There is no "best." They are not parallels.
Communism is the theoretical end-point of government over a very long period of societal evolution.
It roughly goes:
Feudalism -> Capitalism -> Socialism -> Communism
Feudalism establishes the cultural traditions and solidarity of a society, which initially brings them together under the same banner.
Capitalism establishes the infrastructure for mass-manufacturing, housing, etc.
Socialism establishes abundance of resources, necessities and welfare systems by using and improving the previously established infrastructure.
Communism unites the society under a banner of the common good.
You [I]cannot[/I] have a successful communist society without having gone through the previous stages of government. You [I]need[/I] the solidarity created by the feudal systems. You [I]need[/I] the infrastructure established by the free-market. You [I]need[/I] the abundance and welfare systems from Socialism. You cannot just skip the middle steps or your people are going to fucking starve.
Trying to compare Communism to Capitalism is like trying to compare a neanderthal to an astronaut. They aren't parallel, and that astronaut wouldn't have shit if neanderthal no learn make fire.
The question isn't "which is better." Communism [I]is[/I] better on a theoretical level, though its real-world implementation in some distant future would likely be quite different from original Marxist theory. The real question is "is our society ready and capable to move forward?" Given we still struggle with poverty and starvation on a [I]logistical[/I] level, the answer is no. Our capitalist infrastructure is still too underdeveloped to dive completely into socialism (though we CAN start blending the two at this point.) We still need investment in manufacturing, farming and technology. Governments only invest based upon necessity. Businessmen invest based upon greed and wealth. And there's a lot more shit we develop because we can sell it than shit we develop because we need it.
[editline]26th April 2012[/editline]
For instance, let's say we jump to communism today.
Communism relies upon abundance. Shit is not very abundant right now. We don't have much fuel left, and we haven't developed any feasibly effective alternative fuels. Pretty quickly, once we start trying to provide for everyone equally, we're going to run right the fuck out of fuel. Transportation suffers, which means it'll be that much more difficult to farm. It'll also be nigh-impossible to distribute whatever food we DO have to everyone evenly. Our manufacturing industry will crash, and any abundances we have right now that were dependent upon that fuel source (i.e. all of them) will rapidly become scarcities. People will start starving. Riots will break out. Violence will ensue. And we'll either return to a damaged and even less-developed Capitalist society, our we'll descend into chaos.
[quote]
For instance, let's say we jump to communism today.[/quote]
Who's we exactly? The world? The US?
[QUOTE=Conscript;35722598]Who's we exactly? The world? The US?[/QUOTE]
Anyone or everyone. The fuel concern used in that example is global, and any sufficiently populous society will suffer its effects if it has not been addressed before attempting abundance.
Small populations do not qualify as viable examples. A commune consisting of two dozen subsisting for themselves is not a communist society, it is a communal group.
How is communism going to tell us what goods will be the most economical to make, and the most economical ways to make them, just out of curiosity? In capitalism, profit seems to do that job pretty well.
It's not. That's why it requires abundance. You need enough of everything to meet a dynamically changing set of demands. If you don't have enough of one particular thing, the moment the demand becomes greater than the supply you're fucked. Infrastructure can certainly be improved in a communist society. But, as I said, governments only invest based upon [I]necessity[/I], and not upon want or profit. For instance, right now the US is completely fucking disinterested in doing anything spacey with NASA. "Oh, we might do a mars mission in twenty years, maybe, or something." And what's happening in the meantime? The private sector is attempting to develop an ASTEROID MINING program (which is dope as hell). You could only expect NASA to jump back into that frontier if, say, China decides to build a military base on the moon. If they so much as say that, we'll be back on the moon by the end of next week. Until such a point, however, the government will only invest in the technologies it NEEDS.
Even more NASA: Why did we go to the moon in the first place? Because the Russians beat us into space, and they were thinking about sending some dudes down there themselves. So we buckled the fuck up and blasted twelve different people to the surface of the moon over nine years, because we felt threatened.
i.e. Star Trek communism is completely dependent upon replenishable and recyclable resources (replicators). Everything the replicators go down (like twice a week) everything turns to anarchic shit.
[QUOTE=Lankist;35722125]-snip-[/QUOTE]
That was one of the best things I have read in a long time. I've always argued that no matter what, if the human race survives long enough we will eventually be universally communist as default post-scarcity; after we master matter replication and nuclear fusion and things similar to that. We get too caught up in left vs right, red vs blue, freedumz vs regulation, when we should be arguing when we should be implementing each of them.
[QUOTE=Noble;35730198]How is communism going to tell us what goods will be the most economical to make, and the most economical ways to make them, just out of curiosity? In capitalism, profit seems to do that job pretty well.[/QUOTE]
There's no justification for the capitalistic profit maximizing production quota. It makes the economy function below its potential.
In a capitalistic system, the production quota is set at the point which maximizes the total profits, or L = max{q | TR(q) - TC(q)}. This doesn't lead to a maximal quantity produced using the available funds for reinvestment, due to the nature of total profit curves. An enterprise could still self-sufficiently produce at a quantity level superior to L, by redirecting its funds to the capital accumulation, increasing its labor inputs, and so on.
Not to mention, the most essential items, as voted by the general population, would receive additional funding from the planning center for their production, which would make them far more abundant by producing so much that their production process would become unprofitable.
The production quota in a rational and non-capitalist system would be set entirely by the relationship between these main variables: The production quota interval which leads to profitable production, and the essentiality of the item being produced. The most essential items, and items which lead to huge utility increases would be overproduced (produced above the profitable interval), and non-essential items would be produced within the profitable interval to cover the additional costs of overproducing essential items.
This would most likely reduce the unemployment levels, lead to a higher economic growth and quality of life.
[QUOTE=GenPol;36259838]There's no justification for the capitalistic profit maximizing production quota. It makes the economy function below its potential.
In a capitalistic system, the production quota is set at the point which maximizes the total profits, or L = max{q | TR(q) - TC(q)}. This doesn't lead to a maximal quantity produced using the available funds for reinvestment, due to the nature of total profit curves. An enterprise could still self-sufficiently produce at a quantity level superior to L, by redirecting its funds to the capital accumulation, increasing its labor inputs, and so on.
Not to mention, the most essential items, as voted by the general population, would receive additional funding from the planning center for their production, which would make them far more abundant by producing so much that their production process would become unprofitable.
The production quota in a rational and non-capitalist system would be set entirely by the relationship between these main variables: The production quota interval which leads to profitable production, and the essentiality of the item being produced. The most essential items, and items which lead to huge utility increases would be overproduced (produced above the profitable interval), and non-essential items would be produced within the profitable interval to cover the additional costs of overproducing essential items.
This would most likely reduce the unemployment levels, lead to a higher economic growth and quality of life.[/QUOTE]
That doesn't motivate risk taking and the technological progress that comes along with it. It will reduce the unemployment levels, that is true. The [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%931933"]USSR[/url] and [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine"]China[/url] tried your planned economy idea already, it resulted in millions of people dying of starvation as a result of forced collectivization with production quotas. They couldn't meet the government's production quota for grain and died because they didn't have enough to feed themselves. They had to give away everything they harvested. If they were caught hiding a small amount of food for themselves, they were subjected to [url="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/09/26/mao-s-great-famine.html"]atrocious punishment or execution.[/url]
What those countries had and what North Korea has now is not anywhere close to my ideal quality of life. It will result in a lack of freedoms (private property, ability to take an innovative idea and start your own business), a lack of choices, and has historically resulted in disaster and atrocities. It will result in the lack of risk-taking innovative ideas, the lack of technological progress, and a loss of individuality by forced collectivization. It will result in inefficiency and waste. It will result concentrating too much power in the hands the state, and will result in oppression. You will not be free do to as you want, you will be enslaved into doing what other people tell you to do. This does not happen under free-market capitalism. Companies are not free to exploit your labor by force because they're voluntary agreements and other companies would compete for employees by offering better wages and working conditions than the competition. It's capitalism that results in higher economic growth and quality of life, both in theory and historically, by maximizing individual liberties and providing an incentive (profit) to invest in new and innovative things, and to cut inefficiency and waste.
[QUOTE=Noble;36272046]That doesn't motivate risk taking and the technological progress that comes along with it. It will reduce the unemployment levels, that is true. The [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%931933"]USSR[/url] and [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine"]China[/url] tried your planned economy idea already, it resulted in millions of people dying of starvation as a result of forced collectivization with production quotas. They couldn't meet the government's production quota for grain and died because they didn't have enough to feed themselves. They had to give away everything they harvested. If they were caught hiding a small amount of food for themselves, they were subjected to [url="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/09/26/mao-s-great-famine.html"]atrocious punishment or execution.[/url]
What those countries had and what North Korea has now is not anywhere close to my ideal quality of life. It will result in a lack of freedoms (private property, ability to take an innovative idea and start your own business), a lack of choices, and has historically resulted in disaster and atrocities. It will result in the lack of risk-taking innovative ideas, the lack of technological progress, and a loss of individuality by forced collectivization. It will result in inefficiency and waste. It will result concentrating too much power in the hands the state, and will result in oppression. You will not be free do to as you want, you will be enslaved into doing what other people tell you to do. This does not happen under free-market capitalism. Companies are not free to exploit your labor by force because they're voluntary agreements and other companies would compete for employees by offering better wages and working conditions than the competition. It's capitalism that results in higher economic growth and quality of life, both in theory and historically, by maximizing individual liberties and providing an incentive (profit) to invest in new and innovative things, and to cut inefficiency and waste.[/QUOTE]
"That doesn't motivate risk taking and the technological progress that comes along with it." - What doesn't? Production for the sake of fulfilling human needs, and producing maximal quantities? Higher investment in total factor productivity and increasing the capital to labor elasticity of substitution could be employed over a long run. The Soviet Union didn't invest enough in higher productive capital, but rather capital and labor input quantities, which was a huge mistake. It attained huge growth figures at first, but stagnated in the end for this reason.
"tried your planned economy idea already" - I don't support economic planning, or at least as it was applied in the Marxist-Leninist states.
"North Korea, China famine, etc" - What does it have to do with anything? I said I don't support the Marxist-Leninist planning practices. I'm also a supporter of a free and democratic society, but economically democratic as well. You keep assuming that I support any of these planning practices, which is simply not true. I support real-time, dynamic and democratic economic decision making, with the resources provided by a social organization of the means of production.
"It will result in the lack of risk-taking innovative ideas, the lack of technological progress, and a loss of individuality by forced collectivization." - What will? Marxist-Leninist central planning as well as the Marxist-Leninist political organization? Probably, but I'm not a supporter of such practices.
"It will result in a lack of freedoms (private property, ability to take an innovative idea and start your own business), a lack of choices, and has historically resulted in disaster and atrocities. It will result in the lack of risk-taking innovative ideas, the lack of technological progress, and a loss of individuality by forced collectivization." - Never said I was against a lack of choice.
Please provide arguments which don't address Marxist-Leninist planning (and Marxist-Leninist political organization), because I'm not its supporter. I'm not against a civil society in which all the citizens can contribute their ideas and knowledge.
Forced collectivization didnt 'kill' anyone, bad weather and peasant resistance did. Soviet quotas were not 'too high' (and they were in fact lowered in famines and previously guarded grain stores were opened and distributed grain), the prices the state bought at werent profitable enough for some kulaks and there was a mass movement from the country side into the cities. The planned economy was actually pretty vital in ending russia's frequent famine cycle, this also happened in china.
Noble, if you have a genuine interest in the 30s famine and collectivization, read Davies & wheatcroft's 'years of hunger', not robert conquest and other cold war propagandists.
I find the Marxist theory of history to be especially broken for the Medieval Era.
The Feudal system, generally seen by Marxists, is that the aristocracy exploited and repressed the peasantry. A significant number point to the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century, whereby as Feudalism declined, labour became extremely cheap and helped with the Industrial Revolution, where factories required unskilled workers to run them.
The biggest flaw with the Marxist theory, is that the aristocracy of the High Middle Ages did not systematically exploit the peasantry. It was a arrangement that suited both parties well given the times. The term "peasant" is even a terrible term. (I am forced to use it for convenience) If you went back in time and asked somebody then if they were a peasant, they would reply "Who?"
The people who worked were composed of many various groups of people, ranging from villiens who were tied to the land to people who were hired to run a lords estate whilst he could do important things like going on crusades. Lords had to provide things for their peasants (Free and unfree), for example, it was traditional for them to hold a feast for their peasants during harvest and christmas. It was also traditional to allow them to have their livestock graze on the common lands and allow the forest to have timber collected from it for fires. Lords were also obligated to provide military protection and some food for their peasants. Some villiens actually did better than their free cousins during various times due to the advantage of being under their lord.
The big peasant rebellions of Europe only really began in the mid 14th century with the famines, schism of the church, and the black death. There was massive and widespread societal changes from this. The price of labour rose quite quickly, along with food prices as well as the climate worsened. The old system began to become problematic as many laws were put in place holding wages at their old levels, which were obviously ignored by both workers and employers. Labour became a much more highly valued commodity at this time (Unlike the early 14th century, when it was extremely cheap).
The peasant rebellions began to rise due to the inflation during this time that their lords were unable to properly deal with, and were forced to raise taxes and rents. Combine this with the increasing prices of goods, growing religious tensions, the recent wars and the population decline, then you are going to get massive civil unrest.
Those peasant rebellions were not rebellion against the systematic exploitation of the peasantry, but due to the pressures of the time that are now known as the crisis of the late middle ages. The idea that Feudalism can be simply summed up as a repressive system that kept the peasantry in their place is absurd. It even changes depending upon where you are. Feudalism does not automatically lead onto capitalism.
[editline]11th June 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Conscript;36278108]Forced collectivization didnt 'kill' anyone, bad weather and peasant resistance did. Soviet quotas were not 'too high' (and they were in fact lowered in famines and previously guarded grain stores were opened and distributed grain), the prices the state bought at werent profitable enough for some kulaks and there was a mass movement from the country side into the cities. The planned economy was actually pretty vital in ending russia's frequent famine cycle, this also happened in china.
Noble, if you have a genuine interest in the 30s famine and collectivization, read Davies & wheatcroft's 'years of hunger', not robert conquest and other cold war propagandists.[/QUOTE]
No, Stalin was killing people whose lives he was "improving". There was massive quotas set for workers that were far in excess of what was humanly possible. The economic quotas set were always attempted to be actually outdid (Often they did) but at the same time there was a horrible cost of human life. Although in 1928, the industrial output was 11% of 1913s, by 1938 it was 658%. It was done in order to arm and expand the soviet military immensely.
The collectivisation of agriculture, originally stopped in 1917, was forcibly implemented by the USSR on the farmers, in order to establish state control of agriculture as many rural people moved to the cities to work in the new industries. From 1928 to 1938, the 26 million peasant farms were joined into 250,000 collectives, along with the invention of a fictional enemy "The Kulak" to help justify this.
The reason for peasant resistance is that they had been promised land and freedoms in the revolution. After 1928, the closing of churches and collectivisation led to massive social unrest among a people who were traditionally quite religious and held a lot of land.
7 million people died in the Ukraine.
What the fuck is with that avatar?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;36278668]
The biggest flaw with the Marxist theory, is that the aristocracy of the High Middle Ages did not systematically exploit the peasantry. It was a arrangement that suited both parties well given the times.[/quote]
Wtf? Is this a rehash of 'wage labor is voluntary' argument?
I don't think it really matters if it is voluntary or not, it still constitutes the binding of serfs to lands ruled by lords, which is the only thing marx was really concerned about.
[quote]The term "peasant" is even a terrible term. (I am forced to use it for convenience) If you went back in time and asked somebody then if they were a peasant, they would reply "Who?"[/quote]
So? 100 years ago far more people identified as 'working class' then they do today.
Doesn't change the fact they're still working class.
[quote]The people who worked were composed of many various groups of people, ranging from villiens who were tied to the land to people who were hired to run a lords estate whilst he could do important things like going on crusades. Lords had to provide things for their peasants (Free and unfree), for example, it was traditional for them to hold a feast for their peasants during harvest and christmas. It was also traditional to allow them to have their livestock graze on the common lands and allow the forest to have timber collected from it for fires. Lords were also obligated to provide military protection and some food for their peasants. Some villiens actually did better than their free cousins during various times due to the advantage of being under their lord.[/quote]
This is all nice and interesting, but I don't think it dispels any myths about the peasantry or feudal society.
There was a class of serfs, as outlined by the feudal contract, that were bound to hereditary lands. That is the essence of feudalism for marx because it describes the mode of production.
[quote]The big peasant rebellions of Europe only really began in the mid 14th century with the famines, schism of the church, and the black death. There was massive and widespread societal changes from this. The price of labour rose quite quickly, along with food prices as well as the climate worsened. The old system began to become problematic as many laws were put in place holding wages at their old levels, which were obviously ignored by both workers and employers. Labour became a much more highly valued commodity at this time (Unlike the early 14th century, when it was extremely cheap).
The peasant rebellions began to rise due to the inflation during this time that their lords were unable to properly deal with, and were forced to raise taxes and rents. Combine this with the increasing prices of goods, growing religious tensions, the recent wars and the population decline, then you are going to get massive civil unrest.
Those peasant rebellions were not rebellion against the systematic exploitation of the peasantry, but due to the pressures of the time that are now known as the crisis of the late middle ages. The idea that Feudalism can be simply summed up as a repressive system that kept the peasantry in their place is absurd. It even changes depending upon where you are. Feudalism does not automatically lead onto capitalism.[/quote]
You're missing the point. It's not about the particulars of how a crisis or dissent came to be, but that it inevitably happens and gives way to outbreaks of revolt because the peasantry, as a class, has an antagonistic, contradictory relationship with the lords.
Peasants fed all within the society and were the laborers of the day, regardless of who the land belonged to. It's exactly the lords' collective monopolization and division of land that created the classes in feudal society and made these farmers into serfs. I think we can clearly see two different classes with arguably contradictory interests, even without a marxist POV and materialist philosophy.
[quote]No, Stalin was killing people whose lives he was "improving". There was massive quotas set for workers that were far in excess of what was humanly possible. The economic quotas set were always attempted to be actually outdid (Often they did) but at the same time there was a horrible cost of human life. Although in 1928, the industrial output was 11% of 1913s, by 1938 it was 658%. It was done in order to arm and expand the soviet military immensely. [/quote]
Can you cite any of this? I'm curious that in 1928, the year the USSR abandoned the NEP, industrial output was merely 11%, when the reason they abandoned the NEP in the first place was because it failed to industrialize russia beyond 1913 levels.
[quote]The collectivisation of agriculture, originally stopped in 1917, was forcibly implemented by the USSR on the farmers, in order to establish state control of agriculture as many rural people moved to the cities to work in the new industries. From 1928 to 1938, the 26 million peasant farms were joined into 250,000 collectives, along with the invention of a fictional enemy "The Kulak" to help justify this.[/quote]
There was absolutely no collectivization of agriculture until much later, let alone in 1917. Lenin had no aspirations of socialism at all in russia with the exception of an international revolution doing so. Until then, he favored replicating the state capitalism of germany, as he believed nothing else could be built in the immediate period.
The kulaks certainly weren't fictional, there were wealthy peasants who had their own land. These people would've been the embryo for capitalist development in russia and the growth of a capitalist class, they were just too subdued by the russian aristocracy.
They were also far too small. Most peasants in russia were exceedingly poor and uneducated, creating a schism within the class. These poorer, landless peasants would form the powerbase of the soviet government and later make collectivization possible by working the many kolkhozes and the sovkhozes.
[quote]The reason for peasant resistance is that they had been promised land and freedoms in the revolution. After 1928, the closing of churches and collectivisation led to massive social unrest among a people who were traditionally quite religious and held a lot of land.
7 million people died in the Ukraine.[/QUOTE]
Lol, nobody was promised land. 1917 was not some liberal revolution. Lenin called for the nationalization of all lands and estates under the control of the 'soviets of workers' deputies' to manage an efficient system of state capitalism. The west had this, and russia was in dire need of it. For Lenin, russia needed to extinguish all feudal leftovers beginning with the aristocracy and ending with the dissolution of the peasantry as a class and replacing it with the industrial working class.
The poorer, landless peasants that made up the majority of the class had little issue with collectivization and this shows. It was only in 1933 with a bad harvest due to bad weather combined with continued burning of farms, slaughtering of livestock, etc that there was a famine.
Why some resisted makes little difference. I'm sure they were doing themselves good by doing it and I'm sure it was in their interests, as wealthy peasants and NEPmen they were, after all, proto-capitalists.
Collectivization was performed too fast, partly because it was done late due to inner factional struggles (believe it or not stalin's opponents used to be lambasted as 'super-industrialists' and he preferred the NEP), but it's not some tragedy. Without it, Russia would be continue to be the old, decaying 'breadbasket of europe' aka a stronghold of feudalistic reaction and an agrarian economy.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]What the fuck is with that avatar?[/QUOTE]
I can give you the source.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Wtf? Is this a rehash of 'wage labor is voluntary' argument?
I don't think it really matters if it is voluntary or not, it still constitutes the binding of serfs to lands ruled by lords, which is the only thing marx was really concerned about.[/QUOTE]
Bound to the lands, yes, but only a number of people were actually bound to the land. Depending on where you were, there were free and unfree people in differing numbers who can't all be summarised as being exploited by the feudal aristocracy.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]So? 100 years ago far more people identified as 'working class' then they do today.
Doesn't change the fact they're still working class.[/QUOTE]
The three class system is a horribly poor method of splitting up Medieval society (Those who fight, pray and work) because there were massive differences in the so called working class. You had people on the scale who effectively acted as lords, yet had no aristocratic status. (These people who managed lands by renting it out for the lord became increasingly common after the mid 14th century)
The idea that there was a separate class for praying is wrong, mostly due to how many clergymen and monasteries held land with tenants on it in more or less the same manner as the secular lords.
Plus, where do the jesters, merchants, grocers, bureaucrats, theives, etc all fit into this system?
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]This is all nice and interesting, but I don't think it dispels any myths about the peasantry or feudal society.
There was a class of serfs, as outlined by the feudal contract, that were bound to hereditary lands. That is the essence of feudalism for marx because it describes the mode of production.[/QUOTE]
Yes it does, not all of them were bound to the land. It was an assorted arrangement of many people who rented land, worked on it for their lord in return for some basic privileges, who may have owned land themselves, etc. Plus it differed upon which country you went to. In Russia until the 16th century, there was a tradition whereby the peasantry were free to move around in November to choose a new lord if they so wished.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]You're missing the point. It's not about the particulars of how a crisis or dissent came to be, but that it inevitably happens and gives way to outbreaks of revolt because the peasantry, as a class, has an antagonistic, contradictory relationship with the lords.[/QUOTE]
No, the relationship with lords was not contradictory or antagonistic beforehand. Two reasons for the revolts is due to the widespread inflation and increase in the price of food. The lords were forced to raise rents. The price of labour had been unsuccessfully fixed in some areas by the government. The price of goods everywhere was rising. The price of labour was rising. Of course you are going to get civil unrest, people simply didn't have enough food in a time of increasing strife as the Church came under stress and Kingdoms became a hell lot weaker. Europe was poorer and had a smaller economy in 1400 than it did in 1300.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Peasants fed all within the society and were the laborers of the day, regardless of who the land belonged to. It's exactly the lords' collective monopolization and division of land that created the classes in feudal society and made these farmers into serfs. I think we can clearly see two different classes with arguably contradictory interests, even without a marxist POV and materialist philosophy.[/QUOTE]
Again, the peasantry were made up of widely different people. Some land was owned by their tenants. Other land was rented out. Some was held onto for the unfree labourers to work upon in return for their lords protection. Their interests did not contradict. The reason for the Fuedal system was that it was in both parties interests.
Again, it changes where you are. Look at Poland-Lithuania. They had a large number of petty nobility who despite owning very little land, collectively owned massive amounts of it, and many had to work it themselves, especially as time went on. In some areas, this petty nobility made up 25% of the population in an area, and even lived in segregated little towns.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Can you cite any of this? I'm curious that in 1928, the year the USSR abandoned the NEP, industrial output was merely 11%, when the reason they abandoned the NEP in the first place was because it failed to industrialize russia beyond 1913 levels.[/QUOTE]
There were massive gains in raw industrial output, yes, but it was for the purpose of arming the military, rather than the benefit of the population.
The sources of informations I can quote for this, are from the following books and website:
A people's tragedy: The Russian Revolution (1891 - 1924). By Orlando Figes
Europe: A history. By Norman Davies
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Five-Year_Plan_%28Soviet_Union%29[/url]
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]There was absolutely no collectivization of agriculture until much later, let alone in 1917. Lenin had no aspirations of socialism at all in russia with the exception of an international revolution doing so. Until then, he favored replicating the state capitalism of germany, as he believed nothing else could be built in the immediate period.[/QUOTE]
Yes, there was attempted collectivisation of agriculture from 1917 onwards, there was a policy of war communism that attempted to crack down upon private enterprise. The bagmen (Who travelled from the countryside to the cities, and vice versa) who sold various food products on their travels, were one of the reasons that the Russian people did not starve to death during the war.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]The kulaks certainly weren't fictional, there were wealthy peasants who had their own land. These people would've been the embryo for capitalist development in russia and the growth of a capitalist class, they were just too subdued by the russian aristocracy.[/QUOTE]
There was certainly a tiny and slowly growing class of private landowners, but the kulak that Stalin banged on about, was more or less invented. It was a justification for the regime to collectivise agriculture. Anybody who refused in any way was pejoratively given this term, especially after there was no more food.
There was a reason people hid food, because the state took too much that it meant there was not enough for next years crops.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]They were also far too small. Most peasants in russia were exceedingly poor and uneducated, creating a schism within the class. These poorer, landless peasants would form the powerbase of the soviet government and later make collectivization possible by working the many kolkhozes and the sovkhozes.[/QUOTE]
There was certainly a number of landless people. However, there was also a large number of people who also owned land themselves, even if they had very little. A lot of land had been redistributed by the peasantry during the Revolution, and until Stalin came along, the peasantry very much ran their own affairs quite well.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Lol, nobody was promised land.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_-yjHAWVVvvo/R0rCsM7qpAI/AAAAAAAAAA8/NwmQLJ84LPw/s320/red+army.png[/img]
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]1917 was not some liberal revolution.[/QUOTE]
February 1917 was indeed a Liberal revolution. October 1917 was a coup d'etat.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Lenin called for the nationalization of all lands and estates under the control of the 'soviets of workers' deputies' to manage an efficient system of state capitalism. The west had this, and russia was in dire need of it. For Lenin, russia needed to extinguish all feudal leftovers beginning with the aristocracy and ending with the dissolution of the peasantry as a class and replacing it with the industrial working class.[/QUOTE]
The west didn't have that. The west was mostly laissez faire, with some exceptions. (Such as cooperatives and nationalised industries)
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]The poorer, landless peasants that made up the majority of the class had little issue with collectivization and this shows. It was only in 1933 with a bad harvest due to bad weather combined with continued burning of farms, slaughtering of livestock, etc that there was a famine.[/QUOTE]
No. There was massive resistance, especially in the Ukraine. People were sent to Siberia for refusing.
Plus output dropped from 1929 onwards, by 1932, output had dropped by 32%. The famine merely magnified the problems with collectivisation. The collectivisation had been temporarily stopped in 1930, and people began to leave the collective farms to go home again. Shortly after that, it was restarted.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Why some resisted makes little difference. I'm sure they were doing themselves good by doing it and I'm sure it was in their interests, as wealthy peasants and NEPmen they were, after all, proto-capitalists.[/QUOTE]
For gods sake, you sound more like a party commissar than a historian.
[QUOTE=Conscript;36282469]Collectivization was performed too fast, partly because it was done late due to inner factional struggles (believe it or not stalin's opponents used to be lambasted as 'super-industrialists' and he preferred the NEP), but it's not some tragedy. Without it, Russia would be continue to be the old, decaying 'breadbasket of europe' aka a stronghold of feudalistic reaction and an agrarian economy.[/QUOTE]
Bullshit. Russia was already recovering under the NEP, and Russia was already starting to industrialise before the revolution. Industrialisation really began in the 1890s under Sergei Witte, who I think is one of the under appreciated men in Russian history, despite the massive work he did.
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