Letter: Vodka-Cola (1980)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vodka-Cola

I should like to express my appreciation for your letter of 11th November and the review of “Vodka-Cola” in the November issue of the Socialist Standard.

I also very much appreciate your positive comments on “Vodka-Cola”, which will be the core conflict of the ’80s between democratic socialism and authoritarian state capitalism.

I also appreciate your comments in the utilisation of the term “socialist” and the loose handling of “Marxism” in the text. I share entirely your definition of the USSR as an example of state capitalism -and not socialism. And, of course, the entire tenor and objective of “Vodka-Cola” is to confirm what you state that the means of production and the distribution of its output have now largely been accumulated by small elitist minority groups whose interests converge on the exploitation and the expense of the majority of the population, and especially those who relate to society through their earned incomes.

Charles Levinson

Geneva