In
Trotskyist
Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...
political theory, a degenerated workers' state is a
dictatorship of the proletariat in which the
working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
' democratic control over the state has given way to control by a
bureaucratic
Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...
clique. The term was developed by
Leon Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...
in ''
The Revolution Betrayed
''The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going?'' () is a book published in 1936 by the former Soviet leader Leon Trotsky.
The book criticized the Soviet Union's actions and development following the death of Vladimir ...
'' (1936) and in other works.
Soviet experience
Trotsky argued that Russia was a genuine workers' state from the
1917 October Revolution until
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
's consolidation of power. The
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
had been
politically overthrown by the
working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
and the economic basis of that state lay in
collective ownership
Collective ownership is the ownership of private property by all members of a group. The breadth or narrowness of the group can range from a whole society to a set of coworkers in a particular enterprise (such as one collective farm). In the la ...
of the
means of production
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...
. Contrary to the predictions of many
socialists
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...
such as
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...
, the revolution failed to spread to
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and other industrial
Western European countries although there were massive upheavals of working people in some of those countries and so the Soviet state began to degenerate. That was worsened by the material and political degeneration of the
Russian working class by the
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
of 1917–1923.
After the death of Lenin in 1924, the ruling stratum of the Soviet Union, which consolidated around Stalin, was held to be a bureaucratic
caste
A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
, not a new ruling class, because its political control did not also extend to economic ownership. The theory that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers' state is closely connected to Trotsky's call for a
political revolution in the Soviet Union, as well as Trotsky's call to defend the Soviets from
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...
restoration.
Trotsky summarised the more optimistic arguments within the
International Left Opposition:
Trotsky always emphasised that the degenerated workers' state was not a new form of society but a transitional phase between capitalism and socialism (and closer to capitalism) that would inevitably collapse into one form or the other. He argued, however, that whether the downfall led to the restoration of workers' democracy or to capitalist restoration would depend on whether the movement to overthrow the dictatorship of the bureaucracy was led by the organised working class:
"Degenerated" vs. "deformed"
The term "degenerated workers' state" commonly refers only to the Soviet Union. Trotskyists of the
Fourth International
The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third Inte ...
(founded in 1938) coined the term "
deformed workers' state
In Trotskyist political theory, deformed workers' states are states where the capitalist class has been overthrown, the economy is largely state-owned and planned, but there is no internal democracy or workers' control of industry. In a defor ...
" to describe states (like the
Soviet satellite states of
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
as well as China) based upon
collectivised means of production, but in which the working class never held direct political power. The two terms therefore label similar phenomena in that they both refer to states where the bourgeoisie no longer holds power, where the means of production has been socialised and where an
unaccountable bureaucratic elite holds the political reins. They differ in the history of how their situation has arisen: through the bureaucratic degeneration of a genuine workers' democracy, as in the Soviet Union; or through the establishment of a deformed workers' state resulting from the overthrow of bourgeois rule and ownership by some force other than the mass action of the organised working class, such as by an invasion, a guerrilla army, or a military coup.
Critics
Besides the supporters of the Soviet Union holding the belief that the state was a workers' state, the theory has been criticised from within the Trotskyist movement, and by other socialists critical of the Soviet Union. Among the disputed issues are the relationships between a workers' state (of any type) and a
planned economy
A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...
. Some authorities tend to equate the two concepts, while others draw sharp distinctions between them.
Among Trotskyists, alternative but similar theories include
state capitalism
State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ...
and
bureaucratic collectivism.
Related terms
Another theoretical term used by some Trotskyists, most notably
Ted Grant
Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant tendency, Militant and later Socialist Appeal (UK, 1992), ...
, to describe the dictatorial rule of bureaucracies in such "degenerated" or "deformed" workers' states is
proletarian bonapartism.
See also
*
Bureaucracy in the Soviet Union
*
New class
*
State socialism
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Degenerated Workers' State
1930s neologisms
Political science terminology
Trotskyism
Marxist theory
History of socialism
Forms of government
Marxist terminology
Working-class culture
Bureaucratic organization
Cliques