[lbo-talk] What is socialism?

[Wojtek S]

[WS:]  I disagree.  E Germany was ravaged for punitive measures
imposed on it by the USSR as "war reparations." Czechoslovakia was a
fusion of two entities with different histories and levels of
development (Slovakia & Bohemia/Moravia) - the latter doing much
better than the former.

But your argument misses a much larger point - that in both countries
socialism was imposed by an imperial power rather than developed on
its own, so it did take the characteristics dictated by the imperial
power that imposed it.  The same is true of other Soviet satellites.

The reason why this distinction matters a lot is that the imperial
power that imposed its version of socialism was Russia - which was
primarily an imperial power and a backward nation before it switched
to socialism.  As a result, the dysfunction that developed as a result
of these historical circumstances in Russia were simply "copied over"
to E. European satellites  after WW2, rather than developing
independently.   Therefore, the cases of E Germany and Czechoslovakia
(or for that matter any other Soviet satellite) do not contradict my
argument.

Wojtek

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 11:42 AM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
> On Oct 13, 2010, at 10:45 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>>
>> Russia and its EE satellites were backward rural societies that never
>> experienced democracy or even a republican form of government in their
>> history or had a real economy.  This backwardness created dysfunctions
>> so ingrained in social fabric, that would persist regardless of what
>> political regime ("Reds" or "Whites") succeeded the tsar.
>
> East Germany was an industrial society that had experienced both bourgeois
> democracy (from repeal of the Antisocialist Laws until 1933) and a
> republican form of government (from 1919 to 1933).  So was Czechoslovakia
> for an even longer time. Yet the "ingrained dysfunctions" they experienced
> under Stalinism were essentially identical to those of the other satellites
> and distinctly worse than in "backward rural" Yugoslavia.
>
> Shane Mage
>
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
>  always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
>  kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
>  Herakleitos of Ephesos
>
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>