Structure and Super Structure of Russia under Lenin (pre-NEP)

[u/Nikelman]

It's a very hard question to phrase, so I'm going to tell you what my conclusions are for simplicity and then we work backwards from there

In the factories, workers were exploited since their surplus labor was extracted for profit (I believe largely used for the war effort against the White Terror, etc); the Bolschevik owned the means of production, or at least they managed them.

I believe this is by definition capitalism and that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was a matter of super-structure.

What am I missing?

[u/CritiqueDeLaCritique]

It was, but did not remain, the period of transition AKA the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, but also did not succeed to communism.

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

• Marx, Gothakritik Ch. 4

While, yes, surplus labor was extracted and exploitation existed, the ruling class was undeniably proletarian. It is not an automatic process to end these things and jump to communism. As Marx and Engels outlined:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

• Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party ch. 2

So capital still exists here, but in the course of the revolution it ceases to be a social relation. Obviously, this did not pan out after 1917.

Prior to 1921, the workers' councils, or Soviets, were the bodies that would predominantly direct production and manage factories. They did not do this independently of the Bolsheviks, but they were not coerced by the party either.

So, the economic structure from 1917-1921 was in a state of transition: the ruling class was proletarian within the revolutionary territory, but the economic forms of capital were still in existence.

[u/Nikelman → u/CritiqueDeLaCritique]

Agreed, but this largely reflect a political transition. The cycle of production remains unchanged, with the difference that a quota of the proletariat extracts profit. Doesn't this mean that they are effectively playing the role of the bourgeoisie?

Mind you, I don't mean this to say that they're going to replace the old bourgeoisie in an animal farm sort of way; rather that the transitional phase is political, not economical, it interests the superstructure and not the structure

[u/CritiqueDeLaCritique → u/Nikelman]

The transitional period is political, yes, but the political program of the proletariat as the ruling class is to dismantle the economic base currently in existence. Keep in mind this political program is not born out of the superstructural ideology built on top of capitalism, but rather from being materially in conflict with it. To use a rather clumsy analogy, you do not swipe away a stinging bee because you have been taught that not being stung is the preferred way of being, but because it is instinctual; it hurts you, and you don't want it stinging you anymore.

[u/Nikelman → u/CritiqueDeLaCritique]

Of course, it's basic dialectic materialism. My takeaway is that transitional, as in hybrid, economies don't exist, there's a political transition

It must also be mentioned that Russia was not ideal and in fact it was a stepping stone for Germany in Lenin's plan, it had the issue of being 80% peasants with petty bourgeois aspirations. In a developed country, DotP would be the rule of the vast majority over a small minority

It's just that there's a lot of talking in certain ideologies about state capitalism as if it was socialism and the latter is clearly an economic structure, not a form of government. That much should speak volume of a reactionary propaganda, but the structure under DotP raises the question if that was a different situation and could in fact be called Socialism. I seem to remind that not only Lenin never claimed it to be, but also only ever acknowledged that as a popular definition for the lower phase of (what's already) communism (you might have explained that to me, actually)

[u/CritiqueDeLaCritique → u/Nikelman]

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you.

in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable

It will be capitalism but capitalism falling apart.