4. The Nature of Stalinism¶
Core Argument¶
The class character of the Soviet Union remains one of the most fiercely contested questions in Marxist theory. The state, as a machine for maintaining class rule, cannot simply be taken over by the working class; its key positions are held by those selected to serve the bourgeoisie and must be smashed. After October 1917, the Soviet Union was a transitional, contradictory workers’ state, but isolation and backwardness prevented the proletariat from maintaining power. The bureaucracy emerged as the working class weakened, and Trotsky employed the conditional historical analogy of Thermidor to describe this revolutionary downturn—not a transfer of power to another class, but a political counter-revolution on the basis of nationalised property. The working class lost political power, but the bourgeoisie was not restored. The bureaucracy usurped power, liquidated Soviet democracy, and established what Trotsky defined as a form of proletarian Bonapartism.
Marxist theory holds that the state is normally the instrument of the ruling class, but Engels noted exceptional periods where warring classes are so nearly equal that the state acquires temporary independence. Marx’s analysis of Bonapartism in The 18th Brumaire showed the bourgeoisie politically expropriated yet still the ruling class, because the state defended private property. The Stalinist bureaucracy did not constitute a new ruling class; it did not own the means of production. It was a parasitic excrescence on the workers’ state, defending nationalised property and planning, and thus in the last analysis representing the working class. Marxism defines class by property relations, not function. The bureaucracy’s privileges arise from distribution, not production; it is a parasitic caste, not a new ruling class. Theories of ‘bureaucratic collectivism’ or ‘state capitalism’ are rejected as contradicting Marxism’s basic postulates, since the Soviet economy lacked capitalism’s law of motion—booms and slumps. The bureaucracy owned no stocks or shares and could not pass on property through inheritance.
Trotsky demolished both rival theories using dialectical analysis, examining contradictory features at each stage. The Marxist criterion for analysing social systems is whether the new formation develops productive forces; if state capitalism were progressive in Russia, it would contradict Marx’s theory that capitalism is the highest stage before socialism. Trotsky compared the degenerated workers’ state to a trade union in power, where exhaustion and inactivity led to bureaucratisation. The dictatorship of the proletariat can take the form of one-man rule, requiring a supplementary political revolution to restore workers’ democracy. The class nature of the Russian state remains undetermined; the decisive factor is whether nationalisation or private property ultimately prevails.
The theory of ‘state capitalism’ is theoretically bankrupt and disastrous in practice. Its proponents dismissed Trotsky’s analysis, claiming a new class took power by 1928, yet were caught by surprise when the bureaucracy turned to individual ownership. This theory erases the fundamental antagonism between the USSR and the West and disarms Russian workers facing the nascent bourgeoisie. Trotsky’s position is clear: defence of the planned economy is obligatory. The Russian working class recognises a fundamental difference between a nationalised planned economy and capitalism. Workers will fight capitalist counter-revolution, rediscovering revolutionary traditions, and after blocking capitalist restoration, they can overthrow the bureaucracy and establish workers’ democracy on a higher level, using existing technological advances to introduce a 32-hour week and raise living standards.