Marcel van der Linden

Generally pretty fascinating survey. The author does his best to explain each view in very limited space and generally does a good job (although sometimes the differences between some of the more similar views slipped by me). He also made me more sympathetic to the "ortho-Trot" viewpoints, which I realised I'd misunderstood for a while. Very different to the Cliffite stuff I'd been exposed to.

Special shout out to all the views based around "Asiatic despotism" or "the Asiatic mode of production" (primarily Wittfogel descendants - awful man) which take a very rough rarely mentioned point from Marx and extend it really far to produce a racist, orientalist view of socialist states which explains nothing at all and deliberately bends the facts to fit the absurd theory. Some of these people saw Russia becoming "Asiatic" through the invasion of the Mongols! Surely a valuable way of analysing the USSR in 1970.

The conclusion of "none of these theories work in terms of 'orthodox Marxism'" is basically the extent of explicit editorialising the author offers but it's not meant as a criticism necessarily but more something important to point out because trying to fit everything into a framework sketched out 150 years ago is really constricting and whether something is "orthodox Marxist" isn't very important - or rather, it shouldn't be, as long as the framework created afterwards is still consistent and a useful way of analysing society. The meta theoretical note in the appendix is actually quite thought provoking, even though it's only a few pages - just some notes on what a "political theory" consists of and how political theories are attacked and changed… (mere)

Marxist Explanations of the USSR

Though leftists (especially Marxists!) are as guilty of closing ranks when attacked by outsiders as anyone, they (again, most especially Marxists) were also well aware early on of the problematical nature of the USSR. Liberal leftists and trendy radicals, however (in my experience), were the easiest to dupe into believing that the USSR was a model to follow.

This excellent book gives a detailed history and discussion of the evolution of the Marxist critique of the Soviet Union. Is the USSR an example of 'State Capitalism' or is it merely a 'degenerated' workers' state? If the former then it is no longer an entity that Communists and the broader Left automatically need defend. If the latter? Well, rally round the red flag boys...

And what if it has an entirely new 'mode of production' with a 'new class' to boot? A new Mode of Production was often thought to be the worst possibility. If an entirely new economic formation arises -that is neither capitalist nor socialist (and it is also not a return to some earlier economic system)- then it was feared that Marxism, which does not predict any new mode of production (besides socialism), would be falsified. On the other hand, I think that any purported new class could be palmed off as being merely circumstantial by arguing that it parasitical on the real relations of production peculiar to the USSR in its unique situation, - and thus it is not theoretically decisive.

A New Mode of Production, I think, was always the beating heart of the matter. Thus, whether one called it an entirely new 'bureaucratic collectivism' or a reversion to pre-modern 'oriental despotism' the status of Marxist theory was equally thought to be in question. After all, even a reversion to an earlier economic mode of production might indicate that Marxist 'progressivism' had been falsified.

I know; being interested in this sort of thing is a confession of age. But back in the seventies we were all focused on these issues. Today, I fear it is only quaint.… (mere)