A DEBATE ON MARX, LENIN AND THE SOVIET UNION

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In what way is Lenin's interpretation of Marx a departure from Marx's thought?

Lenin's theory is often considered to be a logical development of Marx's in the sense of adding practise to Marx's theory. Yet Marx's own theory was closely tied to practise. Marx, in contrast to Lenin, saw communism as arising from a highly developed capitalism; his theory envisaged a working class that would be able to take on capitalism world-wide or face further defeats.
Lenin's analysis proceeds from the assumption that a minority working class in Russia (and soon thereafter the Soviet Union) would be able to inspire workers and peasants in other countries to seize state power - and not abolish the state as in Marx's analysis and political thought - and gradually, by power of persuasion and violence, bring the other - often hostile - classes round to joining the struggle for communism.
Thesis: Lenins's analysis represents a rupture with Marx's. It proceeds from very different assumptions about social classes and their behaviour, their relationship to the state, and the prospects of minorities gaining power and introducing social changes with political and, if need be, violent means.
Marx's assumption is that the working class will be powerful because of its numerical superiority combined with its ability to control the most vital sectors of industry: the struggle becomes one of social power in the broadest sense against political power in the narrower sense (as state power). It is not based on one or two underdeveloped states (Lenin had, of course, hoped that a relatively advanced Germany - albeit one crippled by war and dictated to by the Entente, of which the USA was already the major force - would be able to tip the scales. By the time of his death he realised that the chances of any further move towards socialism [let along communism] were declining rapidly. See his Speeches at the Party Congresses, where he admits one wrong decision after another.

Robin Benson · Jan 27, 2012

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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  class consciousness from without, a strict divison between social-democracy and revolutionary socialism, identification of state and party, a theory of imperialism and monopoly capital and its impacts on the theory of socialist revolution and the exploitation (use) of national and peasant questions for socialist revolutionary start. I think that these are the contributions made by Lenin, who strictly follows Marx's "grand theory", logic and strategy.

  Sakthee Ananth likes this · Like · Jan 27, 2012
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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  first, socialist build-up started with Stalin's period rather than in Lenin's. Second, workers' state cannot exploite workers. Meaning of surplus value begins to change. A bureaucratic ruling group cannot be seen as capitalists. For this reason, I had suggested you use a different theory suitable for socialist societies having transient forms and contents.

  Like · May 4, 2012

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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  capitalism cannot defined "as a social form based on the generalsied exploitation of wage labour". Putting aside "wage labour", general exploitation is valid all class societies in history. For capitalism as a specific mode of production, you need first "capital relation" and hence "the commodification of labour power". In the socialist systems of the twentieth century, you had no "capital relation due to the absence of the capitalists" and second, labour power was not a commodity as no private capitalist could employ workers in return of surplus value and accumulate private capital. State extracted a part of total social surplus value in the form of collective, social fund to redistribute for social purposes.
  Whether theory of value operated or not was an intense debate during the 1930s. It partially did in the form of wage differentiation. But since there was no capitalist market; wages and money calculations were based on planning decisions. Therefore, the theory as the base of capitalism did not exist.

  Like · May 8, 2012
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  Robin Benson · VHS Schöneberg, Übersetzungsdienst Benson

  I disagree with your assumptions.

  Like · May 8, 2012
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  Robin Benson · VHS Schöneberg, Übersetzungsdienst Benson

  „In der Tat ist die kapitalistische Produktionsweise die Warenproduktion als allgemeine Form der Produktion, aber sie ist es nur und wird es stets mehr in ihrer Entwicklung, weil die Arbeit hier selbst als Ware erscheint.., weil der Arbeiter die Arbeit, d.h. die Fähigkeit seiner Ar-beitskraft verkauft" (Marx, Das Kapital, Bd. II, S. 88)
  "Indeed, the capitalist mode of production is commodity production as the general form of production, however, it is only so, and becomes increasingly so in the course of its development, because labour itself appears as a commodity in this context... because the worker sells his ability to work." [Instead of "ability to work" this is also frequently translated as "labour power"
  That is the basis of my definition of capitalism.

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  Generalization of commodity production and commodification of labour power: Yes, you are, like Marx, correct.
  Was labour power commodity in the Soviet socialism? Answer is No. Was it the Soviet system that produced for profit, interest and rent as the shares of total surplus value? Did it have Donald Trump, Citi Group, General Motors, for instance? Answer is No. But, surplus was socialized, collectivized, and the distributed by Gosplan in the main. It was socialized, collectivized, and the distributed by, with, and through by the state, which was socialist despite its all drawbacks, defects, shortcomings.

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Robin Benson · VHS Schöneberg, Übersetzungsdienst Benson

  The workers worked for a wage, in other words they sold their labour power. In their act of selling their labour power to the company bosses it became a commodity.

  Modified 17 days ago by the author

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  Company bosses? Do you mean public managers, public servants, senior officials? Are those capitalists with having property right for the appropriation of surplus?

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Robin Benson · VHS Schöneberg, Übersetzungsdienst Benson

  If I understand your question correction, you would like to know my views on how the surplus created in production was appropriated and distributed.

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  No, I meant that, they were not bosses.

  Like · 17 days ago
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  Robin Benson · VHS Schöneberg, Übersetzungsdienst Benson

  I doubt very much whether any worker in the former Eastern Bloc countries would agree with that statement! And I have met quite a few in East Germany and Czechoslovakia.
  I'd like to know what you mean by a boss.

  Like · 16 days ago
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  Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ercan Gündoğan · The American University Girne-Cyprus

  I mean simply capitalist, owner of the means of production, not public servants fulfilling managerial functions in the publicly owned companies, cooperatives, etc.