No Marx!
In their article “Revisiting Marx and Liberalism,” the authors, Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel, repeat the old myth that “socialism for Marx is the first stage of communism.”
Marx and Engels, as anyone who is familiar with their writings knows, used the terms ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ interchangeably to describe what they stood for. They did not think of them as separate systems of society but merely as different names for a system based on the social or common ownership of the means of production.
Why they used one and then the other was explained quite clearly by Engels in one of the prefaces he wrote to the Communist Manifesto. Nevertheless the myth still persists that Socialism and Communism are two different systems of society and not alternative names for the same society.
For Marx (and Engels), Socialism/Communism referred to a wageless, moneyless, stateless society based on common ownership where the lower phase would be without free access and the higher stage would include free access.
It was Lenin who distorted this view of Marx and claimed that the lower stage, which he (Lenin) called ‘socialism’, retained the state and wage-slavery and which in reality was nothing more than State-Capitalism.
Once you realise that Lenin was not a Marxist and that the Russian social system, under the so-called Communist Party, was State Capitalism (which eventually transformed itself into full blown market Capitalism in the last few decades) then there is no difficulty in recognising, along with Marx and Engels, that Socialism and Communism are just two alternative ways of referring to a society based on genuine common ownership.
4 comments:
Hello, Socialist Party of Great Britain. Would you be able to recommend a scientific article or book that defends the interpretations you advocate (that socialism and communism are interchangeable, the Soviet Union was not socialist, but state capitalist and Lenin misrepresented Marx)? I am very interested in exploring this perspective.
Thank you very much.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1969/no-781-september-1969/lenin-twists-marxism
http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2010/02/myth-of-transitional-society.html
you may wish the authority of others, not so partisan.
Andrew Kliman,
'The idea of a transitional society—an intermediate society in between capitalism and socialism—makes little sense within the context of Marx’s thought. It does make sense given some other conceptions of capitalism and socialism, but not Marx’s. For instance, the idea of a transitional society makes perfect sense if one thinks, as Lenin and Trotsky and Mao did, that capitalism is private ownership while socialism is state ownership. In that case, there is indeed a third kind of society in between them, in which there’s both private and state ownership. And the move from capitalism to socialism is thus a transition, from less to more to complete state ownership.
And there are other conceptions of social change in which the idea of a transitional society also makes perfect sense. For instance, one idea that has recently been popular is that the new society is the completed process of occupying space and establishing new forms of organization on occupied space. On this conception, there is again a third kind of society in between capitalism and the new society, a society with elements of both of them, and the move from capitalism to the new society is again a process of transition––in this case, the quantitative increase in occupied space and new forms of organization.
But the idea of a transitional society in between capitalism and socialism isn’t coherent as a Marxian concept...Capitalism is based on the mode of production; socialism is based on the socialist mode of production. If there is a third kind of society in between them, what is its mode of production? Capitalism is governed by the law of value (in Marx’s sense) and related economic imperatives that are specific to it. Socialism is not. What about the third, distinct kind of society that supposedly lies in between them? Is it governed by these specifically capitalist laws and imperatives, or is it not?”
Paul Robeson Jnr
'In The State and Revolution, Lenin merged socialism with the first phase of communism by quoting selectively from Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program and then claiming, incorrectly, that 'the social order termed by Marx the first phase of communism' was 'usually called socialism.' '
http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue24/robeso24.htm
Paresh Chattopadhyay - 'Marx does not distinguish between communism and socialism. Both stand for the society succeeding capitalism. (The distinction was first to be made famous, if not introduced, by Lenin)'.
Hillel Ticktin "The fundamental aspect of a communist or socialist society (I make no distinction between the two) is that for the first time a society is planned by the associated producers themselves." http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/652/ticktin.htm
'Now it is true that the distinction between socialism and communism was actually made and employed by Lenin, Trotsky and so forth. But they put inverted commas around the word ‘socialism’: ie, so-called socialism.'
James Cannon
Q: Is there socialism in the Soviet Union?
A: No—well, I would like to clarify that now. Socialism and communism are more or less interchangeable terms in the Marxist movement. Some make a distinction between them in this respect; for example, Lenin used the expression socialism as the first stage of communism, but I haven’t found any other authority for that use. I think that is Lenin’s own particular idea. I, for example, consider the terms socialism and communism interchangeable, and they relate to the classless society based on planned production for use as distinct from a system of capitalism based on private property and production for profit.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1941/socialism/ch02.htm
You may also be interested in Hal Drapers analysis of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
https://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1962/xx/dictprolet.html
Thank you very much, guys! That's indeed a very complete reference, with different names but similar ideas to explore, all written according to each person's model and style.
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