the methods used by the Bolsheviks in order to take power and to retain power during the Civil War of 1918–21, materially contributed to the formation of the Stalinist system as it took shape during the 1930s (Callinicos)
Michael Kidron
Surfing the net I was reminded of Michael Kidron’s, The Permanent Arms Economy (1968) We all deplore the UK (and others) exporting arms to Saudi Arabia (and elsewhere) when we know damn well that they are going to use them to terrorize the civilian population, and we hope that public indignation might make the government more careful about what it sells to whom. But such sales are not just an error of judgement by government, they are systematically imposed by the way in which capitalism works. It all starts from the observation that the working population can never realize the full value of the outputs that they themselves generate in the workplace (Rosa Luxemburg amongst others). This is because the value of the outputs is made up of the wages paid to the workers plus the surplus appropriated by the enterprise; so the wages of the workers can only realize the value of a part of the outputs. There are a number of ways in which the shortfall can be made good; by sellin...
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