CAUSES OF THE USSR's COLLAPSE. [1/3]
Ivan Potapenkov's response to a comment made by comrade Justas:
Thank you for the critical feedback. These are just the first few essays and much of what the comments say is covered in later essays. So there is no hurry. But there is one point I would like to make, and it has to do with the statement that if we do not recognize capitalism in the USSR as an obvious fact, then we cannot justify why there was a restoration of it.
Regarding what mode of production existed under the Paris Commune, the question does not arise, because the period of its existence was too short, while the Soviet society lasted more than 70 years. There was material production that ensured the existence of the Soviet society. And quite naturally, in the process of creating material goods in material production, certain relations of production and the forms in which they manifested themselves emerged between people. Thus a mode of production with its own peculiarities emerged. It was neither a capitalist nor communist mode of production. The socialist character of this mode of production was that it rejected capitalism. This was the Soviet mode of production, based on a set of relations of production on the planned organization of social production, under the preservation of the commodity form of the products of labor.
Commodity relations were preserved not because they supposedly must exist in the first phase of communist society, but because of the fact that existing at the time of the formation of Soviet relations of production in Russia there was an insufficient level of development of productive forces. The predominant form of agriculture consisted of small individual peasant households. They covered 3/4 of the country's population. The peasant as a private owner demanded the preservation of commodity relations. This is evidenced by the mass peasant uprisings by the time the Russian Civil War ended.
Commodity production forms are capable of evolvement and mimicry. Commodity relations penetrated into the planned organization of production. The plans were evaluated on the basis of production volumes, and the measure of production volumes was the gross value of all commodities created. The state, represented by Gosplan, prepared plans, setting planned targets for industries in terms of production volume in monetary form, and the industries deployed these targets among enterprises. Enterprises had to find reserves to produce a mass of commodities, the gross value of which would not be lower than the planned target. In such a case, the planned value had to be fleetingly embodied in the produced commodities in order for its monetary form to be equal to the planned target. As a result, the production of the gross value of the total social product became the goal, and commodities began to be produced just to fulfill the gross value plan.
Enterprises, represented by the director, were given the right to hire workers to meet planned targets. Therefore, it was the directors who bought the labour-power. In conditions of large-scale production, when objects of utility appear in commodity form, labour-power is always reduced to commodity form, and wages are the proof of this. Yes, labor-power is a commodity, but this was not capitalism; the utility of labor-power for the capitalist and for the directors was different. For the capitalist, the consumption of labor-power must bring him the surplus-value. For the Soviet director, the utility of labor power lay in the fact that workers created gross value through their labor, and created it through both abstract and concrete labor.
The formed planned-commodity relations subjugated commodity-exchange relations, and buyers became dependent on the supplier. Everything that is produced must necessarily be bought, which means it will always be sold.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
Ivan Potapenkov's response to a comment made by comrade Justas:
Thank you for the critical feedback. These are just the first few essays and much of what the comments say is covered in later essays. So there is no hurry. But there is one point I would like to make, and it has to do with the statement that if we do not recognize capitalism in the USSR as an obvious fact, then we cannot justify why there was a restoration of it.
Regarding what mode of production existed under the Paris Commune, the question does not arise, because the period of its existence was too short, while the Soviet society lasted more than 70 years. There was material production that ensured the existence of the Soviet society. And quite naturally, in the process of creating material goods in material production, certain relations of production and the forms in which they manifested themselves emerged between people. Thus a mode of production with its own peculiarities emerged. It was neither a capitalist nor communist mode of production. The socialist character of this mode of production was that it rejected capitalism. This was the Soviet mode of production, based on a set of relations of production on the planned organization of social production, under the preservation of the commodity form of the products of labor.
Commodity relations were preserved not because they supposedly must exist in the first phase of communist society, but because of the fact that existing at the time of the formation of Soviet relations of production in Russia there was an insufficient level of development of productive forces. The predominant form of agriculture consisted of small individual peasant households. They covered 3/4 of the country's population. The peasant as a private owner demanded the preservation of commodity relations. This is evidenced by the mass peasant uprisings by the time the Russian Civil War ended.
Commodity production forms are capable of evolvement and mimicry. Commodity relations penetrated into the planned organization of production. The plans were evaluated on the basis of production volumes, and the measure of production volumes was the gross value of all commodities created. The state, represented by Gosplan, prepared plans, setting planned targets for industries in terms of production volume in monetary form, and the industries deployed these targets among enterprises. Enterprises had to find reserves to produce a mass of commodities, the gross value of which would not be lower than the planned target. In such a case, the planned value had to be fleetingly embodied in the produced commodities in order for its monetary form to be equal to the planned target. As a result, the production of the gross value of the total social product became the goal, and commodities began to be produced just to fulfill the gross value plan.
Enterprises, represented by the director, were given the right to hire workers to meet planned targets. Therefore, it was the directors who bought the labour-power. In conditions of large-scale production, when objects of utility appear in commodity form, labour-power is always reduced to commodity form, and wages are the proof of this. Yes, labor-power is a commodity, but this was not capitalism; the utility of labor-power for the capitalist and for the directors was different. For the capitalist, the consumption of labor-power must bring him the surplus-value. For the Soviet director, the utility of labor power lay in the fact that workers created gross value through their labor, and created it through both abstract and concrete labor.
The formed planned-commodity relations subjugated commodity-exchange relations, and buyers became dependent on the supplier. Everything that is produced must necessarily be bought, which means it will always be sold.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
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CAUSES OF THE USSR's COLLAPSE. [2/3]
Previous...
The Soviet economy was an economy of paradoxes and even absurdities. In the Soviet economy, the growth of labor productivity at an individual enterprise was accompanied by a decrease in the social productive powers. The increase in the productive forces of social labor leads to a decrease in value, which is the basis for lower prices; however, in the Soviet economy the increase in prices led to an increase in labor productivity. Unfortunately, labor productivity and productive forces of labor are, alas, different concepts.
The Soviet economy could deliver coats to buttons; this economy could create total output value without increasing, and sometimes even decreasing, the quantity produced. And there are many such paradoxes that could be pointed out. All of them started in the 1920s, i.e. along with the formation of Soviet planning.
As the years went by, production volumes grew, and at the same time the volume of total output inflated at the expense of material-intensive production also grew. Executed plans this way served as a basis for the plans for the next period. In short, the far it goes, the messier it gets.
Therefore, when Perestroika took place, a crisis of Soviet planning had already formed. It became impossible to plan further in this way, but the Gosplan had no other way to develop plans. If you take away the commodity form of the products of labor, Gosplan will fall miserably; there was no clue as to how to plan without money. After all, everything was counted in money.
But most importantly, the Soviet economy proved unwilling to embrace the advances of science on a massive scale. Yes, we have achieved a lot in terms of space, nuclear power and science, but many scientific developments were not implemented in production, because their application led to a decrease in production in monetary terms. Developers of new equipment often created machines to make it more profitable to meet total output plans, so machine prices rose significantly faster than the useful effect of their implementation. And there were even cases when the price went up and the performance of the new equipment turned out to be lower than the old one.
Therefore, the Soviet mode of production, alas, cannot be called progressive. On the ground of commodity production, big industry can only develop in capitalist form.
Therefore, there was no retreat from a more advanced to a less advanced method; and the example of the impossibility of moving backwards from capitalism to feudalism has nothing to do with the Soviet past. Every new way defeats the old mode of production by creating higher productive forces of labor. Soviet relations of production could not achieve this. Soviet society could invent and produce, but had an extremely difficult time with implementation in mass production.
And one more word regarding the instruments of labor. I recognize that eras differ from each other not in what they produce, but HOW they produce it. And it depends on the instruments of labor. However, it's hard to agree with it in this case. Even the formation of bourgeois relations in the depths of feudalism initially relied entirely on the same instruments of labour used by handicraftsmen. The bourgeoisie has changed the way productive forces are organized, which also includes workers. The individual labor process was replaced by a collective process based on the division of labor and this alone led to the growth of productive forces.
The future society cannot all of a sudden pull new and better instruments of labor out of the stash and thereby defeat capitalism. No, everything will have to be carried out with the same instruments of labor, the very organization of productive forces must change; this was shown by the Stakhanovite movement, which emerged and began to spread throughout the country spontaneously. But the laws of commodity relations stopped this movement. The revision of workers' wage rates that has begun has served as a setback.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
Previous...
The Soviet economy was an economy of paradoxes and even absurdities. In the Soviet economy, the growth of labor productivity at an individual enterprise was accompanied by a decrease in the social productive powers. The increase in the productive forces of social labor leads to a decrease in value, which is the basis for lower prices; however, in the Soviet economy the increase in prices led to an increase in labor productivity. Unfortunately, labor productivity and productive forces of labor are, alas, different concepts.
The Soviet economy could deliver coats to buttons; this economy could create total output value without increasing, and sometimes even decreasing, the quantity produced. And there are many such paradoxes that could be pointed out. All of them started in the 1920s, i.e. along with the formation of Soviet planning.
As the years went by, production volumes grew, and at the same time the volume of total output inflated at the expense of material-intensive production also grew. Executed plans this way served as a basis for the plans for the next period. In short, the far it goes, the messier it gets.
Therefore, when Perestroika took place, a crisis of Soviet planning had already formed. It became impossible to plan further in this way, but the Gosplan had no other way to develop plans. If you take away the commodity form of the products of labor, Gosplan will fall miserably; there was no clue as to how to plan without money. After all, everything was counted in money.
But most importantly, the Soviet economy proved unwilling to embrace the advances of science on a massive scale. Yes, we have achieved a lot in terms of space, nuclear power and science, but many scientific developments were not implemented in production, because their application led to a decrease in production in monetary terms. Developers of new equipment often created machines to make it more profitable to meet total output plans, so machine prices rose significantly faster than the useful effect of their implementation. And there were even cases when the price went up and the performance of the new equipment turned out to be lower than the old one.
Therefore, the Soviet mode of production, alas, cannot be called progressive. On the ground of commodity production, big industry can only develop in capitalist form.
Therefore, there was no retreat from a more advanced to a less advanced method; and the example of the impossibility of moving backwards from capitalism to feudalism has nothing to do with the Soviet past. Every new way defeats the old mode of production by creating higher productive forces of labor. Soviet relations of production could not achieve this. Soviet society could invent and produce, but had an extremely difficult time with implementation in mass production.
And one more word regarding the instruments of labor. I recognize that eras differ from each other not in what they produce, but HOW they produce it. And it depends on the instruments of labor. However, it's hard to agree with it in this case. Even the formation of bourgeois relations in the depths of feudalism initially relied entirely on the same instruments of labour used by handicraftsmen. The bourgeoisie has changed the way productive forces are organized, which also includes workers. The individual labor process was replaced by a collective process based on the division of labor and this alone led to the growth of productive forces.
The future society cannot all of a sudden pull new and better instruments of labor out of the stash and thereby defeat capitalism. No, everything will have to be carried out with the same instruments of labor, the very organization of productive forces must change; this was shown by the Stakhanovite movement, which emerged and began to spread throughout the country spontaneously. But the laws of commodity relations stopped this movement. The revision of workers' wage rates that has begun has served as a setback.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
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CAUSES OF THE USSR's COLLAPSE. [3/3]
Previous...
A worker should feel like a master in his workplace, and this is possible only when the increase in the welfare of an individual depends on the increase in the productive forces of social labor. If the Stakhanovite movement led to lower prices as a consequence of increased productive forces of labor, then people would feel their benefit. Lower wage rates resulted in having to work harder for the same income.
And in conclusion to the topic of profitability. The enterprises were not chasing profits. Trying to show by numbers that there has been profit growth in manufacturing proves nothing. The increase in the profitability of manufacturing enterprises is a consequence of the directors' desire to provide their workers with a sufficient wage fund. Besides, when prices were stable, there was a transfer of value from the extractive industry to the manufacturing industry, and then subsidies were made from the growing profits of the manufacturing industry to unprofitable enterprises in the extractive industry and agriculture.
The future society implies the direct participation of workers in the management of production, but the worker can manage only if everything is measured by the amount of labor in hours and minutes. This is what the Soviet economy did not have, so the organization of production largely copied the capitalist organization, which made the transition to capitalism much easier. All they had to do was take down the sign saying the enterprise was public and put up a sign saying it was private. The worker was alienated from his labor and its products, because his daily routine set examples that production did not work for him, that the worker was made for production, not production for the worker. Therefore, the workers did not defend the Soviet mode of production.
So the Soviet mode of production was a failure, having lost the fight against capitalism economically; but all the programs of the different parties that I know of, as well as the comments in the chat, show that everyone wants to build the USSR 2.0. Today the bourgeois media criticizes the pioneers of building a communist mode of production, accusing them of cruelty. But as Engels once said, "it wouldn’t matter a rap. It would be far worse if we were called bête." And in my opinion, another repetition of the failure will just lead to us being labelled as exactly that. We cannot make the same mistake again. Socialism and commodity production are incompatible. Commodity forms must be overcome during the transition period, during the formation of communist relations of production. Socialism (as the first phase) and communism are two stages of the same mode of production, which is commodity-free. In any case, the bitterest truth is better than the sweetest lies. And I don't want our descendants to repeat the same mistake.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#Ivan_Potapenkov
Previous...
A worker should feel like a master in his workplace, and this is possible only when the increase in the welfare of an individual depends on the increase in the productive forces of social labor. If the Stakhanovite movement led to lower prices as a consequence of increased productive forces of labor, then people would feel their benefit. Lower wage rates resulted in having to work harder for the same income.
And in conclusion to the topic of profitability. The enterprises were not chasing profits. Trying to show by numbers that there has been profit growth in manufacturing proves nothing. The increase in the profitability of manufacturing enterprises is a consequence of the directors' desire to provide their workers with a sufficient wage fund. Besides, when prices were stable, there was a transfer of value from the extractive industry to the manufacturing industry, and then subsidies were made from the growing profits of the manufacturing industry to unprofitable enterprises in the extractive industry and agriculture.
The future society implies the direct participation of workers in the management of production, but the worker can manage only if everything is measured by the amount of labor in hours and minutes. This is what the Soviet economy did not have, so the organization of production largely copied the capitalist organization, which made the transition to capitalism much easier. All they had to do was take down the sign saying the enterprise was public and put up a sign saying it was private. The worker was alienated from his labor and its products, because his daily routine set examples that production did not work for him, that the worker was made for production, not production for the worker. Therefore, the workers did not defend the Soviet mode of production.
So the Soviet mode of production was a failure, having lost the fight against capitalism economically; but all the programs of the different parties that I know of, as well as the comments in the chat, show that everyone wants to build the USSR 2.0. Today the bourgeois media criticizes the pioneers of building a communist mode of production, accusing them of cruelty. But as Engels once said, "it wouldn’t matter a rap. It would be far worse if we were called bête." And in my opinion, another repetition of the failure will just lead to us being labelled as exactly that. We cannot make the same mistake again. Socialism and commodity production are incompatible. Commodity forms must be overcome during the transition period, during the formation of communist relations of production. Socialism (as the first phase) and communism are two stages of the same mode of production, which is commodity-free. In any case, the bitterest truth is better than the sweetest lies. And I don't want our descendants to repeat the same mistake.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#Ivan_Potapenkov
👍13
Greetings, comrades!
At the moment we have started to translate essays on the Soviet economy into French, and even created a separate channel for this: https://t.me/FulcrumFR
This language is known to be spoken by more than two hundred million people all over the world, and in many countries French is recognized as official. We are looking for Communists for whom French is their native language. If you can help with chat rooms, channels, other resources where interaction and theoretical exchange can take place - let us know. Feel free to write in the comments or in private messages to @AFulcrum
At the moment we have started to translate essays on the Soviet economy into French, and even created a separate channel for this: https://t.me/FulcrumFR
This language is known to be spoken by more than two hundred million people all over the world, and in many countries French is recognized as official. We are looking for Communists for whom French is their native language. If you can help with chat rooms, channels, other resources where interaction and theoretical exchange can take place - let us know. Feel free to write in the comments or in private messages to @AFulcrum
👍13
This chat welcomes people with different opinions, but especially those interested in Marxism and the Communist Movement.
However, there are a few rules here to ensure that the chat does not turn into a mess:
1. You are not to retell your ordinary life, have personal chitchat, or advertise your products and services.
2. It is also forbidden to post suspicious links, pornographic, entertaining and provocative content.
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4. Anyone who expresses support for preservation of private ownership of land and factories, especially for some “chosen nation”, has no place in our chat.
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However, there are a few rules here to ensure that the chat does not turn into a mess:
1. You are not to retell your ordinary life, have personal chitchat, or advertise your products and services.
2. It is also forbidden to post suspicious links, pornographic, entertaining and provocative content.
3. Try to formulate your ideas in one single comment, so as not to flood messages and create inconvenience for other users.
4. Anyone who expresses support for preservation of private ownership of land and factories, especially for some “chosen nation”, has no place in our chat.
5. If, due to your upbringing, education or other factors, you feel a resentment or disgust towards a person's ethinicity, gender, nation, body size, disability, or sexual orientation, it is not a reason to hate that person, much less to be violent towards them. In our chat room it is forbidden to express hatred towards people based on the mentioned factors, as well as to call for violence, to show mockery or bullying.
6. Despite the fact that the administration of this chat are materialists and atheists, who consider it necessary to conduct anti-religious propaganda, we, however, find it unacceptable to insult people for their religious views, or forbid them to believe that something is true. Our goal is to learn ourselves and to teach others.
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Fulcrum (ENG) pinned «This chat welcomes people with different opinions, but especially those interested in Marxism and the Communist Movement. However, there are a few rules here to ensure that the chat does not turn into a mess: 1. You are not to retell your ordinary life…»
In the third essay Potapenkov gives a brief historical review of the formation of planned organization of social production in the initial period of 1918-1924. However, these are not just historical facts, but logical summary made from them. Here you will learn that the planned organization of social production had two stages, which gave rise to two types of social product belonging to the same planning period. You will see how its dual nature influenced it, and whether it was possible for a new form of commodity relations to emerge within the planned organization of social production.
In spite of the fact that we will be talking here only about the simplest categories of the commodity-planned mode of production, their understanding helps to uncover the whole structure of the Soviet economy. Since the relations between the two types (planned and produced) of social production already contained, like a fetus, the entire future organism, there was that duality of the aim of production which led to all those contradictions and paradoxes of the Soviet economy, about which we shall speak further on.
@AFulcrum
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
Link: https://telegra.ph/Ivan-Potapenkov-Essay-3-Two-types-of-the-social-product-07-25
Preface | Essay 1 | Essay 2 |Essay 4 | Chat |
#Ivan_Potapenkov #Soviet_economy
In spite of the fact that we will be talking here only about the simplest categories of the commodity-planned mode of production, their understanding helps to uncover the whole structure of the Soviet economy. Since the relations between the two types (planned and produced) of social production already contained, like a fetus, the entire future organism, there was that duality of the aim of production which led to all those contradictions and paradoxes of the Soviet economy, about which we shall speak further on.
@AFulcrum
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
Link: https://telegra.ph/Ivan-Potapenkov-Essay-3-Two-types-of-the-social-product-07-25
Preface | Essay 1 | Essay 2 |Essay 4 | Chat |
#Ivan_Potapenkov #Soviet_economy
Telegraph
Ivan Potapenkov. Essay 3. Two types of the social product
The existence of the commodity form of labor products did not cancel the planned organization of social production, only the approach to its implementation changed. When it comes to how the planned organisation of social production was formed, and between…
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We are organizing a new project, the INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST CORRESPONDENCE, which will be focused on covering the economic and political situation of wage workers throughout the world.
What will make it special is that the news will be analyzed from a Marxist point of view, first from the perspective of Dialectical Materialism, and secondly in connection with the ultimate aims and fundamental interests of the working-class Movement.
We need people who are willing to 1) gather information about the economy and political struggles in their area, 2) seek out and interview workers about their situation, 3) can themselves share information about how things are going at their workplace, and 4) help process and analyze the incoming information from a Marxist perspective.
We also kindly ask everyone who is subscribed to this channel, who is interested in the published materials, who wants to help with their propaganda - invite your friends, share the posts with those who you think might be interested in them. And we are still looking for people willing to help with translations.
Text to @Afulcrum
What will make it special is that the news will be analyzed from a Marxist point of view, first from the perspective of Dialectical Materialism, and secondly in connection with the ultimate aims and fundamental interests of the working-class Movement.
We need people who are willing to 1) gather information about the economy and political struggles in their area, 2) seek out and interview workers about their situation, 3) can themselves share information about how things are going at their workplace, and 4) help process and analyze the incoming information from a Marxist perspective.
We also kindly ask everyone who is subscribed to this channel, who is interested in the published materials, who wants to help with their propaganda - invite your friends, share the posts with those who you think might be interested in them. And we are still looking for people willing to help with translations.
Text to @Afulcrum
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Forwarded from The Communist Pact
FAST FOOD CHEF FROM KAZAKHSTAN. [Part 1\2]
Wage workers - who are they?
These people work in factories and create all the goods we buy in stores. These people work in the fields and grow all the things we eat. These people build schools, hospitals, roads, parks, and homes. These people teach our children, heal our elders, and keep order in our society. These people are us.
Why do we have to work for wages? Because we need the means to live, we need products and services that we can only buy with money. In order to get money to survive, we sell our labor power to those who are called entrepreneurs, businessmen, capitalists.
Not only do we perform all the basic physical labor, but we also engage in science, commerce, law, banking, management, accounting, etc. Why then do businesses remain owned by a small circle of capitalists who appropriate profits that are absolutely not equivalent to their labor participation in the public economy?
Many conscious wage earners are already uniting and fighting for their liberation. Their goal is to destroy private ownership of the means of production, their goal is to take over the enterprises and control the results of their labor by themselves. Such conscious wage laborers are Communists.
But do all wage workers realize that their interests are common and are they willing to fight for them?
Today we will tell you about the working conditions and views of an ordinary cook from Kazakhstan who works in fast food. The worker we interviewed is a twenty-two-year-old Kazakh guy. He has a degree in exterior and interior design, and has previously worked as a teacher of Fine Arts, a loader, and an administrator in a restaurant.
As he himself tells about his current place of work, it is a team of 18 people, where there are both men and women, Russians and Kazakhs. There are no conflicts on ethnic or religious grounds, the environment is friendly.
His shift starts from 12 pm to 1 am, and the main work starts in the evening. He is paid 10,000 tenge (21 USD) per shift, although in the same region others can earn 15,000 KZT (31 USD) and 20,000 KZT (42 USD) for similar work. He himself does not consider his salary fair, as he has author's recipes and cooks half of the menu: shawarma, pizza, ramen, khachapuri, wings, etc. Now it is his first month of work in this place and with the growth of revenue he was promised to earn a higher salary, and he expects to receive up to 30,000 KZT per shift (62 USD).
For a better understanding, to rent an apartment in this region one currently need about 120 000 KZT (249 USD) per month. Food costs are as follows: potatoes cost 250 KZT (0.51 USD) per kg, tomatoes and cucumbers cost 700 KZT (1.45 USD) per kg, 1 kg of rice costs 1000 KZT (2.08 USD), a bottle of milk - 600 KZT (1.25 USD), and 1 kg of beef costs 3000 KZT (6.23 USD).
Our cook believes that for now his salary is enough to meet his needs, and in the future he plans to sell his plot of land and open his own small business.
Read more...
#INCORR
Wage workers - who are they?
These people work in factories and create all the goods we buy in stores. These people work in the fields and grow all the things we eat. These people build schools, hospitals, roads, parks, and homes. These people teach our children, heal our elders, and keep order in our society. These people are us.
Why do we have to work for wages? Because we need the means to live, we need products and services that we can only buy with money. In order to get money to survive, we sell our labor power to those who are called entrepreneurs, businessmen, capitalists.
Not only do we perform all the basic physical labor, but we also engage in science, commerce, law, banking, management, accounting, etc. Why then do businesses remain owned by a small circle of capitalists who appropriate profits that are absolutely not equivalent to their labor participation in the public economy?
Many conscious wage earners are already uniting and fighting for their liberation. Their goal is to destroy private ownership of the means of production, their goal is to take over the enterprises and control the results of their labor by themselves. Such conscious wage laborers are Communists.
But do all wage workers realize that their interests are common and are they willing to fight for them?
Today we will tell you about the working conditions and views of an ordinary cook from Kazakhstan who works in fast food. The worker we interviewed is a twenty-two-year-old Kazakh guy. He has a degree in exterior and interior design, and has previously worked as a teacher of Fine Arts, a loader, and an administrator in a restaurant.
As he himself tells about his current place of work, it is a team of 18 people, where there are both men and women, Russians and Kazakhs. There are no conflicts on ethnic or religious grounds, the environment is friendly.
His shift starts from 12 pm to 1 am, and the main work starts in the evening. He is paid 10,000 tenge (21 USD) per shift, although in the same region others can earn 15,000 KZT (31 USD) and 20,000 KZT (42 USD) for similar work. He himself does not consider his salary fair, as he has author's recipes and cooks half of the menu: shawarma, pizza, ramen, khachapuri, wings, etc. Now it is his first month of work in this place and with the growth of revenue he was promised to earn a higher salary, and he expects to receive up to 30,000 KZT per shift (62 USD).
For a better understanding, to rent an apartment in this region one currently need about 120 000 KZT (249 USD) per month. Food costs are as follows: potatoes cost 250 KZT (0.51 USD) per kg, tomatoes and cucumbers cost 700 KZT (1.45 USD) per kg, 1 kg of rice costs 1000 KZT (2.08 USD), a bottle of milk - 600 KZT (1.25 USD), and 1 kg of beef costs 3000 KZT (6.23 USD).
Our cook believes that for now his salary is enough to meet his needs, and in the future he plans to sell his plot of land and open his own small business.
Read more...
#INCORR
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FAST FOOD CHEF FROM KAZAKHSTAN. [Part 2\2]
Read from the start...
Speaking of his views, he tends to lean towards liberalism and even to be apolitical, as long as no one bothers him. We asked him what his opinion would be if the factories were to be owned by all the workers, to which he replied, “it's impossible, they'll always fight over who's in charge”. However, he is favorable to the idea of everyone receiving from society the amount of benefits corresponding to the amount of time they had worked in a particular area of production. He is also positive about the elimination of national borders and the possibility for everyone to be able to live, work and freely travel all around the world. He is strongly opposed to wars between countries and peoples, suggesting that politicians who start conflicts should just fight each other, leaving millions of common people out of their disputes.
We asked whether he would agree that every able-bodied person of equal ability should work in material production, say one week a month, and the rest of the time have the opportunity to engage in science, art and management. He answered that it was necessary to take into account the predisposition of some to physical and others to intellectual labor, that in this way everyone would be able to do more and perform better. He himself would like to work as an operator in a computer club, as well as to travel and paint a “badass” painting. He considers the most important thing in his life is to ensure a prosperous future for his children and grandchildren.
We were interested to talk to this wage laborer, who apparently has never been interested in political economy and is not aware of any Marxist ideas. He does not believe that the current governments think of the ordinary people, and his views could be considered internationalist and tolerant to communist principles.
In our questionnaire we ask people "how to improve the lives of working people?" His answer was that everything depends on the family upbringing, and that workers should have their own demands for better life. In this sense we can say that idealistic views are not foreign to him.
The following case from his past is also of interest: when, after constant complaints from customers, several cooks went on strike, he went to work instead of them. As a result, they had to apologize and start working again. According to him, these cooks themselves “screwed up” and then agreed not to come to work and not to answer the phone to put pressure on the bosses. Nevertheless, his streikbrechery immediately broke up the protest, which did not even last three days.
This interview was just the beginning of a major social survey on the life situation and views of wage workers around the world. We want to give the voice to the workers themselves and show them that they share common interests. However, we still have a long way to go in connecting Marxism with the labor movement.
#INCORR
Read from the start...
Speaking of his views, he tends to lean towards liberalism and even to be apolitical, as long as no one bothers him. We asked him what his opinion would be if the factories were to be owned by all the workers, to which he replied, “it's impossible, they'll always fight over who's in charge”. However, he is favorable to the idea of everyone receiving from society the amount of benefits corresponding to the amount of time they had worked in a particular area of production. He is also positive about the elimination of national borders and the possibility for everyone to be able to live, work and freely travel all around the world. He is strongly opposed to wars between countries and peoples, suggesting that politicians who start conflicts should just fight each other, leaving millions of common people out of their disputes.
We asked whether he would agree that every able-bodied person of equal ability should work in material production, say one week a month, and the rest of the time have the opportunity to engage in science, art and management. He answered that it was necessary to take into account the predisposition of some to physical and others to intellectual labor, that in this way everyone would be able to do more and perform better. He himself would like to work as an operator in a computer club, as well as to travel and paint a “badass” painting. He considers the most important thing in his life is to ensure a prosperous future for his children and grandchildren.
We were interested to talk to this wage laborer, who apparently has never been interested in political economy and is not aware of any Marxist ideas. He does not believe that the current governments think of the ordinary people, and his views could be considered internationalist and tolerant to communist principles.
In our questionnaire we ask people "how to improve the lives of working people?" His answer was that everything depends on the family upbringing, and that workers should have their own demands for better life. In this sense we can say that idealistic views are not foreign to him.
The following case from his past is also of interest: when, after constant complaints from customers, several cooks went on strike, he went to work instead of them. As a result, they had to apologize and start working again. According to him, these cooks themselves “screwed up” and then agreed not to come to work and not to answer the phone to put pressure on the bosses. Nevertheless, his streikbrechery immediately broke up the protest, which did not even last three days.
This interview was just the beginning of a major social survey on the life situation and views of wage workers around the world. We want to give the voice to the workers themselves and show them that they share common interests. However, we still have a long way to go in connecting Marxism with the labor movement.
#INCORR
👍24
IVAN POTAPENKOV ABOUT HIMSELF AND THE SOVIET SOCIETY [1\2]
There are probably no people who are born materialists in the sense that they look at historical processes from a materialistic point of view.
My interest in the Soviet economy arose quite early, practically starting from school years. But I began to actually study the Soviet economy as I became more mature. Although my decision to study political economy, philosophy and scientific communism (although it is probably better to call this subject as scientific socialism) - these three components of Marxism - was predetermined by the desire to understand the Soviet reality that surrounded me. In order to study Marxism, I enrolled at the Leningrad University (now St. Petersburg) at the Faculty of Economics, majoring in Political Economy. I graduated in 1983.
Alongside with my studies, I worked in material production at an instrument-making plant. My internship in production field has given me much food for thought. And it was in those years that my internship allowed me to formulate the form of the commodity plan not from a theoretical position, but from practical activity; because at the end of every month, the Party meeting was held, at which, regardless of the agenda of the meeting, the same question was discussed: "How are we going to fulfill the plan this month?" A plan is a law that must be fulfilled, and the evaluation of the fulfillment of the plan was done by comparing the set planned targets for the volume of production in monetary form with the actual social product produced in monetary form.
After graduation, within two years I had passed my PhD exams and was about to start writing my dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences. I was going to write a dissertation on “Direct social labor in the socialist economy”. The basics of this topic have already been outlined in my dissertation at the end of my university studies. The paper intended to argue that the nature of social labor in enterprises is not reflected in the Soviet plan. The product of labor can be created by the labor of a personnel, accounted for in the fulfillment of the enterprise's plan and, moreover, even sold, but all this does not mean that the labor of this personnel is spent with benefit to society. The product of this labor could simply end up on a warehouse shelf and not be consumed due to its uselessness.
However, Perestroika began and in the Era of Glasnost many facts of Soviet industrial activity, which had previously been simply not allowed by censorship, were brought to the light. Writing the dissertation lost its meaning, since the new information raised a bigger question: what was the nature of the Soviet economy as a whole? Certain facts confirmed many of my conclusions that I had come to through my analysis. Other facts raised many new questions, which I previously did not take into consideration.
In general, in political economy, real discoveries are possible when one has described and proved the totality of production relations under a particular mode of production as a whole. Before that, there is a simple process of gathering facts and making sense of them. The topic of my dissertation was partly of this nature, as it was intended to describe only one of the many features of the Soviet economy. And only when the mass of collected and comprehended information is broad enough, it becomes possible to generalize the collected material in order to identify and analyze the existing relations of production in the society. This allowed: 1) to determine the position of the subjects of these relations in material production, as well as their material interests, 2) to understand the class (social) structure of society in general, and 3) to determine, in particular, which of these classes is dominant in material production. And whoever rules in material production sooner or later establishes their political dominance as well.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
There are probably no people who are born materialists in the sense that they look at historical processes from a materialistic point of view.
My interest in the Soviet economy arose quite early, practically starting from school years. But I began to actually study the Soviet economy as I became more mature. Although my decision to study political economy, philosophy and scientific communism (although it is probably better to call this subject as scientific socialism) - these three components of Marxism - was predetermined by the desire to understand the Soviet reality that surrounded me. In order to study Marxism, I enrolled at the Leningrad University (now St. Petersburg) at the Faculty of Economics, majoring in Political Economy. I graduated in 1983.
Alongside with my studies, I worked in material production at an instrument-making plant. My internship in production field has given me much food for thought. And it was in those years that my internship allowed me to formulate the form of the commodity plan not from a theoretical position, but from practical activity; because at the end of every month, the Party meeting was held, at which, regardless of the agenda of the meeting, the same question was discussed: "How are we going to fulfill the plan this month?" A plan is a law that must be fulfilled, and the evaluation of the fulfillment of the plan was done by comparing the set planned targets for the volume of production in monetary form with the actual social product produced in monetary form.
After graduation, within two years I had passed my PhD exams and was about to start writing my dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Economic Sciences. I was going to write a dissertation on “Direct social labor in the socialist economy”. The basics of this topic have already been outlined in my dissertation at the end of my university studies. The paper intended to argue that the nature of social labor in enterprises is not reflected in the Soviet plan. The product of labor can be created by the labor of a personnel, accounted for in the fulfillment of the enterprise's plan and, moreover, even sold, but all this does not mean that the labor of this personnel is spent with benefit to society. The product of this labor could simply end up on a warehouse shelf and not be consumed due to its uselessness.
However, Perestroika began and in the Era of Glasnost many facts of Soviet industrial activity, which had previously been simply not allowed by censorship, were brought to the light. Writing the dissertation lost its meaning, since the new information raised a bigger question: what was the nature of the Soviet economy as a whole? Certain facts confirmed many of my conclusions that I had come to through my analysis. Other facts raised many new questions, which I previously did not take into consideration.
In general, in political economy, real discoveries are possible when one has described and proved the totality of production relations under a particular mode of production as a whole. Before that, there is a simple process of gathering facts and making sense of them. The topic of my dissertation was partly of this nature, as it was intended to describe only one of the many features of the Soviet economy. And only when the mass of collected and comprehended information is broad enough, it becomes possible to generalize the collected material in order to identify and analyze the existing relations of production in the society. This allowed: 1) to determine the position of the subjects of these relations in material production, as well as their material interests, 2) to understand the class (social) structure of society in general, and 3) to determine, in particular, which of these classes is dominant in material production. And whoever rules in material production sooner or later establishes their political dominance as well.
Next...
#Ivan_Potapenkov
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Fulcrum (ENG)
IVAN POTAPENKOV ABOUT HIMSELF AND THE SOVIET SOCIETY [2\2]
Previous...
But I was able to fully devote myself to analyzing the Soviet economy only at the beginning of this century. To do this, I had to go deeper into the methodology of Marx's analysis of…
Previous...
But I was able to fully devote myself to analyzing the Soviet economy only at the beginning of this century. To do this, I had to go deeper into the methodology of Marx's analysis of…
👍10
IVAN POTAPENKOV ABOUT HIMSELF AND THE SOVIET SOCIETY [2\2]
Previous...
But I was able to fully devote myself to analyzing the Soviet economy only at the beginning of this century. To do this, I had to go deeper into the methodology of Marx's analysis of capitalism in Das Kapital, review philosophy in terms of dialectics, and only then proceed to directly analyze the Soviet economy. Research into the Soviet economy has led me to the following conclusions:
1. The basis of the Soviet economy is the planned organization of the social production as a whole. As a result, it is no longer the individual commodity which should be initially analyzed, but the entire social product created in social production.
2. Due to the preservation of the commodity form of the products of labor, the social product appears in two forms of its being. It is a totality of commodities which is considered as a total use value. And it is also a certain amount of money in which the total value of these commodities is expressed. The method of calculating the total value of commodities may vary, but in the Soviet economy prevailed the method of accounting for the gross value of all production.
3. The planned organization has two stages. The first stage is the process of developing the plans. The second is the process of executing the plans. Due to this, there are two types of the social product: planned as a result of the development of plans and produced, which is actually created in the process of implementation of plans. Both types of the social product refer to the same planning period. The first is the goal, the second is the result of achieving the goal. Since both of these types have monetary form in the society, it is possible to assess the fulfillment of plans by comparing the total values of planned and produced social products. The emergence of control figures became the form of plan the name of which is the Commodity Plan, where plannedness and commodity production found a fulcrum of their existence.
The Soviet Union created a new mode of production, which inevitably clashed with the old capitalist mode of production. The rate of growth became the yardstick of the results of struggle due to the preservation of commodity form of the labor products. Higher growth rates were seen as our strength. And since the growth rate is a steady annual increase in total output, the production of total output in monetary terms became the goal. The plans were evaluated by volume of production of total output.
The analysis of the commodity plan has shown that the plan itself contains all the contradictions of the Soviet economy and the study of Soviet history from this angle has confirmed what has been revealed through the logical analysis. This is what the published essays are all about.
To all this I can only add that to present the results of the analysis of the Soviet economic system in a logical framework required a lot of research of historical data. These data gave a complete picture of what was going on, and only at the end of the study I used sources which have only become open and available to the public in recent years, as they have been de-classified.
Due to the fact that the Soviet past has crushed the entire Communist movement like a heavy stone, my essays present a simplified version of the full research, although there I try to explain all the fundamental logic of the development of the Soviet economy.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#Ivan_Potapenkov
Previous...
But I was able to fully devote myself to analyzing the Soviet economy only at the beginning of this century. To do this, I had to go deeper into the methodology of Marx's analysis of capitalism in Das Kapital, review philosophy in terms of dialectics, and only then proceed to directly analyze the Soviet economy. Research into the Soviet economy has led me to the following conclusions:
1. The basis of the Soviet economy is the planned organization of the social production as a whole. As a result, it is no longer the individual commodity which should be initially analyzed, but the entire social product created in social production.
2. Due to the preservation of the commodity form of the products of labor, the social product appears in two forms of its being. It is a totality of commodities which is considered as a total use value. And it is also a certain amount of money in which the total value of these commodities is expressed. The method of calculating the total value of commodities may vary, but in the Soviet economy prevailed the method of accounting for the gross value of all production.
3. The planned organization has two stages. The first stage is the process of developing the plans. The second is the process of executing the plans. Due to this, there are two types of the social product: planned as a result of the development of plans and produced, which is actually created in the process of implementation of plans. Both types of the social product refer to the same planning period. The first is the goal, the second is the result of achieving the goal. Since both of these types have monetary form in the society, it is possible to assess the fulfillment of plans by comparing the total values of planned and produced social products. The emergence of control figures became the form of plan the name of which is the Commodity Plan, where plannedness and commodity production found a fulcrum of their existence.
The Soviet Union created a new mode of production, which inevitably clashed with the old capitalist mode of production. The rate of growth became the yardstick of the results of struggle due to the preservation of commodity form of the labor products. Higher growth rates were seen as our strength. And since the growth rate is a steady annual increase in total output, the production of total output in monetary terms became the goal. The plans were evaluated by volume of production of total output.
The analysis of the commodity plan has shown that the plan itself contains all the contradictions of the Soviet economy and the study of Soviet history from this angle has confirmed what has been revealed through the logical analysis. This is what the published essays are all about.
To all this I can only add that to present the results of the analysis of the Soviet economic system in a logical framework required a lot of research of historical data. These data gave a complete picture of what was going on, and only at the end of the study I used sources which have only become open and available to the public in recent years, as they have been de-classified.
Due to the fact that the Soviet past has crushed the entire Communist movement like a heavy stone, my essays present a simplified version of the full research, although there I try to explain all the fundamental logic of the development of the Soviet economy.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#Ivan_Potapenkov
Telegram
Fulcrum (ENG)
IVAN POTAPENKOV ABOUT HIMSELF AND THE SOVIET SOCIETY [1\2]
There are probably no people who are born materialists in the sense that they look at historical processes from a materialistic point of view.
My interest in the Soviet economy arose quite early…
There are probably no people who are born materialists in the sense that they look at historical processes from a materialistic point of view.
My interest in the Soviet economy arose quite early…
👍10
INTERVIEW WITH A SIBERIAN GIRL [1\2]
We interview wage workers to see their perspectives and working conditions. Our goal is to give them a chance to hear each other and to look at themselves through the lens of their class position under capitalism.
Recently, we interviewed a 22-year-old girl from Russia who works as a design engineer in a small company of 10 people. The team consists of two designers, a press operator, a laser technician, two installers, two managers, an accountant, and a boss who often has to participate on an equal footing with the rest of the staff.
Up until recently she earned 30,000 rubles (324 USD) for her work, and this month her salary was raised to 35,000 rubles (378 USD). She has to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday are days off. She has a half-hour lunch break at work. Her team is friendly, she has not noticed any hate speech among her colleagues. Among the clear disadvantages, she notes that there are not enough employees and she often has to work more intensively, as well as perform tasks which are not part of her duties.
What is a salary of 30,000 rubles (324 USD) in a Russian metropolitan city? To rent a modest apartment in her city one will need to spend 18-25 thousand rubles (194-270 USD), and more than 10 thousand rubles (108 USD) are needed for groceries. And of course, with such an income she will never be able to save up for her own place.
Currently, she lives with her father and brother in an apartment inherited from her grandmother. In the post-Soviet countries, many workers have housing left from the USSR era, which allows employers to pay them lower salaries. She spends about 10,000 rubles (108 USD) on utilities, 4,000 rubles (43 USD) on food, and 1,000 rubles (11 USD) on transportation expenses. Her father buys most of the groceries, and she often gets to work by foot. Taking into account additional expenses for clothes, beauty products, internet and so on, in the end she has to live from paycheck to paycheck.
When we asked her about her political views, she said: “I am in favor of those views where everyone is equal. We need benefits, because apartments cost a lot of money and many people simply cannot afford them. We need to provide housing for low-income and large families. It is also important to improve employment conditions, as many people are unable to find a job. Salaries are also disproportionate: what is the point of pop artists earning millions if a simple cleaning lady earns only 20,000 rubles and does not have enough to live on! It is necessary to establish norms of payments that would cover people's basic needs."
She also has a very negative attitude towards wars: “Just because two people could not agree and wanted to grab more land and resources, lots of people who are caught up in this conflict suffer. I am strongly opposed to wars.”
There is some truth in this sentiment, since heads of state usually have exclusive power in making political decisions. However, behind the politics of the bourgeois state are the interests of big capitalists who lobby both politicians and entire political parties. She herself admits this, noting that “people vote, of course, but whoever has invested the most money wins the elections.” The interests of these capitalists are determined by their economic position, the wealth they possess and the profit prospects open to them. Therefore, to destroy wars — you have to destroy capitalism, and not just keep a militant politician out of power.
Read more...
#INCORR
We interview wage workers to see their perspectives and working conditions. Our goal is to give them a chance to hear each other and to look at themselves through the lens of their class position under capitalism.
Recently, we interviewed a 22-year-old girl from Russia who works as a design engineer in a small company of 10 people. The team consists of two designers, a press operator, a laser technician, two installers, two managers, an accountant, and a boss who often has to participate on an equal footing with the rest of the staff.
Up until recently she earned 30,000 rubles (324 USD) for her work, and this month her salary was raised to 35,000 rubles (378 USD). She has to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday are days off. She has a half-hour lunch break at work. Her team is friendly, she has not noticed any hate speech among her colleagues. Among the clear disadvantages, she notes that there are not enough employees and she often has to work more intensively, as well as perform tasks which are not part of her duties.
What is a salary of 30,000 rubles (324 USD) in a Russian metropolitan city? To rent a modest apartment in her city one will need to spend 18-25 thousand rubles (194-270 USD), and more than 10 thousand rubles (108 USD) are needed for groceries. And of course, with such an income she will never be able to save up for her own place.
Currently, she lives with her father and brother in an apartment inherited from her grandmother. In the post-Soviet countries, many workers have housing left from the USSR era, which allows employers to pay them lower salaries. She spends about 10,000 rubles (108 USD) on utilities, 4,000 rubles (43 USD) on food, and 1,000 rubles (11 USD) on transportation expenses. Her father buys most of the groceries, and she often gets to work by foot. Taking into account additional expenses for clothes, beauty products, internet and so on, in the end she has to live from paycheck to paycheck.
When we asked her about her political views, she said: “I am in favor of those views where everyone is equal. We need benefits, because apartments cost a lot of money and many people simply cannot afford them. We need to provide housing for low-income and large families. It is also important to improve employment conditions, as many people are unable to find a job. Salaries are also disproportionate: what is the point of pop artists earning millions if a simple cleaning lady earns only 20,000 rubles and does not have enough to live on! It is necessary to establish norms of payments that would cover people's basic needs."
She also has a very negative attitude towards wars: “Just because two people could not agree and wanted to grab more land and resources, lots of people who are caught up in this conflict suffer. I am strongly opposed to wars.”
There is some truth in this sentiment, since heads of state usually have exclusive power in making political decisions. However, behind the politics of the bourgeois state are the interests of big capitalists who lobby both politicians and entire political parties. She herself admits this, noting that “people vote, of course, but whoever has invested the most money wins the elections.” The interests of these capitalists are determined by their economic position, the wealth they possess and the profit prospects open to them. Therefore, to destroy wars — you have to destroy capitalism, and not just keep a militant politician out of power.
Read more...
#INCORR
Telegram
Fulcrum (ENG)
INTERVIEW WITH A SIBERIAN GIRL [2\2]
Read from the start...
Next, we asked her opinion about the key principles of communism. It turned out that she would not object to large enterprises being owned by the state and the products produced by them being distributed…
Read from the start...
Next, we asked her opinion about the key principles of communism. It turned out that she would not object to large enterprises being owned by the state and the products produced by them being distributed…
👍12
INTERVIEW WITH A SIBERIAN GIRL [2\2]
Read from the start...
Next, we asked her opinion about the key principles of communism. It turned out that she would not object to large enterprises being owned by the state and the products produced by them being distributed among all members of society. “Right now the state leaves us with only crumbs when many do not have enough even for ordinary entertainment, vacations, and some don't even have enough for the most basic needs”.
We also asked how she would feel about the idea if, for example, instead of prices for bread or sausage there were indexes of time spent on their production, and people instead of salaries would receive time vouchers depending on how much they have worked for the benefit of society, taking into account some tax deductions. And she liked the idea: “Yes, it would be easier. It would get more people involved because they'd know they're doing something that will specifically benefit them and they're getting the things they need in return. It would be cool to have something like that.”
She also wouldn't mind if all able-bodied people were equally involved in productive labor and had the opportunity to pursue education, science, and management: “Well that, by the way, would be really interesting if you worked in one place for a while and then switched to other occupations in different fields. It would be a useful experience that would give you more knowledge and make it easier to work at your main place. It would make life easier, because people could do what they like to do rather than what they had to do in society.”
Her views on abolishing borders between states could also be described as quite communist: “I think it would be an interesting experience to be able to go to any country where the only restriction is the ticket cost. It would allow people to discover themselves. Of course, there are many nuances, but it would make life easier. The same rules for everyone, the same rights, although of course there would still be language barriers. That would be great.”
She herself would like to work as either a nanny or a teacher, and in her spare time she would like to study musical instruments. She also does not support the idea of persecuting people for their views, appearance or sexual orientation. As she puts it, “No, no, no. I don't treat people badly. I would never repress them for who they are, for being themselves.”
Through her example we see another wage worker who, while not a communist, holds views that are quite in line with communist ideas. This Russian girl considers people of other nationalities equal to herself, she does not support wars and dreams of all people being happy and living in prosperity.
So who is dividing us? Who benefits from the current predatory order in this world? Surely not those who today are forced to sell their labor just to meet their needs.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#INCORR
Read from the start...
Next, we asked her opinion about the key principles of communism. It turned out that she would not object to large enterprises being owned by the state and the products produced by them being distributed among all members of society. “Right now the state leaves us with only crumbs when many do not have enough even for ordinary entertainment, vacations, and some don't even have enough for the most basic needs”.
We also asked how she would feel about the idea if, for example, instead of prices for bread or sausage there were indexes of time spent on their production, and people instead of salaries would receive time vouchers depending on how much they have worked for the benefit of society, taking into account some tax deductions. And she liked the idea: “Yes, it would be easier. It would get more people involved because they'd know they're doing something that will specifically benefit them and they're getting the things they need in return. It would be cool to have something like that.”
She also wouldn't mind if all able-bodied people were equally involved in productive labor and had the opportunity to pursue education, science, and management: “Well that, by the way, would be really interesting if you worked in one place for a while and then switched to other occupations in different fields. It would be a useful experience that would give you more knowledge and make it easier to work at your main place. It would make life easier, because people could do what they like to do rather than what they had to do in society.”
Her views on abolishing borders between states could also be described as quite communist: “I think it would be an interesting experience to be able to go to any country where the only restriction is the ticket cost. It would allow people to discover themselves. Of course, there are many nuances, but it would make life easier. The same rules for everyone, the same rights, although of course there would still be language barriers. That would be great.”
She herself would like to work as either a nanny or a teacher, and in her spare time she would like to study musical instruments. She also does not support the idea of persecuting people for their views, appearance or sexual orientation. As she puts it, “No, no, no. I don't treat people badly. I would never repress them for who they are, for being themselves.”
Through her example we see another wage worker who, while not a communist, holds views that are quite in line with communist ideas. This Russian girl considers people of other nationalities equal to herself, she does not support wars and dreams of all people being happy and living in prosperity.
So who is dividing us? Who benefits from the current predatory order in this world? Surely not those who today are forced to sell their labor just to meet their needs.
Translated by @AnaStasiA1q
#INCORR
Telegram
Fulcrum (ENG)
INTERVIEW WITH A SIBERIAN GIRL [1\2]
We interview wage workers to see their perspectives and working conditions. Our goal is to give them a chance to hear each other and to look at themselves through the lens of their class position under capitalism.
Recently…
We interview wage workers to see their perspectives and working conditions. Our goal is to give them a chance to hear each other and to look at themselves through the lens of their class position under capitalism.
Recently…
👍13
ABOUT COMMUNISM
The material conditions dictating the necessity of transition to the communist mode of production are emerging in the depths of capitalism. Capital, in the pursuit of profit, has transformed the individual labor process of a handicraftsman into a social labor process in which the production of any object of utility involves the labor of millions of people. This is the historical merit of capitalism. Social processes of labor on creation of objects of utility form the interconnection and interdependence of all participants of social production, which requires a different way how production is organized.
Capital, by introducing the division of labor in the manufacture, transformed the individual labor process of a handicraftsman into a social, collective one. As a result, a new type of labor organization, namely, the planned organization of labor, had to be created. The very practice of collective labor generates certain proportions of labor costs between different types of work performed by different members of the labor collective. This is a technical law of production; it is only through experience that these proportions can be grasped in order to rationally distribute the total collective labor among the various specific types of labor within the manufacture. But under capitalism, planning is limited by the size of private property. Yes, today it has gone beyond an individual enterprise; enterprises that are technologically connected within a modern monopolistic concern, but are covered by a single shareholding, have been subjected to planned organization. The planned organization of all social production under capitalism is impossible, due to the fact that the social processes of labor are torn between different owners-participants of these very processes. Therefore, every step towards the planned organization of social production comes into conflict with private property.
Thus, the first step to the establishment of the communist mode of production is for the proletariat to win political domination in order to use the power of the state to eliminate private property and put the means of production into common use. Initially, the communization of the means of production is carried out in the form of state ownership, because at first the state will inevitably continue to exist. And only after the establishment of common ownership of the means of production does the formation of the production relations of the new mode of production, and thus the socialist society, begin.
Marx explored the two phases of communist society in his "Critique of the Gotha Programme."
Since socialism and communism are two phases of the same mode of production, there are certain common features between them: 1) the elimination of private property and the transfer of the means of production into common ownership; 2) the elimination of the isolation of the participants in social production through the elimination of the exchange of the results of labor, thus labor is not transformed into value; 3) individual labor initially appears as direct social labor, which is possible only under the planned organization of social production.
However, they are still two phases of the same mode of production, which implies differences between them, which lie in the terms of distribution. The created means of production are common property; only objects of utility are to be distributed among the workers of social production. In the first phase, distribution by labor is carried out, based on the same principle as in the exchange of commodities as equal values: a given quantity of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal quantity of labor in another form. In the highest phase of communism, distribution will be under the principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Thus, one can conclude that the relations on production of material goods are common for both phases, the differences are expressed in the relations on distribution of created material goods.
#Ivan_Potapenkov #Fulcrum_communism
The material conditions dictating the necessity of transition to the communist mode of production are emerging in the depths of capitalism. Capital, in the pursuit of profit, has transformed the individual labor process of a handicraftsman into a social labor process in which the production of any object of utility involves the labor of millions of people. This is the historical merit of capitalism. Social processes of labor on creation of objects of utility form the interconnection and interdependence of all participants of social production, which requires a different way how production is organized.
Capital, by introducing the division of labor in the manufacture, transformed the individual labor process of a handicraftsman into a social, collective one. As a result, a new type of labor organization, namely, the planned organization of labor, had to be created. The very practice of collective labor generates certain proportions of labor costs between different types of work performed by different members of the labor collective. This is a technical law of production; it is only through experience that these proportions can be grasped in order to rationally distribute the total collective labor among the various specific types of labor within the manufacture. But under capitalism, planning is limited by the size of private property. Yes, today it has gone beyond an individual enterprise; enterprises that are technologically connected within a modern monopolistic concern, but are covered by a single shareholding, have been subjected to planned organization. The planned organization of all social production under capitalism is impossible, due to the fact that the social processes of labor are torn between different owners-participants of these very processes. Therefore, every step towards the planned organization of social production comes into conflict with private property.
Thus, the first step to the establishment of the communist mode of production is for the proletariat to win political domination in order to use the power of the state to eliminate private property and put the means of production into common use. Initially, the communization of the means of production is carried out in the form of state ownership, because at first the state will inevitably continue to exist. And only after the establishment of common ownership of the means of production does the formation of the production relations of the new mode of production, and thus the socialist society, begin.
Marx explored the two phases of communist society in his "Critique of the Gotha Programme."
Since socialism and communism are two phases of the same mode of production, there are certain common features between them: 1) the elimination of private property and the transfer of the means of production into common ownership; 2) the elimination of the isolation of the participants in social production through the elimination of the exchange of the results of labor, thus labor is not transformed into value; 3) individual labor initially appears as direct social labor, which is possible only under the planned organization of social production.
However, they are still two phases of the same mode of production, which implies differences between them, which lie in the terms of distribution. The created means of production are common property; only objects of utility are to be distributed among the workers of social production. In the first phase, distribution by labor is carried out, based on the same principle as in the exchange of commodities as equal values: a given quantity of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal quantity of labor in another form. In the highest phase of communism, distribution will be under the principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Thus, one can conclude that the relations on production of material goods are common for both phases, the differences are expressed in the relations on distribution of created material goods.
#Ivan_Potapenkov #Fulcrum_communism
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KARL MARX. ABOUT COMMUNISM.
The published excerpt from Karl Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme explains what the first and highest phases of communist society have in common and how they differ from each other.
As Marx explains, what is common to both phases of communism is the planned organization of social production according to the labor time, while the difference is that during the period of socialism there will still be remnants of bourgeois law and distribution will be mainly according to labor.
Also, at the very beginning of this text you will learn that the workers under socialism will also have to work part of the time for the maintenance of public funds and what these funds may be.
We recommend reading this work to all supporters of commodity-planned socialism who consider their utopian views to be Marxist.
https://telegra.ph/Karl-Marx-About-Communism-Critique-of-the-Gotha-Programme-10-03
Read also:
About communism in Karl Marx's economic manuscripts
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Distribution
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Production
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Simple and compound labour
#Fulcrum_communism #Classics_on_Communism
The published excerpt from Karl Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme explains what the first and highest phases of communist society have in common and how they differ from each other.
As Marx explains, what is common to both phases of communism is the planned organization of social production according to the labor time, while the difference is that during the period of socialism there will still be remnants of bourgeois law and distribution will be mainly according to labor.
Also, at the very beginning of this text you will learn that the workers under socialism will also have to work part of the time for the maintenance of public funds and what these funds may be.
We recommend reading this work to all supporters of commodity-planned socialism who consider their utopian views to be Marxist.
https://telegra.ph/Karl-Marx-About-Communism-Critique-of-the-Gotha-Programme-10-03
Read also:
About communism in Karl Marx's economic manuscripts
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Distribution
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Production
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Simple and compound labour
#Fulcrum_communism #Classics_on_Communism
Telegraph
Karl Marx. About Communism. Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Critique of the Gotha Programme. 3. "The emancipation of labor demands the promotion of the instruments of labor to the common property of society and the co-operative regulation of the total labor, with a fair distribution of the proceeds of labor. "Promotion…
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KARL MARX. ABOUT COMMUNISM.
This is an excerpt from Karl Marx's economic manuscripts of 1857-1859, and the Russian edition formulates its topic as follows: the development of the monetary form of value as a result of the development of exchange. The social character of production in bourgeois society as opposed to the social character of production under communism.
This text explores what the monetary form of value is, how it is related to the labor time, and what is the difference between activity exchange and commodity exchange, and between monetary accounting and direct accounting of labor time.
https://telegra.ph/Karl-Marx-About-Communism-Grundrisse-Notebook-I--The-Chapter-on-Money-10-03
Read also:
About communism in Critique of the Gotha Programme
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Distribution
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Production
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Simple and compound labour
#Fulcrum_communism #Classics_on_Communism
This is an excerpt from Karl Marx's economic manuscripts of 1857-1859, and the Russian edition formulates its topic as follows: the development of the monetary form of value as a result of the development of exchange. The social character of production in bourgeois society as opposed to the social character of production under communism.
This text explores what the monetary form of value is, how it is related to the labor time, and what is the difference between activity exchange and commodity exchange, and between monetary accounting and direct accounting of labor time.
https://telegra.ph/Karl-Marx-About-Communism-Grundrisse-Notebook-I--The-Chapter-on-Money-10-03
Read also:
About communism in Critique of the Gotha Programme
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Distribution
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Socialism - Production
About communism in Anti-Dühring. Simple and compound labour
#Fulcrum_communism #Classics_on_Communism
Telegraph
Karl Marx. About Communism. Grundrisse: Notebook I – The Chapter on Money.
The product becomes a commodity. The commodity becomes exchange value. The exchange value of the commodity acquires an existence of its own alongside the commodity; i.e. the commodity in the form in which (1) it is exchangeable with all other commodities…
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