Table Of ContentMARXISM AND THE U .S.S.R.
Marxism and the U.S.S.R.
The Theory of Proletarian Dictatorship and
the Marxist Analysis of Soviet Society
Paul BeIlis
© Paul Bellis 1979
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published 1979 by
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British Library Cataloguiag in Publication Data
Bellis, Paul
Marxism and the USSR
I. Russia - Politics and govemment - 1917-
I. Tide
320.9'47'084 DK266
ISBN 978-1-349-04411-5 ISBN 978-1-349-04409-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-04409-2
This book is sold subjeet
to the standard conditions
of the Xet Book A.greement
To the Memory of my Mother
Gwenven Bellis
Contents
Acknowledgements IX
List of Works Cited in Abbreviated Form
X
Introduction
1 The Theoretical Foundations 3
The Dictatorship ofthe Proletariat and the Transition
to Socialism 3
The Commune and After 6
The Economy in the Transition Period 18
Russia and the Proletarian Revolution 25
2 Lenin and the Bolshevik Experience 30
The Soviet Phenomenon 30
A Workers' State with Bureaucratic Distortions 44
3 Trotsky and the Legacy of October 56
Thermidor and Bonapartism 56
The State in the Transition Period: The Co-ordinates
of Bureaucratic Degeneration 69
Politicalor Social Revolution? - The Socio-Economic
Status of the Soviet Bureaucracy 83
4 Bureaucratic Collectivism, State Capitalism, and the
Marxist Theory of the State 93
The Theory of Bureaucratic Collectivism 93
Tony Cliff and the Theory of State Capitalism 114
Stalinism and the Eastern European Revolution 121
5 The Theory ofState Capitalism and the Soviet Economy 129
State Capitalism and Marxist Theory 129
The Law of Value and the Soviet Economy 133
The Permanent Arms Economy 144
Value and Surplus-Value in the Economy of
Transition 150
The First Five-Year Plan and the Law of Primitive
Socialist Accumulation 164
Vll
Contents
Vlll
6 Contemporary State Capitalist and 'New Class' Analyses
of the Soviet Social Formation 173
Bettelheim and the Soviet 'State Bourgeoisie' 173
'New Class' Theories from Eastern Europe 190
Three Conceptions of Soviet State Capitalism:
Dunayevskaya, Mattick, and James 204
Leninism and Libertarian Socialism: Socialisme ou
Barbarie 2 13
7 Conclusions 223
Notes 237
Index 265
Acknowledgements
My principal debt of gratitude is that owed, for his indispensable
guidance, to Dr Terrell Carver, of the Department of Political
Theory and Institutions at the University of Liverpool. I am
grateful to Professor F. F. Ridley for pertinent and valuable advice,
and to the Staff of the U niversity's Sidney Jones Library for their
efficiency in dealing with a pie thora of requests and problems. I
wish, finally, to acknowledge the very real contri bution made by the
late Cynthia Baldry, revolutionary Marxist, on whose suggestion
the research of which this book was the eventual product was
initially undertaken.
Macmillan and I would also like to thank the following
publishers who have kindly given permission for the use ofc opyright
material: Pathfinder Press for the extracts from The Revolution
Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going? by Leon
Trotsky; Penguin Books Ltd and Random House Inc. for the
extracts from Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique ofP olitical Economy
by Karl Marx, translated by Martin Nicholaus (Pelican Books in
association with New Left Review, 1973). Translation copyright©
Martin Nicholaus, 1973. Also Pluto Press Ltd for the extracts from
State Capitalism in Russia by Tony Cliff, and Routledge & Kegan
Paul Ltd for the extracts from Economic Calculation and Forms of
Property by Charles Bettelheim.
We have made every effort to trace all the copyright holders but if
any have inadvertently been overlooked, we will be pleased to make
the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.
June 1978 PAUL BELLIS
IX
List of Works Cited in
Abbreviated Form
ABC Bukharin, Nikolai I vanovich and
Preobrazhensky, Evgeny Alex
eyevich, The ABC rif Communism,
ed. E. H. Carr (Harmondsworth,
1969) .
AD Engels, Frederick, Anti-Dühring: Herr
Eugen Dühring' s Revolution in Science,
Trans. Emile Bums, ed. C. P. Dutt
(London and New York, 1935).
Althusser (1976) Althusser, Louis, Essays in Seif
Criticism, Trans. and intro. Grah
ame Lock (London, 1976).
Anderson (1976) Anderson, Perry, Considerations on
Western Marxism (London, 1976).
Avineri (1971) Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and
Political Thought rif Karl Marx
(Cambridge, 1968, re pr. 1971).
Balibar (1977) Balibar, Etienne, On the Dictatorship oJ
the Proletariat (London, 1977).
Bettelheim (1975) Bettelheim, Charles, The Transition to
Socialist Economy (Hassocks, 1975).
Bettelheim (1976) Bettelheim, Charles, Economic Calcu
lation and Forms rif Property (London,
1976) .
Bettelheim (1977) Bettelheim, Charles, Class Struggles in
the U.S.S.R. First Period: 1917-1923
(Hassocks, 1977).
Binns (1975) Binns, Peter, 'The Theory of State
Capitalism', International Socialism,
no. 74 Oanuary 1975), pp. 20-5·
x
List of Works Cited in Abbreviated Form
Xl
Binns and Hallas (1976) Binns, Peter and Hallas, Duncan,
'The Soviet Union - State Cap
italist or Socialist?', International
Socialism, nO.91 (September 1976),
pp. 16--27.
Biro (1969) I Biro, B., 'Workers' States-Problems
ofTransition', Part I, Marxist Stud
ies, vol. I, no. 4 (1969), pp. 6--20.
Biro (196g) 11 Biro, B., 'Workers' States - Problems
of Transition', Part 11, Marxist
Studies, vol. I, no. 5 (1969), pp. 5-
17·
BR I Carr, Edward Hallett, The Bolshevik
Revolution, 1917-1923, vol. I (Har
mondsworth, 1966, re pr. 1975)'
BR 11 Carr, Edward Hallett, The Bolshevik
Revolution, 1917-1923, vol. 11 (Lon
don, 1952).
Brinton (1970) Brinton, Maurice, The Bolsheviks and
Workers' Control, 1917-1921: The
State and Counter-Revolution (Lon
don, 1970).
Buick (1975) Buick, Adam, 'The Myth ofthe Tran-
sitional Society', Critique, no. 5
(1975), pp. 59-70.
Bukharin, 'Economics' Bukharin, Nikolai I vanovich, Econ-
omics of the Transformation Period
(New York, 1971).
Bukharin, 'Materialism' Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich, Histori-
cal Materialism: A System oJ Sociology
(Michigan, 1969)'
Burnham (1972) Burnham,James, The Managerial Re-
volution (Westport, 194 I, repr.
1972).
CAP I Marx, Karl, Capital, vol. I. Trans.
Ben Fowkes, intro. Ernest Mandel
(Harmondsworth, 1976).
CAP 111 Marx, Karl, Capital, vol. 111 (Mos-
cow, 1959)'
Cardan, 'Bolshevism' Cardan, Paul, From Bolshevism to the
Bureaucracy (London, undated).
