The Bureaucratic Revolution
The Rise of the Stalinist State

Schachtman, Max
Publisher:  The Donald Press
Year Published:  1962
Pages:  360pp   Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX15294

Shachtman argues that Stalinist Russia and all countries of the same structure represent a new social order which he calls bureaucratic collectivism. He rejects the view that Stalinist society is in any way socialist or compatible with socialism, and rejects as well the view that it is capitalist or moving toward capitalism.

Abstract: 
-


Table of Contents

Foreword
1. Reflections on a Decade Past

THE THEORY OF BUREAUCRATIC COLLECTIVISM
2. Russia a Workers' State?
3. Russia's New Ruling Class
4. Stalinism and Marxist Tradition
5. Trotsky's Letter to Borodai

NOTES ON RUSSIA IN THE WAR
6. The Counter-Revolutionary Revolution
7. The Program of Stalinist Imperialism
8. Germany and the Control of Europe
9. Seeds of a Third World War

PORTRAITS OF STALINISM
10. Trotsky's "Stalin"
11. Bertram Wolfe on Stalinism
12. Isaac Deutscher's "Stalin"
13. The End of Socialism

THE COMMUNIST PARTIES
14. A Left Wing of the Labor Movement?
15. The Nature of the Stalinist Parties

SINCE STALIN DIED
16. A New Stage in the Russian Crisis

Index



Excerpt:

This work sets forth the view that Stalinist Russia and all countries of the same structure represent a new social order. I call it bureaucratic collectivism. The name is meant to reject the belief that Stalinist society is in any way socialist or is compatible with socialism; and to reject as well the belief that it is capitalist or moving toward capitalism.... I regard this new society and the state that rules it as a unique form of class exploitation and oppression. The vast majority is dominated by a minority which monopolizes all political and economic power and aims at maintaining social relations that are even more alien to socialism than they are to capitalism. The ruling class too is unique, in that it doe snot own the national property which it rules but does 'own' the state. It derives its vast economic power and privilege exclusively from the political power it exercizes through its chosen instrument, the Communist party. The roots of its power over society reposing entirely in this political power, the ruling class cannot permit even such measures of popular control as are possible under capitalism, where the roots of social power lie in property ownership. The totalitarian character of the Stalinist regime is thereby determined and - despite the concessions and modifications it may grant under popular pressure - thereby fixes.

Subject Headings

Insert T_CxShareButtonsHorizontal.html here