictions in economic planning that lead to the adoption of quasi-market
mechanisms: planning in shadow market prices (O.Lange: ‘the Marxist LTV is for analysing
capitalism, neoclassical optimization theory is for analysing socialism’)
 The socio-economic nature of the Soviet Union (SU)

 A crucial issue: control over the production (labor) process

 The importance of distinguishing between formal ownership of the means of production (mop)
and their real (effective) control.
 If the workers own the mop (through state ownership) but rea control of the functioning of
the mop is left entirely to specialist-technocrats (which, of course, are necessary) then the
latter, through their real control tend to assume also a ‘latent ownership’ of mop. This later,
with the retreat of the first revolutionary wave, can lead to processes of ‘gentrification’. Part
of the latter is the possibility of this stratum (specialists and also party cadres) to earn better
incomes (not from their labor contribution but from their individual or collective appropriation
of part of the social surplus). These processes of creating an "aristocracy" are gradually
tending to restore capitalism from within socialist sector
 The evolution of the Soviet Union (SU)

 Based on the above described analytical framework, we can distinguish the historical evolution of
the SU as follows:

1) War communism
2) NEP

3) The ambiguous stabilization of Stalin and the first 5-year programs

4) The post-Stalinist slide into commodity relations: a struggle of lines outside the masses and a
gradual movement into capitalist solutions
5) The explosion of contradictions, Gorbachevism and capitalist restoration: through the party
bureaucracy and the layer of technocrats.
 The evolution of the Soviet Union (SU)

 War communism:

 Command economy characterized by the lack of a general economic plan and functioning on
the basis of confronting specific problems
 Imposed by circumstances (civil war etc.) but close to the ‘heart’ of Bolshevics (a swift move
away from capitalism)
 Heroic and amateurish (e.g. the belief that you can do away immediately from money, the
notion of the central bank as a machinegun in the hands of the proletariat that can through
the increase of money supply defund the bourgeoisie)

 It saved the day as an emergency plan during the acute chaos of the civil war
 But it cannot organize and direct a coherently and smoothly functioning transitional
economy
 The evolution of the Soviet Union (SU)

 NEP:

 A necessary retreat in the face of insurmountable problems: a regulated return of market

relations (small commodity and capitalist commodity relations)
 The debate on whether it is a tactical retreat or the road to socialism (Bukharin)

 The class struggle between the old remnants of the bourgeoisie and the new emerging
bourgeois strata and the proletariat
 The evolution of the Soviet Union (SU)

 The ambiguous stabilization of Stalin and the first 5-year programs:

 After several oscillations Stalin moves to the elimination of small commodity and capitalist
commodity relations and towards the overall planification of the economy

 The path-breaking formation of the 5-years plans (preceded by the experience of the GOELRO):
creation of a general planification process and a centrally planned economy
 Problems:
 Lack of democratic participation in the planification process

 Excessive dependence on coercion rather than the ideological struggle for compliance

 Necessary but from a point and onwards excessive emphasis on the production of mop over means of
consumption

 A technicist understanding of problems of planification that led to the adoption of ambiguous methods

 The nominal suppression of bourgeois tendencies has not extinguished them but led that underneath
and intensified them
 The SU experience and lessons for the future of the socialist project

 The post-Stalinist slide into the re-establishment of market (commodity) relations: a struggle of lines
outside the masses and a gradual movement into capitalist solutions

 The explosion of contradictions, Gorbachevism and capitalist restoration: through the party and the
layer of technocrats.
 The SU experience and lessons for the future of the socialist project

 The historical course of the SU and especially its demise from within offers crucial lessons for the
future of the socialist project:
 The importance of workers’ control at the point of production (as opposed to the notion of the
director as a communist (in the beginning) and technical (subsequently) ‘dictator’
 The significance of democratic planification and of the participation of the working masses in the
process: a central plan organized through democratic participation
 The economic plan should move away from market and quasi-market methods. This depends
upon the initial conditions and the extend that the socialist sector expands at the expense of the
capitalist sector
 The relationship of the party with the masses is critical as a latent bourgeoisie tends to be
recreated within the party