Dear comrades,
As we all know there are two soviet eras pre and post death of Stalin. We all know Khrushchev basically did a coupe detat, by killing all Stalinists and also by starting the anti Stalin propaganda. We know he was the cause of the Soviet Sino split.
But what exactly caused the split? What policies did he push that were reformist or capitalist in nature ? How exactly did he fuck up? I know the results, but I lack in knowledge of the causes.
But what exactly caused the split?
You sort of answered this one yourself. Among numerous factors it is precisely the things you mentioned - the de-Stalinisation nonsense, the purge against pro-Stalin elements (if you can even call them that - they were just anti-revisionist Marxists-Leninists), blatant revisionism of Marxism-Leninism and its core principles (continuous class struggle, dictatorship of the proletariat, the party of the proletariat), blind optimism when it comes to the national question
What policies did he push that were reformist or capitalist in nature ? How exactly did he fuck up?
They weren’t all strictly capitalist in nature, to be honest. It would be more accurate to say that his blunderous policies created conditions for capitalist restoration inside Soviet Socialism.
The policies typically referred are such: he dismantled the state-owned MTSs (machine and tractor stations), putting the responsibility of maintaining and repairing the machinery on collective farms. He dismantled central planning, replacing existing institutions with decentralized regional planning committees, which greatly exacerbated the existing difficulties with planning. He encouraged the peasantry to keep more privately-owned produce and livestock, essentially strengthening NEP-style measures without second thought. He adopted wage-leveling - a mistake of monstrous proportions, which decimated incentive for production growth (more of a left-deviation, honestly - the USSR was not ready for such a thing), and also created severe discontent among the intellectuals, prompting them to look for other means of enrichment, siphoning this strata of society into the “second” economy who would then constitute would-be capitalists in its embryonic form.
He also started the Virgin Lands cultivation bullshit, instead of trying to make a qualitative shift in agriculture. The idea was also to emulate US agricultural practice with heavy use of mineral fertilizer. The results were disastrous, partly due to the fact that initial yield seemed to have increased (but that was only true for land already cultivated), which gave overall sense of false promise, and also due to the abandonment of Stalin’s afforestation program, which worsened issues with droughts.
There were also big mistakes of political nature on top of those related to the economy, including the damage done to CPSU - recruiting too many people of questionable ideological strength, massively increasing the % of intelligentsia compared to industrial proletariat, needless bureaucratization, etc. He also drove a split into industrial and agricultural factions inside the CPSU.
Simply said, his overall strategy represented a Bukharinist right-deviation within the political spectrum of the CPSU. Something Stalin warned might happen in a peasant-dominated country.
The list is hella incomplete, please feel free to add more stuff.
This is an excellent answer comrade! This topic is very important imo as it helps us to understand why things in the SU went so wrong later on. The capitalist restorationists around Gorbachev did not suddenly appear out of nowhere in the 80s, the groundwork for the economic mistakes and the degeneration of the CPSU had been laid decades prior. This whole subject really should have its own section on Prolewiki that newcomers who have these same questions can be referred to.
the groundwork for the economic mistakes and the degeneration of the CPSU had been laid decades prior
To all of this I’ll add that many of the reforms implemented under Khrushchev (or at least the general idea behind them) weren’t necessarily out of place - things like some amount of social liberalization or increasing availability of consumption goods (the light industry), given what the USSR and its people have been through. As is always the case, the appeal for these things didn’t appear out of nowhere - there were material reasons. And, of course, if implemented prudently, they could have produced positive results for the USSR. It’s just that the way they were conducted was overall a failure. Khrushchev’s shallow understanding of Marxist theory, his tendency of favoring short-term easy solutions aimed at quick returns (opportunism, essentially), as well as monumental loss of experienced ML cadres certainly played a part too.
Excellent write up thus far that summarizes the many mistakes seen under Khrushchev’s term.
Do you have any book recommendation on that topic?
“Socialism Betrayed - Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union” by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny. An absolutely indispensable book to give you a starting point and moderately deep insights.
There are more books, like “The Destruction of the Soviet Economic System - An Insider’s History” by Vladimir Kontorovich, I suggest you put those off for later, as they are more detailed but dry, filled with technical language.
Thanks! I’m adding them to my reading list.
Thanks comrade
It’s not directly about the topic, but there is a lot of context that indirectly shows how Khrushchev and Trotsky both essentially operated as wreckers when it came to anything involving Stalin. I have no respect for Trots anymore after reading the things both Trotsky and Khrushchev said and wrote, not due to having a pro-Stalin bias (I was neutral on him at that time I read these), but because they essentially served neoliberal interests and did everything in their power to dismantle or cripple the Soviet project along the way. In particular, they tried to reverse all of the progress that was attributed to Stalin.
“Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend” Domenico Losurdo. It uses references mostly from Stalin’s detractors to paint a portrait of him, whether he was good or bad. There are two sources that I think are from two English translations that you can get for free, but I don’t really know the differences:
There are two sources that I think are from two English translations that you can get for free, but I don’t really know the differences
The one from Iskra Books is most likely better. The one on Prolewiki is the English translation of a Portuguese translation of the original Italian, whereas the one on Iskra Books is a direct English translation from the original Italian.
How Stalin even had an afforestation program? based
As Deng said in an interview:
Khrushchev only ever brought pain to the Chinese people. Stalin, on the other hand, did some good for us. After the founding of the People’s Republic, he helped us to build up an industrial complex that is still the foundation of the Chinese economy. He didn’t help us for free — fine, we had to pay him — but he helped us. And, when Khrushchev came to power, everything changed. Khrushchev broke all the agreements between China and the Soviet Union, all the contracts that had been signed under Stalin — hundreds of contracts.
https://redsails.org/deng-and-fallaci/
By my understanding, this was in large part because Khrushchev wanted to put Soviet military bases in the PRC and the latter refused.
Interviews like this make me think that excellent journalism is effectively dead in our times. We are never gonna get a cross-cultural dialogue this now.
Tbf there was also lots of chauvinism from the USSR towards the PRC, starting with the liberation of Manchuria from the Japanese. The seeds of the split were planted early.
I think we need Khruschev’s side of the story, tbh.
idk, I personally think he rather lost his right to that with all the lying in the Secret Speech, which was then cover for slaughtering Stalin’s supporters in the political establishment, but you can do what you like, of course
Sure, but I don’t think anyone really loses that “right.”
That’s a big statement. You really don’t think anyone loses that?
Including conscious Right-wingers and Rightist-serving wreckers?
Including them.
(Plus, I think the mods are done with this convo.)
The collapse of the USSR and the ensuing tragedy (global tragedy btw) suggest otherwise.
It does the opposite.
Why do you think so?
So we can get the complete history lol
Imagine saying something akin to “let’s hear Gorbachev’s side of the story - we need the complete history” in 1993. There was an interview - it was bogus through and through. You won’t get the complete history that way.
Why not hear Gorby’s side of the story?
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Yes, this is what I’m getting at.
But the mods have spoken. Let’s move on.
I’ve read most of your comments, and I get a really strange feeling from them. Almost like “I’m not going to bother reading Kruschev myself, but you all are WRONG because you’ve never read him”.
As an ML community, we’re committed to historical materialism (you can see an excellent overview of it from Marx here: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/h/i.htm#historical-materialism). What I take from that is we have can have a deeper understanding of history than “mere” historians, who still typically lack any understanding of class or political economy.
And we especially don’t need to read all the “Great Men” who “made things happen”. We know that history is a process of class struggle, and understand its outcomes as such
And I would add that there’s especially little value in studying the far right if our goal is to understand what they want.
Sartre put it best:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
I liked that you hid your reply to me behind another comment. Classy.
I like how you also quote an anti-communist in bad faith.
Never change.
Damn, so many ad hominems there comrade. Please fuck off.
You first. The mods already told us to stop with this convo.
Ciao.
Not at all.
I’m friends with Ismail and he got me interested in reading the other side of the story.
“I’ve read most of your comments, and I get a really strange feeling from them. Almost like “I’m not going to bother reading Kruschev myself, but you all are WRONG because you’ve never read him”.”
Vibes aren’t research.
No investigation, no right to speak!
So I’m supposed to “research” your views…by reading through this thread…which is what I did.
Keep attacking a strawman.
lol
Look, they did the thing!
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I plan to read Khruschev’s works to understand him more.
I want to thank all the comrades for responding in masses.
The Sino-Soviet split was caused by both sides.
Don’t let others tell you otherwise.
People are just repeating Grover Furr ad nauseum in this and other writers.
The Sino-Soviet split was caused by both sides.
Yeah, that doesn’t mean both sides were equally responsible, though. You could say the Chinese could have tried doing some rapprochement (and evidently they did in the late 70s), and, you know, NOT helping the imperialists in Afghanistan, but at least when it came to Khrushchev they had a point.
They had no point when it came to Khruschev.
They should’ve worked with the Soviet Union diplomatically in order to combat American imperialism, which was the greater evil. The Soviet Union post-1956 was not imperialist, objectively speaking. So the PRC had no point and had to change its economic policy even after the CultRev.
Except that the course Khrushchev took ultimately paved the way for capitalist restoration and disintegration of the USSR. Not to mention that, as others pointed out, the way he came to power was something akin to a coup d’etat. And it’s not like I’m blindly defending Mao, but at the end of the day you always have to consider the totality of circumstances under which a given decision is being made.
The problems of capitalist restoration extend back to the Russian Revolution, not just Khruschev.
Sure. That doesn’t mean he’s suddenly absolved of all responsibility. Criticism towards him is valid and necessary, just like criticism towards any leader - Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, whoever
I didn’t say he was suddenly absolved of all responsibility.
how did Khrushchev f*ck up?
The title of the post. When I say they had a point when it came to him, I am referring to his massive mistakes on all fronts. History proved the Chinese right. Yes, maybe they should have been more pragmatic, maybe they did overreact, that is not the point. The point is - he did fuck up, big time, and Mao correctly pointed out his mistakes.
Can you elaborate on that /gen
Much of the population was still quite conservative and, for example, when the Soviet Union incorporated many of the Eastern European countries, it was incorporating many of the problems from those regions as well, including a strong ultra-right element.
Edit: A lot of these people would appear in government to.
I seriously cannot believe all the blame is pinned on the Soviets in every single comment when you could say China hung the USSR out to dry in every ideological battle ever
I think that’s sort-of besides the point, though I respect what you’re trying to say.
