The session will discuss the nature of the Soviet Union and the crushing of workers’ self-emancipation. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.

***Main reading is starred.
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V.I. Lenin, “The economic basis of the withering away of the state“, chapter V, in State and Revolution, (1917)

***Maurice Brinton “The Bolsheviks and workers’ control: the state and counter-revolution“, Solidarity Pamphlet, (1975?)

Don Filtzer on labour and the Soviet state

Was the Soviet Union socialist, communist, state capitalist or something else?
The following is the journal Aufheben’s summary of the debate:

***”What was the USSR? Part 1: Trotsky and state capitalism“, Aufheben, 6, Autumn 1997

***”What was the USSR? Part 2: Russia as a non-mode of production“, Aufheben, 7, Autumn 1998

***”What was the USSR? Part 3” Aufheben, 8, Autumn 1999

Aufheben’s attempt to go further than the previous theories:
“What was the USSR? Part 4: Towards a theory of the deformation of value” Aufheben, 9, Autumn 2000