@AaronMk  
I don’t feel like reading all that so I’m just going to give you an A+.

She makes me think of an overworked secretary.

Oh, you want me to go on? OK, thanks. So, where was I? Oh, yes!
 
|| In the Muscovite debate, the comparison between the laws of the Russian economy and the established laws of bourgeois economy by Marxism also came up. The namely text fights dialectically on two fronts. Some say: “If our economy was already socialist, we would not need to follow deterministically the tracks of certain economic processes, but could set the course differently: e.g. by the nationalization of the kolkhozes, the abolition of commodity exchange and monetary economy. If you show us, that this is impossible, then let’s deduce from that, that we live in a society, whose economy is entirely capitalist. What does it help to fool ourselves?” In contrast to that, others want to shelve criteria that distinguish socialism in Marxism; Stalin bestirs to answer both. Those naïve researchers are of course no active “political” elements: otherwise it would have been easy to take them out by a purge. We are only dealing with “technicians” and experts of the apparatus of production, through whose mediation the central government learns, whether the huge machinery runs smoothly or has stalled; and when they were right, it would not help to silence them: the crisis would show either way. The difficulties, which are surfacing today, or put more accurately, come to light, are not of academic, critical or even “parliamentary” nature – to move beyond such stitches, no “great man” needs to come, a small political parvenu could handle that. The difficulties on the other hand are real, material, they lie within the things, not in the heads.
 
For answering of the objections, the central government has to insist on two things: first, that in a socialist society, people also have to obey to economic laws which cannot be suspended. Second, that those laws – in whatever way they will differ in the future full communism all and sundry from the laws of capitalism – in the socialist phase partly correspond to the laws of capitalist production and distribution, partly differ from them. And if the apparently insurmountable laws are settled then, one must not ignore them by the punishment of demise and one particularly must not contravene them. So far Stalin.
 
Then a special, albeit essential question arises: is the law of value part of those laws which continue to persist in the Russian economy? And if yes, isn’t every mechanism that adheres to the law of value pure capitalism? Stalin replies to the first question: Yes, the law of value is in effect over here, though not everywhere. And to the second: No, not every economy in which the law of value operates is capitalist.
 
In the entire, solemnly presented theoretical “essay,” the structure seems to be very fragmented and most notably it suits the book of the enemies of Marxism. Those, who employ “philosophical” weapons, will have an easy job, because the effects of the laws of nature and the effects of the economic laws on the human species are equated; while those, who prefer the weapon of “economy” and who have been waiting for a century for a revanche against Marx, can believe to have made it: “The laws of economic profitability and competition of social interests, like we understand them, you will never be able to evade.”
 
One has to distinguish between theory, law and programme. In a certain passage the following sentence slips out of Stalin’s mouth: “Marx, he, as we know, did not like to digress from his investigation of the laws of capitalist production”
 
We already showed at the last assembly in September 1952 in Milan, that Marx’s aim didn’t lie in the sterile description of the capitalist “status quo,” but that from every row the demand and the programme of the destruction of capitalism stares one in the face. Our point wasn’t only to destroy the old and stale opportunist legend, but to show the entire polemical and militant nature intrinsic to Marx’s work. That’s why Marx doesn’t lose himself within the description of capitalism, or respective capitalisms, but instead he describes a capitalist system, an abstract, yes, non-existent, yes, typical capitalism, which nevertheless entirely corresponds to the glorifying theses of the bourgeois economists. Important is solely the clash of both positions (a clash of classes and parties, not a mundane dispute between intellectuals), of which one wants to prove the permanence, the eternity of capitalist machinery, while the other proves its coming death. In this light the revolutionary Marx cared to admit, that the clockwork, perfectly centred and by the freedom of competition, and the right of every individual, to produce and consume by the same rules, is well lubricated. In the actual history of capital it has never been like that, it is not like that, it never will be like that, meaning: the concrete reality would for our reasoning be much more convenient. Even better. If it, to make it short, would have worked out for capitalism, to persevere another century with idyllic ease, the Marxian reasoning would have suffered shipwreck. But it continues to shine with full force, as capitalism continues, but only by monopolization, suppression, dictatorship and massacre; and its economic development precisely follows the results of the analysis of the pure type: confirmation of our doctrine, refutation of the lackeys of capital.
 
In this sense, Marx has dedicated his whole life to the description of socialism, of communism; had it concerned only the description of capitalism, he wouldn’t have given a damn about it.
 
Marx investigated and developed the “economic laws” of capitalism indeed, but the method, in which he did this, indicates the system of socialist characteristics entirely and in dialectical contradiction to them. So, does socialism adhere to those laws? Are they others? And if yes, which?
 
Just a moment! In the center of the Marxist work we put the programme, as a moment that follows a sober examination. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it,” “Theses on Feuerbach,” and every educated dork adds: “youth” theses. But before the programme, and even before the depiction of the discovered laws, the doctrine as a whole, the system of “theories,” has to be determined.
 
Some of those theories Marx has found ready-made at his adversaries, e.g. Ricardo’s value theory, and the theory of surplus value as well. Those theories (we don’t want to claim Stalin never knew of them) are something different from the by Marx thoroughly treated “law of value,” respectively “law of surplus value,” which we here, to not confuse the less experienced among us, rather would like to call “law of the exchange of equivalents” and “law of the relation between the rate of surplus value and the rate of profit.”
 
It is important, to initially clarify the distinction between theory and law, a distinction, which also applies in science. Theory is the depiction of real processes and their relations, to ease the general understanding on a certain area – prediction and modification of those procedures only follow that. Law is the precise expression of a certain relation between multiple, particularly between two series of material circumstances: a relation, whose validity is verifiable at any point and which allows to calculate unknown proportions (no matter, you philosophers, if it is about future, part or present ones. For example I am, with a well discovered law, able to determine, how high the sea level was a thousand years ago; the only difference, that I cannot test, is, how much more you stink to high heaven today.). Theory is something universal, the law something strictly differentiated and particular. Theory is generally qualitative and serves the definition of certain magnitudes and essences. The law is quantitative and aims at their measurement.
 
An example from physics: in the history of optics, two theories of light have superseded each other with varying success. According to the particle theory, the transmission of light consists of the movement of miniscule “corpuscles,” while the wave theory explains this by the oscillation of a permanent medium. Now the easiest law of optics, the law of reflection, says that the ray that hits a mirror forms an angle of incidence that is equal to the angle of reflection. A thousand times this law is confirmed: the skirt chaser precisely knows where he must stand, when he wants to observe the beautiful neighbour that is grooming herself in front of the mirror: in fact, the law is compatible with both theories. It were different appearances and laws that decided the choice.
 
Now, according to Stalin’s text, the “law of the exchange of equivalents” is said to be compatible both with his “theory”: “In socialist economy there are forms of commodity production,” as well as with our theory that says: “If commodity production and mass production exist, then that’s capitalism.” The law is easily tested: One drives to Russia and one will see, that the exchange happens at determined prices with rubles, like on any arbitrary market: thus, the law of the exchange between equivalents prevails. To see now, which theory is the correct one, it’s a bit more difficult. We, for our part, deduce: In Russia one finds oneself within the pure and real capitalism. As for Stalin, he fabricates a theory – precisely: theories are invented, laws discovered – and in defiance of father Marx says: certain economic appearances of socialism obey usually to the law of exchange (law of value).
 
Before we get to the point – which laws of capitalism Marx puts forward, which distinguish capitalism from socialism, respectively which are (perhaps) common to both -, we must point at the common equation of laws of nature with laws of society.
 
As students of Marx we must be militants and polemics; we must not solve such a question scholastically and insists on the theoretical analogy of both areas, perhaps with the “political” goal, to dodge the following argument: “Now, if the laws of society aren’t as insurmountable as for example the law of gravity, then let’s go: let’s knock some over.”
 
How could we forget, that the fight between the giant Marx and the paid gang in the universities of capital flared up on the point, that the laws of bourgeois economy are “no laws of nature,” and we therefore not only want to bust this circle of hell, but can bust it. It is true, that Stalin’s scripture reminds, that with Marx the laws of economy aren’t “eternal,” but instead correspond to certain social phases and epochs: slavery, feudalism, capitalism. But Stalin wants to point out that “certain laws” are common to all epochs and thus also assert themselves in socialism, which allegedly has an own “political economy.” Stalin ridicules Yaroshenko and Bukharin, that said, that political economy is succeeded by a “technique of social organisation”. Harshly he replies to that, that this new discipline, which pseudo-Marxist and trembling before the Tsarist police economists would have attended to, is in reality an “economic policy” – and as such he allows it.
 
Well, whether there will be an economic science in socialism, we will discuss once things have been put in their correct place again; but where there is still an economic policy (like it is under the dictatorship of the proletariat), there are rivalling classes, and we are not yet in socialism. And we must ask like Lenin: Who has the power? And accordingly: Which direction does the economic development take, which – there we concur – takes place in stages? That will the laws of this development tell us.
 
As to the general question of laws in nature and history, it will be dealt with in our theoretical investigations there, where we reply to the expected attacks, which Marxism – which indeed has for 999 of 1000 writers established fixed abode in Moscow – will be subjected to: Attacks regarding Stalin’s banalization of the theory of historical materialism (that’s a theory, not a law) and regarding the questions of determinism and will, causality and ambition. The original content of the Marxian position (barely understood and very inconvenient for people, that pursue a policy of opportunist success) is always that of the direct class struggle and the historical antagonism between the classes, a struggle, which alternately resorts to the typewriter and the machine gun – provided one isn’t able to talk of “feather and sword” anymore. We conceded to the bourgeoisie the achievement, in its war against the old classes, to have promoted the critical-scientific method and to have boldly applied it to the area of nature and then to that of society. It discovered and proclaimed theories, which today are ours: value theory (the value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labour time required for its production) and the surplus value theory (the value of every commodity contains advanced capital and surplus value, therefore a refund and profit). And triumphantly the bourgeoisie then proclaimed: “If you admit” (and science will admit it one century later), “that the same physical laws apply for the primordial nebula as for our planet today, then you must also admit, that the current social conditions will apply for all future societies, because we consensually banish both the intervention of god as well as pure thought from nature and society.” Marxism by contrast delivers the scientific proof, that within the social cosmos, a cycle carries out, which will destroy the capitalist forms and laws, and that the future social cosmos will adhere to other laws. Since you don’t mind to remodel and banalize this mighty work beyond ridiculousness because of domestic and foreign political purposes, finally do us the favour to omit the adjectives “Marxist,” “socialist” and “communist,” and instead use “economist,” “populist,” “progressive,” and it fits like a glove.||

Blatant lies.

Is that a jar of smoke under the desk?

Please don’t hurt me.