The nature of a theory

"The nature of Soviet society" is a short pamphlet published by the SLP (Socialist Labor Party) in 1978. It critiques three established, left-wing notions about the character of Soviet society: that it's socialist, that it's a "degenerated workers' state" (Trotsky's position), or that it's state capitalist. The SLP draws the conclusion that all three theories suffer from serious shortcomings.

Their own tentative theory is that the Soviet Union represents an entirely new form of class rule, a kind of bureaucratic mode of production. The rule of the bureaucracy arose in nations which for various reasons couldn't embark on a capitalist development. Instead, the state apparatus modernized these nations by a centralized planned economy.

Curiously, the SLP thus accepts the Soviet growth figures, claiming that the Soviet Union has developed the productive forces, overcome cyclical crisis and suffers from labour shortage rather than unemployment. Yet, the SLP also admits that the Soviet economy is chronically wasteful, produces shoddy products and doesn't invest in the consumer sector. Their analysis seems contradictory.

Nor do they respond to the obvious follow up questions: if the bureaucracy can modernize some nations, should we not support the bureaucracy? The SLP doesn't draw this conclusion, however, since they support the Workers' Opposition (a semi-syndicalist dissident group in the Soviet Communist Party already in 1920-22). But why not? This calls for more discussion. Further, shouldn't the SLP support the introduction of capitalism in the Soviet Union, once the bureaucracy becomes too wasteful and inefficient? Unless I'm mistaken, their paper The People did print an article after the fall of Gorbachev actually suggesting this.

"The nature of Soviet society" is a very obscure pamphlet from a rather small political group, which I'm reviewing mostly because I happen to have bought it years ago. Probably not interesting for the general reader.