>On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Softel wrote:
>
>> So ask yourself which "leftist",
>> "socialist" or "Marxist" analysis explained the fall of the Soviet
>> Union?
Dennis volunteers the Franfurters. But to my mind there vision of stalinist domination did not envisage the collapse of the soviet system, more its endless reproduction.
Real credit is due to Hillel Ticktin of the 'journal of soviet studies and socialist theory' Critique. In the first issue (1973) Ticktin's essay Towards a Political Economy of the USSR argues that the principle economic form in the USSR was 'waste', that the economy massively squndred resources, and was incapable of any qualitative restructuring of industry.
If he made a mistake in that essay it was his optimisim that the crisis in the USSR could be resolved in favour of the working class, but nonetheless this was astute for 1973. Market reforms, he wrote 'In its inherent logic is a step towards capitalism ... this is the trend and it is an inevitable trend only essentially halted today because the working class will not tolerate it' But 'the working class is in the contradiction that the existing system is sinking deeper into crisis - this year's harvest failure is no accident and waste is simply increasing so that if the market is nto introduced they will probably gain little in the long run. Their only solution is socialism...'
FORD AND HITLER
'Ludecke had been entrusted by Hitler with a mission tothe United States in search of funds for the party... . He visitied the jew-baiting and anti-union car king Henry Ford at his Detroit plant, but failed to extract anything more substantial than his Platonic support, even though Ludecke promised Ford that 'whoever helped us now would not fare badly from a business standpoint ... a binding agreement could be aranged whereby large concessions would be guaranteed there [Germany] ... from the moment of Hitler's rise to power'. Ford, who could hardly be blamed for his scepticism about the prospects of a movement whose leaders was currently in jail for treason, was not tempted even by an offer of a stake in the Russian market, which Ludecke declared the Nazis would open up once they came to power in Germany'. Robert Black, Fascism in Germany, Steyne Publications, London 1975, p 464-5, citing K Ludecke I Knew Hitler, p199, New York 1937.
Industrialists in Germany, like Thyssen, Siemens and IG Farben of course did support Fascism, as did Olivetti in Italy. -- Jim heartfield