On the Question of Soviet Socialism

摘要

The following lines constitute my comments on Laibman's review of van der Linden's book, Western Marxism and the Soviet Union (this journal, Vol. 73, No. 4,2009). Not having had the privilege of reading the book itself and given the space constraint, I will focus on only one issue: Laibman's position on Soviet socialism, specifically, his contention that Soviet socialist development is compatible with Marx's Gotha critique (Marx, 1964), more particularly in the sense of the lower phase of communism, the "protracted period of evolutionary transition" based on "successful proletarian revolution and establishment of workers' power" while retaining "the crucial features of the forces and relations" of capitalism such as "wage-labor" and "money and prices ..." The following development is exclusively based on Marx's own categories.