On Feb 14, 2010, at 2:32 PM, Marv Gandall wrote:
> ...Marxists and others did not concieve that the working class or
> bureaucratic caste or a new state capitalist class (take your
> choice) would consent to the restoration of private ownership,
> abolished after the Russian Revolution, without a struggle...
In *The Revolution Betrayed* Trotsky, who not for a moment held to the fetishistic belief that generally statified property was incompatible with capitalism, wrote extensively on why the ruling bureaucrats would seek to become owners of private property. Four years later, while shifting his ruling caste/degenerated workers' state stance to the view that "The Nature of the Soviet Union [is] not yet Decided by History" his basic objection to those who argued that (state) capitalism had already been restored was that they were "running the film of reformism in reverse" because a violent counterrevolution had not occurred. But none of his writings in the 1936-1940 period indicate that he had sufficient information from inside the USSR (and he had the *most* information of anyone) to grasp the enormous scope and social dimensions of the Great Purge.
Now that the "Nature of the Soviet Union" has manifestly been "Decided by History" it should be clear to any thinking Marxist that capitalism, though still statified, had by then indeed been restored through the violent counterrevolution known as the Great Purge.
Shane Mage
"L'après-vie, c'est une auberge espagnole. L'on n'y trouve que ce qu'on a apporté."
Bardo Thodol