The Bolshevik revolution of November 7, 1917, led by Lenin and Trotsky, established the first workers' state and opened the era of socialist revolution throughout the world and of socialist construction in the Soviet Union. Based on the foundations of the socialist revolution and of the planned economy, the USSR developed from a backward semi-colonial state into an industrial powerhouse.
But is the Soviet Union socialist? Why, despite the expectations of Marx and Engels didn't the workers' state wither away? Why, despite the program of Lenin and Trotsky, did the Soviets (councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers), which overthrew the Tsar and the capitalists, lose all influence, and the revolutionary Communist Party degenerate into a conservative hierarchy of boot-lickers and hand-raisers? What turned the Dictatorship of the Proletariat into an opressive and reactionary state machine? What are the social forces at work in the Soviet Union? What is USSR's relationship to the capitalist world and to the other 'socialist' states?
There are powerful contradictory factors shaping the Soviet Union. We see the evidence in the recent revolts in Alma-Ata, in the release of Andrei Sakharov from exile, in the frantic efforts by the Party leaders to shake up and move the economy forward. Presented with the help of the YOUNG SOCIALISTS and the WORKERS LEAGUE, the Trotskyist movement in the United States.
1988 was a year of sweeping changes in the economic and social policies of the Soviet government. Under the pressure of a shrinking, crisis-ridden world economy and the growth of open rebellion by the masses, the ruling bureaucracy has progressed from the fiction of 'socialism in one country' to an open restoration of private property in industry and agriculture.
These lecture will present a Marxist analysis of recent developments in the USSR and the perspective of a political revolution by the Soviet working class.
1989 witnessed a collapse of the East European Stalinist-run regimes and the Stalinist-capitalist division of Europe. The technological revolution which led to a globalization of production and an intensified competition among the leading imperialist powers, also made untenable the autarchies of East Europe.
As the social conditions of the working classes of the advanced capitalist countries are everywhere under attack, a perspective for a peaceful transformation of the deformed workers' states of East Europe and China into some form of bourgeois democracies is just a delusion. These lectures will present a Marxist analysis of the revolutionary developments in East Europe and the USSR and the Trotskyist view of the link between the political revolution in the Stalinist-run states and the socialist revolution in the West.
1990 witnessed the rapid dismantling of Stalinist misplanned economies of East Europe and the USSR. Technological revolution which led to a globalization of production and an intensified competition among the leading imperialist powers, also made untenable the autarchies of East Europe. Contrary to the promises of Western politicians and economists for a Marshall-plan type rebuilding of East Europe, the sharpening of economic competition in the capitalist world market is putting unbearable pressures on these new ``democracies" leading to explosions of social tensions and to a widening class struggle.
These lectures will present a Marxist analysis of the revolutionary developments in East Europe and the USSR. Come to hear the Trotskyist perspective on the political revolution in the Stalinist-run states and the socialist revolution in the West.
The last few years have witnessed a collapse of the Stalinist totalitarian regimes throughout East Europe and in the USSR. The screaming COLLAPSE OF COMMUNISM headlines have, however, obscured the underlying causes for the bankruptcy of these mismanaged autarchies: the globalization of production, the intensified competition among the leading imperialist powers and the historic decline of American capitalism.
But it is now impossible to overlook the collapse of the post World War II equilibrium of the world capitalist system. 1990s will be characterized by ever sharper conflict among the major capitalist blocs for domination over sources of raw materials and cheap labor, and access to each other's markets. The internationalization of production and the collapse of the Iron Curtain dividing Europe are, in turn, leading to a decline in the social conditions in the US and other advanced capitalist countries and to an eruption of the class struggles both in the advanced countries and in the Third World and the post-Stalinist states.
Contrary to official celebrations of the ``End of the Cold War", 1991 saw the US-staged murder of 200,000 Iraqis and the eruption in Yugoslavia of a new round of Balkan wars. Now, as the global recession turns ever deeper, we shall witness more attempts of the imperialist powers to make their working classes pay for a bailout of this decrepit capitalist system.
Come to learn the Marxist analysis of the state of the world and of the need for a revolutionary leadership in the working class.
In the past couple of years following the collapse of the totalitarian Stalinist regimes of East Europe and the USSR we have witnessed an unraveling of the post-World War II equilibrium based on a division of the world between imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracy. At the same time the economic hegemony of the United States, which underpinned the world capitalist system in the past, has eroded.
The contradictions between the globalization of the world economy and the individual nation-states, between the need for a world-wide plan to manage both the natural and the social resources and the system of private property are now pushing our world into an era of wars and revolutions. While the advanced capitalist economies are sliding into a world-wide depression, related factors are leading to a revival of colonialism as the clock is rolled back to an era of destruction, plunder and conquest for Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Come to learn the Marxist analysis of the factors shaping our world and of the need for a revolutionary leadership in the working class.
In the past few years after the collapse of the totalitarian Stalinist regimes of East Europe and the USSR we have witnessed an unraveling of the post-World War II equilibrium based on a division of the world between imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracy. Parallel to that the economic hegemony of the United States, which served as the cornerstone of the world capitalist system, has fatally eroded and the interimperialist rivalries have sharpened and intensified.
The contradiction between the globalization of the world economy and the system of individual nation-states, the conflict between the need for a democratic plan to manage both the natural resources of Earth and the social resources of all humanity and the system of private property with its own market driven laws, these contradictions are now pushing mankind into a convulsive era of wars and revolutions. While the advanced capitalist economies are in the midst of a world-wide depression, powerful factors are leading to a revival of colonialism as the clock is rolled back to an era of destruction, plunder and conquest in Africa, Asia, Latin America and now also in East Europe.
Come to learn the Marxist analysis of the factors shaping our world and of the need for a revolutionary leadership in the working class.
An epidemic of corporate bankruptcies and restructuring, mass layoffs and unemployment, homelessness and disease, crisis in healthcare and education, criminalization of poverty, a travesty of democracy as the billionaires openly rule in Washington and Presidents conspire to flout their own laws: these are the realities of life in America.
In the Third World, the false perspective of a national or "third" road of development has collapsed as these "independent" states succumb to the increased pressures of resurgent colonialism.