LWDT IX: Discussing the Left From All Engels

[Novus America]

You guys sure are writing novels around here.

It's true. NSG exists to waste my life on pointless shit.

The only thing I figure is it saves all my posts. Someday I might take them and actually distill some of them into books. Maybe. If I am not too lazy.

I actually want to write a book on unconventional warfare tactics (I wrote a big paper on the Kenya warfare already. Albania bunkers might be an entertaining section on what NOT to do.

But yes this whole debate here is obviously pointless. Because the other side has a viewpoint completely divorced from reality.

Have you checked the weather reports in Hell? We actually agree on much of the stuff regarding Albania.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Because the other side has a viewpoint completely divorced from reality.

Probably why marxist leninists are so keen on suppressing dissent. The system falls when the truth is spoken.

[South Odreria 2]

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/05/we-n ... ltural-war
Someone has probably posted this already, but it’s a good read.
Support Sara Nelson for AFL-CIO chief, support Elizabeth Warren and Michael Tracey effing off

[Byeclase]

You're confusing Lenin's idea of state capitalism, as envisioned by his New Economic Policy, with socialism.

"No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, has denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Soviet Socialist Republic implies the determination of the Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the existing economic system is recognised as a socialist order." - V.I. Lenin in The Tax in Kind (The Significance Of The New Policy And Its Conditions), 1921.

I don't think I'm confusing anything, that was a little period and little before dying he wrote about the plans, which were executed under Stalin leadership. I don't see anything weird here or confusion.

Do you realise the nonsense you're saying here? Trade is "necessary for the state's survival" because it is still dependent on the world market and still stands with both feet firmly planted in the domain of capitalism. Trade is done to enrich the state coffers so the surplus can be reinvested into more output, which can in turn be traded (sold) for more income - repeat ad infinitum. This is an accumulation of capital undertaken by state actors, clear as day. You claiming it is "controlled" is no different from the benevolent businessman claiming he doesn't keep anything in excess for himself and reinvests everything to benefit the company. 1) excuse me for not being so naive, 2) it does nothing to dispel the notion that Albania was a capitalist country.

I don't realize it. It's not dependent on the world market in abstract, it can take steps towards self-reliance while state trading as monopoly with their allies, which can have plans like the same country or not, if it's necessary for survival there's no other choice.
And if there's no other choice, then the criticism that is done to enrich the state coffers is senseless. I think that assumption of the nomenklatura enriching itself through the state instead of serving the proletarians is false until 1956. Yet, as you describe it, there seems to be a profit motive by state actors as earning more for egoism, no. There's a need to raise the productive forces to industrialize the country and win the war, there's a need to have functioning mechanisms for the defense of the country and healthcare. This is survival not wanting to be enriched in a void like every capitalist enterprise. If it's controlled by the honest party and soviet democracy, at the same time minoritarian, then of course is different than a capitalist country whose purpose can't be the one of a country advancing towards world socialism.

And to suggest socialism (or lower stage communism) has the value-form or adheres to the law of value is plain incompatible with Marxist theory; capitalism is the value-form, it is commodity production. It's an error (or deliberate mischaracterisation) committed by people like Stalin to explain away the capitalist features of Soviet society. As Engels says in Anti-Dühring: "To seek to abolish the capitalist form of production by establishing «true value» is therefore tantamount to attempting to abolish Catholicism by establishing the «true» Pope, or to set up a society in which at last the producers control their products, by consistently carrying into life an economic category which is the most comprehensive expression of the enslavement of the producers by their own product".

But you isolated this from the rest of the text. Engels criticizes that this is a closed model of Dühring, there's no aim to go further, there are communes which can trade between each other in his previous chapter, and Dühring wants to solve the problem in distribution with "equal value" based in hours of work. And finally, of course, they just trade those hours but they can't even raise anything, they can't invest and accumulate, and it's its own destruction. It doesn't actually solve anything.
This is what Engels is referring as true value from Dühring and it doesn't make any sense.

This criticism doesn't apply to the soviets because there are central plans first of all, they don't trade between those isolated communes like Dühring wants for independent worker services. They don't have permanent fixed values in hours of work which don't allow them to raise productive forces. The state makes sure they go all as one and plans have an horizon of time (5 years).
In the example of Dühring, they have exchange value in the trade of those little communes, in the plans they don't have it inside the territory beyond the cooperatives which had to be overcome with time too and temporal state trade necessary for survival. It's central planning. The Dühring system as its totality leads to its own destruction as he says, but not this system; unless it's taken over by the revisionist clique or perishes by invasion.

What Marx himself has said, in Critique of the Gotha Programme, is that lower stage communism is "still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges", but that does not mean the persistence of the value-form, it means that a principle of exchange of equivalents carries over as "[the individual producer] receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another" (i.e. to each according to his contribution). Marx elaborates:

"Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form."

As said, there's a similarity, but also fundamental difference where both the "content and form are changed". So while lower stage communism involves the use of what's essentially labor vouchers or some similar token, this is not an indication of the law of value in operation. Labor-time may be the intrinsic measurement of value to Marx, but it is not the substance of value, as he says in Capital: "Human labor-power in motion, or human labor, creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value only in its congealed state, when embodied in the form of some object". Thus, in lower stage communism as described above, labor is not manifested as the value-form of a product, because production is directly social: the products of a factory are not made as commodities to be traded against other commodities by means of a common measure (money) - they are distributed, not exchanged. There is no exchange of equivalent products taking place, only an exchange of equal quantities of labor directly for articles of consumption.

There are exchanges between the cooperatives and the town, Bordiga criticizes this. The state on its survival may be necessary too. On the other sectors... the products aren't exchanged, they're handled by the state, and this is the predominant mode of production: socialism, and it aims fast towards the elimination of those remnants. I think some leftcoms fail to see this with 100% blacks and whites and ignoring the advance of the process. What's the alternative, waiting for imperialism to collapse at once at the same time? If it's just a discussion about the name as "it can't be called socialism because it has to be 100% communist mode even if it's dominated by the state and advancing towards the 100%" I think it's just useless semantics. I can't imagine how you can call state capitalism a whole socialist system which has only the little remnants of cooperatives and a temporal state trade as monopoly. Isn't that misleading?

And nothing is being extracted? Odd, because Albania, like all of the Eastern Bloc, still maintained monetary economies. Surplus value is simply the difference between the costs of making a product (i.e. labor power, means of production used up) and revenue. The fact that the state takes this revenue and uses it for whatever goals are deemed socially necessary is irrelevant; it is still surplus value being extracted. It is a simple prerequisite of growth that surplus value is extracted to be used for the social investment fund of future economic activity. All societies with a division of labor have surplus production, for they would not grow otherwise.

Material supplies are accounted for in natural units. Prices are fixed by the state in relation to the cooperatives.
They invested in heavy industry first instead of light one and heavy after like capitalist countries. The objective isn't infinite growth or having more revenue as a capitalist enterprise, but defending themselves and covering their needs.
"it is still surplus value being extracted." I Disagree, excesses of production which would otherwise be wasted?
after deducting his labor for the common funds
I may give half the point if we call the prevention of further influence of cooperativists before 1976 the extraction of remnants they produce through fixed prices so they can't hoard and expand their influence, yet this is part of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the state characterization of the state socialist.

All societies with a division of labor have surplus production, for they would not grow otherwise.

I agree that they wouldn't grow otherwise without the division of labour, I disagree in that they have an exploited surplus production... the excesses of the material balance planning are taken which would be otherwise wasted.

Again you are just pretending that wages aren't wages, that surplus-value isn't surplus-value and that capital isn't capital because the state owns it. It's nonsense.

Economic plans are new, I think you're looking at them with a lens of the analysis of former capitalism instead of seeing which nature they take in the plans.

It's quite silly how you seemingly think that surplus value could only be extracted in the form of taxation, ignoring direct exploitation via unpaid labor time. Taxes being low tells us nothing about the level of exploitation.

What unpaid labor time for the workers? Material balance planning isn't perfect in that there are excesses, but they're taken by the state instead of wasted in this case. They didn't advance towards a better technologically improved socialism which could solve that, yet they managed it as efficient as possible.

And yeah, I have no intention of discussing your lunatic notion that Albania under Enver Hoxha was a democracy.

Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, was an example of the USSR for Albania.
Yet you can say, you'll have to tell the same to Lenin, that they had secret police.
I think one must take into account the harsh conditions and aggravation of class struggle under socialism. I consider only after the bourgeois influence is lowered can it be abolished; yet, they have democratic processes, the book of A Coming Age I posted before simply argues people were afraid to vote legitimately from the secret police. No non-utopian alternative is offered.

It works to enrich party elites who siphon off surplus-value to their own ends. In unison, the party-elites, managers and bureaucrats constitute the actors on behalf of the universal capitalist entity - the state. Their function is to increase the total national capital. As Engels puts it in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

"But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head."

Except it isn't the state of capitalists, the bourgeoisie is completely eliminated in national plans, and you have only the little dominated cooperativists. It doesn't work like China's capitalist enterprises where they simply want more money and the whole country is dominated by market forces. He's naming the modern state (the present state in his time, not Albania). If you think he referred to all states... I think that can be countered with the withering away of the state.
I agree, state ownership isn't the solution alone, if it works like capitalism it's not socialism, like China's state ownership.

Also this reminds me this fascistic concept: Supercapitalism.

Or you could simply take a look at Ish-Blloku, the restricted residential area, home to Politburo members and Hoxha's private residential villa. Ordinary people were not allowed to come, and they, especially outside Tirana, would have lived in poverty.

State security area against conspirators. Nothing surprising. If they weren't lifted in the first years they were lifted later.

It can't be done instantly because Albania in the 20th century was a backwater ill-suited for the development of socialism. You complaining it can't be done instantly is precisely the same reasons given by Lenin and the Bolsheviks for instituting the state capitalist New Economic Policy in the USSR. It's historical materialism 101. The Albanian state could not transition to socialism, because it had not yet developed the material base for it.

They took further steps than the NEP and nationalized all industry according to plans like the USSR, this just makes the Albanian effort even better. I don't consider Albania can be equated with the NEP period.

The insults are earned because of pigheaded excuses for totalitarian hell holes and the paranoid mad-men who ran them.

If you think being subjected to starvation level rations and bare-subsistence wages and repressed when you protest is "better than any other country for proletarians" you are not getting enough oxygen to your brain. Read that link about the striking workers in Teykovo and the individual Albanian accounts from King and Vullnetari and dare say that again. "Real socialism" was a living hell for the working man.

Even if they were innocents it'd still wouldn't be totalitarian. That happens everytime in capitalist systems. I'm not a fan of trotskyist falsifications and isolated possible mistakes to say it was a living hell, but I'll save the document. At the same time I say trots who want to sabotage have to be prosecuted and that the 30s were a harsh period of collectivization, the kulaks making it harder.

[Duvniask]

"trotskyist falsifications"

You don't live in reality and no one should ever take anything you say seriously. This was a complete waste of time responding to.

[Servilis]

Why not just abandon all the dialectics and speak like informally?
I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ring out a cuss every now and then, wouldn't it?

I mean, if Marx, Engels, Sterner, Kropotkin, Bookchin, all the others just spoke in an informal tone instead of using words like "dialectics" and "pretense" it would be rather easy to understand what the books meant...

However, that lot died a century or so ago, and so I took it upon myself to write my own books for my own ideology, because I frankly do not possess a neural center and thus I made my own brain.

[Ostroeuropa]

Reminder that under Lenin, towards the end of WW1 when Britain approached the Soviets and was like; Yo, Russia, wanna get in on some of this Imperialism? We can divide Anatolia. We got this sykes-picot shit arranged with france by the way, here's a copy. lol arabs.


The USSR went :I

And then Trotsky published every single secret treaty, agreement, and communique they had with imperialist nations from the last hundred years for all the world to see and basically showed what a bunch of utter cunts they were, including the British trying to get the USSR to join in on an imperialist venture to occupy Turkey with them and openly talking about dicking over the Arabs. The British immediately had to go explain to the arabs that it was all communist lies and propaganda. But it wasn't.


Based USSR. Fuck international norms and diplomacy when it gets in the way of chad moments like that.

Also good praxis for a conscientious state imo. If you want other nations to never ask yours to conspire with them in that way, do things like that. In a sense it binds your successors to similar principles.

It's hard not to kinda like the USSR even at its worst. So much BDE concentrated in one totalitarian state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAeBUUupSwE

Anime Communism is the most powerful tendency

[Bear Stearns]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

[Ostroeuropa]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

Todays technocrats are liberal communists.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n07 ... to-be-vile

[Kowani]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

The modern ones are better at gaslighting the people.

[The South Falls]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

The modern ones are better at gaslighting the people.

If I have to see one more ad about how amazon cares for its workers and the people, imma throw my TV out.

[Northern Davincia]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

The robber barons of yore did nothing wrong, ever.

[South Odreria 2]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

The robber barons of yore did nothing wrong, ever.

Big if true

[Fahran]

How do the Gilded Age robber barons compare to today's uber rich oligarchs and technocrats?

The modern ones are better at gaslighting the people.

Valid. That won't protect them when we come to break up their monopolies.

[Fahran]

Why not just abandon all the dialectics and speak like informally?
I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ring out a cuss every now and then, wouldn't it?

I mean, if Marx, Engels, Sterner, Kropotkin, Bookchin, all the others just spoke in an informal tone instead of using words like "dialectics" and "pretense" it would be rather easy to understand what the books meant...

However, that lot died a century or so ago, and so I took it upon myself to write my own books for my own ideology, because I frankly do not possess a neural center and thus I made my own brain.

"Like, girl, we should totally have the stuff that makes stuff, y'know? The capitalists are a bunch of fugly sluts. They don't even do that much. They're just some casual-ass bitches, right? We're just as cute as the capitalists. People totally like us just as much as the capitalists. I mean, like, why not just eat the capitalists?"

[Hanafuridake]

Why not just abandon all the dialectics and speak like informally?
I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ring out a cuss every now and then, wouldn't it?

I mean, if Marx, Engels, Sterner, Kropotkin, Bookchin, all the others just spoke in an informal tone instead of using words like "dialectics" and "pretense" it would be rather easy to understand what the books meant...

However, that lot died a century or so ago, and so I took it upon myself to write my own books for my own ideology, because I frankly do not possess a neural center and thus I made my own brain.

"Like, girl, we should totally have the stuff that makes stuff, y'know? The capitalists are a bunch of fugly sluts. They don't even do that much. They're just some casual-ass bitches, right? We're just as cute as the capitalists. People totally like us just as much as the capitalists. I mean, like, why not just eat the capitalists?"

I can't tell whether you're black or a sorority girl.

[South Odreria 2]

"Like, girl, we should totally have the stuff that makes stuff, y'know? The capitalists are a bunch of fugly sluts. They don't even do that much. They're just some casual-ass bitches, right? We're just as cute as the capitalists. People totally like us just as much as the capitalists. I mean, like, why not just eat the capitalists?"

I can't tell whether you're black or a sorority girl.

I have never heard a black person say “fugly.”

[The South Falls]

The modern ones are better at gaslighting the people.

Valid. That won't protect them when we come to break up their monopolies.

Who are we, and how many are we?

[Fahran]

I can't tell whether you're black or a sorority girl.

Fraternity/sorority party culture actually absorbs quite a bit of black and gay culture through club culture but they're all pretty distinct if you know what to look for.

[Fahran]

Valid. That won't protect them when we come to break up their monopolies.

Who are we, and how many are we?

We're the people and we are legion. :^)

[Cekoviu]

Why not just abandon all the dialectics and speak like informally?
I mean, it wouldn't hurt to ring out a cuss every now and then, wouldn't it?

I mean, if Marx, Engels, Sterner, Kropotkin, Bookchin, all the others just spoke in an informal tone instead of using words like "dialectics" and "pretense" it would be rather easy to understand what the books meant...

However, that lot died a century or so ago, and so I took it upon myself to write my own books for my own ideology, because I frankly do not possess a neural center and thus I made my own brain.

"Like, girl, we should totally have the stuff that makes stuff, y'know? The capitalists are a bunch of fugly sluts. They don't even do that much. They're just some casual-ass bitches, right? We're just as cute as the capitalists. People totally like us just as much as the capitalists. I mean, like, why not just eat the capitalists?"

I would totes read "theory" if they talked like that tbqh

[Kubra]

If I asked "what did Hoxha do for cancer research", you'd say "establish a socialist economy". It's a non-answer.

It's precisely an answer to questions about extraction of surplus value. A Socialist economy by its very definition ends the extraction of surplus value. So yes, it's an answer to the question.

Because, as they say, the devil is in the details. "God wills it" is about as informative.

then let us consider simply: bunkers. If we consider the remuneration as a social average rather than as individual, was the Albanian working class adequately compensated for the expended labour-time, as well as the capital outlay?

Yes. By eliminating profit as a driving force of the economy and by collectivising the means of production, the extraction of surprlus value ceases to exist.

look, and here's something resembling detail. We can address this, can't we?
What, after all, is "surplus value"? The workingman produces all the value needed to reproduce his standard of living in 6 hours, but his wages are such that he works 12 before he *really* gets back what he needs to do so. The capitalist of course takes the produce of this 6 hours for himself. Before it is even realised as an exchange-value, we can already understand it as surplus value as a quantity of labour-time.
So, bunkers. Lotta concrete. Maybe useful for the politburo to show off with, but otherwise presented no substantial use-value to anyone else, but it was off the backs of workingmen that they were paid for. Can we say that their value was fully remunerated to the albanian workers?

[Kubra]

then let us consider simply: bunkers. If we consider the remuneration as a social average rather than as individual, was the Albanian working class adequately compensated for the expended labour-time, as well as the capital outlay?

Yes.

The remuneration and economic planning wasn't in kind, it was done through material balance planning and it depended on working hours since they weren't in the highest stage of communism yet. Equal pay is guaranteed for equal work.
Economic planning method: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_balance_planning (like the USSR).

In the lower stage of communism (what Lenin calls socialism), the motto is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_each_a ... ntribution. This means if you work more hours or contribute more you can have more remuneration; although the minimal hours of work already give a decent living for all.

"The selling prices of the products of the state enterprises as well as the prices for state purchase of agricultural products are fixed by the state". Price regulations can cause havoc in a capitalist economy if done wrongly and exhaust the producers (I say this before a liberal comes screaming communists don't read basic economy). But market forces no longer rule state enterprises, so they can make plans enforcing this without backslash in detailed and controlled plans. However, in the case of cooperatives in agricultural products, this is good as they're watched by the state so they can't hoard and raise the prices artificially above workers in industries while the products are expensive.

In the higher stage of communism the motto is "to each according to his needs", the division of work is overcome and there's no reason for measuring contribution.


If you want to know a modern type of economic planning which would be better than the USSR and Albania, you can read this: https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/201 ... communism/
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/so ... ialism.pdf
But for this they'd require technology, which didn't meet the conditions of Albania yet.

That seems a bit too good to be true.

It's true attempted historical socialism.

Seriously did you guys think I said bunkers just because I like the word

[Kubra]

Given the bunkers sucked up vast amounts of resources and labor despite producing very little value, simply eliminating a profit motive does not fix the problem.

If I make you work to simply dig a hole and then fill it back in for little or no pay, I make no profit, but you are not being compensated fairly for your work either.

The fruits of labor can be wasted on stupid shit like the bunkers, expending labor without giving the workers any benefit. The bunkers did not benefit the workers.

If Albania didn't have errors, It'd still be socialist. I think you can argue the bunkers weren't efficient in comparison to alternatives (which ones?). Criticism and correction with the principles are still in line with marxism-leninism.

But that's just a problem on how to manage the budget and invest, it doesn't mean more exploitation but wrong decisions. And I think they still had value, they were surrounded by enemies, the recent Greek war, revisionists of all types and Yugoslav infiltrators. For example, Koçi Xoxe being a conspirator in the head of the Sigurimi. That what you said of distrust of the military wasn't so wrong taking into account these infiltrators.
It doesn't seem to me that this is draining the people, taking into account people already had their needs covered and fears justified. Feel free to disagree.

The regime invested an estimated 2 percent of net material product in the construction and installation of thousands of prefabricated cement bunkers throughout the country from 1977 to 1981.

More iron and concrete is said to go into building these bunkers than into housing construction! (Yet 2 percent of net material product).

The overall high rate of defense spending is significant for any country, particularly for such a small nation. The outlandishly high rate in 1950 is evidence of the uncertainty gripping the country concerning the instability vis a vis Yugoslavia. Tito's expulsion from the COMINFORM did not totally alleviate Albanian fears. Also, the concurrent Greek civil war did not do much to encourage a sense of security. The idea of encirclement by hostile enemies was quite strong in this period.

-A coming of age: Albania under Enver Hoxha by James S. O'Donnell.

Because it is. Despite the amount of work Albanians still had the amongst the lowest living standards in Europe.

Albania came from a very backwards system compared to Europe and advanced with extreme speed. If you mean lowest living standards as luxuries, then yes, of course they had less luxuries than already developed and not isolated countries. Albania lacked a lot of those luxuries available already in those countries, but had natural resources to cover the needs of their population. Yet they eliminated exploitation and addressed poverty cutting it, healthcare, education, etc., staying in the path towards world socialism, unlike all the other countries in the world. So this is true, despite if you can argue they didn't have as many luxuries as other countries and this constitutes lower living standards (you can't raise them instantly in 1 year by magic of course), they were raised progressively, better and faster than revisionist and openly capitalist countries.

K, let's address something here.
The thing with quoting agreggate measures like GDP or NMP is that, you know, that's not how that works. Both represent real transactions, real production, real services, made abstract for convenience. It's useful for plenty of things, but can also be used to distort economic questions.
For instance, it is being use to do so *right here*. To say "it was only 2% of the NMP" does not tell us anything about, you know, volume of concrete produced within a given period, its allocation to various industries, and the balance of the end products made with it.

[Kubra]

so then explain: what was the use-value of the bunkers, and do they compare favourably against other potential use-values that could have resulted from the expended material?

They aren't exchanged in the market or used to reproduce capital, cutting down its exchange value and being in line with socialist principles. They're used for defense alone, that's the use value. If you mean there are other potential use values of the concrete that could be used better in favour of all the people, that depends on the democratic decisions... the division of work isn't abolished yet, so everyone isn't doing the same jobs yet and the value form exists, otherwise they'd be in the higher stage communism.

The utility of a thing makes it a use-value. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. When treating of use-value, we always assume to be dealing with definite quantities, such as dozens of watches, yards of linen, or tons of iron. The use-values of commodities furnish the material for a special study, that of the commercial knowledge of commodities. Use-values become a reality only by use or consumption: they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange-value. -Capital, chapter I.

"and do they compare favourably against other potential use-values that could have resulted from the expended material?"
Isn't this question "what's the better way to allocate concrete"? It depends on the circumstances of what they need.

we are not talking capitalism, are we? No, Albania was socialist, and this category of course requires a different lense by which to be interpreted. There were economic problems within the socialist world, and it's only fair we attempt to look to Marx for some explanatory value, no?
Let us consider this term: use-value. In the first place, a use-value has to do with the physical properties of a good. It confronts us chiefly as commodities, but it's not as if the abolition of commodities is the abolition of utility, no? A use-value can be rather abstract; after all, what makes one good more desirable than another? But as good communists, we are perhaps both in agreement that bread represents a greater use-value than a gold necklace, though there might be a difference of labour-time necessary to produce it and socially necessary labour-time for the categories as a whole. Thus, we can recognise comparative use-value, no?
What does this mean, exactly? For the economic planner, it means material products might end up tied into overproduction of goods with lower comparative use-values relative to fixed and variable costs. That is to say, they are difficult to make relative to the fixed and variable inputs, and do not provide as much utility. They may represent use-values of a social effect rather than of practical ones, for instance in a capitalist economy a capitalist may prefer an expensive sports car to a Toyota as a matter of showing off, though he will not get to work any faster than the guy in a Prius when it comes down it. One of the jobs of the economic planner is to prevent this, to maximise the utility of the outputs from fixed and variable inputs.
So, we again come down to bunkers. We can of course state its use-value to the general population: none. We'll reiterate some points about them as defensive emplacements: impossible to resupply, easy targets for air assets (or even just artillery), and providing little more than cover and concealment from small arms fire. A hole in the ground does the latter, and for far less concrete. Now housing, oooooh, wanna know the practical use of housing? I won't bother, who doesn't know how nice it is to, you know, have a place to live? Can we really imagine a society that "democratically" prioritises such over being housed?
So, we are confronted with two possibilities: the bunkers may have simply meant labour-wastage at a massive scale, which is not surplus-value extraction. It is however just as insidious, as it may reduce the value of ones labour just as greatly than if it were extracted as surplus. Or it may be as Novus America said, that the bunkers were useful to the politburo as a means of militarising society. That would most certainly represent a form of surplus-value extraction. Which do you suppose is the case?