Stalinism is Right-Wing

[Howard509]

Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer. The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.

[RedCommieBear]

I wonder if any positive discussion will arise from this topic? Probably not.

[Saorsa]

The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil libertiesActually no it didn't. The distinction between left and right wings in politics derives from the seating arrangements which began during the Assemblee Nationale in 1789 [The more radical Jacobin or Montagnard deputies sat on the upper left benches]. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Left_in_France)

The Jacobins and co were hardly in constant favour of "civil liberties". They were perfectly happy to use bloody repression when necessary to defend the gains of the revolution.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I sense a tendency war coming on... :rolleyes:

[Communist]

>>"left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties<<

I believe you're referring to liberalism (http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/liberalism.html). There was just a thread about that today, found here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/liberalism-does-mean-t114064/index.html).

[Howard509]

Actually no it didn't.

The Jacobins and co were hardly in constant favour of "civil liberties". They were perfectly happy to use bloody repression when necessary to defend the gains of the revolution.

The Left-Republicans defended individual rights.

[scarletghoul]

Please move this thread to Learning.

[bricolage]

Left/right really doesn't mean that much these days and it's pretty pointless to spend our time in this infinite war of definitions. To be honest I don't really care if you want to call Stalinism left wing or right wing, it's bullshit which ever side you put it on.

[gorillafuck]

Wouldn't that make capitalist libertarians be leftists?

[Howard509]

Wouldn't that make capitalist libertarians be leftists?

As Chomsky has stated, classic liberalism is against corporate capitalism.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer. The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.

Stalinism is firmly in the left wing...state capitalism is still progressive. Anarchism, however, is very broad, and can refer to many right-wing philosophies.

[gorillafuck]

As Chomsky has stated, classic liberalism is against corporate capitalism.
Where would you place Miseans on a left-right scale?

[scarletghoul]

Well classic liberalism was leftist at the time it started, but now its obviously a rightist thing because the world has progressed somewhat, shifting the left-right spectrum

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Isn't the left-right scale completely economic? (Collective - Individualist)?

Stalinists are just authoritarian leftists, whereas most leftists are libertarians.

[Bright Banana Beard]

lol, this thread will never cease to amaze me.:thumbup:

[Misanthrope]

Isn't the left-right scale completely economic? (Collective - Individualist)?

Stalinists are just authoritarian leftists, whereas most leftists are libertarians.

Many see it as authoritarian - libertarian, right - left.



Stalinism is firmly in the left wing...state capitalism is still progressive. Anarchism, however, is very broad, and can refer to many right-wing philosophies.

Such as..?


As Chomsky has stated, classic liberalism is against corporate capitalism.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Chomsky say that classic conservativism is against corporate capitalism? Where did he say it was liberalism?

[Howard509]

Stalinism is firmly in the left wing...state capitalism is still progressive. Anarchism, however, is very broad, and can refer to many right-wing philosophies.

Any "right-anarchism" that supports hierarchy is not anarchism. Remember, Stalin's communist opponents referred to him as "right-wing."

[Howard509]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Chomsky say that classic conservativism is against corporate capitalism? Where did he say it was liberalism?

In his emails with me over the past year, also in his books.

[Howard509]

Isn't the left-right scale completely economic? (Collective - Individualist)?

Stalinists are just authoritarian leftists, whereas most leftists are libertarians.

Leftists are radically in favor of civil liberties, of personal freedom.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Do you ever bother to read any books of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin? If you did not read them, then do not spew any bullshit.

[mosfeld]

The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties,

According to this criteria, Stalin is, still, on the far left.

http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Many see it as authoritarian - libertarian, right - left.

You mean libertarians?


Such as..?

Such as primitivists.


Any "right-anarchism" that supports hierarchy is not anarchism. Remember, Stalin's communist opponents referred to him as "right-wing."

So now right-wing means support for hierarchy? :confused: He might have been to the right of his opponents, but that doesn't make Stalinism in general rightist.


Leftists are radically in favor of civil liberties, of personal freedom.

I have no idea where you are getting this definition of left and right, but it's completely wrong as pointed out several times.

[the last donut of the night]

Who the fuck cares whether it's right- or left-wing? When the secret police is after you, their political ideology is of no importance.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Leftists are radically in favor of civil liberties, of personal freedom.

But you don't have to be a leftist to promote civil liberties and personal freedom so I don't think that's a very good definition of the left-right scale.

Obviously there are many different left-right scales and political compasses. I've just always used the collectivist-individualist horizontal axis, and an authoritarian-libertarian vertical axis myself.

[SubcomandanteJames]

Typically, I think of it in the political compass example:
That is, there is an up and down, left and right.

The farther left you go, the more collective your economics are. (Farthest left being C/communism).

The farther right you go, the more individualist your economics are. (Farthest right being economic neoliberalism).

The farther up you go, the more authoritarian you are.

The farther down you go, the more towards liberty/anarchy you are.

Stalin therefore is LEFT WING, UPPER HALF.

However, there is no such thing as LEFT WING FASCISM as the cappies/right-wingers like to say (JUST GOOGLE IT! It's ridiculous) because Fascism is a form of corporatism, and the more collective you become in your economics, the more the existence of corporatism fades.

Also:
Little interesting fact about America's politics: even Joe Biden and Barack Obama, the right's favorite "socialists", are right-authoritarian:
http://www.b12partners.net/mt/usprimaries_2007.png

Most "Libertarians" in America (Libertarian Party) are bottom-right, not bottom-left, if they are even in the bottom at all! :lol:

[Howard509]

Do you ever bother to read any books of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin? If you did not read them, then do not spew any bullshit.

I've read the Communist Manifesto and his writings about the Paris commune.

[Bilan]

The right-left paradigm is dreadfully archaic, as Comrade Alastair pointed out. To accuse someone of being right wing is ambiguous, as it can imply many different things, which are often contradictory: such as a fascist, conservative, libertarian, and so on.
To call Stalinism "right wing" means nothing. It merely implies negativity and conservatism, without pin pointing anything. It's useless.

[Howard509]

One way of putting this in a historical context is to see us as “left” in the same sense that Lenin was using in “Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder”. In it, he was criticizing those radicals who were skeptical toward the idea of an all-powerful Party bureaucracy, or of political means toward revolution in general...

In a sense, left-libertarianism is a historical revision that identifies a tradition of association between libertarianism and what can be deemed to be the “left” end of the political spectrum. The term left-libertarian does not use the term “left” in the context of mainstream politics, but in the historical context of classical liberalism and anarchism, I.E. it is a referance to the tendency of opposition to authority. It could be said that left-libertarianism is therefore a redundancy. But the usefulness of the term is as a reclaimation of political alignment in light of the distortion that has occured over the years in terms of how the political spectrum is viewed.
leftlibertarian.org/what-is-left-libertarianism


I don't see how leftism and authoritarianism are compatible or beneficial together.

[BobKKKindle$]

As socialist suggests, what we should really be concerned with as proponents of working-class emancipation is whether "Stalinism" (however we go about defining that term) is conducive to our goal, i.e. whether the societies and organizations that are widely designated "Stalinist" or examples of "Stalinism" have allowed workers to overthrow bourgeois rule and establish meaningful control over the direction of their lives, as participants in a democratic and planned economy, based on collective property relations. Or, in simple terms, whether Stalinism is revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. To say that leftists are in favour of "civil liberties" is entirely vague firstly because freedom is not just a matter of having the legal right to do certain things and secondly because whether the violation of civil liberties is progressive (i.e. conducive to working-class interests or not - we always have to keep coming back to a class-based perspective) or not depends entirely on whose liberties are being violated, and for what ends - as a communist I have no problem with the former members of the bourgeoisie not being able to vote in a post-revolutionary society but I would never dream of arguing that workers or black people should be deprived of the same right under a capitalist regime, and the same is true of other civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and so on.

[Howard509]

It's the nature of civil liberties that they either belong to everyone in society equally or no one at all.

[Blackscare]

Left = advocacy of popular/national/collective control of industry.

Right= private control of industry/property.


The authoritarian/libertarian issue is a totally different axis (aside from that silly test, it's just logical.) So stop calling something that is authoritarian "right" (although I would agree that "Stalinism", for instance, is no route to communism, I wouldn't call it "right" because that would only serve to confuse things.)


Your definitions are basically baseless and sound more liberal than anything else.

Liberalism != leftism.

Leftism refers to economic thought.

[Old Man Diogenes]

Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer. The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.

I don't think calling it Right-Wing would be correct, it is certainly the most totalitarian Left ideology.

[NecroCommie]

Whats this competition? "I am more left than you!" Well who cares? Let the anarchists "be more left", but I know that Leninists are more correct.

[LeninKobaMao]

What I say to all far leftists is: "You don't believe capitalists about anything else so why believe them about Stalin?"

And read up about Stalin and exactly what he achieved with Russia he was a really amazing guy. Look at the statistics living standards went up, turned the USSR in to a super power in a matter of tn years while sticking to socialist policies. And if it wasn't for him we would most likely be speaking German.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Stalinism is firmly in the left wing...state capitalism is still progressive.
And when the workers are being beaten with a stick, I suppose it hurts less if it's called "the workers' stick"?:rolleyes:

Do you ever bother to read any books of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin? If you did not read them, then do not spew any bullshit.
The OP didn't say anything against Marx or even Lenin. As for Stalin, I've never read anything by Mussolini, Hitler, Reagan, Thatcher, or Bush, but I still "spew bullshit" against them.

Once again children, as far as communists go, its all about class: Bourgeois is right wing, Proletarian is left wing.

By those standards, Stalinism (which stands for the subjugation of the proletariat to a bureaucratic elite) is definitely not left.

What I say to all far leftists is: "You don't believe capitalists about anything else so why believe them about Stalin?"
I believe capitalists about lots of things. I believe them about the fact that Elvis and Michael Jackson are dead, about the fact that the Holocaust and the moon landings happened, and about cigarettes being bad for you. None of these things compromise my revolutionary principles; neither does my opposition to Stalinism.

And read up about Stalin and exactly what he achieved with Russia he was a really amazing guy. Look at the statistics living standards went up, turned the USSR in to a super power in a matter of tn years while sticking to socialist policies. And if it wasn't for him we would most likely be speaking German.
And if you read up on the Pope from a Catholic perspective, it turns out he's God's representative on earth. Surely that's even better?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

And when the workers are being beaten with a stick, I suppose it hurts less if it's called "the workers' stick"?:rolleyes:

Did I say anything of the sort, or were you just looking for an opportunity to start a tendency war?

Wether Stalinism is desirable or not has nothing to do with wether it is progressive. Capitalism and it's establishment weren't exactly fun, but it was still progressive in comparison to feudalism.

[Howard509]

The authoritarian/libertarian issue is a totally different axis (aside from that silly test, it's just logical.) So stop calling something that is authoritarian "right"

Stalin's opponents on the left referred to him as right-wing. Those on the American right often refer to the ACLU as a left-wing organization, because of their opposition to personal freedom.

[Das war einmal]

Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer. The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.


Only, in pre-soviet Russia, there where no civil liberties kthnxbye

Edit: Ironically enough, you have also libertarians who state that Nazism was left-wing and their arguments are just as lousy as yours

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

Stalin's opponents on the left referred to him as right-wing. Those on the American right often refer to the ACLU as a left-wing organization, because of their opposition to personal freedom.

Are you actually going to contribute anything worthwhile to this conversation or are you going to simply drop a pithy phrase every now and again without addressing ANY of the points here in any sort of real way? I'm not an apologist for Stalin but this is absurd.

Stalin was actually considered centrist among the old Bolsheviks; it was Nicolai Bukharin that was considered "right-wing". However, even if it was the case that Stalin was considered "right-wing", it was the right-wing of the radical left, still making it, that's right... LEFT! Just because an apple is green, that doesn't make it a pear... It's just a green apple.

[Blackscare]

Stalin's opponents on the left referred to him as right-wing. Those on the American right often refer to the ACLU as a left-wing organization, because of their opposition to personal freedom.


You're talking about two totally different contexts here. America is the Madagascar of politics, many terms (left, right, liberal, libertarian, etc) in America have a very different meaning or at least a twisted meaning, compared to their origins and their meaning in the rest of the world.

So, don't analyze Stalin in the context of American politics.

[Prairie Fire]

Somehow, when I saw the title of the thread, I thought maybe I should check it out. If a persyn put forward any kind of serious argument, I should do my part to defend Marxism-Leninism.

I shouldn't have worried.

Howard509:


Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer. The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.



Okay, Alastair beat me to the punch, and has allready torn your incorrect definition of right and left to pieces.

I thought the historical "Right and Left" distinction was pretty general knowledge ( In my country,it is taught in high school social studies,), but I guess not.

For the sake of argument though, completely disregarding historical usage and context, let's pretend that you are correct, though. Let's pretend that the definition of "Left" revolved around protecting civil liberties.

I was under the impression that the most revolutionary,most radical ideologies lean towards goals such as total emancipation of the workers from a system of exploitation, Abolition of private accumulation of the profits of social production, abolition of class society, abolition of private property in land ownership... You know, things that actually benefit the majority of the population.

Now, if your defintion was correct, and "Left" meant a narrow bourgeois regard for individual liberties, than it would be irrelevent which side of the spectrum "Stalinism" fell onto. If the political concepts that you are talking about (in this case, "left and right" distinction) don't facilitate the goals of emancipating the working class majority in real terms, in material terms rather than just abtracts, than they are irrelevent to the class struggle.

I can also say, while I hesitate to address you as an anarchist (as some of the other anarchists here might be insulted to be equated politically with your simplistic juvenile positions,), the political lines you peddle are in some ways almost classic text-book examples of what is wrong with non-Marxist socio-political analysis.

For a prime example, your fetish with (bourgeois) individual liberties.

Because the propogation of individual-right is your own primary concern, and to a large extent it is enshrined in most trends of anarchism, you summarize that anarchism is therefore the "most radical left position possible".

So, in your opinion, the pinnacle of "radicalism " is individual right.

In my opinion, and that of most others, the pinnacle of "radicalism" is emancipating the exploited, and abolishing the socio-economic system that enshrines this exploitation as it's cornerstone (capitalism).

For me, the pre-condition to emancipating the individual is emancipating the mass.

For you, emancipating the individual involves, first and foremost, a laissez faire approach (presumably by the state) to all individual actions.

You're outlook, your fetish for individual right above mass emancipation, is not even necesarily incompatible with capitalism. As you can see from the Mises cultists, individual right is also the corner-stone of their world outlook. They follow it through to it's logical conclusions, however, and a laissez faire outlook on individual right inevitably becomes a laissez faire outlook on buisness right, on monopoly right (although, they don't follow it logically past that, to realize that then monopoly right and the right of the exploiting class comes into conflict with the precious individual liberties that they cherish!).

Your fetish for individual right doesn't seem to recognize class divisions (you have advocated rights for "society equally" as an absolute, but I guess that is not surprising, as anarchism rejects the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.).

In this bourgeois analysis of yours, about what is "left", you also raise questions that you leave un-answered:

* What is the basis of "civil liberties"?
In my analysis, I sould say that "civil liberties" are simply a manifestation of political power being exercised, just like the terms "independence" and "freedom" are manifestations of political power.

So that leads to the next question:

* Who holds political power, and how is it exercised?

While your charming little custom-signature states that you are "radically anti-political" (There is nothing "radical" about espousing an apolitical philosophy), at the same time the paradox is that you are also over-zealously in favour of "civil liberties", that is, individual rights.

Well, individual rights can't exist without the political power/social mechanisms to enforce them.

So the issue of individual right quickly passes from a secondary issue, to almost irrelevent, in the shadow of the question of who holds political power.

I maintain, as others do, that in order for the complete emancipation of the working majority to take place, the working class (proletariat) must take and hold political power, and exercise it in their interests.

Of course, there are those who take issue with the working class holding power. That would be the exploiting classes, with the bourgeoisie at their head, who currently hold political power, and don't care for being dis-enfranchised, nor for being expropriated and having the very system of exploitation that they live on pulled out from underneath them.

For these reasons, every historical revolutionary transformation of society, even the really flawed and erroneous ones, have been vigorously opposed by exploitersd the world round, and most of these revolutions have been over-turned in this way.

That said, we proceed to the next question:

* Given the antagonistic struggle for supremacy between the two major classes (Bourgeoisie and Proletariat), is it possible to have individual rights as an absolute, above class divisions and class struggle?

Me, I would say "no", and history pretty much backs me up on that.

Most of the biggest proponents of the ideals of the American constitution, which enshrines Greco-Roman individualism as it's basis, forget that in practice, even the bourgeoisie understood class struggle, during their revolutionary period against feudalism.

The American bourgeois rebels, during their revolution against British rule, forbid British loyalists in areas under their control to vote, own a printing press (to dissimentate their views), or hold positions as lawyers, doctors or school teachers. Many of the more vocal loyalists even had their land and property expropriated by the new rebels.

During the french revolution,the answer to the discontent deposed nobility was the guillotine. Even they understood that "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" didn't apply to everyone in absolute, least of all their recently overthrown exploiter class (who were in the process of trying to undermine the newly triumphant revolution.)

Both of these revolutions claimed individual right as their guiding star, but in the face of the reality of class struggle, they acted appropriately to preserve and maintain their new hold on political power.

You see why we can't have civil liberties "...belong to everyone in society equally or no one at all" (At least, not initially. Not as long as class divisions still exist.) ?


Anyways, so your outlook that being "left" constitutes the level to which you advocate (or in your case, fixate on,) bougeois conceptions of individual rights ("civil liberties") is both historically incorrect, as well as anti-socialist in theory and practice.

If absolutizing "civil liberties" was a definition of how "left" or "radical" an ideology is, the Ron Paulites and mises cultists would be the ones to hoist the red flag high. :rolleyes:



As Chomsky has stated, classic liberalism is against corporate capitalism.

... but not against capitalism itself. Not against exploitation of humyns by humyns.

The distinction between "corporate" (monopoly) capitalism and "mom and pop" capitalism is one that ensnares liberals in petty-bourgeois crusades.

At their root, however, they are both means of private accumulation of social wealth. At their core, the only difference in their relations of exploitation is the degree.

Besides, as I have stated on previous threads, a "non-corporate" capitalist entity is simply one that has not yet recieved the opportunity to exploit on a large scale.

Walmart began as a "mom and pop" discount store in Arkansas.

McDonalds used to be a resturaunt exclusively in San Bernardino, California.

Exploiters of labour are Exploiters of labour, no matter what the size of their operation, so "corporate" or "non-corporate"distinctions become trivial.

Liberals and social-democrats are out to wage war against "corporations"; the Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries are out to wage war against capitalism.

SubcommandanteHelix:

Stalinists are just authoritarian leftists, whereas most leftists are libertarians.

:rolleyes:. Engels said it best:

(My empahsis added)



A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Friederich Engels, "On Authority (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm)"

Moving on.

Howard509


Remember, Stalin's communist opponents referred to him as "right-wing."


Stalins opponents, both domestic and abroad, refered to him as a lot of things (most of which have been disproven).




Leftists are radically in favor of civil liberties, of personal freedom.


Any "leftist" worth their salt campaigns first and foremost for social and economic emancipation of the working people.

While we generally support the rights of the working people on an issue to issue basis, this is not done as an anti-class struggle absolute.

For example, While I have often marched through the streets of my city with my comrades on many occasions, I have also angrilly countered the local Neo-nazi gang trying to do the same (We ended up shutting them down, as we do every year).

This isn't hypocrisy, it is class struggle.

Read up some more on what I wrote above, as this all ties into my general criticism of your line here.

RedManatee:


Who the fuck cares whether it's right- or left-wing? When the secret police is after you, their political ideology is of no importance.

Keep the emotional knee-jerk statements out of the argument. Develope a political position, rather than a cliche that infers a historical event, but provides no specific reference to a historical incident.

Howard509

I've read the Communist Manifesto and his writings about the Paris commune.

You have read about the Paris commune, and somehow Still don't understand antagonistic class struggle?

Socialist:


Once again children, as far as communists go, its all about class: Bourgeois is right wing, Proletarian is left wing.

While I would be inclined to agree with you in general, this is over-simplifying.

While objectively I would agree that all bourgeoisie and their interests are "Right" (until they abandon their position as exploiters of labour, they will always be on the far side of the spectrum from working class emancipation), the proletariat is not necesarilly always left.

The interests of the proletariat as a class are left, yes, and their problems and current subjagation by class society can only be solved only through left (specifically, Marxist-Leninist) theory and tactics (the chief tactic being revolution).

On the flip-side, keep in mind that, as Lenin said
"Imperialist ideology also penetrates the working class. No Chinese Wall separates it from the other classes."
- Lenin, "Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism"

Some of the most reactionary bourgeoisie leadership around the world have had working class bases of support. Also, in my persynal experience, I'm several times more likely to see a "support our troops" sticker on a pick-up truck (or other vehicle used for labour), than on a Honda Civic or a hybrid.

I'm not being a scab here, I'm not subscribing to the liberal idea of dismissing the working class as "rednecks", nor am I embracing third-worldism. Above all else, I'm not refuting or denying the role of the working class (proletariat) as the only class for thorough and lasting change, or as the only class capable of playing a leadership role in a (socialist) revolution.


All I'm saying is, keep in mind that the ideas and outlooks of every society are those of the ruling class.

(My empahsis added)



The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”


Karl Marx, the German ideology.

In general, the working class, through their material existence and direct experience, acquire much of the ideology of liberation and social production.

On the flip side, the constant tug of bourgeois analysis is always present as well. In many cases, the only sources of information available on a subject are tainted by bourgeois spin.

Without eductation, without consciousness, it can be difficult for a worker to navigate towards the truth. For these reasons, many workers fall victim to Jingoism, racism, nativism, gender chauvenism,etc.

This is why the role of the Vanguard party is so important, to dissimenate the politics to the working class, to provide political clarity and political leadership, and help to stamp out these dis-tasteful trends.

I'm just saying though, that the black and white "bougeois= right, Proletarian= left" outlook that you were propagating is not entirely accurate.


The Political Compass as well the "traditional" bourgeois definition of left and right as liberal and conservative is... bourgeois and has no relation to class.

Word.

Howard509:


I don't see how leftism and authoritarianism are compatible or beneficial together.

(sigh).

While I would shun the use of the term "authortarian" in general, read up on the Engels document that I linked to. It may shed some light,if I haven't allready done so.

Bobkindles:


To say that leftists are in favour of "civil liberties" is entirely vague firstly because freedom is not just a matter of having the legal right to do certain things and secondly because whether the violation of civil liberties is progressive (i.e. conducive to working-class interests or not - we always have to keep coming back to a class-based perspective) or not depends entirely on whose liberties are being violated, and for what ends - as a communist I have no problem with the former members of the bourgeoisie not being able to vote in a post-revolutionary society but I would never dream of arguing that workers or black people should be deprived of the same right under a capitalist regime, and the same is true of other civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and so on.

Word. Apparently you allready touched upon some of what I'm talking about.

Other than the open sectarianism (I have been pretty fair, not calling out any trend in particular), that was a decent post.

Howard509:

It's the nature of civil liberties that they either belong to everyone in society equally or no one at all.

I don't want to beat a dead horse. I've covered this above.

Liam Liburd:


I don't think calling it Right-Wing would be correct, it is certainly the most totalitarian Left ideology.


Please don't make me have to dig for my argument against "Totalitarianism" as a (bourgeois) concept.

Suffice to say, the term "totalitarian" is bullshit. Can we leave it at that?
I know that may seem lazy on my part, by exhausted is probably closer to the truth.

The Ungovernable farce:


And when the workers are being beaten with a stick, I suppose it hurts less if it's called "the workers' stick"?http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalinism-right-wing-t114369/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

I'm pretty sure that I've heard you say that before, in just those words.

So, you seem to have invented a fictional anecdote about workers being beaten with sticks in the USSR, to justify your absurd political line.

You may say "It's just a metaphor"; well, it is a metaphor that has no basis in reality.



As for Stalin, I've never read anything by Mussolini, Hitler, Reagan, Thatcher, or Bush, but I still "spew bullshit" against them.



Are you for real?

C'mon, please, I still have to make dinner yet. I don't want to have the totalitarianism argument again.

Just read through my old posts, and save me the effort of repeating myself into infinity.


By those standards, Stalinism (which stands for the subjugation of the proletariat to a bureaucratic elite) is definitely not left.

:lol:

" Anarchism ,(which stands for the kicking of puppies, and drowning of kittens) is definately not left."

See, I can do that too.


Anyways, yeah.

Howard, please drop the fixation on "civil liberties". It is petty-bourgeois at best, counter-revolutionary at worst.

I'm not saying that when the rights of the working people are violated to do nothing (case in point, this recent buisness with Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr.).

I am saying, as I said before, that the pre-condition to the emancipation of the indiviual is the emancipation of the mass (as well as the suppression of those who take issue with this emancipation.).

[What Would Durruti Do?]

SubcommandanteHelix:


:rolleyes:. Engels said it best:

(My empahsis added)


Friederich Engels, "On Authority (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm)"

And? Are you saying the Paris Commune was stalinist and authoritarian simply because it was an armed uprising? That's ridiculous. Authoritarianism refers to how a population is governed, not how it chooses to take power.

The Paris Commune was one of the few socialist examples throughout history that WASN'T authoritarian and where the working class actually governed themselves with full liberty. Do you think a Parisian would've been stopped from leaving Paris during those days much like someone trying to leave the Soviet Union or North Korea would have? Doubtful. The only reason bourgeois stayed in Paris was because they knew it would only be a matter of time before the armies marched on to the gates and reclaimed the city.

[Blackscare]

If a persyn put


Ok, I know that there's an argument to be made (even if I think it's silly) for replacing "humAn" with "humYn", etc, but now you're just sprinkling in "y"s for no reason!

What are you replacing here? Because person incidentally has the word "son" in it? It's hardly likely that the word "son" had anything to do with the invention of the word "person".

:(

[Pogue]

In fairness Stalinism, or as its known by its followers, Marx-Leninism, isn't an coherent ideology. Its just the rhetoric of the deluded parties who were completely roped in by the comitern. Its like justification for tyranny, applying some sort of ideology to what is just bourgeois brutality. Its like being a Maoist, or a Pol Potist, or a Mugabist - no ideology just apologism for the massacre of the working class. Such an ideology is perpeptuated by authoritarians like Praerie Fire who, lets face it, is one sandwhich short of a picnic. Its a dead ideology though, for understandable reasons no one listens to such utter rubbish anymore because it has no relevancy to working class people (indeed, the regimes of 'Stalinism' or Marx Leninism activelly oppressed the working class and their revolutionary movements). Its a completely ridiculous ideology based upon as I said apologism for the undefendable, which is why it can be ranked within the rows of dangerous, unsensical ideologies such as Rand-ism, fascism, etc.

[Hiero]

Ignoring you stupid claim about "Stalinism" not being listened to by any, which is ridicilious as the leaders of the most revolutionary people in world could be considered stalinist, and anarchist have yet to show up on the scene in this modern era.

The point I would like you to address is Who is the comitern?

It is really funny with this "stalinist" blame game, the blame is always shifted off to some unknown group rather then rela living humans. The masses where they take the Communist Party leadership are uneducated dupes being lead by the party. The rank and file members are morons and are middle class who are duped by the corupt central leadership. Now the whole party is delusional and duped by the comitern.

It's like Stalinism is the real religious force, you don't actually see it, and there is no centre where real human beings are acting and developing. Rather it is just something that you feel that takes over all logic and actions, a guiding force like Allah in Islamic religion.

[khad]

In fairness Stalinism, or as its known by its followers, Marx-Leninism, isn't an coherent ideology.
It's more coherent than what passes for anarchism in some of the so-called "far left."

Case in point, look at the starter of this topic, who is more or less a liberal with his scatterbrained justifications of small producerist capitalism while claiming to be "anarchist."

[Invariance]

Ok, I know that there's an argument to be made (even if I think it's silly) for replacing "humAn" with "humYn", etc, but now you're just sprinkling in "y"s for no reason!

What are you replacing here? Because person incidentally has the word "son" in it? It's hardly likely that the word "son" had anything to do with the invention of the word "person".

:(A comrade wrote took the time to write out a long post criticizing some of poor stances taken in this thread, and you pedantically address their use of one word? Grow up.

[Sarah Palin]

Yes, the whole purging thing is awful, but I have to refer back to what Howard509 said about the American right wing calling the ACLU a left wing organization because they are a proponent of civil liberties. There is a whole article somewhere about Stalin's strides towards democracy in the USSR, probably posted somewhere on this thread, though I don't have the inclination to find it.

[Blackscare]

A comrade wrote took the time to write out a long post criticizing some of poor stances taken in this thread, and you pedantically address their use of one word? Grow up.


It's just something that bugged me about her writing style. It would have come up at some point in some thread. You're also making it out like I'm attacking her position, which I'm not. Sometimes discussions split or someone makes a comment about something they see that bugs them or whatever.

I'd like to actually find out her position on why she spells that word the way she does, simply because it confuses me.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

It's more coherent than what passes for anarchism in some of the so-called "far left."

Case in point, look at the starter of this topic, who is more or less a liberal with his scatterbrained justifications of small producerist capitalism while claiming to be "anarchist."

And supporters of tyrannical bourgeois exploitation of the working class through hierarchical bureaucratic structures and the oxymoron known as a "communist state" claim to be real communists, so whats your point?

[Prairie Fire]

Okay, Helix is the only one to actually address one of my points and make a political argument.

Subcommandantehelix:



And? Are you saying the Paris Commune was stalinist and authoritarian simply because it was an armed uprising? That's ridiculous.


Other than the logical fallicies of how the Paris Commune could be "Stalinist"
7 years before the birth of Stalin, that wasn't my point at all.

My actual point was what Engles was speaking of: the need for one part of the population (the proletariat and oppressed peoples) to impose their will by force and subjagation of the other half of the population (bourgeoisie and exploiters,),and maintain it, with force and with threat of force if necesary.

This is how a revolution is carried out.

I don't understand why you see a difference between the people suppressing reactionaries in the paris commune and the people suppressing reactionaries in the Soviet Union (well, that's not true; I do understand why, but I disagree).

In cases and places where the historical situation was more tailored to your ideological preferences, you give the dictatorship of the proletariat a pass. In places where you percieve that it is not, you scold the revolutionary masses for taking and maintaining political power in the same way.


Authoritarianism refers to how a population is governed, not how it chooses to take power.

Well, one is a continuation of the other. The revolution doesn't end after the armed struggle (well, for anarchists it does in theory, I guess.)

Taking power is part of the revolutionary struggle; holding it, is the other part (while still trying to transform society).

Also you use class-vague terminology like "a population". Well, which part of the population, specifically. Which class?


The Paris Commune was one of the few socialist examples throughout history that WASN'T authoritarian

So your conception of "authortarian" is, like the OP of this thread, based on individual right.

And yes, it was, "authoritarian". If it had survived more than a few months , it would have been forced by circumstances to become more-so, as Engels criticized them.


Do you think a Parisian would've been stopped from leaving Paris during those days much like someone trying to leave the Soviet Union or North Korea would have?

No, probably not, and that was irresponsible (Keep in mind that the Paris commune only lasted from march-may, and a lot of that was their own fault.)

Are you familiar with the history of the CIA at all? With the history of CIA sabotuers and infiltrators, especially?

It is really quite fascinating. Cuba is a good example, as in Cuba, CIA agents used to do things to undermine their revolution, like leaving water taps running, burning out lightbulbs, putting concrete powder in milk containers, so that it hardened and was undrinkable. This, and the 638 different attempts on the life of Fidel Castro.

You think that this restriction on movement beyond national borders was an aesthetic choice on the soviet unions part?


The only reason bourgeois stayed in Paris was because they knew it would only be a matter of time before the armies marched on to the gates and reclaimed the city.

Perhaps.

So the bourgeoisie should have been free to flee the commune?

Again, this has worked out famously for Cuba, hasn't it? Letting all of thier exploiters flee to Florida?

Only trouble is, those exploiters get guns and military training, and every couple of years they try and return.

You think that perhaps the policies of various socialist states didn't emerge for a reason?

That is as much political commentary as I recieved, the rest is just depressing.

Blackscare:


Ok, I know that there's an argument to be made (even if I think it's silly) for replacing "humAn" with "humYn", etc, but now you're just sprinkling in "y"s for no reason!

What are you replacing here? Because person incidentally has the word "son" in it? It's hardly likely that the word "son" had anything to do with the invention of the word "person".

http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalinism-right-wing-t114369/revleft/smilies/sad.gif


Really? Seriously?

I spent two hours writing that analysis, doing research on the internet, including a dictionary to check my spelling, and you are going to have a go at my intentional spelling variant?

Seriously?

(sigh)

Pogue:


In fairness Stalinism, or as its known by its followers, Marx-Leninism, isn't an coherent ideology. Its just the rhetoric of the deluded parties who were completely roped in by the comitern. Its like justification for tyranny, applying some sort of ideology to what is just bourgeois brutality. Its like being a Maoist, or a Pol Potist, or a Mugabist - no ideology just apologism for the massacre of the working class. Such an ideology is perpeptuated by authoritarians like Praerie Fire who, lets face it, is one sandwhich short of a picnic. Its a dead ideology though, for understandable reasons no one listens to such utter rubbish anymore because it has no relevancy to working class people (indeed, the regimes of 'Stalinism' or Marx Leninism activelly oppressed the working class and their revolutionary movements). Its a completely ridiculous ideology based upon as I said apologism for the undefendable, which is why it can be ranked within the rows of dangerous, unsensical ideologies such as Rand-ism, fascism, etc.


Pogue, you are dancing on the border-line between basic stupidity and trolling.

The only thing more disturbing than your loud and proud state of ignorance is the amount of positive "reputation" that you seem to have recieved for your "contributions", which can only mean that people are actually nodding along with your bold unfounded statements, emotional jabs and complete lack of politics or research of any kind.

At the risk of early gray hair, Let's disect your latest attrocity against historical analyis and rational debate, point by point, shall we?


In fairness Stalinism, or as its known by its followers, Marx-Leninism, isn't an coherent ideology.

Okay, now what it this based on (other than your own prejudices)?

Is this intended as a serious criticism, or are you trying to rattle cages?

Even those who oppose Marxism-Leninism here are well aware that it is a developed theory, with clear ideological principles, a large body of written theory, and theoretical continuity and consistency between it's various authors.

But don't take my word for it:

www.marx2mao.com (http://www.marx2mao.com) ( NOTE: With Mao, the continuity of theory and principle kind of ends)



Its just the rhetoric of the deluded parties who were completely roped in by the comitern.


Of course, nevermind that the comintern was dissolved in 1943, and most of the parties that exist today and hold the line of Marxism-Leninism were founded after the dissolution of the comintern.

Also, never mind that of the "official" communist parties of most bourgeois countries (the ones that actually were in the comintern), all of them (except the communist party of Indonesia, I believe,) denounced "stalinism" with just as much zeal as you, following the 20th party congress of the CPSU (this lead to the formation of all of the "Stalinist" parties and organizarions now).

Never mind all of that. In truth, all contemporary Marxist-Leninist parties are/were simply dupes of a non-existant comintern (or perhaps, maybe, the ghost of the comintern).


Its like justification for tyranny, applying some sort of ideology to what is just bourgeois brutality.

More bold statements.

Don't feel like you need to elaborate or anything. You don't need to actually explain
anything that you say (specific references to which generalized "tyrrany" and "brutality" you are talking about, what is "bourgeois" about Marxism-Leninism, etc).

How the fuck are you getting as much positive reputation as you are?


Its like being a Maoist, or a Pol Potist, or a Mugabist - no ideology just apologism for the massacre of the working class.

Again, explaining your point of view isn't necesary, just keep typing what ever comes into your head.

As far as "Maoism", "Pol Pot-ism" or "Mugabe-ism" goes, I'm none of the above, but your viewpoint is still absurd.

For all of it's faults, Maoism is an ideology, with volumes of theoretical content, it's own tenets and ideological principles, and contemporary analysis and application.
(again, check out my link to the Marx2mao site).

There is no "Pol Potism"; there is Angkar,however, and again it is a distinct ideology in it's own right, for better or for worse. http://geocities.com/groupstpp/

As for "Mugabe-ism", now you are just being ridiculous and lumping in other figures to try and make a point, when you are comparing things that are not alike.

Still, Zimbabwe's national liberation struggle for self determination, it's semi-socialist construction aftewords, and even it's current national self determination are all legitimate.

The fact that you included Mugabe in your mix, though, fuels my suspicions that you are picking your "dictators and butchers" based on the headlines of your local bourgeois rag.

If you were in the US, you probably would have said "Chavez" instead,but you are in the UK, so your local rich have their own former colony to shake a fist at, and you join in.


Such an ideology is perpeptuated by authoritarians like Praerie Fire

It's one thing that you don't read my posts; it is another thing that you can't even read my name off of a previous post, to get a reference so that you can spell it properly.


who, lets face it, is one sandwhich short of a picnic.

Appreciate your attempts to write me off as "insane", as you have done in the past when you can't counter the theory that I raised.

I suppose you have yet to make a political argument, why start now?


Its a dead ideology though, for understandable reasons no one listens to such utter rubbish anymore because it has no relevancy to working class people (indeed, the regimes of 'Stalinism' or Marx Leninism activelly oppressed the working class and their revolutionary movements).

I'm still waiting for anything resembling a political argument.

If you don't know how to argue, ask around. Or, read my old posts.
You may notice that I explain the points that I raise, I link to sources that I used in my research (it helps if you have done some research), and I politically address the content of what another poster puts on the thread.

If I'm not always politically addressing your stuff, it's because there is nothing political to work with, just un-founded statements and knee-jerk prejudices.


Its a completely ridiculous ideology based upon as I said apologism

Again, you give me nothing to respond to, suffice to say that Marxism-Leninism is a developed ideology with it's ideological tenets, hardly based on historical "apologism".

Again, don't take my word for it. Follow the link to Marx to Mao.

Pogue, even debating historical events (where you inevitably take the bourgeois narative) isn't your strong point; now, you are going to debate about the content of a theory that you know nothing about?


which is why it can be ranked within the rows of dangerous, unsensical ideologies such as Rand-ism, fascism, etc.

Now you are categorizing Marxism-Leninism with Ayn Rand, and fascism, without actually going through the trouble (and making an ass of yourself in the process,) of trying to find any basis of similarity. Clever.

Your basis of similarity between the three seems to be your own persynal disdain, rather than anything that can be substantiated materially or theoretically.

Your posts take up space that could be used for actual political arguments. Learn how to make, defend and elaborate on a political position, or stop taking up space.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Did I say anything of the sort, or were you just looking for an opportunity to start a tendency war?
I don't think I can be accused of "starting" a tendency war, considering that the OP pretty much consisted of "O hai, who fancies a tendency war?"


Wether Stalinism is desirable or not has nothing to do with wether it is progressive. Capitalism and it's establishment weren't exactly fun, but it was still progressive in comparison to feudalism.
Do you think state capitalism is historically necessary in the way capitalism was? I certainly don't. (Well, obv it happened, so it was historically necessary in that sense, but you know what I mean).


The Ungovernable farce:
I'm pretty sure that I've heard you say that before, in just those words.

So, you seem to have invented a fictional anecdote about workers being beaten with sticks in the USSR, to justify your absurd political line.

You may say "It's just a metaphor"; well, it is a metaphor that has no basis in reality.
It's actually a quote from Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy, written in 1873 and predicting what life would be like if authoritarian Marxists did seize power. Pretty prescient, I think. I invented nothing.


Are you for real?

C'mon, please, I still have to make dinner yet. I don't want to have the totalitarianism argument again.

I wasn't talking about totalitarianism, because I mentioned Reagan, Thatcher and Bush - all despicable, but none of them could be called totalitarian. The point I was making wasn't "OMG STALIN WAS HITLER!!!1", it was that you don't have to have read everything someone's written to dislike them.


" Anarchism ,(which stands for the kicking of puppies, and drowning of kittens) is definately not left."

See, I can do that too.

'Cept you just invented that, whereas my description of Stalinism was based on the historical reality of what Stalinist societies were like. There's a difference.


Ignoring you stupid claim about "Stalinism" not being listened to by any, which is ridicilious as the leaders of the most revolutionary people in world could be considered stalinist.
Who are the most revolutionary people in the world? Is there a league table? If these people are so revolutionary, why do they need to be led?


It is really funny with this "stalinist" blame game, the blame is always shifted off to some unknown group rather then rela living humans...

It's like Stalinism is the real religious force, you don't actually see it, and there is no centre where real human beings are acting and developing. Rather it is just something that you feel that takes over all logic and actions, a guiding force like Allah in Islamic religion.
Are you meant to be a Marxist or something? Cos, y'know, if you've actually read any Marx, he doesn't talk about "real human beings" being bad, he talks about profit and value and capital and class interests and stuff. Spooky things like that.

[Klaatu]

Some years ago I had read that the political spectrum is not so much a straight line. It is actually a circle. That is, the extreme left and the extreme right meet at some point, and this would be "anarchy" at the bottom of the circle, with the "moderate" at the top of the circle.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Okay, Helix is the only one to actually address one of my points and make a political argument.

Subcommandantehelix:



Other than the logical fallicies of how the Paris Commune could be "Stalinist"
7 years before the birth of Stalin, that wasn't my point at all.

My actual point was what Engles was speaking of: the need for one part of the population (the proletariat and oppressed peoples) to impose their will by force and subjagation of the other half of the population (bourgeoisie and exploiters,),and maintain it, with force and with threat of force if necesary.

Impose their will with force? Why would that be necessary? If a revolution was supported enough to take power in the first place, it shouldn't need to suppress anyone to maintain power. Those who don't want to take part in the newly formed society should be free to leave.


I don't understand why you see a difference between the people suppressing reactionaries in the paris commune and the people suppressing reactionaries in the Soviet Union (well, that's not true; I do understand why, but I disagree).

In cases and places where the historical situation was more tailored to your ideological preferences, you give the dictatorship of the proletariat a pass. In places where you percieve that it is not, you scold the revolutionary masses for taking and maintaining political power in the same way.

You think I'm arguing with the treatment of reactionaries? Hardly. I couldn't care less how reactionaries are treated or what is done about that. That's not how I base my judgment of whether a society is authoritarian or not. I think you should know why the Soviet Union would be considered authoritarian and the Paris Commune wasn't. At least I hope, but maybe I expect too much.




Well, one is a continuation of the other. The revolution doesn't end after the armed struggle (well, for anarchists it does in theory, I guess.)

Taking power is part of the revolutionary struggle; holding it, is the other part (while still trying to transform society).

Once society has been transformed why would the revolution continue? It's purely self defense after that. A revolution should voluntarily maintain itself, it shouldn't need a grand overlord "vanguard" to make sure everyone behaves the way it sees fit.


Also you use class-vague terminology like "a population". Well, which part of the population, specifically. Which class?

Assuming we're still speaking about post-revolution society, why would there be classes? Only authoritarians wish to continue hierarchy.




So your conception of "authortarian" is, like the OP of this thread, based on individual right.

Yes, that generally is what libertarianism promotes - liberty. Though more importantly rule by the people themselves rather than a group of individuals that claims to be more equal than everyone else and thus continuing capitalism through state control.


And yes, it was, "authoritarian". If it had survived more than a few months , it would have been forced by circumstances to become more-so, as Engels criticized them.

I don't really have anything to base an argument off of here - mind explaining this a bit more? If you're referring to the pressure by external forces I don't see why authoritarianism is a result of self defense. Do you consider taking up arms and defending your home/family/community to be authoritarian? Perhaps our different definitions of the word is the problem here.




No, probably not, and that was irresponsible (Keep in mind that the Paris commune only lasted from march-may, and a lot of that was their own fault.)

Besides not destroying the banks, how was it their own fault? It was their own fault that a foreign invader reconquered their territory? Personally I can't fault someone just for not being a good enough fighter.


Are you familiar with the history of the CIA at all? With the history of CIA sabotuers and infiltrators, especially?

It is really quite fascinating. Cuba is a good example, as in Cuba, CIA agents used to do things to undermine their revolution, like leaving water taps running, burning out lightbulbs, putting concrete powder in milk containers, so that it hardened and was undrinkable. This, and the 638 different attempts on the life of Fidel Castro.

What exactly does the CIA have to do with the Paris Commune? Of course there were traitors within the commune but you can't really convict people of crimes they had yet to commit. Although I assume you'll disagree with that.


You think that this restriction on movement beyond national borders was an aesthetic choice on the soviet unions part?

Not at all. It was obviously paranoid fear mongering by people with too much control that they never should have had. Why is keeping people from leaving necessary? Besides, there's a difference between the "changing of the guards" from one state to another in the Soviet Union than a true revolution.




Perhaps.

So the bourgeoisie should have been free to flee the commune?

Again, this has worked out famously for Cuba, hasn't it? Letting all of thier exploiters flee to Florida?

Only trouble is, those exploiters get guns and military training, and every couple of years they try and return.

Florida is not Cuba, so why would anyone in Cuba have any objection to that? Obviously those who you claim to return haven't been very successful so what's the big deal? No bourgeois retaliation is going to be successful without backing of a major army.

Not to mention a true revolution that didn't replace one oppression with another would leave little reason for retaliation or even exodus of the bourgeoisie in the first place.

[Brother No. 1]

Impose their will with force? Why would that be necessary? If a revolution was supported enough to take power in the first place, it shouldn't need to suppress anyone to maintain power. Those who don't want to take part in the newly formed society should be free to leave.


Oh becuase it worked so well when Cuba did it.:rolleyes:

IfWe allow the Bougosise, and Counter-Revolutionaries, to leave un-punished or maintined to accept the new Proletriat rule then they will, obviously, come back with force and try to destroy the Socialist Republic. Or would you like another Bay of pigs inccident? Just think if the czars were allowed to leave. They would gain forces who want then back in power and launch an assault on the Socialist Republic to try and remake and maintain their rule again. The Proletariat must maintain the Dictatorship of the Proletarien to succuessfully make the transistion for Socialism to Communism, or to just stay in existence, but,since you believe this to be authoriatrian, then how do we do a Revolution when it is the most athoritarian act the Proletarian must do. But why do you think nothing will go wrong when they are 'let free?' They wont just stand by and watch happily as their rule/society is destroyed. they will retaliate and come back to try and Destroy the new developing society.


I think you should know why the Soviet Union would be considered authoritarian and the Paris Commune wasn't.

Then what was Athoriatarian about the Soviet Union? Was it how it repareassed Reactionaries or how in its Revolution it killed the czars family? how was it Athoriatarian and/or what time day was it athoriatarian?



Once society has been transformed why would the revolution continue?

When the Armed Revolution is over theres still the transitional phase when it turns into the Dictatorship of the Proletariat since it still needs to become this. Thus the Revolution doesnt end when the Conflict ends for then the end of palermentrism,the "Speical bodies" of the state and transfering the control of the means of prodution, among other things, to the Proletarait while then moving from this transitional phase to the stateless classless society, when all of the earth is gone to the socialist phase. For when the Armed Revolution is over things need to be turned Socialist, Destroy the old society and make a new one, and survive to spread Socialism when fully developed.


Obviously those who you claim to return haven't been very successful so what's the big deal?

oh death must not mean a whole lot to you. And, this may or may not have crossed your mind, but the "try ,try, again" thing doesnt always fail. For the Bay of pigs wasnt succuessful for the Reactionaries but they killed alot of Cuban defenders. Or do you not care that people would die each time duyring these relatioations?




No bourgeois retaliation is going to be successful without backing of a major army.

Didnt the Bougoise retaliation in russia not have just 1 but 5 major armies backing it?

Bougoise retaliations will kill those who defend the Revolutionary goverment and this could have been avoided if we made the Bougoise and Counter-Revoutionaries be killed or be forced to accept the new society. The Bougoise will do whatever means nessicary to achive what they want. So why should we let the Bougoise go freely if they dont like our society? Does it make us more "good" in their eyes? it'll make you look more foolish in our eyes for the Bougoise are never non-violent when it comes to trying to stop a Revolution that doesnt benifit them.



Posed by Engles "Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All socialists are agreed that the state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and become mere administrative functions of watching over social interests. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social relations that gave both to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.
Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon, all of which are highly authoritarian means. And the victorious party must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority? Therefore, one of two things: either that anti-authoritarians don't know what they are talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion. Or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the cause of the proletariat. In either case they serve only reaction." (p.39)

[Old Man Diogenes]

Please don't make me have to dig for my argument against "Totalitarianism" as a (bourgeois) concept.

Suffice to say, the term "totalitarian" is bullshit. Can we leave it at that?
I know that may seem lazy on my part, by exhausted is probably closer to the truth.

Why is it a bourgeois concept? Does it matter what I call it Authoritarian, Totalitarian. I think Stalinism fits the definition of Totalitarianism pretty well, "a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible."

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Oh becuase it worked so well when Cuba did it.:rolleyes:

IfWe allow the Bougosise, and Counter-Revolutionaries, to leave un-punished or maintined to accept the new Proletriat rule then they will, obviously, come back with force and try to destroy the Socialist Republic. Or would you like another Bay of pigs inccident?
Considering that the Bay of Pigs completely failed to overthrow the Cuban regime and was quite an embarrassment for the US, that's not really a good parallel to use. Or are you going to prove me wrong and show how Cuban exiles have overthrown Castro's regime?

[Pogue]

Stalinism is thoroughly counter-revolutionary. Just look at Spain. I don't care whther it fits the textbook definition of right wing, because regardless it is anti-working class, counter-revolutionary and responsible for the deaths of millions.

I view Stalinists and their views in a similar vein as I view fascists, scum of the earth and an enemy to the working class and revolution.

[LeninBalls]

Sucks for you then how the majority of Communist movements, or at least movements that have done and are doing something are Stalinist.

[Pogue]

Sucks for you then how the majority of Communist movements, or at least movements that have done and are doing something are Stalinist.

What is your tendencies pathetic obsession with 'doing something'? Yes, I know what Stalinists did. They supressed the Spanish revolution. They collaborated with the Nazis in murdering Poles. They sabotaged countless efforts of the working class.

I don't care if you 'do something' if what you do is consistently anti-working class and counter-revolutionary, like what you scumbags have done throughout history. Just 'doing something' doesn't get you revolutionary points if what you do is fucking shit. Stalinism is a bourgoies current designed to protect the interests of the ruling class, and its done this very well, this is what it has 'got done'.

Also, the best sign of a Stalinist is the idea that it is the Stalinists who 'get things done'. No, you fucking idiot, its the working class who 'get things done', not your pathetic band of pseudo-fascists.

[Killfacer]

Sucks for you then how the majority of Communist movements, or at least movements that have done and are doing something are Stalinist.

It annoys me when snotty gits behind computer screens go on about Stalin and the history of the USSR as though they had something to do with it. You may call yourself a stalinist but in reality you can't expect to gain anymore "credit" for the movements actions as i can.

[LeninBalls]

It annoys me when snotty gits profess behind their computer screens how anarchism is the final ideology and true communist ideology, while in reality it has done shit. Spain, Ukraine, arguably Chiapas, what else? It's an ideology that appeals to first world idealists that sit on the fence all day criticizing every other ideology, while hammering that anarchism/ts are going to liberate the working class. All this is happening while people in the "2nd and 3rd world" need change and are actually seeking it. Do they turn to anarchism? No. How many anarchist movements have you seen in said worlds fighting against the bourgeoisie in the past century and now even? If there has been, they must've been complete shit as I've never heard of them.

All while us Stalinists are busy massacring people in Nepal, India, Colombia, the Phillipines, Palestine and soon Bhutan. I can't even think how many we massacared in the 20th century!

The truth is, Marxism-Leninism is the largest communist ideology ever and still is, while your shitty inefficent first world ideology has never amounted to anything and never will.

[Killfacer]

It annoys me when snotty gits profess behind their computer screens how anarchism is the final ideology and true communist ideology, while in reality it has done shit. Spain, Ukraine, arguably Chiapas, what else? It's an ideology that appeals to first world idealists that sit on the fence all day criticizing every other ideology, while hammering that anarchism/ts are going to liberate the working class. All this is happening while people in the "2nd and 3rd world" need change and are actually seeking it. Do they turn to anarchism? No. How many anarchist movements have you seen in said worlds fighting against the bourgeoisie in the past century and now even? If there has been, they must've been complete shit as I've never heard of them.

All while us Stalinists are busy massacring people in Nepal, India, Colombia, the Phillipines, Palestine and soon Bhutan. I can't even think how many we massacared in the 20th century!

The truth is, Marxism-Leninism is the largest communist ideology ever and still is, while your shitty inefficent first world ideology has never amounted to anything and never will.

I can't be fucked to read that because i don't think politics it a dick comparing competetion to say "WE KILLED LOADS OF PEOPLE AGES AGO THEREFOR WE ARE BETTER THAN YOU!".

You're fucking deluded if you think you will ever influence anything. You're one of those fucking keyboard warriors who think because they slap the name stalinist onto their smug little face that they are part of something big.

You think if these nepalese stalinists met you, what? That they would pat you on the back and call you comrade? Don't think because you've decided to call yourself some stupid ideology that everyone else under the sun who calls themselves that is the same as you.

More to the point is i have not once professed that Anarchism is the FINAL SOLOUTION TO ALL MANS PROBLEMS.

You have fuck all to do with the past and current "successes" of stalinism. Deluded.

[scarletghoul]

Eh? What's this about Bhutan?

[mosfeld]

Eh? What's this about Bhutan?
Here's (http://maobadiwatch.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-comrade-suniel-from.html) an interview with a Bhutanese maoist, explaining the situation. You've already seen this though. If i remember correctly, the Bhutanese maoists also blew up a truck at some army base in Bhutan.

[Brother No. 1]

Considering that the Bay of Pigs completely failed to overthrow the Cuban regime and was quite an embarrassment for the US, that's not really a good parallel to use.

And Would you want another inccident like that, death toll or have you forgotten so easily, to happen again? If we let the counter-revolutionaries and Bougoise go free do you think their retaliation will always fail? Yes It failed, obviously, but retaliations dont always fail. This one failed,yes but if another Socialist country let the Counter-Revolutionaries and Bougoise go free becuase "they dont want to particape in society" does that automatically mean that this retaliation, like the bay of pigs, will fail? Or does somehow death not concern you at all when it comes to those who will defend the Revolution? If we let Counter-Revolutionaries and the Bougoise go just for the sake of being "anti-Athoritarian", by Subcommandantehelix's thinking of athoriatarian, or becuase they dont want to particape in that society will they just leave us alone? No they will train,arm themselfs,etc to claim back what they want... To re-claim and re-make their Bougoise Republic.
I was using the inccident of the Bay of pigs to show if we let the Reactionaries,Counter-Revolutioaries and Bougoise go free if they dont want particapte in Socialist society they will, clearly, try to destroy it and remake their own.

[Howard509]

I'm a college educated person, but it doesn't take a degree to tell that Stalin is not what Marx intended and that Trotsky got a raw deal.

[khad]

I'm a college educated person, but it doesn't take a degree to tell that Stalin is not what Marx intended and that Trotsky got a raw deal.
Apparently in your case it takes more than a degree to sort out your political positions with any sort of consistency.

A pacifist anarcho-syndicalist small producer capitalist...wtf.

[Verix]

Yes, the whole purging thing is awful, but I have to refer back to what Howard509 said about the American right wing calling the ACLU a left wing organization because they are a proponent of civil liberties. There is a whole article somewhere about Stalin's strides towards democracy in the USSR, probably posted somewhere on this thread, though I don't have the inclination to find it.

hahahahahhaha "Stalin's strides towards democracy " hahaha i'm going to have a heart attack i'm laughing so hard :laugh::laugh::laugh:
I would love to put stalinism with the right-wing but trying too would be as stupid as the conservatives who say fascism is left wing, and too all the people who say "anarcism never works but stalinism does" what about spain untill your darling prince started killing everybody? Yea trying to restore capatalism and killing the people who where trying to fight the fascists REALLY helped the propleteriote, also if the U.S.S.R. (or china )was a true communist country then how come stalin did not live like everybody else??did you know his mother lived in one of the czars palaces in the cauceus mountains. did everybodys mother live like that? ofcourse not so basically all the of the goverment lived very well while the workers lived like crap, is this your idea of communism??and dont say stalin lived just like everybody else because we all know thats 100% bullshit.
I mean do you REALLY think that is communism? even if the people lived good (which they didnt in the U.S.S.R. untill after stalin died) its still inequlity! and inequality is the main reason captalism is evil! what the hell is the point of replacing one bad form of goverment with another one that has the EXACT same flaw that you replaced the former with the latter to get rid of! also if stalin cared so much for the workers of the world why did he not only sign a truce with hitler but then start bombing the hell out of finland, do comrads in finland not matter? or was stalin just a imperalist bastard who wanted more power so he invaded a country 1/10000 his size? and too all the people who say if it wasnt for stalin germany would have won WW2, 1: If hitler had not started attacking the U.S.S.R. stalin would have just kept sitting on his fat ass in moscow doing nothing. 2: even after germeny attacked stalin did SHIT it was the soilders who died defending stalingrad who turned the war around do you think stalin ever risked his hide HELL no by the time the nazis got near moscow he was in siberia!
Also what about the purges???and you can say it was all made up, and the photographs were faked but you know who you sound like (http://www.***************/)in the end stalin was a
Imperalist (invasion of finland)
Hypocyrte (Trying to restore captalism in spain)
Mass Murderer (purges)
Coward (Not opposing hitler and then fleeing from moscow when in danger)
Lyer (wiggling his into power even though lenin wanted him kicked out)
he was NOT a communist please pull you heads from your asses communism without equality is NOT communism!or just go live in north korea then come back and tell me how great it was and how we anarcists are delusional and the goverment sould control every aspect of life

[ArrowLance]

The only way you could call Stalin right-wing is if you are ignorant to his policies, or if you are ignorant to what right-wing means.

I like how this thread is pretty much just anti-Stalin budbuds jacking off with each other by making some semantic argument to distance themselves from 'evil Stalin.'

[Howard509]

Apparently in your case it takes more than a degree to sort out your political positions with any sort of consistency.

A pacifist anarcho-syndicalist small producer capitalist...wtf.

I agree with Gandhi that there can be a communistic society through peaceful means.

[StalinFanboy]

I agree with Gandhi that there can be a communistic society through peaceful means.
Gandhi was insane.

[Verix]

I like how this thread is pretty much just anti-Stalin budbuds jacking off with each other by making some semantic argument to distance themselves from 'evil Stalin.'

wow nice counter argument! you convinced me now! siege heil opps i mean Hail mother russia because thinking for yourself is over rated!

[Howard509]

Gandhi was insane.

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India. Why can't there be a peaceful revolution against the capitalist class? I agree with the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the mass strike, which can be nonviolent.

[hugsandmarxism]

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India. Why can't there be a peaceful revolution against the capitalist class? I agree with the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the mass strike, which can be nonviolent.

Yeah, things worked out wonderfully for India... just look how there is no exploitation or poverty... oh wait.

I think you need to pick up a copy of How Non-Violence Protects the State By Peter Gelderloos. It's my favorite book written by an anarchist. And don't worry, it's short, which must be a big criterion for someone like you who can't be bothered to formulate arguments or get a grasp for what the hell he's talking about.

[StalinFanboy]

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India. Why can't there be a peaceful revolution against the capitalist class? I agree with the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the mass strike, which can be nonviolent.
Yeah, he sure helped India reach a communist society.


Oh wait.

Besides, India's independence wasn't the result of just Gandhi. Their struggle for national independence was going long before Gandhi came around. But that doesn't matter, right?

[Verix]

it's short, which must be a big criterion for someone like you who can't be bothered to formulate arguments or get a grasp for what the hell he's talking about.
yea but your argument was spot on!...oh wait you dont have a argument

[Howard509]

I never claimed that Gandhi's nonviolence brought a communistic society, only that it drove the British out of India. Had Gandhi lived, perhaps India would look a lot different today.

Like I said, a mass strike can be nonviolent. It's worth trying.

Anarcho-pacifism is not limited to Gandhi. It should have respect within the wider anarchist movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-pacifism

[LeninKobaMao]

I've read the Communist Manifesto and his writings about the Paris commune.

You can't base all your "leftist" views on reading The Communist Manifesto and Paris Commune writings.

[Howard509]

You can't base all your "leftist" views on reading The Communist Manifesto and Paris Commune writings.

I'm reading Das Kapital. I'm also aware of Stalin's opposition from the left.

[Old Man Diogenes]

I view Stalinists and their views in a similar vein as I view fascists, scum of the earth and an enemy to the working class and revolution.

Couldn't agree more. :reda::thumbup::blackA:

[ArrowLance]

Couldn't agree more. :reda::thumbup::blackA: Couldn't agree less. :glare:

[Pogue]

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India. Why can't there be a peaceful revolution against the capitalist class? I agree with the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the mass strike, which can be nonviolent.

Elaborate on how you think a amss strike could or has ever been 'non-violent'.

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

This thread is painful.

Why are all the anti-stalinists talking like liberals? Dont you realise how this makes us look like the straw men the stalinists put out against us? This is such an easy argument - why are we losing?

Whether you are left or right is determined by your impact on the class struggle. If you further the struggle from above you are right wing. Further the struggle from below and you are left wing. Stalin (and Lenin/Trotsky before him) did an enormous amount to further the struggle from above, making them right-wing. It is that simple.

[khad]

Whether you are left or right is determined by your impact on the class struggle. If you further the struggle from above you are right wing. Further the struggle from below and you are left wing. Stalin (and Lenin/Trotsky before him) did an enormous amount to further the struggle from above, making them right-wing. It is that simple.
So I guess the Polish Solidarity movement, which is now trying to link up with the fascist and xenophobic elements in Polish politics, is "left wing" because they have grass roots organization?

Stop arbitrarily defining terms to suit your half-baked dogma.

[The Author]

Stalinism is thoroughly counter-revolutionary. Just look at Spain. I don't care whther it fits the textbook definition of right wing, because regardless it is anti-working class, counter-revolutionary and responsible for the deaths of millions.


What is your tendencies pathetic obsession with 'doing something'? Yes, I know what Stalinists did. They supressed the Spanish revolution. They collaborated with the Nazis in murdering Poles. They sabotaged countless efforts of the working class.

Spare us the whitewashed, emotional, poorly-informed bullshit. The Spanish revolution failed because of rampant sectarianism on all sides. Your own kind had a nasty habit of enacting forced collectivization policies in many areas against the peasantry and small shop-owners, confiscating property either without compensation or giving "labor-time vouchers" which were worthless, or not giving ammunition to the Republican forces when they needed it, acting in your own interests (which was selfishness, not revolution, in sum).

As for Katyn, those executed were part of the military, police, and intelligentsia- protectors of the exploiter class- happily indoctrinated in the principles of Polish nationalism. They would have more than been willing to fight for the fascist cause, and their executions saved countless scores of lives of people who actually did fight the fascists. Anyone of such a nature, and any member of the exploiter class who puts working people under such misery is not entitled to "human rights," or "sympathy" and rightly deserves such punishment. To believe otherwise means that one's claim of support for class war is nothing more than mere words, just talk.

There were countless efforts of the working class sabotaged just as badly by the Anarchists and Trotskyists because of a lack of coherent ideology. It's what you get when you denounce the "vanguard" and scream "Thermidor": a poorly organized and/or opportunist alternative. At least the "Stalinists" tried, at least the "Stalinists" have mistakes to talk about that went beyond the barricades.


I view Stalinists and their views in a similar vein as I view fascists, scum of the earth and an enemy to the working class and revolution.

In that case, I view you in the same way.

[Verix]

ok i felt too bad to say this before but hell you guys deserve it, if MARXISM-LENINISM is soooo great then how come every country that at one time had it, is now capitalist? like 12 countrys and it failed in every one of them........
also can someone justify the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Finland, i really want to hear the excuse

[The Author]

ok i felt too bad to say this before but hell you guys deserve it, if MARXISM-LENINISM is soooo great then how come every country that at one time had it, is now capitalist? like 12 countrys and it failed in every one of them........

It's not a question merely of failure so much as class struggle, material conditions, nature of the revolutionary leadership, base and superstructure, etc. Marxism-Leninism and dialectical materialism offer a dynamic perspective and understanding of society and the awareness of how to change society, and learn from mistakes. There is revolution, there is counterrevolution, the historical process moves in a spiral, a zigzag. There is no claim to linear path of development where once the Communists win, counterrevolution is impossible. Nonsense. Counterrevolution is always possible.


can someone justify the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Finland
Sure thing.

From a Marxist-Leninist perspective complete with sourced quotes coming at oneself constantly: http://web.archive.org/web/200209031...LANDWAR90.html (http://www.anonym.to/?http://web.archive.org/web/20020903194658/www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/CommunistLeague/CL-FINLANDWAR90.html)

From The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia (1946):
The most intimate working relationship existed between the German and the Finnish High Commands. The Finnish military leader, Baron Karl Gustav von Mannerheim, was in close and constant communication with the German High Command. There were frequent joint staff talks, and German officers periodically supervised Finnish army maneuvers. The Finnish Chief of Staff, General Karl Oesch, had received his military training in Germany, as had his chief aide, General Hugo Ostermann, who served in the German Army during the First World War. In 1939, the Government of the Third Reich conferred upon General Oesch one of its highest military decorations...

Political relations between Finland and Nazi Germany were also close. The Socialist Premier Risto Ryti regarded Hitler as a "genius"; Per Svinhufrud, the wealthy Germanophile who had been awarded the German Iron Cross, was the most powerful behind-the-scenes figure in Finnish politics.

With the aid of German officers and engineers, Finland had been converted into a powerful fortress to serve as a base for the invasion of the Soviet Union. Twenty-three military airports had been constructed on Finnish soil, capable of accommodating ten times as many airplanes as there were in the Finnish Air Force. Nazi technicians had supervised the construction of the Mannerheim Line, a series of intricate, splendidly equipped fortifications running several miles deep along the Soviet border and having heavy guns at one point only twenty-one miles from Leningrad. Unlike the Maginot Line, the Mannerheim Line had been designed not only for defensive purposes but also for garrisoning a major offensive force. As the Mannerheim Line neared completion in the summer of 1939, Hitler's Chief of Staff, General Halder, arrived from Germany and gave the massive fortifications a final inspection...

During the first week of October, 1939, while still negotiating its new treaties with the Baltic States, the Soviet Government proposed a mutual assistance pact with Finland. Moscow offered to cede several thousand square miles of Soviet territory on central Karelia in exchange for some strategic Finnish islands near Leningrad, a portion of the Karelian Isthmus and a thirty-year lease on the port of Hango for the construction of a Soviet naval base. The Soviet leaders regarded these latter territories as essential to the defense of the Red naval base at Kronstadt and the city of Leningrad.

The negotiations between the Soviet Union and Finland dragged on into the middle of November without results. In order to reach some agreement, the Soviet Government made a number of compromises. "Stalin tried to teach me the wisdom of Finnish as well as Soviet interest in compromise," declared the Finnish negotiator, Juho Passikivi, upon his return to Helsinki. But the pro-Nazi clique dominating the Finnish Government refused to make any concessions and broke off the negotiations.

By the end of November, the Soviet Union and Finland were at war. "The Finnish nation," declared the Finnish Government, "is fighting for independence, liberty and honor... As the outpost of Western civilization, our nation has the right to expect help from other civilized nations."

The anti-Soviet elements in England and France believed that the long-awaited holy war was at hand. The strangely inactive war in the west against Nazi Germany was the "wrong war." The real war lay to the east. In England, France and the United States, an intense anti-Soviet campaign began under the slogan of "Aid to Finland."

Prime Minister Chamberlain, who only a short time before had asserted his country lacked adequate arms for fighting the Nazis, quickly arranged to send to Finland 144 British airplanes, 114 heavy guns, 185,000 shells, 50,000 grenades, 15,700 aerial bombs, 100,000 greatcoats and 48 ambulances. At a time when the French Army was in desperate need of every piece of military equipment to hold the inevitable Nazi offensive, the French Government turned over to the Finnish Army 179 airplanes, 472 guns, 795,000 shells, 5100 machine guns and 200,000 hand grenades.

While the lull continued on the Western Front, the British High Command, still dominated by anti-Soviet militarists like General Ironside, drew up plans for sending 100,000 troops across Scandinavia into Finland, and the French High Command made preparations for a simultaneous attack on the Caucasus, under the leadership of General Weygand, who openly stated that French bombers in the Near East were ready to strike at the Baku oil fields.

Day after day the British, French and American newspapers headlined sweeping Finnish victories and catastrophic Soviet defeats. But after three months of fighting in extraordinarily difficult terrain and under incredibly severe weather conditions, with the temperature frequently falling to sixty and seventy degrees below zero, the Red Army had smashed the "impregnable" Mannerheim Line and routed the Finnish Army.(3)

Hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union ended on March 13, 1940. According to the peace terms, Finland ceded to Russia the Karelian Isthmus, the western and northern shores of Lake Lagoda, a number of strategic islands in the Gulf of Finland essential to the defense of Leningrad. The Soviet Government restored to Finland the port of Petsamo, which had been occupied by the Red Army, and took a thirty-year lease on the Hango peninsula for an annual rental of 8,000,000 Finnish marks.

Addressing the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. on March 29, Molotov declared: -

The Soviet Union, having smashed the Finnish Army and having every opportunity of occupying the whole of Finland, did not do so and did not demand any indemnities for expenditures in the war as any other Power would have done, but confined its desires to a minimum... We pursued no other objects in the peace treaty than that of safeguarding Murmansk and the Murmansk railroad...The undeclared war of Nazi Germany against Soviet Russia went on...

3. In June 1940 the institute for Propaganda Analysis in New York City reported: "The American press told less truth and retailed more fancy lies about the Finnish war than about any recent conflict."

http://www.revleft.com/vb/struggle-against-fascism-t111685/index2.html

[Verix]

*sigh* oh god why did i not see it coming the "everything you think you know is lies"excuse, i have some news for you covering massive conspiciry plots up is not as easy as you think , if that was true there would be some evidence, someone would have opened there mouth,or a piece of paper would slip though
:rolleyes:

[Hiero]

I'm a college educated person, but it doesn't take a degree to tell that Stalin is not what Marx intended and that Trotsky got a raw deal.

Well shit you're a college educated person, surely someone with a degree from the highest bourgeoisie education institution could tell us about a socialist leader.

[Abc]

Marx went to college, lenin went to college, Trotsky first got introduced to communism in college, che got a medical degree if your saying that having a education makes you less of a socialist you are fucking retarded.

[ArrowLance]

ok i felt too bad to say this before but hell you guys deserve it, if MARXISM-LENINISM is soooo great then how come every country that at one time had it, is now capitalist? like 12 countrys and it failed in every one of them........
also can someone justify the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Finland, i really want to hear the excuse

mgnhmaguhneatheud! I'm sure your ideology has made great success.

[Abc]

mgnhmaguhneatheud! I'm sure your ideology has made great success.

The only time Anarcho-Communism was ever tried they were under attack from 5 different fascist countrys it never even made it off the ground so it is impossible to tell what would have happened maybe it would have failed who knows, marxist-leninist goverments have made it off the ground over a dozen times but they always crashed in the end and became capitalist.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

The only time Anarcho-Communism was ever tried they were under attack from 5 different fascist countrys it never even made it off the ground so it is impossible to tell what would have happened maybe it would have failed who knows, marxist-leninist goverments have made it off the ground over a dozen times but they always crashed in the end and became capitalist.

To be fair they were always capitalist. Authoritarian state capitalism. The best of both worlds!

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I hope the statists don't hold it against me if I sit such a "revolution" out.

[Hiero]

Marx went to college, lenin went to college, Trotsky first got introduced to communism in college, che got a medical degree if your saying that having a education makes you less of a socialist you are fucking retarded.
First you can get warned for using the word retard.

Second I am not attacking education. I am attacking bourgeoisie institutions.

The Stalin in the bourgeioside acadamic discourse does not correspond to the real life Stalin. They analysis Stalin as a product of his own supposed idealogy "Stalinism".

To us Stalin was just a man who led the USSR at a specific part in history. Our criticism is real criticism based on the existing socialism and class struggle of the time, not based on false ideaological conepts about who Stalin was.

Marx went to university and was introduced to a bourgeoisie idealist concept of Communism, a society that could be attained out of man's ambition to build that society, ie Utopian socialism. He crticised the bourgeiosie institution and concept of Communism and replaced it with scientific socialism that view socialism and communism as the outcome out of real existing class struggle.

Marx didn't go to uni and just learn, he actively criticised what is deemed as objective concepts in bourgeoisie acadamia. Much the same as Stalin who is a signfer for tyrannical idealogy (which is not existing in any form), who acted on his own idealogy. In some sense Stalin is god if you read bourgeiosie acadamics, he was creating of history, not a subject like the rest of us.

[ArrowLance]

The only time Anarcho-Communism was ever tried they were under attack from 5 different fascist countrys it never even made it off the ground so it is impossible to tell what would have happened maybe it would have failed who knows, marxist-leninist goverments have made it off the ground over a dozen times but they always crashed in the end and became capitalist.

Really? Marxist-Leninist governments were also under attack. . .

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

So I guess the Polish Solidarity movement, which is now trying to link up with the fascist and xenophobic elements in Polish politics, is "left wing" because they have grass roots organization?The point is the impact they have on the class struggle. Grass roots organisation certainly makes you much more likely to further the struggle from below and keep you doing so - but it does not ensure it. Back in the day when the polish movement fought on behalf of the polish working class then they were leftwing. When it became a Lech Wałęsa personality cult and worked against the Polish working class on behalf of the US it ceased to be so. But it was most definitely left-wing at first. Its actions now don't invalidate its leftwing roots anymore than the actions of the current chilean government invalidate Allende.

[Invariance]

The fact that a movement is 'grass roots' says nothing about its class character. There are grass roots movements where I live opposing immigrants. There are grass roots movements where I live who want to implement the death penalty. There are grass roots movements where I live who want various land taxes abolished. My community includes: landlords, capitalists, workers, petty-bourgeoisie shop owners, and so on. What determines whether you are a revolutionary or a reactionary is which side you take on the class struggle, not whether such a movement is decentralized or not.

[Das war einmal]

The only time Anarcho-Communism was ever tried they were under attack from 5 different fascist countrys it never even made it off the ground so it is impossible to tell what would have happened maybe it would have failed who knows, marxist-leninist goverments have made it off the ground over a dozen times but they always crashed in the end and became capitalist.


This post shows a lack of knowledge about the circumstances state socialist countries had to deal with. For your information, the USSR was a backwards country with more than 80% of its population illiterate at 1917, then there was a civil war in which nearly every major capitalist power supported the whites (including the former allies of Tsarist Russia and the centrist countries of WW1), then there was the threat of fascists, cold war, embargo's, terrorist attacks etc. Never mind the conditions of other socialist countries like China or Cuba.

In the whole short history of state socialism, there was not a day of peace.

If you really want a good analysis why the socialists states have failed to survive, you have to take a look at the social-economic problems in these countries. Its far to simplistic to blame just the marxist-leninists

[The Ungovernable Farce]

And Would you want another inccident like that, death toll or have you forgotten so easily, to happen again? If we let the counter-revolutionaries and Bougoise go free do you think their retaliation will always fail? Yes It failed, obviously, but retaliations dont always fail. This one failed,yes but if another Socialist country let the Counter-Revolutionaries and Bougoise go free becuase "they dont want to particape in society" does that automatically mean that this retaliation, like the bay of pigs, will fail?
I think that capitalists are powerless without workers to do their, um, work for them. The impotence of the Cuban exile community neatly demonstrates this. The only way a real revolution is likely to be overthrown is by intervention from foreign powers, and I don't think that locking capitalists up or shooting them instead of exiling them would make that any less likely.

I was using the inccident of the Bay of pigs to show if we let the Reactionaries,Counter-Revolutioaries and Bougoise go free if they dont want particapte in Socialist society they will, clearly, try to destroy it and remake their own.
And it shows that they are pretty much powerless to do so. The US military is a formidable threat to any socialist society that might be established; a bunch of ex-capitalists who've had all their power taken away, not so much.

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India.

Except that there was also widespread violence in the Indian independence movement. His nonviolence only worked because the British were scared of the violence that would be unleashed if they didn't give in.


Anarcho-pacifism is not limited to Gandhi. It should have respect within the wider anarchist movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-pacifism
The reason I don't respect it is that it's a failed tactic. Watch the footage from climate camp, where people peacefully hold their hands up and chant "this is not a riot", and still get batoned to shit anyway, to see what pacifism looks like in action.
Um, what does this have to do with Stalin again?

[RHIZOMES]

The Left-Republicans defended individual rights.

"The definition of the x is y"
"No, the definition of x is z"
"Well some xists support y, means the definition of x is y"

Dumb argument is dumb.


As Chomsky has stated, classic liberalism is against corporate capitalism.

note how Chomsky said corporate capitalism. not all capitalism. Classical liberalism is an ideology rooted in the bourgeois revolution. Why do you always single out "corporations", "CEOs" and "corporate capitalism" anyway? All capitalism is bad.


Any "right-anarchism" that supports hierarchy is not anarchism. Remember, Stalin's communist opponents referred to him as "right-wing."

Wow another solid argument you have there. "x's enemies called him y, therefore x must be y".


Leftists are radically in favor of civil liberties, of personal freedom.

Comrade Alastair already half debunked this. A Stalinist would argue that like the Jacobins, the repressions were of reactionary counterrevolutionary forces and were neccessary to defend the gains of the revolution, which would have resulted in the more personal freedoms when there was no more capitalists to repress.

Whether that argument is true or not is an entirely different debate.


I've read the Communist Manifesto and his writings about the Paris commune.

Wow how well read you are. Read State and Revolution by Lenin and then maybe I'll take you slightly more seriously. Also, some works by anarchists about the role Trotsky had to play in repressing anarchists too might cure some of your cognitive dissonance.


I don't see how leftism and authoritarianism are compatible or beneficial together.

Again, read State and Revolution.


It's the nature of civil liberties that they either belong to everyone in society equally or no one at all.

READ STATE AND REVOLUTION

Do you even fucking know what "Dictatorship of the proletariat" means? You are the most clueless unrestricted poster on this board.


Stalin's opponents on the left referred to him as right-wing. Those on the American right often refer to the ACLU as a left-wing organization, because of their opposition to personal freedom.

The US right-wing also think Obama is a communist.


In fairness Stalinism, or as its known by its followers, Marx-Leninism, isn't an coherent ideology.

WOW.

An anarchist, criticizing Leninists for not having a "coherent ideology". :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:


Its like justification for tyranny, applying some sort of ideology to what is just bourgeois brutality.

Cool unsubstantiated claims bro.


Its like being a Maoist, or a Pol Potist, or a Mugabist

I can't believe you just put Maoism with the ideology of Pol Pot and Mugabe. Wow. This takes the cake for the stupidest thing I've seen you post (Which is quite an accomplishment).


no ideology just apologism for the massacre of the working class.

Have you even read any Maoist theory? Under any dictionary definition that would count as an ideology.


Such an ideology is perpeptuated by authoritarians like Praerie Fire who, lets face it, is one sandwhich short of a picnic.

Cool ad hominem bro. I love how you say this without a hint of irony, as Prairie Fire just posted an incredibly well-backed up, incredibly detailed argument rooted in Marxist thought. If she's one sandwich short of a picnic, you're one picnic short of a picnic. :lol:


Its a dead ideology though, for understandable reasons no one listens to such utter rubbish anymore because it has no relevancy to working class people

As opposed to the resounding relevance of anarchism, with all the anarchist revolutions happening in the world right as we speak.

Oh wait.



Its a completely ridiculous ideology based upon as I said apologism for the undefendable, which is why it can be ranked within the rows of dangerous, unsensical ideologies such as Rand-ism, fascism, etc.

You're as bad as Howard509. "X is related to y and z, I won't say how I'll just make pithy statement after pithy statement".

Anyway I wanted to go through all of Howard509's posts in this thread and rip them apart but since his posts are 99% the same argument I just end up repeating myself so I'll leave it here.

[Pogue]

I find it funny how you accused me of using ad hominems and responded almost in kind.

And once more, i don't see revolutions being created by anarchists, I see them being created by the working class. So I don't think its really an issue of 'anarchism's relevance' and more the relevance of the working class. But of course, there are examples in history of revolutions with alot of anarchist finluence and involvement, Spain being the primary example, so your point doesn't really stand and is so oft repeated on this forum its getting as old as Lenin's corpse.

[Das war einmal]

I find it funny how you accused me of using ad hominems and responded almost in kind.

And once more, i don't see revolutions being created by anarchists, I see them being created by the working class. So I don't think its really an issue of 'anarchism's relevance' and more the relevance of the working class. But of course, there are examples in history of revolutions with alot of anarchist finluence and involvement, Spain being the primary example, so your point doesn't really stand and is so oft repeated on this forum its getting as old as Lenin's corpse.


His points stands perfectly well considering your attack on marxist-leninist activity being 'counter-revolutionary', which is a disgusting offence against all marxist-leninists who died by the hands of fascists and imperialists. Truth is that anarchists simply have achieved less for the working class than marxist-leninists, who have lead revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere. Of course, it was the masses of workers who made it possible, but without the leading hand of the party, it would have easily been crushed in days

[RHIZOMES]

I find it funny how you accused me of using ad hominems and responded almost in kind.

People who use ad hominems deserve ad hominems back.


And once more, i don't see revolutions being created by anarchists, I see them being created by the working class. So I don't think its really an issue of 'anarchism's relevance' and more the relevance of the working class. But of course, there are examples in history of revolutions with alot of anarchist finluence and involvement, Spain being the primary example, so your point doesn't really stand and is so oft repeated on this forum its getting as old as Lenin's corpse.

HAHA ARE YOU SERIOUS. Read my post a bit more carefully.


As opposed to the resounding relevance of anarchism, with all the anarchist revolutions happening in the world right as we speak.

Oh wait.Last time I checked, the Spanish Civil War ended 70 years ago bro.

[Pogue]

People who use ad hominems deserve ad hominems back.



HAHA ARE YOU SERIOUS. Read my post a bit more carefully.

Last time I checked, the Spanish Civil War ended 70 years ago bro.

I don't see any 'Leninist' revolutions either, and I don't think there have ever been any. I think there have been working class revolutions that have been defeated consistently.

I think you misunderstand who creates revolutions, which is odd because its something Marx himself stressed. But then again Leninism did obscure things somewhat. I think the working class make revolutions, so I don't think there can be an 'anarchist revolution'.

[RHIZOMES]

His points stands perfectly well considering your attack on marxist-leninist activity being 'counter-revolutionary', which is a disgusting offence against all marxist-leninists who died by the hands of fascists and imperialists. Truth is that anarchists simply have achieved less for the working class than marxist-leninists, who have lead revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere. Of course, it was the masses of workers who made it possible, but without the leading hand of the party, it would have easily been crushed in days

I know rite? Anarchists seem to always avoid seriously confronting that fact, by just spouting "THE WORKING CLASS LEADS THE REVOLUTION NOT PARTIES/ORGANIZATIONS DURR" again and again. CNT-FAI must have been a completely redundant organization then. :lol:


I don't see any 'Leninist' revolutions either, and I don't think there have ever been any. I think there have been working class revolutions that have been defeated consistently.

I think you misunderstand who creates revolutions, which is odd because its something Marx himself stressed. But then again Leninism did obscure things somewhat. I think the working class make revolutions, so I don't think there can be an 'anarchist revolution'.

Okay, so your argument against me is basically being completely anal about the terminology I use right on bro. From now on in this argument I'll use the much less wordy (:rolleyes:) "revolutions with Leninist or anarchist influences" just so it can fit into your narrow dogma.

Care to explain Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist "popularity and influence" in Nepal, India and the Phillipines?

[The Ungovernable Farce]

His points stands perfectly well considering your attack on marxist-leninist activity being 'counter-revolutionary', which is a disgusting offence against all marxist-leninists who died by the hands of fascists and imperialists.
Lots of good British and French workers died fighting for freedom and democracy against German tyranny in WWI. If I point out that their conflict had nothing at all to do with protecting freedom and democracy, is that also a "disgusting offence" against them? Just because someone's dead doesn't automatically make them right.

Truth is that anarchists simply have achieved less for the working class than marxist-leninists, who have lead revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere.
And this is why we'll never agree. If you see the creation of state-capitalism as a victory, then of course the M-Ls have achieved more. But we don't see the creation of state-capitalism as something worth fighting for, so the M-Ls don't have anything to boast about from our perspective.

[Abc]

This post shows a lack of knowledge about the circumstances state socialist countries had to deal with. For your information, the USSR was a backwards country with more than 80% of its population illiterate at 1917, then there was a civil war in which nearly every major capitalist power supported the whites (including the former allies of Tsarist Russia and the centrist countries of WW1), then there was the threat of fascists, cold war, embargo's, terrorist attacks etc. Never mind the conditions of other socialist countries like China or Cuba.

In the whole short history of state socialism, there was not a day of peace.

If you really want a good analysis why the socialists states have failed to survive, you have to take a look at the social-economic problems in these countries. Its far to simplistic to blame just the marxist-leninists

oh really, the U.S.S.R. was around for over 80 years you are telling me there was not a day of peace that they were at war the whole time, also if they were so on the defensive then what about the invasion of Finland and Afganastan, usally countrys on the defensive dont invade other countrys.

First you can get warned for using the word retard.

Second I am not attacking education. I am attacking bourgeoisie institutions.

The Stalin in the bourgeioside acadamic discourse does not correspond to the real life Stalin. They analysis Stalin as a product of his own supposed idealogy "Stalinism".

To us Stalin was just a man who led the USSR at a specific part in history. Our criticism is real criticism based on the existing socialism and class struggle of the time, not based on false ideaological conepts about who Stalin was.

Marx went to university and was introduced to a bourgeoisie idealist concept of Communism, a society that could be attained out of man's ambition to build that society, ie Utopian socialism. He crticised the bourgeiosie institution and concept of Communism and replaced it with scientific socialism that view socialism and communism as the outcome out of real existing class struggle.

Marx didn't go to uni and just learn, he actively criticised what is deemed as objective concepts in bourgeoisie acadamia. Much the same as Stalin who is a signfer for tyrannical idealogy (which is not existing in any form), who acted on his own idealogy. In some sense Stalin is god if you read bourgeiosie acadamics, he was creating of history, not a subject like the rest of us.
Stalin never went to college, and you had just said above

Well shit you're a college educated person, surely someone with a degree from the highest bourgeoisie education institution could tell us about a socialist leader.
implying people with college education know less about socialist leaders

[Das war einmal]

Lots of good British and French workers died fighting for freedom and democracy against German tyranny in WWI. If I point out that their conflict had nothing at all to do with protecting freedom and democracy, is that also a "disgusting offence" against them? Just because someone's dead doesn't automatically make them right.

Pogue was saying that all Marxist-leninist were fascists, therefor he should be punched in the face 'cause a lot of resistance fighters who fought against fascism and imperialism where marxist-leninist. In fact all Europeans own their freedom due to the effort of communist resistance & the USSR war effort. WW1 has nothing to do with this as that was a completely different war.


And this is why we'll never agree. If you see the creation of state-capitalism as a victory, then of course the M-Ls have achieved more. But we don't see the creation of state-capitalism as something worth fighting for, so the M-Ls don't have anything to boast about from our perspective.

'State capitalism' dont make me laugh, as I pointed out in the Parenti thread on this same section, there was no 'exploitation of the workers' in fact the living condition of billions of workers improved thanks to state socialism, something never achieved before by any system.

Every time I hear people complain about the mismanagement by m-l'ists I think about the dutch saying which goes a bit like this: 'the best sailors are standing on the shore', meaning the people who are not trying anything can permit being moral superiour, but thats only because they never practiced anything

[The Author]

Lots of good British and French workers died fighting for freedom and democracy against German tyranny in WWI. If I point out that their conflict had nothing at all to do with protecting freedom and democracy, is that also a "disgusting offence" against them? Just because someone's dead doesn't automatically make them right.

Poor analogy. British and French workers died for British and French imperialism, not for the cause of "freedom and democracy." Marxist-Leninists died for the cause of the working class, working against fascism and imperialism in countless wars around the world.


And this is why we'll never agree. If you see the creation of state-capitalism as a victory, then of course the M-Ls have achieved more. But we don't see the creation of state-capitalism as something worth fighting for, so the M-Ls don't have anything to boast about from our perspective.Of course we will never agree. It's foolish to even assume that Anarchists, Marxist-Leninists, and Trotskyists will ever agree, it's a question of which ideology will prevail among the working class, and actually take them to communism.

If you dismiss the transition period as "state-capitalism," very well. Of course you will never agree to the idea that production must be centralized into one whole monopolized entity which creates the conditions for producing the items and materials needed for that future society where "to each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" will actually be fulfilled. You will never acknowledge the fact that society in its current state is in anarchy and must be stabilized, put under control. Your ideology only sees changes in the workplace, or fights on the barricades. But it will never evolve beyond that, it will never take the working class through to true communism. You want to avoid the transition as much as possible. But in the real world, that's not possible, because the defects of the old society will carry over into the new society. The transition isn't going to be easy, and it sure as hell isn't going to be paradise, and I wish it were easier, but it isn't. Only communism in the higher phase will be more perfect. But this prospect is displeasing to many "leftists," and that's why there is constant theorizing, constant speculation, on how to get to communism without going through "the transition." But in truth, the alternatives get us nowhere. It would be one thing if Anarchist revolution had thrived in a country for 40-50 years with successful destruction of the exploiter class. I would be thrilled to see it. But since we only have cases of "revolutions" happening within a period of weeks, months, or at best a couple of years, and too many cases of failures, this is why I can never accept Anarchism as a serious working-class ideology. It doesn't help the workers, it hurts them, and sometimes very badly.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

'State capitalism' dont make me laugh, as I pointed out in the Parenti thread on this same section, there was no 'exploitation of the workers' in fact the living condition of billions of workers improved thanks to state socialism, something never achieved before by any system.

Yes, how great for the working class to be provided homes and other necessities. It's amazing how efficient giant limitless governments can be. Then they were all shipped out to fight imperialist wars in the name of non-existent communism.

Oh, but it's just a transitional stage! Look how well China is transitioning!

Capitalism is capitalism is capitalism. I don't care if all the workers had a place to come home to after their allotted daily labor or not. It's still capitalism. You don't create a stateless society without hierarchy with an even bigger state and more hierarchy.

[Howard509]

Well shit you're a college educated person, surely someone with a degree from the highest bourgeoisie education institution could tell us about a socialist leader.

I went to the most radical left college in the country.

[Howard509]

The reason I don't respect it is that it's a failed tactic. Watch the footage from climate camp, where people peacefully hold their hands up and chant "this is not a riot", and still get batoned to shit anyway, to see what pacifism looks like in action.
Um, what does this have to do with Stalin again?

Propaganda of the deed is a failed tactic.

[#FF0000]

I went to the most radical left college in the country.

If that's in the United States, then I don't think that means much.

That's because most "radical leftists" in the U.S. are just liberals.

:cool:

[Howard509]

If that's in the United States, then I don't think that means much.

That's because most "radical leftists" in the U.S. are just liberals.

:cool:

My professors were communists and anarchists. The furthest right would be a social democrat like a Fabian.

[gorillafuck]

Which university is this?

[spiltteeth]

As a relative newcomer I'm still trying to decides what's what with an open mind. I always assumed Stalin was a monster before becoming a communist, now I'm not sure what to think, but I have to say the Anarchists, whom I greatly appreciate, have not put out any solid or backed up counter-arguments.

For Howard 509, Gandhi was a proponent of Hierarchy,class, and state violence (urging the new Indian gov to send their troops to quell the reactionary group which eventually killed him) and without dealing with class the same power structures simply re-emerge so that instead of being exploited by British bourgeois, the mass of Indians are now exploited by Indian bourgeois. That is not to take away from the progressive strides Gandhi achieved. Also his tactics did not posit violence, but did result in plenty. It was a specific tactic for specific circumstances and indeed for its long term success violent methods were needed once his people took power in the state.

[Howard509]

Gandhi deserves respect, and should be regarded as part of the larger anarchist movement.

[LeninKobaMao]

You are deluded to the point of stupidity honestly... An anarcho-pacifist who supports Gandhi and Trotsky wtf?

Are you out of your mind?

[PRC-UTE]

This thread is painful.

Why are all the anti-stalinists talking like liberals? Dont you realise how this makes us look like the straw men the stalinists put out against us? This is such an easy argument - why are we losing?

Whether you are left or right is determined by your impact on the class struggle. If you further the struggle from above you are right wing. Further the struggle from below and you are left wing. Stalin (and Lenin/Trotsky before him) did an enormous amount to further the struggle from above, making them right-wing. It is that simple.

Not to be disrespectful or rude, but that is terribly abstract and just ignores the actual history. If Stalin were really a rightist, he would not have chosen the course he did. I'll come back to that in a moment.

do you know what the state of the communist movement, and the urban working classes were at the time the Bolsheviks began their revolution from above? much of the working class had ceased to exist and fled to the countryside to survive off the land. a revolution led from above, by the party was unfortunately a necessity. That or sitting around and waiting for capital to concentrate organically over time, without the intervention of the state. This btw, accounts for quite a bit of what went wrong with the Soviet union in later years- to put it crudely, the revolution from above was effective at primitive accumulation but not for later developing consumer products- however I don't see what else they could have realistically done.

anyway, were Stalin truly a rightist, he would've just sat back and let things proceed slowly- which is what the real Russian Right wanted. He chose a completely different course. Compare the Soviet Union before and after Stalin. Within that context it's clear he acted as a leftist.

Rightist =/= Bad Guy. One can be on the left consistently yet also do some fucked up things.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Pogue was saying that all Marxist-leninist were fascists
Where? I don't remember him saying that. It's a counter-revolutionary ideology, but that doesn't make it fascist.

therefor he should be punched in the face 'cause a lot of resistance fighters who fought against fascism and imperialism where marxist-leninist.
A lot of resistance fighters who fought against fascism and imperialism were religious Christians and Muslims, but that doesn't mean either of those ideologies have anything to do with communism.

Poor analogy. British and French workers died for British and French imperialism, not for the cause of "freedom and democracy."Are you being deliberately obtuse, or does it come naturally? Yes, British and French workers died for the cause of British and French imperialism. But they didn't sign up because they wanted to die for the profits of the rich, the official myth used to make them sign up was that they'd be protecting freedom and democracy. See any war the US has ever fought in for more examples of this.

Marxist-Leninists died for the cause of the working class, working against fascism and imperialism in countless wars around the world.

Marxist-Leninists died for the cause of the Russian and Chinese state bureaucracies. The official myth used to make them sign up was that they'd be fighting for the cause of the working class.

Gandhi deserves respect, and should be regarded as part of the larger anarchist movement.
WTF? Did you read that post above yours at all?

[gorillafuck]

He PM'd me, it's The Evergreen State College.

According to wikipedia: "In 1999, convicted killer Mumia Abu-Jamal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal) was invited to deliver the keynote address for the graduating class at the college. The event was protested heavily."

[manic expression]

Marxist-Leninists died for the cause of the Russian and Chinese state bureaucracies. The official myth used to make them sign up was that they'd be fighting for the cause of the working class.

Right, because you said so. When you come up with the slightest concrete justification for such a counter-factual argument, that will be something to discuss. As of now, you have a few vague charges based on a vague opinion.

More to the point, your entire premise is unsophisticated at best. Sure, state bureaucracies were established in the USSR and PRC, but you have not demonstrated why this was a step back for the workers. Although moralizing anarchists might not like it, bureaucracy is a necessity in any modern state, and a modern state is a necessary product of any modern revolution. Far from a myth, this is a fact proven time and again by history: the working class must create a state in order to rule society. Those who feebly reject this are guilty of opposing revolutionary principles.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Right, because you said so. When you come up with the slightest concrete justification for such a counter-factual argument, that will be something to discuss. As of now, you have a few vague charges based on a vague opinion.
I also haven't provided the slightest concrete justification for saying that British and French soldiers died for British and French imperialism. I also can't provide definitive proof that God doesn't exist, and I am starting to get the same feeling I do when I argue with creationists.

[manic expression]

I also haven't provided the slightest concrete justification for saying that British and French soldiers died for British and French imperialism. I also can't provide definitive proof that God doesn't exist, and I am starting to get the same feeling I do when I argue with creationists.

I see. So as I said, you're asking us to believe your nebulous positions because you said so. Whatever the case, I now have concrete justification that you're dodging the issues (the very issues you brought up, no less).

And by the way, both you and I can prove that British and French soldiers died for British and French imperialism. However, neither you nor I can provide evidence that the revolutionaries of Russia and China died for a counterrevolutionary ideology, precisely because they didn't.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I see. So as I said, you're asking us to believe your nebulous positions because you said so.
And you want me to believe your favoured brand of mythology because you say so.

Whatever the case, I now have concrete justification that you're dodging the issues (the very issues you brought up, no less).

And I have concrete evidence that arguing with Stalinists is about as productive as banging my head against a brick wall.

And by the way, both you and I can prove that British and French soldiers died for British and French imperialism. However, neither you nor I can provide evidence that the revolutionaries of Russia and China died for a counterrevolutionary ideology, precisely because they didn't.
What about the Russian soldiers sent in to suppress the Hungarian revolution, for instance? That wasn't very revolutionary.

[manic expression]

And you want me to believe your favoured brand of mythology because you say so.

You brought up the charge, I pointed out how you had not (and cannot) justify that charge. If you want to call that a "mythology", then it is no more a mythology and no less a mythology than the scientific method.


And I have concrete evidence that arguing with Stalinists is about as productive as banging my head against a brick wall.

Whether you're banging your head against a brick wall or doing a dance number, you're still dodging the issues you yourself originally brought up.


What about the Russian soldiers sent in to suppress the Hungarian revolution, for instance? That wasn't very revolutionary.

Changing gears and the subject once more? The actions of the Warsaw Pact crushed a counterrevolutionary insurrection which was threatening to destroy the gains made by the workers since WWII. Hungary was on the brink of imperialist domination, and the USSR defended the interests of the workers in stopping this. It's been proven that the CIA did have a hand in the counterrevolution, and that the Hungarian insurrectionists offered concessions to the imperialists. Not only that, but anti-Semetic pogroms occurred during the insurrection, so it seems that your so-called "revolution" was trying to finish what the Arrow Cross started.

[Tomhet]

It's not a left/right issue for me, it's an authoritarian/libertarian issue.
I'm automatically opposed to any authoritarianism for a variety of reasons, I obviously do not like Stalin.

[manic expression]

It's not a left/right issue for me, it's an authoritarian/libertarian issue.
I'm automatically opposed to any authoritarianism for a variety of reasons, I obviously do not like Stalin.

So you oppose the authority of the working class?

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

This threat actually isn't responding on. This is total bullshit with the sole goal of ripping apart the Communist movement.
Calling me a right-winger won't change anything in my struggle for Socialism and liberation. So to the one who started this nonsense I say: whatever makes you happy, I don't give a shit.

[hugsandmarxism]

Wow, having listened to a bunch of internet liberals tell me that I'm a right-winger because I don't sport a circle-A on my black hoodie has really distressed me, and given me this sort of ominous feeling in my lower gut. Gosh, maybe all of the conservative think tanks, bourgeois historians, and Soviet revisionists are right about that evil, all powerful yet all incompetent sadistic genius, who is solely to blame for the failings of the communist movement! I mean, why try to understand things when knee-jerk reactions and pedantic moralism give me an answer five minutes faster? Why question all of the things that are "un-cool" to question, when I can go on diatribes on how eating meat is the root of all evil, or have the conveniant and opportunistic argument of presenting all of my liberal friends at school pictures of this handsome guy (who kinda looks like Johnny Depp) and say he's the one who singlehandedly epitomizes the communist ideal? I've seen the light! I've been pulled in by the personality cult of a big, scary, mustaceoed man, who eats babies and hates freedom! I feel used... maybe I'm going to go curl up in bed for awhile until this ache in my stomach goes away...

Edit: Actually, I just took a big poop, and that sinking feeling in my stomach I told ya about has gone away. Think up something humerous for my negative rep! I look forward to reading them ;)

[kharacter]

EDIT: shit

[kharacter]

Wow, having listened to a bunch of internet liberals tell me that I'm a right-winger because I don't sport a circle-A on my black hoodie has really distressed me, and given me this sort of ominous feeling in my lower gut. Gosh, maybe all of the conservative think tanks, bourgeois historians, and Soviet revisionists are right about that evil, all powerful yet all incompetent sadistic genius, who is solely to blame for the failings of the communist movement! I mean, why try to understand things when knee-jerk reactions and pedantic moralism give me an answer five minutes faster? Why question all of the things that are "un-cool" to question, when I can go on diatribes on how eating meat is the root of all evil, or have the conveniant and opportunistic argument of presenting all of my liberal friends at school pictures of this handsome guy (who kinda looks like Johnny Depp) and say he's the one who singlehandedly epitomizes the communist ideal? I've seen the light! I've been pulled in by the personality cult of a big, scary, mustaceoed man, who eats babies and hates freedom! I feel used... maybe I'm going to go curl up in bed for awhile until this ache in my stomach goes away...

Edit: Actually, I just took a big poop, and that sinking feeling in my stomach I told ya about has gone away. Think up something humerous for my negative rep! I look forward to reading them ;)
the post makes you seem like an agreeable person, my respects. The bolded part made me laugh.

[Искра]

I'm so sick of this Leninist necrophilia, even this page is hilarious! Especially when Maoists show up... Can't wait to hear something from some Titoist.

And by the way Stalin had only one side... Stalin side..

[Die Rote Fahne]

Socially yes.

However, Economically he, although betraying true Marxism, remained left wing.

[mykittyhasaboner]

His nonviolence evidently worked, driving the British out of India. Why can't there be a peaceful revolution against the capitalist class? I agree with the anarcho-syndicalist idea of the mass strike, which can be nonviolent.
Umm, first and foremost Ghandi did not expel the British from India; second nothing about Indian opposition to British rule was "anarcho-syndicalist" and can hardly compare with anarchism at all. "Peaceful revolution" is a terrible oxymoron and defies logic completely; but of course the kind of mental gymnastics "anarcho-pacifists" like to pull is hardly surprising.


I never claimed that Gandhi's nonviolence brought a communistic society, only that it drove the British out of India. Had Gandhi lived, perhaps India would look a lot different today.
Your great men of history out look totally skews any shred of historical logic you can hope to pull out of that brain of yours. Since I'm sick of hearing about ghandi driving out the english by laying around starving himself, here you go, read carefully.
(http://www.isreview.org/issues/14/Gandhi.shtml)

Like I said, a mass strike can be nonviolent. It's worth trying.No it's not, you cannot defeat force by submitting to it.


Anarcho-pacifism is not limited to Gandhi. It should have respect within the wider anarchist movement:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-pacifismAnything that is good about the anarchist movement is completely opposite of all this pacifist bullshit and Ghandi worshipping.

Gandhi deserves respect, and should be regarded as part of the larger anarchist movement.
Why? So anarchism can be totally mis-associated with someone who was not an anarchist?


Placing Stalinism on the extreme left is a misnomer.
Nobody fucking placed it on the "extreme left" you did, just so you can call out "Stalinists" for something they didn't do.

The term "left" originally meant one who defends civil liberties, placing Stalinism on the extreme right, as its opponents in fact did. This little gem of yours has been demolished, but it's worth point out that left/right scales refer to economics mainly.

Anarchism is, in fact, the most radical left position possible.Shut up, I'm more left than you are, cuz your on the right. :rolleyes:

[spiltteeth]

I think everyone here better think twice about pissing Howard509 off ...or else he's gonna resist you passively until 10's of thousands of his comrades have been terrifically massacred and then give you a country named Pakistan II.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

I'm so sick of this Leninist necrophilia, even this page is hilarious! Especially when Maoists show up... Can't wait to hear something from some Titoist.

And by the way Stalin had only one side... Stalin side..
You see, that's what I meant. I understand that you anarchists are rolling on the floor laughing at the Communists because they are busy again discussing unimportant bullshit.

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

The fact that a movement is 'grass roots' says nothing about its class character. There are grass roots movements where I live opposing immigrants. There are grass roots movements where I live who want to implement the death penalty. There are grass roots movements where I live who want various land taxes abolished. My community includes: landlords, capitalists, workers, petty-bourgeoisie shop owners, and so on. What determines whether you are a revolutionary or a reactionary is which side you take on the class struggle, not whether such a movement is decentralized or not.Mostly agreed. However, it is impossible for a movement to effectively take the side of the working class (particuarly in periods of major social upheval) without being decentralised. How can you determine what is on the side of the working class. The only effective way is to involve the woring class in decision making processes as much as possible.

Decentralisation is necessary but not sufficient.

[Искра]

You see, that's what I meant. I understand that you anarchists are rolling on the floor laughing at the Communists because they are busy again discussing unimportant bullshit.

Oh, a "smart guy".

I'm not discussing anything, since I'm not a Leninist, and I think that practice is much more important then "intellectual" debates, especially with "smart guys" like you... This whole thread is pointless, because as I see people are trying to defend one of the biggest butchers in human history. Who gives a fuck was he a right wing or a left wing? Who gives a fuck about left or right wing anyway?! Only purpose of this discussions is that some quasi intellectuals masturbate over their "clever words" and pointless statements. But, we all know that your Leninist activities end up here - on the internet.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Oh, a "smart guy".

I'm not discussing anything, since I'm not a Leninist, and I think that practice is much more important then "intellectual" debates, especially with "smart guys" like you... This whole thread is pointless, because as I see people are trying to defend one of the biggest butchers in human history. Who gives a fuck was he a right wing or a left wing? Who gives a fuck about left or right wing anyway?! Only purpose of this discussions is that some quasi intellectuals masturbate over their "clever words" and pointless statements. But, we all know that your Leninist activities end up here - on the internet.
Pretty answer I have to say: you succeed in trying to insult me, pretending to disagree with me and still saying exactly the same as I did.
Very nice...

My point is that whoever started this stupid thread is only dividing the Communist movement further once more instead of helping us to make a fist against capitalism. That's really pissing me of, and guys like you have every right to laugh at us in this case.

About your "clever guys" nonsense: don't pretend you know my life, I post on this forum, you do too. That still doesn't say anthing about our personal political lifes. I'm an active member of the Worker's Party, and I do a whole lot more for Communism than you think.

[Искра]

There's no such thing as "workers" party.

And your "communist" movement is so divided that that's beyond pathetic. I saw 5th Internationale tension... what's next? Tension for Geuvarist- Titoist Internationale? Mad Max Internationale?

[manic expression]

Don't be silly, communists are active and influential in many countries across the world. The general strike in Greece, the ongoing revolution in Nepal, the battle against imperialism all throughout Latin America...all struggles which are being led and furthered by communists. Empty insults are no help to you here.

[khad]

The general strike in Greece, the ongoing revolution in Nepal, the battle against imperialism all throughout Latin America...all struggles which are being led and furthered by communists. Empty insults are no help to you here.
No, they just say that they're communist. We all know that there's a super anarchist vanguard behind the scenes pulling the strings! :)

[Искра]

And when did I said that commies are not influential? Or active?
I said that you are "divided beyond pathetic" and that's a quite true.
Also, why would I need help here? Internet commies are not so scary, and in the real life they turn into anarchists pretty soon.

[manic expression]

You clearly called the communist movement "pathetic", which is simply untrue. At the same time, you tried to underline the divisions within Marxism as a way of proving that untrue point. The communist movement has divisions, of course, but it is the foremost power for revolution on earth.

"Won't help you here" is something of a turn-of-phrase, it means that your criticisms of communism are invalid.

[Искра]

Power for revolution on the Earth? Communism (by which you mean Marxism-Leninism)?! In your wet dreams bro!
And I guess that no one here can give you the right critics because you are the "smartest guy on the planet"... intellectual masturbation :rolleyes:

[manic expression]

It's a curious thing that you know the meaning of "wet dream" and "masturbation", but not "empty insults are no help to you here". Coincidentally, in response to your latest demonstration of immaturity, I would like to reiterate just that:

Empty insults are no help to you here.

If you figure that one out, let me know.

[Искра]

Explain me then who come that your Leninism has a power for revolution on the Earth?
But, please, explain me first how can Leninism make a revolution on Balkans, or in Italy? Then you can move on to the Western World... I'm really curious.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Explain me then who come that your Leninism has a power for revolution on the Earth?
But, please, explain me first how can Leninism make a revolution on Balkans, or in Italy? Then you can move on to the Western World... I'm really curious.

Uhm, hasn't it already at one point in history? in the Balkan that is. And in Italy, well they have a strong Communist party. Always had. Also the division is extremely exagerated. Really if you start subdividing the RELEVANT currents it doesn't leave you with much. The most influential would be party's affiliated to the International Communist Seminar, which is also the fastest growing current. Then there's the RIM which is defunct but its former member-party's still wage peoples war in Peru and Nepal. And well that leaves us with the Trotskyists, well... their trotskyists (yes i didn't mention the ICMPLO because they only have 1 relevenat party which is also on good terms with ICS-party's, so i wont count it).

Also, your an anarchist. Please explain to me how the anarchists are gonna make a revolution in the Balkans, or in Italy? Then we move on to the Western world... I'm really curious.

[Pogue]

Uhm, hasn't it already at one point in history? in the Balkan that is. And in Italy, well they have a strong Communist party. Always had. Also the division is extremely exagerated. Really if you start subdividing the RELEVANT currents it doesn't leave you with much. The most influential would be party's affiliated to the International Communist Seminar, which is also the fastest growing current. Then there's the RIM which is defunct but its former member-party's still wage peoples war in Peru and Nepal. And well that leaves us with the Trotskyists, well... their trotskyists (yes i didn't mention the ICMPLO because they only have 1 relevenat party which is also on good terms with ICS-party's, so i wont count it).

Also, your an anarchist. Please explain to me how the anarchists are gonna make a revolution in the Balkans, or in Italy? Then we move on to the Western world... I'm really curious.

Anarchists don't believe we can make the revolution. We believe the working class does this, as it did in Russia, Spain, France, etc.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Anarchists don't believe we can make the revolution. We believe the working class does this, as it did in Russia, Spain, France, etc.

So, why again are anarchists politically active if the working class will do it anyway?

[nikolaou]

the left-right political spectrum is mis-leading and serves the bourgeois.


however, right wing usually is defined by supporting the rights of individuals over entire groups of people, being religious, among other things.

but stalinism, unfortunately is still left-wing, it is just not really marxist.

[Искра]

What's in Balkan? I don't get it? Strong commie movement?!
Hm, I wear glasses but I'm not blind. I don't see a thing. I see, off course, commie groups with maximum 10 members per country, but I don't see a movement.

Oh, and when you talk about history... Italian communist party and Gramsci were 100% contra-revolutionary. Let's remember the 1920.

[Panda Tse Tung]

Hm, I wear glasses but I'm not blind. I don't see a thing. I see, off course, commie groups with maximum 10 members per country, but I don't see a movement.

Out of sheer lazyness i shall refrain from mentioning the strength of the Communist movement in every single country and i shall concentrate on greece. The latest KNE Festival to be precise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO4S97ypjIk

doesn't look like 10 to me. It seems like your pretty obliviant to the world outside of, well possibly 10 km's around your house.


Oh, and when you talk about history... Italian communist party and Gramsci were 100% contra-revolutionary. Let's remember the 1920.

History will be discussed in history, i was discussing the contemporary party's in Italy. Entire villages hanging out the red flag on May Day.

[Pogue]

So, why again are anarchists politically active if the working class will do it anyway?

I think we are here to propose ideas, to try and use the historical experience of the working class to advise, but ultimately we do not make revolutions. No socialist in history has made revolutions, it has been the working class. For example, the 1917 revolution happened despite the Bolsheviks, and soviets/factory committees sprung up regardless of the vanguardists, who came to occupy them. I think, as a platformist, that as anarchists we can create a leadership of ideas and try to offer advice to the class, as revolutionayr conciouss militants.

This isn't that different from traditional notions of vanguardism, i.e. that we cannot make revolutions but we can struggle alongside the class in pushing them to the limit or maybe directing them, through our presence. It is the working class who makes them though, so we can only meaningfully participate as members of the working class ourselves.

[Искра]

Anarchists (or to be precise insurectionists with who I don't agree) set Greece on fire. An what are you offering me? Few weird dressed people singing?
Also, Greece's "too mainstream", so let's talk about Macedonia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia (even they are not geographically on Balkans they are "mentally"), Bosnia... Is here strong communist movement?
And about Italy, you heard for villages with red flags, I saw factories with red-black flags...

[Das war einmal]

Anarchists (or to be precise insurectionists with who I don't agree) set Greece on fire. An what are you offering me? Few weird dressed people singing?
Also, Greece's "too mainstream", so let's talk about Macedonia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia (even they are not geographically on Balkans they are "mentally"), Bosnia... Is here strong communist movement?
And about Italy, you heard for villages with red flags, I saw factories with red-black flags...

I hope you're joking here, I wont deny the anarchist influence in Greece, but to ridicule the KNE is just plain stupidity. And you don't seem to quite understand anti-communist policy in named countries. Funny enough all those countries save from Slovenia are doing much worse than when they were under communist influence and Slovenia only because its a small country which didn't really suffer from the Yugoslavian break up

[Искра]

Hm, mr. "Holland commie" read from which country I'm and then play smart.
Yeah, those country's suffered a lot, because of Yugoslavia, because of wars, because of nationalism and because of capitalism. Yugoslavian country's are fucked up because Yugoslavia was centralized one-party dictatorship and every thing went to Belegrade. Then there was a war and capitalist opportunist grab everything they could. And I don't have to mention that ex-Party members are now one of the riches capitalist pricks or corrupted polititians you can find.

[Das war einmal]

Hm, mr. "Holland commie" read from which country I'm and then play smart.
Yeah, those country's suffered a lot, because of Yugoslavia, because of wars, because of nationalism and because of capitalism. Yugoslavian country's are fucked up because Yugoslavia was centralized one-party dictatorship and every thing went to Belegrade. Then there was a war and capitalist opportunist grab everything they could. And I don't have to mention that ex-Party members are now one of the riches capitalist pricks or corrupted polititians you can find.


I have read from which country you come from and well don't think I don't know what is going on in your country just because I'm from another country myself. Just what do you mean with 'everything went to Belgrade'? That already sounds like petty nationalism to me. You do know that Tito himself was Croatian right? And just look how your country has 'improved' since the break up of Yugoslavia, how much did the economy of your country shrink this year alone? Nevermind the fact that the first post-Yugoslavian president of Croatia was a crypto-fascist and honored lots of Ustasha members.

Of course there was a lot of mismanagement, opportunism and other wrongs in Yugoslavia, but that does not change the fact that the living conditions were better than nowadays.

[Искра]

When I said "everything went to Belgrade" I mean that Yugoslavia was a centralized state and that resources from all country went into one place - to capital - Belgrade. There's nothing nationalistic about that (especially when more than half of my family was killed in concentration camp, and my grandfather was high Party member) that's a fact. And also, if you wanna say that I'm Croatian nationalist I would like to say that, wile all resources went to Belgrade, East Serbia and Kosovo were like in midle age (and still are).

I don't claim that everything is better, no it's not - off course. As we live in capitalism. Yes, people lived better in Yugoslavia, and then nationalism and capitalism ripped it apart. The fact is that Yugoslavia would collapse without that, as it was a country full savage nationalism. And also, the way that Yugoslavia was functioning is much responsible for the way the state is now. So, I can conclude from my personal experiance and from personal experience of many people who actually lived there, that Yugoslavia, as your communist experiment, was a bad experiment.

[spiltteeth]

the left-right political spectrum is mis-leading and serves the bourgeois.


however, right wing usually is defined by supporting the rights of individuals over entire groups of people, being religious, among other things.

but stalinism, unfortunately is still left-wing, it is just not really marxist.


How is Stalinism not marxist? You mean the whole socialism in in stae thing?

[Das war einmal]

When I said "everything went to Belgrade" I mean that Yugoslavia was a centralized state and that resources from all country went into one place - to capital - Belgrade. There's nothing nationalistic about that (especially when more than half of my family was killed in concentration camp, and my grandfather was high Party member) that's a fact. And also, if you wanna say that I'm Croatian nationalist I would like to say that, wile all resources went to Belgrade, East Serbia and Kosovo were like in midle age (and still are).

I don't claim that everything is better, no it's not - off course. As we live in capitalism. Yes, people lived better in Yugoslavia, and then nationalism and capitalism ripped it apart. The fact is that Yugoslavia would collapse without that, as it was a country full savage nationalism. And also, the way that Yugoslavia was functioning is much responsible for the way the state is now. So, I can conclude from my personal experiance and from personal experience of many people who actually lived there, that Yugoslavia, as your communist experiment, was a bad experiment.

Now we are getting to the main point of the discussion, yes it was a experiment! So we now know what went wrong! This is more than any other Marxist tendency because they never got at the point of having to take responsibility! Know we can tell what went wrong and what went well.

This is also the main reason why I chose to join a marxist-leninist movement. Because all the other movements like to point out every fact that went wrong in the socialist expirements but failed to take responsibilty themselves. Marxism-Leninism has in my opinion credibility, while others do not.

[Искра]

But your experiment killed too many people.
So, do you think that we will have Leninist experiments until they kill us all?

[Das war einmal]

But your experiment killed too many people.
So, do you think that we will have Leninist experiments until they kill us all?

Of course, 'cause in death we are all equal

...moron

[Искра]

Then why don't we throw few nukes and destroy the Earth? We will finally have a communist society.

...smart ass.

[VolosIkram]

Guys, ur debate is going nowhere... chill out

I think that YU system could work some place else...

Stalinism is still left... but... WRONG!

[hugsandmarxism]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=223&pictureid=3607

[Killfacer]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=223&pictureid=3607

Real fucking mature, want a star?

[Panda Tse Tung]

Anarchists (or to be precise insurectionists with who I don't agree) set Greece on fire. An what are you offering me? Few weird dressed people singing?


A bunch of petit-bourgeouis kids riotted and burned small businesses down while the KKE called for a general strike (a factually usefull action).


And about Italy, you heard for villages with red flags, I saw factories with red-black flags...


Possible, regardless the influence of the Communist movement is far greater then that of the anarchist movement.

Now i can concentrate on the usefull discussion because it's quite obvious the influence of the Communist movement is FAR greater then that of the anarchist movement, thus this issue is pointless to discuss:



This isn't that different from traditional notions of vanguardism, i.e. that we cannot make revolutions but we can struggle alongside the class in pushing them to the limit or maybe directing them, through our presence. It is the working class who makes them though, so we can only meaningfully participate as members of the working class ourselves.


So you do recognize that there is a more class-conscious section of the working class?
And that this section needs to be organized. All the Leninists are saying is that this organized section should A. not be open to just anyone to prevent bourgeouis influences. And B. needs an organizational form which does not create an appearance of division (which the bourgeouisie has historically exploited if it did show on almost every possible occasion, thus to me this seems legit as well).

Now of course the discussion remains on the role of this group. You say they need to give their advice. Which really isn't that much different from the Maoist concept of the mass-line. Bring idea's to the people, see what they think, return that to the party and then re-formulate the idea in accordance.

Edit, i read sumtin i'd also like to comment on:


But your experiment killed too many people.

Actually, this isn't such a high number and all of these victims can easily be placed into perspective (invasion, kulaks, WW2 etc...). It could easily be argued that Marxism-Leninism rather then costing lives actually through free healthcare, high standard of living etc... saved the lives of many more then it supposedly killed.

[Pogue]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/picture.php?albumid=223&pictureid=3607

this is true, it does sound alot cooler because it is alot cooler

[Pogue]

A bunch of petit-bourgeouis kids riotted and burned small businesses down while the KKE called for a general strike (a factually usefull action).


Possible, regardless the influence of the Communist movement is far greater then that of the anarchist movement.

Now i can concentrate on the usefull discussion because it's quite obvious the influence of the Communist movement is FAR greater then that of the anarchist movement, thus this issue is pointless to discuss:



So you do recognize that there is a more class-conscious section of the working class?
And that this section needs to be organized. All the Leninists are saying is that this organized section should A. not be open to just anyone to prevent bourgeouis influences. And B. needs an organizational form which does not create an appearance of division (which the bourgeouisie has historically exploited if it did show on almost every possible occasion, thus to me this seems legit as well).

Now of course the discussion remains on the role of this group. You say they need to give their advice. Which really isn't that much different from the Maoist concept of the mass-line. Bring idea's to the people, see what they think, return that to the party and then re-formulate the idea in accordance.

Edit, i read sumtin i'd also like to comment on:



Actually, this isn't such a high number and all of these victims can easily be placed into perspective (invasion, kulaks, WW2 etc...). It could easily be argued that Marxism-Leninism rather then costing lives actually through free healthcare, high standard of living etc... saved the lives of many more then it supposedly killed.

Firstly, how would you know the class background of those thousands of participants in Greece? Secondly, is it not funny that the leaders of the Bolshevik Party, and the modern day Nepelase Maoists etc have been middle class? Lenin, Trotsky, Pranchada, etc.

I don't really care what colour flag is flown above a village or a factory, nor do I care what ideological group is arogant enough to claim it 'led' a revolution. I don't think ideologies lead revolutions, I think the working class does. I think they did this in every revolution in history.

If you speak to people in Greece you will hear the same line about the KKE. It is thoroughly conservative and focused on gaining power in the Greek parliament. This explains its mvoes to supress the Greek uprising and general attitudes towards autonomous power of the working class.

I don't think it is true that 'communism', by which I assume you mean Leninism, has mroe influence than anarchism. If you look at the SAC in Sweden, they are huge, as well as the CNT in Spain. In contrast mass organisations with a alrge Marxist-Leninist presence are minimal. We have the Nepalese Maoists (you know, the ones who wanted to ban strikes), but what else? I don't think you can really refer to armed guerilla movements. They are hardly examples of communism having a large base in communities. Parties like the KKE and the French Communist Party get alot of votes but are social-democratic. The left in Italy is divided at the moment. I don't really think there is anywhere. Perhaps you would count the DPRK or China, Cuba too. Wonderful examples of the Leninist ideologies in action.

I don't think the anarchism versus leninism debate is as primitive of 'Who has more influence fap fap fap', I think what we want to talk about is where real working class power is. I think the historical circumstances where the working class has had/demonstrated power have been Spain in 1936, Russia in 1917, France in 1968, Portugal during the fall of the dictatorship, etc. Well i guess there are countless examples. I don't think these have been examples of 'anarchism having influence' or Leninism having influence. Except maybe 1936, because of the large membership of the CNT and the pivotal role it held in the revolution (in both its succeses and its mistakes as an organisation), but even then the CNT due to its structure was simply a large amount of the workign class organised. Even in Russia alot of the most notable events happened despite of, or even contrary too, the Bolshevik party. It was the working class who held power and created socialism, not the Leninists. I think this is what the Maoists will have to realise in Nepal soon enough (and this is why it is absurd they would want to ban strikes).

I think the point is not who has more influence but how revolutionaries aid the working class, and how much power the class has. As such I see part of my legacy as a socialist to be both Spain 36 and Russia 1917, and every other rising, regardless of the size of the anarchist influence in that area. For me this is not pathetic gang war or factionalism, it is working class power and I support it wherever it appears and denoucne its enemies whenever they emerge. As an anarchist I don't want anarchist power I want working class power. I think your language and ideology clearly shows you see socialist power and working class power as too very different things, which leads to you apologising for things such as Stalinist regime supression of the working class.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I don't think the anarchism versus leninism debate is as primitive of 'Who has more influence fap fap fap', I think what we want to talk about is where real working class power is. I think the historical circumstances where the working class has had/demonstrated power have been Spain in 1936, Russia in 1917, France in 1968, Portugal during the fall of the dictatorship, etc. Well i guess there are countless examples. I don't think these have been examples of 'anarchism having influence' or Leninism having influence. Except maybe 1936, because of the large membership of the CNT and the pivotal role it held in the revolution (in both its succeses and its mistakes as an organisation), but even then the CNT due to its structure was simply a large amount of the workign class organised. Even in Russia alot of the most notable events happened despite of, or even contrary too, the Bolshevik party. It was the working class who held power and created socialism, not the Leninists. I think this is what the Maoists will have to realise in Nepal soon enough (and this is why it is absurd they would want to ban strikes).

Can't forget Hungary '56 either, having done a bit of reading on it lately I think it deserves to be celebrated as one of the high points of socialism/working-class power in the 20th century. Dunno enough about Czechslovakia 68 to know if it was anywhere near as revolutionary, or just liberal.

[Искра]

Since hugs'n'marxism posted that picture, I can't resist ... so I have to post this :D

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5753/41889012713013780155513.jpg (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/41889012713013780155513.jpg/)

Vox Populi in Slovenia :)

[Panda Tse Tung]

Firstly, how would you know the class background of those thousands of participants in Greece? Secondly, is it not funny that the leaders of the Bolshevik Party, and the modern day Nepelase Maoists etc have been middle class? Lenin, Trotsky, Pranchada, etc.

There has been a class-analyses made of their background during the riots.
And yes, it's true there's middle-class folks in Communist circles. Regarless the vast majority of support comes from people with working-class backgrounds.


I don't really care what colour flag is flown above a village or a factory, nor do I care what ideological group is arogant enough to claim it 'led' a revolution. I don't think ideologies lead revolutions, I think the working class does. I think they did this in every revolution in history.

I'll ignore the comment on them having lead every single revolution in history, cause it's too easy to debunk. And you prolly can figure out for yourself that this is not correct.
Regardless, the people who made the revolution in Russia followed a Bolshevik ideology. Yes, they followed it. They didn't just have a revolution and then be like, ohw the bolsheviks are in power now, what coincidence i hoped they would be the victors.

Also, yes i recognize it's the working-classes who make revolution. But this far it has always been under the guidance of one organisation or another (that is socialist revolutions, even though you'll probably call them state-capitalist).


We have the Nepalese Maoists (you know, the ones who wanted to ban strikes), but what else? I don't think you can really refer to armed guerilla movements.

You mean armed movements in specific?
Colombia, Peru and the Phillipines to give three examples.
I'm not sure why you mean armed guerilla movements in specific though when reffering to influence.


Parties like the KKE and the French Communist Party get alot of votes but are social-democratic.

The PCF is eurocommunist yes. But KKE is definetely not, unless of course you see participation in elections as social-democratic de-facto.


Perhaps you would count the DPRK or China, Cuba too. Wonderful examples of the Leninist ideologies in action.

At least we got it in action, and i'm sorry our imperfect reality does not fit your perfect ideals.


I don't think the anarchism versus leninism debate is as primitive of 'Who has more influence fap fap fap'

It shows which ideology is more organizationally effective.


I think the historical circumstances where the working class has had/demonstrated power have been Spain in 1936, Russia in 1917, France in 1968, Portugal during the fall of the dictatorship, etc. Well i guess there are countless examples.
And al very short-lived ones. Also i could call the flaws of any of these movements. But that would make this discussion A. historical and B. way too out of touch with it's original topic. So, even in these short periods we can but speak of an imperfect reality. And often major mistakes too.


Except maybe 1936, because of the large membership of the CNT and the pivotal role it held in the revolution (in both its succeses and its mistakes as an organisation), but even then the CNT due to its structure was simply a large amount of the workign class organised. Even in Russia alot of the most notable events happened despite of, or even contrary too, the Bolshevik party. It was the working class who held power and created socialism, not the Leninists.

The Leninists have always fought alongside, with and in the interest of the working-class. So, of course it was the working-class who made these revolutions too. These revolutions would not have succeeded without mass-support from and by the working-class. I thus do not see why you think this was different for the CNT (a trade-union, not a party, two completely different things).


For me this is not pathetic gang war or factionalism, it is working class power and I support it wherever it appears and denoucne its enemies whenever they emerge. I would be glad to see that happen for a change. Cause this far you've only been denouncing every single form of Working-class power.


Can't forget Hungary '56 either, having done a bit of reading on it lately I think it deserves to be celebrated as one of the high points of socialism/working-class power in the 20th century.

Lol, yeah fascists ar great people.

Also, a point i forgot on the bannings of strikes.
I think under certain circumstances i would support these, i do not know the Nepalese situation. But i do know that the CIA through a series of national strikes managed to overthrow the democratically elected governments (Communists of course) in Bulgaria and Albania. Unfortunately we have to take repressive action if we're facing enemy's as such. A thing you dont recognize.

[Lysias]

Not to be all trendy or anything, but did anyone read the chapter in Zizek's "In Defence of Lost Causes" on Stalin saving the humanity of mankind? It has a...unique...take on the debate on how to characterize Stalinism. Not to get between the factions happily denouncing each other, I was just curious to see if anyone had read it.

[ComradeOm]

Secondly, is it not funny that the leaders of the Bolshevik Party... have been middle class? Lenin, Trotsky,... etcWhat are you talking about? Let's look at the apex of the Bolshevik party and you can tell me just how many were "middle class". Below are the full members elected to the Central Committee in April 1917 with either their professional or family backgrounds noted. I've done this quick spot of research so you don't have to

Milyutin: Peasant
Nogin: Weaver
Smilga: Peasant
Kamenev: Railway worker
Zinoviev: Peasant
Stalin: Peasant
Sverdlov: Printer
Fedorov: ?
Lenin: Lawyer

Looking beyond these, the next echelon of the party's leadership shows a similar diversity. For the sake of brevity, below is a quick sample. Its worth noting that the 'lesser' party bodies tended to be fairly uniform in their class compositions - the Petrograd Committee's leadership was primarily proletarian, the Military Organisation relied on soldiers and deserters, the trade union committees drew on long standing union agitators, and so forth.

Trotsky: Small farmer
Shliapnikov: Factory worker
Bukharin: Teacher
Kalinin: Metalworker
Raskolnikov: Sailor
Muranov: Peasant
Sokolnikov: Railway worker
Molotov: Shop clerk
Krestinsky: Peasant
Kirov: Factory worker
Antonov: Labourer
Berzin: Peasant

What were you saying about middle class leadership?

As an aside of course, its worth mentioning that the Bolshevik membership definitely reflected the class composition of the country as a whole. For example, the number of activists from peasant backgrounds is not particularly atypical in a nation with a similarly tiny number of first generation proletarians. As peasants moved into the factories (and became workers) then they also moved into the worker parties. Similarly the leadership of 1917 would have generally joined the party around 1900 and the more recent recruits (especially so in 1917 but no need to count them for distorting the picture) would have increasingly come from 'pure' proletarian backgrounds

[Искра]

And what about Czarist generals?
And by the way Trotsky was no farmer :D don't make me laugh...

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Since hugs'n'marxism posted that picture, I can't resist ... so I have to post this :D

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5753/41889012713013780155513.jpg (http://img194.imageshack.us/i/41889012713013780155513.jpg/)

Vox Populi in Slovenia :)
And we are supposed ti be afraid I guess? First I just want the anarchists to achieve... you know... anything, before we continue our debate.

[BobKKKindle$]

and by the way Trotsky was no farmerThe real question is, why does it matter? It's probably quite fair to describe Trotsky as middle class - at the beginning of My Life he says that his family had just wrenched itself half-way out of poverty and had no intention of stopping half-way, or something along those lines, and it certainly seems from his description of his childhood that Trotsky's family was better-off than most families living in the countryside in the late 19th century. However, it's worth keeping in mind that Trotsky was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet not once but two times, in 1905 and 1917. The reason for this is that despite his class origins Trotsky was able to relate to workers and had an advanced understanding of what had led to the creation of those bodies and what needed to be done to carry the Soviets forward. It wouldn't be possible for Trotsky to be elected to that position if had been an out-of-touch snob who looked down on the Russian working class. It's frankly rather odd to latch on to that aspect of Trotsky when anarchists militants who were also involved in working-class activity came from similarly privileged backgrounds.

[ComradeOm]

And what about Czarist generals?My mistake, I clearly missed those Tsarist generals who rose to become "leaders of the Bolshevik party". Perhaps you'd like to point them out to me?


And by the way Trotsky was no farmer :D don't make me laugh...What part of "either their professional or family backgrounds noted" did you not understand? Trotsky was not a farmer but came from a peasant background. I noted this as 'small farming' to account for the differences with the broader mass of poorer peasants

[Korchagin]

To start, the definition of "Stalinist" is problematic in that there is no precise description of it. It is mainly used as a slur by anarcho-Trots in polemics against their political opponents. I've seen Gus Hall attacked as a "Stalinist" when in fact he firmly supported the post-Stalin Russian establishment.

This accusation of so-called "Stalinism" being right-wing fails to show an understanding of right-wing features. If you read works by Stalin and his supporters, they always denounced both right-wing opportunism and "left-wing" sectarian adventurism. In the Marxist sense, right-wingers basically adhere to opportunism and revisionism such as the Eurocommunists and Social Democracy.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

Stalinism actually doesn't exist. Stalin's policy was a practical usage of Marxist-Leninist thought in the realistic circumstances of the USSR.
We just use the word sometimes to distantiate ourselves from trotskyites, who also claim to be descendants of Leninism.

[Invader Zim]

What part of "either their professional or family backgrounds noted" did you not understand? Trotsky was not a farmer but came from a peasant background. I noted this as 'small farming' to account for the differences with the broader mass of poorer peasants

Trotsky's family may well have been farmers but 'small farming'? His father was successful enough not only to support a family, as well as two servants, but to send his son away from home to be educated. That doesn't sound all that small to me. In fact it seems that Trotsky's family was relatively wealthy.

[black magick hustla]

The words "right" or "left" do not exist in a social vaccum, and it is dumb to treat them as some sort of essentialized, platonic entities with a correct definition even if some majority says otherwise. Stalinism is considered in the tradition of the left, whether if american leftists dislike it or not. However, inside the early communist movement, what was known as stalinism started at the center, inbetween the bukharinist right and the communist left, and then shifted to the right of the comintern in the 20s. That is how the communists at that time considered it. So inside the communist movement they were historically either the centrists or at the right, while outside of iit they constituted the left.

[ComradeOm]

Trotsky's family may well have been farmers but 'small farming'? His father was successful enough not only to support a family, as well as two servants, but to send his son away from home to be educated. That doesn't sound all that small to me. In fact it seems that Trotsky's family was relatively wealthy.Small farming as in the cultivation of private plots and production for the market. To distinguish between peasant subsistence farming and large scale capitalist agriculture. As in the 'small farming class' noted by Marx

[Invader Zim]

Small farming as in the cultivation of private plots and production for the market. To distinguish between peasant subsistence farming and large scale capitalist agriculture. As in the 'small farming class' noted by Marx

But how do you know that Trotsky's family were 'small farmers', and presumably on the lower scale given your pronouncement that Trotsky had a 'peasant background'? Furthermore it is a rather arbitrary destinction, I can see where the line is between a 'peasant' and 'small farmer' based upon whether that farming is primarily subsistance farming. However at what point does a 'small farmer' become a 'farmer'? Size of lands? Type of farm? Lifestyle afforded? Trotsky's family was successful enough to extend their lands by 250 acres during his childhood, to have employees, to own animals for both farm labour and livestock, to have house hold servants, provide the children with an education and so on. So it doesn't strike me that they were 'small farmers', rather that they were relatively affluent. Trotsky wrote that by the October Revolution his father was in danger from the Reds because he was rich and from the Whites because of his son.

[ComradeOm]

So it doesn't strike me that they were 'small farmers', rather that they were relatively affluentAnd who suggested that small farmers cannot be affluent? Or that peasants cannot be rich? Really, I don't see what your point is here

[Invader Zim]

And who suggested that small farmers cannot be affluent? Or that peasants cannot be rich? Really, I don't see what your point is here

I'm suggesting that the size of Trotsky's familys land holdings, wealth, status as employers, well educated children, and a whole host of other factors dictate that the term 'small farmer' is misleading. Though that could be because of the definition you have provided. For example are small farmer land owners or tenent farmers who farm not simply for their own subsistance but for a profit? Does ths status change in the case of landowning farmers? Does the fact that Trotsky's family were empoyers not impact upon their class?

[ComradeOm]

I'm suggesting that the size of Trotsky's familys land holdings, wealth, status as employers, well educated children, and a whole host of other factors dictate that the term 'small farmer' is misleadingOnly if you've fundamentally misunderstood the term. Trotsky's father owned land, hired labour, and produced primarily for the market. He was not a subsistence farmer and he was not part of larger capitalist or Tsarist agricultural unit. He was a small farmer. Or private farmer. Or kulak/serednyaki if you want to be specifically Russia. How is this at all difficult to comprehend?

I have to ask whether you're just being pedantic or you genuinely have not encountered the term before?

[Invader Zim]

Only if you've fundamentally misunderstood the term. Trotsky's father owned land, hired labour, and produced primarily for the market. He was not a subsistence farmer and he was not part of larger capitalist or Tsarist agricultural unit. He was a small farmer. Or private farmer. Or kulak/serednyaki if you want to be specifically Russia. How is this at all difficult to comprehend?

I have to ask whether you're just being pedantic or you genuinely have not encountered the term before?


Or private farmer. Or kulak/serednyaki if you want to be specifically Russia.

Surely, to describe Trotsky's family as Kulaks is anachronistic? The kulaks were a 20th century phenomenon produced by agricultural reforms of that century, Trotsky's childhood obviously predated that. However to use your claim that Trotsky's family were kulaks as a model for this idea of a 'small farm', the typical kulak farm may have had, if we are to believe Conquest, upto a hundred acres of land to tend. We know from Trotsky's account of his life that his father extended the family holdings, during his childhood, by a full 250 acres, clearly showing that the farm far exceeded the size of a typical kulak. During the dekulakisation of the 1930s the property taken from a typical kulaks usually amounted to only a few hundred rubles. Again, we know from Trotsky's writings that his father regularly dealt in upto four figure sums.

But of course this is the problem with the classification, it is purely arbitrary. At what point does a growing 'small farm' upwardly change classification? So you're right, I guess I don't understand, but that strikes me as a fundermental problem with the concept rather than my reasoning.

[manic expression]

I think we are here to propose ideas, to try and use the historical experience of the working class to advise, but ultimately we do not make revolutions. No socialist in history has made revolutions, it has been the working class. For example, the 1917 revolution happened despite the Bolsheviks, and soviets/factory committees sprung up regardless of the vanguardists, who came to occupy them.

That's a good one. So the Bolsheviks, who destroyed the Kerensky regime, who organized (and carried out) the defense of the revolution from the Whites, who empowered the Soviets as the center of Soviet society...were actually working against the working class?

[Pogue]

And we are supposed ti be afraid I guess? First I just want the anarchists to achieve... you know... anything, before we continue our debate.

yeh, I guess the Spanish revolution never happened then :crying:

[Pogue]

That's a good one. So the Bolsheviks, who destroyed the Kerensky regime, who organized (and carried out) the defense of the revolution from the Whites, who empowered the Soviets as the center of Soviet society...were actually working against the working class?

Yes. Because of the fact they did all that before destroying working class power post-revolution, at times even violently supressing working class opposition to their regime, including left wing revolts.

Its like how initially Mugabe was seen as a liberating figure, then he started organising a dictatorship which murdered, beat and raped political opponents, and all the other 'liberators turned oppressors' in history. Obviously this analysis of the vanguard informs alot of anarchist analysis - i.e. be seizing state power in a undemocratic party structure you will turn into the new ruling class.

[The Bear]

stalinism is phrase invented by anarchist and revisionists which they , still to this very day cant define

Spanish civil war was a war between the legal republican govrement and fascists(roughly)... There were many fractions that supported legal govrement... Anyway govrement and left forces lost the war

[manic expression]

Yes. Because of the fact they did all that before destroying working class power post-revolution, at times even violently supressing working class opposition to their regime, including left wing revolts.

What "left wing revolts"? Makhno and his merry band of anti-semetic cossacks? The White insurgents at Kronstadt? Most anarchists are good at two things: parroting liberal criticisms of revolution and romanticizing reactionary brigands into something supposedly revolutionary.

The Bolsheviks didn't suppress working-class power, they made working-class power. What organs do you think made up the Soviet state? The Soviets. It ain't that hard to figure out.


Its like how initially Mugabe was seen as a liberating figure, then he started organising a dictatorship which murdered, beat and raped political opponents, and all the other 'liberators turned oppressors' in history. Obviously this analysis of the vanguard informs alot of anarchist analysis - i.e. be seizing state power in a undemocratic party structure you will turn into the new ruling class.

Pogue, the voice of Africa.

Your pretentions of democracy are only a cover for your inability to endorse working-class revolution. Whatever you imagination has conjured, it does not match the reality of progress in our time, for that necessarily means a party of the workers seizing power and crushing reaction; it's a shame for you that your heroes always happen to be crushed in this process.

[Abc]

What "left wing revolts"? Makhno and his merry band of anti-semetic cossacks?
funny that the only accounts that Makhno was a anti-semetic comes from Bolshevik propaganda, and he did have Nikifor Grigoriev shot for extreme anti-Semitism.

Stalinism is phrase invented by anarchist and revisionists which they , still to this very day cant defineAcually you are right, Stalin added shit to communist theory to get a ideology named after him so yes Stalinism as a ideology. does not exist, however the phrase usually defines the style of a government rather than an ideology.

[manic expression]

funny that the only accounts that Makhno was a anti-semetic comes from Bolshevik propaganda, and he did have Nikifor Grigoriev shot for extreme anti-Semitism.

[the Jewish masses] were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno...

From "A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present" by Zvi Gitelman

Hardly Bolshevik propaganda.

[Abc]

...................................So your saying that the Bolsheviks were anti-semetic???

[manic expression]

Try reading it again, you obviously failed to understand the implications of the quote. Thanks.

[Abc]

were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhnowhats its saying is that Makhno was working with the Bolsheviks to round up jews.. :confused::confused::confused:

[manic expression]

*Sigh*

No, it's saying that the Jewish population of the former Russian Empire came to support the Bolsheviks because of "the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country". They were driven into the hands of the Bolsheviks, meaning they joined the Bolshevik camp in order to survive.

[khad]

whats its saying is that Makhno was working with the Bolsheviks to round up jews.. :confused::confused::confused:
Did George W. Bush teach you to read? I mean, seriously, now, it is staring you in the face.

Perhaps the passive voice is confusing you:

"the pogroms drove the Jewish masses reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks"

"Just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno conducted pogroms"


The Bolsheviks were not conducting the pogroms.

[PRC-UTE]

whats its saying is that Makhno was working with the Bolsheviks to round up jews.. :confused::confused::confused:

It seems to say that every other faction besides the Bolsheviks were involved in attacking Jews, including Makhno. But there's a "..." in the quote, so I don't know what text is missing which might explain more.

[Abc]

i cant find find anymore about Zvi Gitelman, and since it seems to be attacking all Non-Bolsheviks while portraying the Bolsheviks as "Saviors" i'm guessing hes a ML also Makhno had many jewish friends who served beside him

[manic expression]

It seems to say that every other faction besides the Bolsheviks were involved in attacking Jews, including Makhno. But there's a "..." in the quote, so I don't know what text is missing which might explain more.
"The latter were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies of Generals Denikin, Wrangel, Kolchak, and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno; the Ukrainian national army commanded by Semion Petliura; and a long list of bandit groups often led by atamans, or chieftains."


It's on page 65, if anyone's interested.

[manic expression]

i cant find find anymore about Zvi Gitelman, and since it seems to be attacking all Non-Bolsheviks while portraying the Bolsheviks as "Saviors" i'm guessing hes a ML also Makhno had many jewish friends who served beside him

From the back of the book:

Zvi Gitelman is Professor of Political Science, Preston R Tisch Professor of Judaic Studies, and Director of the Jean and Samuel Frankel Centter for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of, among other works, Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, 1917-1930, and editor of Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Indiana University Press).

[Dave B]

I have not been following this thread but perhaps one could ask whether or not Stalin did do exactly what he said he wouldn’t do to the Anarchists in 1906-7.



The whole short pamphlet is worth a complete read for both parties one would think.

J. V. Stalin, ANARCHISM or SOCIALISM?

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3 (http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html)

It wasn’t even as if some Anarchists were not to some extent on board and supportive of the Bolsheviks from the beginning. This included of course both Berkman and Emma Goldman who considered at first the Bolshevik state a ‘historic necessity’. Something that Lenin himself acknowledged before later turning on them, after dealing with the others;

V. I. Lenin, Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst 1919



Very many anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet power, and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies of Marxism only through misunderstanding, or, more correctly, not through misunderstanding but because the official socialism prevailing in the epoch of the Second International (1889-1914) betrayed Marxism, lapsed into opportunism, perverted Marx’s revolutionary teachings in general and his teachings on the lessons of the Paris Commune of 1871 in particular. I have written in detail about this in my book The State and Revolution and will therefore not dwell further on the problem.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm)

On the Kronstadt we need to decide whether or not the people who made the following demands and proclamations were White Guardist or not;







mmediate new

elections (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Elections) to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express the wishes oIf the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Political_campaign).
Freedom of speech (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Freedom_of_speech) and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Anarchism), and for the Left Socialist parties.
The right of assembly (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Freedom_of_assembly), and freedom for trade union (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Trade_union) and peasant organisations.
The organisation, at the latest on 10 March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.
The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Prison) workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organisations.
The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps (http://www.revleft.com/wiki/Concentration_camp).
The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces. No political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In the place of the political sections various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.
The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.
The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.
The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups. The abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking into account the views of the workers.
The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labour.
We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.
We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.
We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups.
We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion)

And;




the radio message to the workers of the world, 6th March, 1921:--

"Our cause is just: we stand for the power of soviets, not parties. We stand for freely elected representatives of the labouring masses. The substitute Soviets manipulated by the Communist Party have always been deaf to our needs and demands; the only reply we have ever received was shooting. . . . . Comrades! They not only deceive you; they deliberately pervert the truth and resort to most despicable defamation. . . . In Kronstadt the whole power is exclusively in the hands of the revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers--not with counter revolutionists led by some Kozlovsky, as the lying Moscow radio tries to make you believe. . . . Do not delay, comrades! Join us, get in touch with us; demand admission to Kronstadt for your delegates. Only they will tell you the whole truth and will expose the fiendish calumny about Finnish bread and Entente offers.

"Long live the revolutionary proletariat and the peasantry!"
"Long live the power of freely elected Soviets!"



http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/trotskyprotests.html (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/goldman/trotskyprotests.html)


And the alternative view for the sake of ‘balance’;


Leon Trotsky Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt (January 1938)




http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/01/kronstadt.htm)


And whether people like Agnes Smedley were your typical White Guardists as well for that matter,


letter to Florence Lennon (December 1921)



'Much that we read of Russia is imagination and desire only. And no person is safe from intrigues and the danger of prison. The prisons are jammed with anarchists and syndicalists who fought in the revolution. Emma Goldman and Berkman are out only because of their
international reputations. And they are under house arrest; they expect to go to prison any day, and may be there now for all I know.

Any Communist who excuses such things is a scoundrel and a blaggard. Yet they do excuse it - and defend it. If I'm not expelled or locked up or something, I'll raise a small-sized hell.
Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.'


Agnes Smedley can be read about at;


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Smedley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Smedley)

[khad]

i cant find find anymore about Zvi Gitelman, and since it seems to be attacking all Non-Bolsheviks while portraying the Bolsheviks as "Saviors" i'm guessing hes a ML also Makhno had many jewish friends who served beside him
Stop making excuses for your own laziness. A quick google search will reveal that Mr. Gitelman is a political scientist teaching at the University of Michigan. A little extra digging reveals that he is a Zionist who bashes the USSR for anti-Semitism. The very notion that Zionism could be something akin to Fascism is abhorrent to this man.

You are insane if you believe that a honest Marxist-Leninist can become an endowed chair professor at a major US university.

[Abc]

So your basing your finding on the words of a zionist???
also you never answered by comments about Makhno having jewish comrads, and the shooting of Nikifor Grigoriev,

[khad]

So your basing your finding on the words of a zionist???

Since Zionists are hypersensitive and obsessed about documenting any perceived oppression of "Jews," their opinion is more valid on this issue than any of your half-formed ravings. It's clear to everyone that you've been shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly in this argument.


also you never answered by comments about Makhno having jewish comrads, There were Jews in the Wehrmacht. Didn't make the Nazis any less racist. No one has to answer to your ridiculous logic.

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/jewishlife/JewishSoldiersMark.htm


Many people assume that there were no Jews in the Wehrmacht . Rigg adequately proves that this is far from the truth. "Although the exact number of Mischlinge who fought for Germany during World War II cannot be determined, they probably numbered more than 150,000." (Rigg, Mark. Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, University Press of Kansas, 2002)
and the shooting of Nikifor Grigoriev,Oh yes, that. Makhno accepted his proposal to join in the first place, despite his reputation for being a racist Ukrainian nationalist. I believe the final decision to eliminate him came from his public disagreements with Makhno and his contacts with the White Army.

[Abc]

Since Zionists are hypersensitive and obsessed about documenting any perceived oppression of "Jews," their opinion is more valid on this issue than any of your half-formed ravings. It's clear to everyone that you've been shooting yourself in the foot repeatedly in this argument.

There were Jews in the Wehrmacht. Didn't make the Nazis any less racist. No one has to answer to your ridiculous logic.

So if a Zionists says stalin oppressed jews (which they have) i suppose you belive that too? the Hypocrisy of your comments is amazing,

There were Jews in the Wehrmacht. Didn't make the Nazis any less racist. No one has to answer to your ridiculous logic.
oh yea a anti-semite army not having jews in it REALLY ridiculous logic there

[khad]

So if a Zionists says stalin oppressed jews (which they have) i suppose you belive that too?
Are you daft? All you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot again by emphasizing the validity of Zionist sources, which you apparently believe yourself.

Regardless, the fact that Zionists hate Makhnoists even more than commies says a lot. They have no reason to be sympathetic to the USSR.

[Abc]

Are you daft? All you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot again by emphasizing the validity of Zionist sources, which you apparently believe yourself.

Regardless, the fact that Zionists hate Makhnoists even more than commies says a lot. They have no reason to be sympathetic to the USSR.
wait? what? shooting my self? how??? were?what????????????????????????????????????????? ???
:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:
ummm i'm not the one who posted the book passage in the first place i was mearly pointing out the WHOLE book is bullshit but sould i be arguing with you because at this point i have no clue what side your on

[Abc]

[the Jewish masses] were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno...

From "A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present" by Zvi Gitelman

Hardly Bolshevik propaganda.
we see who posted it to begin with....

Did George W. Bush teach you to read? I mean, seriously, now, it is staring you in the face.

Perhaps the passive voice is confusing you:

"the pogroms drove the Jewish masses reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks"

"Just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno conducted pogroms"


The Bolsheviks were not conducting the pogroms.
and who supported what the book said......

Are you daft? All you are doing is shooting yourself in the foot again by emphasizing the validity of Zionist sources, which you apparently believe yourself.

Regardless, the fact that Zionists hate Makhnoists even more than commies says a lot. They have no reason to be sympathetic to the USSR.
and then who attacked the idea of using zionist sources...

[khad]

oh yea a anti-semite army not having jews in it REALLY ridiculous logic thereYou are either illiterate or a compulsive liar. There were more than 150,000 fucking JEWS in the NAZI German army.

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/jewishlife/JewishSoldiersMark.htm


Many people assume that there were no Jews in the Wehrmacht . Rigg adequately proves that this is far from the truth. "Although the exact number of Mischlinge who fought for Germany during World War II cannot be determined, they probably numbered more than 150,000." (Rigg, Mark. Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, University Press of Kansas, 2002)No one is going to debate you until you stop your deliberate lying and misrepresentation of other people's words.

[Abc]

lying and misrepresentation of other people's words??? wtf you said MY logic was ridiculous, your angry that the....you know what fuck off your a troll your angry that the only non-Bolshevik source that you could find that said Makhno was anti-semetic, was from a zionist and i blew a whole right thought your source so instead of finding a better source you would rather call me a lier....fuck off

[manic expression]

Billy Mays, just stop, you've been proven utterly wrong countless times already, you're just going to make it worse.

By the way, that Gitelman is a Zionist means that he's naturally biased against the Bolsheviks. It would serve his ideological interests to paint the Bolsheviks as anti-semetic. However, even this anti-Bolshevik Zionist cannot help but recognize the obvious and commonly-known fact that the Bolsheviks were practically the only group in the former Russian Empire to fight anti-semitism and defend the rights of Jews. That is abundantly clear to everyone on this thread (and everyone who seriously studies the Russian Civil War) except for you.

[Abc]

fine i'll stop arguing about Makhno, but if your going to say everything a zionist source says is true then you have to do the samething for EVERYTHING he says including stalin, i however think that Makhno, the U.S.S.R. and Stalin were NOT anti-semetic and just because a zionist says so does not make it true.in short your source sucks get it over it.

[manic expression]

We're talking about commonly-accepted facts, not opinions or political positions. Gitelman didn't say anarchism is bad because it's against Zionism, he made no ideological arguments against anarchism; Gitelman simply stated that Makhno's forces launched pogroms against Jews during the Russian Civil War, and that the Bolsheviks fought against these reactionary acts. That's a correct statement, regardless of the ideology of the historian. If we were to discount historical studies based solely on the ideology of the writer, the vast majority of commonly-accepted historical facts would then somehow be wrong.

Your only argument is that you don't like the ideology of the historian quoted (which in your case would hold true for just about every historian, ever), meaning you are either unwilling or unable to question the actual facts presented.

And Stalin has nothing to do with this conversation. The Doctor's Plot has been discussed on other threads, and since I doubt you even know what that means, I strongly suggest you search for it on this website and read some history.

[Abc]

but you have given me no proof other then a passage from one book, do you have picures, documents, etc?
"Maknno's alleged anti-Semitism...Charges of Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left, right, and center. Without exception, however, they are based on hearsay, rumor, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and unproved."-Paul Avrich

We're talking about commonly-accepted facts, not opinions or political positions. Gitelman didn't say anarchism is bad because it's against Zionism, he made no ideological arguments against anarchism; Gitelman simply stated that Makhno's forces launched pogroms against Jews during the Russian Civil War, and that the Bolsheviks fought against these reactionary acts. That's a correct statement, regardless of the ideology of the historian. If we were to discount historical studies based solely on the ideology of the writer, the vast majority of commonly-accepted historical facts would then somehow be wrong.
once again show me the proof other then stuff written by people who were not there

[Jorge Miguel]

The only time Anarcho-Communism was ever tried they were under attack from 5 different fascist countrys it never even made it off the ground
Cambodia?

[manic expression]

but you have given me no proof other then a passage from one book, do you have picures, documents, etc?
"Maknno's alleged anti-Semitism...Charges of Jew-baiting and of anti-Jewish pogroms have come from every quarter, left, right, and center. Without exception, however, they are based on hearsay, rumor, or intentional slander, and remain undocumented and unproved."-Paul Avrich
once again show me the proof other then stuff written by people who were not there

One book isn't enough for you? Of course it wouldn't be, you're too obsessed with believing your romanticized notions of a gang of cossacks. That "passage from one book", by the way, comes from someone who studied the conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe quite closely, and who had a vested ideological interest in making the Bolsheviks look bad. But wait, even he supports the historical record.

Paul Avrich was at least a strong sympathizer with anarchism, and thus he's naturally biased toward your position. More importantly, he's dodging the issue on documentation: there aren't any records on Makhno's bandits because they were too unsophisticated to keep any. Lastly, so-called "hearsay" isn't unreliable when the reports consistent, and reports of anti-semetic pogroms from Makhno and his cossack horde were very consistent from those who were subject to them.

So here we have a historian biased against the Bolsheviks who supports the claims of the revolutionaries, while you have a historian who blatantly sides with anarchism on ideological lines, and one who can only mumble complaints about "hearsay" when in actuality it was widely known that Jews were being targeted.

Oh, and by the way, the vast majority of historical books are written by people who weren't there (just so we're clear...did Paul Avrich, your favorite anarchist cheerleader, ride with Makhno? :rolleyes:). And the vast majority of those books were written by people who don't agree with you politically. I'm sorry if it's difficult to comprehend, but just try to stay calm.

[Sarah Palin]

I am no fan of Stalin, but to call him a rightist is absurd. Sure his human rights record is pretty bad (The purges were bad, but the Ukrainian famine was not because of him. That was caused by the Ukrainian nationalists, and he actually made great strides towards democracy in the 1930's), but on the economy, his policies were rather far left. Lenin had decided abandon the socialization of agriculture and the communization of property under the NEP of 1921. He would allow for private ownership in the rural sector and private production.The result of this was that soviet agriculture soon returned to its prewar levels. The war and revolution had cost Russia 13 years of economic growth, but by the late 1820’s it appeared that Russia stood on the verge of another period of growth.
But events prompted Stalin to believe that there would not be enough time for economic development to follow its own course and Russia labored under its traditional economic weaknesses. There was no foreign investment available for development and Russia would have to rely on domestic sources to finance the development of large-scale industry, as well as the creation of a substantial armed forces in the face of a increasingly threatening world. Since by 1926 the Russian middle class had been eliminated, which could have been a source for investment capital, 78% of the Russian population live in the agricultural sector. The vast majority of Russian farmers framed on private plots and produced private surpluses. In such a context, Stalin saw that there would only be one way for the state to raise money and accumulate capital, and simultaneously transform the economic base of Russia from farming to industry.The solution for Stalin was to collectivize agriculture, forcing the peasants into communes, destroying the kulaks, controlling agricultural output, and fixing the prices of wages and food.In essence the state interposed itself between rural producers and urban consumers, and extracted money from each such as the world had never seen. The result of this was that the share of Russian GNP devoted to private consumption, which in other countries gong through the same "take off" developmental stage was around 80% was driven down to 50% with the state expropriating the other 50% for its own uses. There was one consequence of this though, but it was rather positive, at least for the development of the Soviet economic and military power. Having driven private consumptions share of the GNP down to levels unmatched in 20th century history, the state was able to deploy over 25% of GNP for industrial investment and still have considerable sums for investments in science, education and the armed forces. Russian society was literally transformed in the period from 1928 to 1940 as the number of population working in agriculture fell from 75% to less than 50%. Between 1930 and 1938 alone, 25 million peasants moved from rural areas to developing industrial centers and transformed into factory workers by means of intensive training, ideological indoctrination, and extremely harsh industrial discipline.
Throughout the Stalin era the USSR became an increasingly urban country.
In order to free labor for industry and to secure food for the swelling urban population Stalin sped up the collectivization of farming. In 1929 there were 25,000,000 small peasant farms, by 1952 these had been transformed into 100,000 large and highly mechanized collective farms.The resulting upturn in manufacturing output and national income was something unprecedented in the history of industrialization. Russian manufacturing boomed during the great depression. If one examines the period of the two five year plans of 1928 to 1937 Russian national income rose from 24.4 to 96.3 billion rubles, coal output increased from 35.4 to 128 million tons, steel production from 4 to 17.7 million tons, electricity output rose 700%, machine-tool production 20,000% and tractor production rose 40,000%. By the late 1930’s, Russia had been last in terms of economic development and output in Europe had pulled off a stunning achievement. In 8 years Russia had become the 2nd largest economy in the world. The education system also made the literacy rate of the USSR rise to over 90%, while homelessness was virtually non-existent.
But I've always felt that civil liberties are more important than economic superiority, so this is why I'm rather anti-Stalin.

[Abc]

One book isn't enough for you? Of course it wouldn't be, you're too obsessed with believing your romanticized notions of a gang of cossacks. That "passage from one book", by the way, comes from someone who studied the conditions of Jews in Eastern Europe quite closely, and who had a vested ideological interest in making the Bolsheviks look bad. But wait, even he supports the historical record.

Paul Avrich was at least a strong sympathizer with anarchism, and thus he's naturally biased toward your position. More importantly, he's dodging the issue on documentation: there aren't any records on Makhno's bandits because they were too unsophisticated to keep any. Lastly, so-called "hearsay" isn't unreliable when the reports consistent, and reports of anti-semetic pogroms from Makhno and his cossack horde were very consistent from those who were subject to them.

So here we have a historian biased against the Bolsheviks who supports the claims of the revolutionaries, while you have a historian who blatantly sides with anarchism on ideological lines, and one who can only mumble complaints about "hearsay" when in actuality it was widely known that Jews were being targeted.

Oh, and by the way, the vast majority of historical books are written by people who weren't there (just so we're clear...did Paul Avrich, your favorite anarchist cheerleader, ride with Makhno? :rolleyes:). And the vast majority of those books were written by people who don't agree with you politically. I'm sorry if it's difficult to comprehend, but just try to stay calm.
did it ever accure to you capitalists dont like anarchists and would have no problem making up lies about them? and with no photos or documents only books written by people who were not there you have no proof

[manic expression]

did it ever accure to you capitalists dont like anarchists and would have no problem making up lies about them? and with no photos or documents only books written by people who were not there you have no proof

Capitalists don't like the Bolsheviks, either. Why would an anti-Bolshevik historian concede that the Bolsheviks didn't engage in pogroms while stating the clear fact that the anarchists did? Because that's what's accepted as history.

With "no photos or documents only books written by people who were not there", we're pretty sure Hannibal Barca was a good general, that dinosaurs once roamed the earth and that the Makhnovist brigands were anti-semetic.

In the interest of saving time, allow me to summarize your argument using your own words:


:confused::confused::confused:

There. I think that about covers it.

[Abc]

ummm your argument is flawed because we have evidence of that stuff like Hannibal Barca was a good general, that dinosaurs were once roaming the earth, but all you have come up with for the Makhnovist brigands being anti-semetic. is a book written by a person who was not there (btw in case you didnt know there are books that say the holocost never happened just because someone writes a book does not make it true)

[manic expression]

ummm your argument is flawed because we have evidence of that stuff like Hannibal Barca was a good general,

We have less evidence for that as we do for the anti-semetism of Makhno's cossacks. The first history of the Second Punic War was written by Polybius, about a generation after the conflict. He interviewed Roman veterans. The second history is by Livy, and that's not very reliable because it's romanticized.

For Makhno's anti-semetism, we have wide reports of pogroms committed from the denizens of the region in question, which is why it's historically accepted as true, and why an anti-Bolshevik historian grudgingly admits that the Bolsheviks were the only force to fight these racist massacres. That's more immediate and direct than Polybius' famous history, even though both are quite reliable. Funny how you dropped the ideological argument against my source, because now you know how empty it is.

Nice try, though.

[Abc]

For Makhno's anti-semetism, we have wide reports of pogroms committed from the denizens of the region in question, which is why it's historically accepted as true, and why an anti-Bolshevik historian grudgingly admits that the Bolsheviks were the only force to fight these racist massacres. That's more immediate and direct than Polybius' famous history, even though both are quite reliable. Funny how you dropped the ideological argument against my source, because now you know how empty it is.
interesting i just found another zionist author (Paul Robert Magocsi)who claims the Bolsheviks also did anti-Jewish pogroms but oh wait i forgot that does not count! because it goes against your ideaology thus its all lies and propaganda oh and i found a interesting quote you might that be interested in

Despite its very widespread nature, the Makhnovist movement remained enclosed within its own borders and isolated from the rest of the world. Being a movement which arose from the popular masses themselves, it remained untouched by any manifestation of showmanship, publicity, or so-called glory. It accomplished no political action and gave rise to no directing elite. As a genuine, concrete and living movement, rather than a compound of red tape and the exploits of "genial leaders", it had neither the time nor the possibility, nor even the need, to assemble documents that would preserve its ideas and acts "for posterity".
Surrounded by implacable enemies on all sides, attacked without truce or quarter by the ruling party, submerged by the deafening voices of "statesmen" and their henchmen, and losing in the struggle at least nine-tenths of its best militants, this movement was doomed to remain in the shadows. And so it is not easy to uncover its fundamental nature. Just as thousands of modest heroes of all revolutionary periods remain for ever unknown, so it is almost inevitable that the Makhnovist movement should remain a scarcely known epic of the workers. It goes without saying that the Bolsheviks took advantage of these circumstances and the ignorance which sprang from them to say what they wanted about the movement.
In this connection another important point must be considered. During the confused and chaotic struggles which completely disorganised the life of the Ukraine between 1917 and 1921, there were numerous armed formations in operation, composed of unclassed and disoriented elements and led by adventurers, looters and bandits. These formations did not hesitate to make use of camouflage, and their "partisans" frequently wore a black ribbon and called themselves "Makhnovists". Naturally, this gave rise to many regrettable confusions.
These groups had nothing in common with the Makhnovist movement, which fought and destroyed them. The Bolsheviks, needless to say, were well aware of the difference between the Insurrectionary Army and these bands without faith or morals. But the confusions served their purpose admirably, and as "experienced statesmen", they exploited it for their own ends.
Here we should emphasise that the Makhnovists were extremely concerned for the good reputation of their army. Carefully, but in a very friendly way, they watched the conduct of each combatant, and behaved correctly towards the general population. Elements who could not rise to the general mental and normal level were not retained within the ranks.
This is illustrated by an episode which took place in the Insurrectionary Army after the defeat of the adventurer Grigoriev in the summer of 1919. This former Tsarist officer managed to involve several thousand deluded young Ukrainian peasants in a fairly extensive uprising against the Bolsheviks -- an uprising that was reactionary, pogromist and partly inspired by a simple desire for loot. In July, 1919, at the village of Sentova, Makhno and his friends unmasked Grigoriev before a public meeting to which they had invited him. Brutal, ignorant and not at all aware of the mentality of the Makhnovists, he spoke first and delivered a reactionary speech. Makhno replied in such a way that Grigoriev saw that he was lost and tried to use his weapons. In the course of a short fight he and his bodyguard were beaten.
It was decided that Grigoriev's young peasants, of whom the overwhelming majority were, in spite of everything, imbued with a revolutionary spirit that had been abused by their chief, could enter the Makhnovist Insurrectionary Army if they wished. But nearly all of these recruits had to be dismissed later on. Having acquired bad habits in Grigoriev's detachments, these soldiers could not rise to the moral level of the Makhnovist combatants. To be sure, the latter thought that in time they could have educated them, but in the existing conditions they could not concern themselves with such matters, and so, in order not to prejudice the good name of the Insurrectionary Army, they discharged them.
One especially shameful slander has been perpetrated by many writers of all shades of opinion against the Makhnovist movement in particular and Makhno personally. Some have spread it intentionally, but the majority have repeated it without bothering to check the sources or examine the facts closely.
It is alleged that the Makhnovists, and Makhno, were impregnated with anti-semitic feeling, that they pursued and massacred the Jews, that they supported and even organised pogroms. The more prudent reproach Makhno with having been a "secret" anti-semite, with having tolerated and closed his eyes to the acts committed by his bands, even if he did not sympathise with them.
We could cover dozens of pages with extensive and irrefutable proofs of the falseness of these assertions. We could mention articles and proclamations by Makhno and the Council of Revolutionary Insurgents denouncing anti-semitism. We could tell of spontaneous acts directed by Makhno himself and other insurgents against the slightest manifestation of the anti-semitic spirit on the part of a few isolated and misguided unfortunates in the army and the population. In such cases Makhno did not hesitate to react personally and violently.
One of the reasons for the execution of Grigoriev by the Makhnovists was his anti-semitism and the immense pogrom he organised at Elizabethgrad, which cost the lives of nearly three thousand persons. And the main cause of the dismissal of those of his partisans who had joined the Insurrectionary Army was the anti-semitic spirit which their former chief had managed to instil into them.
We could cite a whole series of similar facts, but we do not find it necessary to enlarge too much on this subject, and will content ourselves with mentioning briefly the following essential facts:
1. A fairly important part in the Makhnovist Army was played by revolutionists of Jewish origin.
2. Several members of the Education and Propaganda Commission were Jewish.
3. Besides many Jewish combatants in various units of the army, there was a battery composed entirely of Jewish artillerymen and a Jewish infantry unit.
4. Jewish colonies in the Ukraine furnished many volunteers to the Insurrectionary Army.
5. In general the Jewish population, which was very numerous in the Ukraine, took an active part in all the activities of the movement. The Jewish agricultural colonies which were scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Ber-diansk, Alexandrovsk, etc., participated in the regional assemblies of workers, peasants and partisans; they sent their delegates to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.
6. Rich and reactionary Jews certainly had to suffer from the Makhnovist army, not as Jews, but just in the same way as non-Jewish counter-revolutionaries.
Several years ago, in Paris, I had the occasion to interview the eminent Jewish writer and historian, M. Tcherikover, about the question of the Makhnovists and anti-Semitism. I reproduce his statement below.
M. Tcherikover is neither a revolutionary nor an Anarchist. He is simply a scrupulous, meticulous and objective historian. For years he has specialized in research on the persecutions of the Jews in Russia. He has published several basic and extraordinarily well-documented and precise works on this subject. He has received documents of every kind from all parts of the world. He has heard hundreds of depositions, both official and private, and he has checked all the facts rigorously before using them.
Here, verbatim, is what he replied to my question whether he knew anything precise about the attitude of the Makhnovist Army and Makhno himself with regard to the Jewish population: p> "I have concerned myself repeatedly with this question," he told me. "Here are my conclusions, with the usual reservations in case more exact testimony should reach me in the future. An army is always an army, and armies inevitably commit culpable and reprehensible acts, for it is materially impossible to control and supervise every individual making up these masses of men who are taken away from their healthy and normal lives, who are thrown into an existence and into surroundings which release their evil impulses, and who are authorized to use violence, very often with impunity. You certainly know this as well as I do. The Makhnovist army was no exception to this rule. It also committed some reprehensible acts now and then. But I am glad to be able to say with certainty that, on the whole, the behaviour of Makhno's army cannot be compared with that of the other armies which were operating in Russia during the events 1917-21. Two facts I can certify absolutely explicitly.
"1. It is undeniable that, of all these armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard to the civil population in general and the Jewish population in particular. I have numerous testimonies to this. The proportion of justified complaints against the Makhnovist army, in comparison with the others, is negligible.
"2. Do not let us speak of pogroms alleged to have been organized by Makhno himself. This is a slander or an error. Nothing of the sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army, I have had hints and precise denunciations on this subject. But, up to the present, every time I have tried to check the facts, I have been obliged to declare that on the day in question no Makhnovist unit could have been at the place indicated, the whole army being far away from there. Upon examining the evidence closely, I established this fact, every time, with absolute certainty, at the place and on the date of the pogrom, no Makhnovist unit was operating or even located in the vicinity. Not once have I been able to prove the presence of a Makhnovist unit at the place where a pogrom against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists."
This testimony, which is impartial and precise, is one of the first importance. It confirms, among other things, a fact we have already mentioned, the presence of bands, committing all kinds of misdeeds and not disdaining the profits to be gained from a pogrom against the Jews, who covered themselves with the name of "Makhnovist". Only a scrupulous examination can sort out the confusion that occurred. There is no doubt that, in certain cases, the population itself was mistaken.

[manic expression]

:lol: This is getting ridiculous. The flaws in that passage are all too obvious.

First, we see immediately that the author is biased toward the anarchists:

Just as thousands of modest heroes of all revolutionary periods remain for ever unknown, so it is almost inevitable that the Makhnovist movement should remain a scarcely known epic of the workers.

How poetic, and how utterly asinine. Not only does this expose the author's slant, it exposes the fundamental reactionary characteristic of Makhno and his gang. The Makhnovists are scarcely known precisely because they had no base in the workers, they could only survive in the countryside as a vestige of the cossacks.

We could cover dozens of pages with extensive and irrefutable proofs of the falseness of these assertions. We could mention articles and proclamations by Makhno and the Council of Revolutionary Insurgents denouncing anti-semitism. We could tell of spontaneous acts directed by Makhno himself and other insurgents against the slightest manifestation of the anti-semitic spirit on the part of a few isolated and misguided unfortunates in the army and the population. In such cases Makhno did not hesitate to react personally and violently.

Yes, articles and proclamations are supposed to show Makhno's innocence. Makhno's killing of Grigoriev is supposed to be more proof. This is laughable. Articles and proclamations became Makhno's way of selling his myths among the eager anarchist camp. Even today, your sad faith in this brigand is proof of what I've said for some time: anarchists like to romanticize bandits into heroes, they love the innocence inherent in impotence.

But let us move on. Yes, the execution of Grigoriev. Of course, this had nothing to do with Grigoriev's attempts to desert Makhno's army. Naturally, this had nothing to do with him trying to negotiate with the Whites behind Makhno's back. No, Grigoriev was killed because Makhno loved the Jews so much. Occam's Razor settles this one a thousand times against your fantasies.

These formations did not hesitate to make use of camouflage, and their "partisans" frequently wore a black ribbon and called themselves "Makhnovists". Naturally, this gave rise to many regrettable confusions.

And who came up with this little gem? Former Makhnovist brigands? You are asking us to doubt the reports of pogrom victims, while asking us to accept blindly the word of people who had a vested interest in presenting themselves as revolutionaries after the fact. Terrible logic all around.

1. A fairly important part in the Makhnovist Army was played by revolutionists of Jewish origin.

This is the most pathetic of justifications for Makhno's horde. In much of European history, the Jewish identity was tied in separate communities. Jews had flocked to Ukraine (among other places) because of encouragement both positive and belligerent. Their identity as Jews, as members of European Jewry, lay in that communal existence, not necessarily in individual bloodlines. Were those Makhnovist cossacks part of that community? No. Once again, you put forth paper-thin rationales for a rank reactionary.

5. In general the Jewish population, which was very numerous in the Ukraine, took an active part in all the activities of the movement. The Jewish agricultural colonies which were scattered throughout the districts of Mariupol, Ber-diansk, Alexandrovsk, etc., participated in the regional assemblies of workers, peasants and partisans; they sent their delegates to the regional Revolutionary Military Council.

The statement in the beginning of this does not match the actual activites which follow. Sending delegates does not equal endorsement or satisfaction. In fact, the Jewish population turned more and more to the Bolsheviks, as our Zionist friend Gitelman has already admitted to (with great disappointment, of course).

Remember, your author is clearly slanted toward your views. Such intellectual dishonesty is to be expected from such an unreliable source.

M. Tcherikover is neither a revolutionary nor an Anarchist. He is simply a scrupulous, meticulous and objective historian.

Ah yes, "M. Tcherikover", the anarchists' most celebrated "emminent historian". Find information on "M. Tcherikover" to corroborate any of those claims from an independent (read: non-anarchist) source. Have fun.

[Intelligitimate]

Sorry if this has been quoted already:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/browse_thread/thread/518d431bbaf02d27/00b1f8fe8a46c008?lnk=st&q=makhno%20pogroms&rnum=2&hl=en


About a week ago, I was challenged to produce the evidence I have
that Makhno's troops carried out pogroms against Jews. Well, here
it is.
My computer and front-end system are not talented at cross-posting,
and this posting will only go to alt.politics.socialism.trotsky.
I think it would be appropriate if this material is cross-posted to
talk.politics.soviet, where the challenge originated from, as
well as anarchist newsgroups, which one would think would want to
see it.

The origin of this material is as follows:

Five years ago, during the Gulf War, I participated in anti-war
demonstrations together with Perry Matlock, an anarchist and
Makhno supporter in the Bay Area. I challenged him on Makhno's
pogroms. He took a very serious attitude to the issue, and had
a friend who had knowledge of Russian and Yiddish. He traveled
to New York, xeroxed the file on Makhno in the Tcherikover Archive
at YIVO, (Voline's book on Makhno quotes from an interview Voline
had with Tcherikover, in which Tcherikover, compiler of a famous
archive on the Ukrainian pogroms, asserts that Makhno's record
is clean), and mailed it to me, together with some translations.

I translated the remaining Yiddish and French materials. There
are also some Russian and Hebrew materials which remain untrans-
lated. The complete file, together with a series of lengthy
letters between Matlock and myself, was xeroxed for the
Prometheus Research Library in New York, which is open to
qualified scholars upon appointment. According to the PRL
brochure, "researchers are required to send written requests about
specific projects and for appointments," to:

Prometheus Research Library
Box 185, Canal Street Station
New York, NY 10013
(212) 966-1866

So anyone in who wants to read the complete file, and doesn't
read Yiddish, doesn't have to go to YIVO. PRL has it all, in
English.

Here are two documents I translated from the "Makhno file" for
Perry Matlock, interspersed with occasional comments by me,
usually identified with JH, my initials:

Elias Tcherikower Archives, YIVO, File #29, folios 2623-2681

...
2652, 2653, 2654, 2655, 2656, 2657, 2658, 2659

(The below translation is preliminary. The original copy here is
particularly tough to translate, because
Jewish alphabet typewriters, unfortunately, produce many
consonants that are only distinguished from each other by
little squiggles that almost disappear if the copy is blurry.
And also, there's always typos ... actual printed material is
much easier.-JH-)

The Pogrom Activity of the Makhnovites
/A report pulled together on the basis of documents which
(find themselves?) at the disposal of the "editorial collec-
tive to publish materials about the pogroms in the Ukraine and
White Russia./

The objective of this report is to give a specific
overview of the pogrom activity of the Makhnovites. Thereby it
must already initially be considered that on the basis of the
incomplete materials which exist about the question and find
themselves at the disposal of the editorial collective, it
isn't always possible to be certain if the different bands
which in one or another spot committed pogroms against Jews
thereby (verb) or by the population become called "Makh-
novites", really are Makhnovites, are under his oversight or
were a (noun) with Makhno. Even less often is it possible to
be certain if Makhno himself really was part of these pogrom
stories or even took part in the robberies.
According to the chronological dates the documents of the
editorial collective paint the following picture of the
pogroms of the Makhnovites, committed in the following towns:

Yekaterinoslav
At the end of December and the beginning of January 1919
the insurgent detachments of Makhno fought around and in
Yekaterinoslav with the Petliuraites. The fighting in the city
itself and the neighboring suburbs went on for seven days. The
city was badly shot up by artillery. The Makhnovites looted
and burned the "Azyorne" marketplace. Also the entire commer-
cial region was looted. The result when the battle was ended
was that 83 Jewish victims were brought to the cemetery for
burial, from which only a lesser number were caused by
accidental bullets and shells. The remainder were savagely
slain by the Makhnovites. The excesses took a purely anti-
Semitic character (footnote in original: [1. Materials from
`Yekapo', report by M. Aspiz, written 24 August 1922.]).

Roseve (Kiev gub.)
(gub. is abbreviation for gubernia i.e. province-JH-)
In February 1919 the Petliuraite detachments from
Mirgorod were continually plundering and looting Roseve. On
February 16, a group of soldiers that called themselves
"Makhnovites" showed up in Roseve, and began dragging bags of
sugar, meal and other products from Jewish houses, later also
different household goods[2. Materials from `Kope' report from
authorized (word) testimony by Moshe Zarachansky]. During
these attacks a Jew, Riabchinsky, was raped and murdered. The
soldiers said "we have to put fear into Jewish hearts." The
victims maintain that the soldiers had (held toasts to? not
sure) "batko Makhno".

Novo-Poltava colony (Kherson gub.)
In August 1919 a detachment of 30 Makhnovites attacked
the colony and began to plunder. The Jewish self-defense,
however, drove them out. The second day, a Makhnovite train
and two (somethings) went through looting and murdering
nonstop. The self-defense was destroyed, the "ik"o" farm was
ruined. All told, there were 84 murdered Jews. 800 houses were
plundered.[3. Report by D. Traibman, who in the name of the
"gubaufravak" gubernia evacuation administration investigated
the Jewish colony of (Kherson-something?).] Other sources
mention another number of Jewish murder victims, namely
122.[4. "Jewish Thought", #19, September 11, 1919, Odessa.]
According to the latter information, the pogrom was done by
the Makhnovites and (something, something) by the colony.

Novy-Bug. colony/Khers. gub.
At the same time, the Makhnovites made a pogrom in Novy-
Bug. There the (plural noun) had a permanent character over
the period of two months, there were 22 killed.[5. Report of
D. Breitman, see above remarks.]

Romanovka/Khers.gub.
The Makhnovites showed up at this time in several
locations in the Kherson gubernia. A band arrived in Romanovka
and demanded of the Jews that they should round up 20,000
rubles in contributions in 20 minutes. All the Jewish women
would be taken as guarantees. The contribution is already
almost gathered, but seeing that the (illegible) are ap-
proaching, the Makhnovites left everything behind and fled.[6.
"Jewish Thought" #23, 11 October 1919, Odessa.]

Bratskeye/Khers. Gub.
At the end of August a band of Makhnovites showed up in
Bratskeye, near Elisavetgrad. It was Friday morning. In a
period of about 4 hours, all the Jewish families, about 120,
were looted out by the band. Also, murdered was a (75-year old
man? not sure), a (glazer?), who stood against the cut-throats
who wanted to rape his daughter-in-law. (something, something)
3 girls.[7. Information from Wilf-Aaron Dubkin, submitted to
Odessa kehilah (Jewish community organization) 9/27/1919.]

Melitopol
The date of the Melitopol pogrom is not established, but
it was around about the same time. The (something) information
indicates that in the first days that the Makhnovites arrived
in the city, they committed a pogrom, and only afterwards,
when the Jews had paid them 15 million in contributions, did
they stop the pogrom. At the train terminal Jewish victims lay
about.[9. "Our Word" #10, 21 October 1919, Odessa.] The same
(illegible) in general another source also.[10. "Jewish
Thought" #29, Odessa.]

Chudnov
The Chudnov pogrom (illegible) 1919 by a regular Makhnov-
ite military unit -- "L". In the city a 1,000 men (showed up?)
with the slogan "beat the Jews, save Russia." They (something)
on the Jewish houses and in one night slaughtered all of 22
Jews. The also raped a number of Jewish women and, in ad-
dition, looted the entire shtetl ... For 12 days on end
Chudnov lay in the hands of the wild band. The Chudnow
population did (out of something) survive the horrible affair
and put up with the horrible tribute of gold, other products,
gold (something) things.[11. Materials from "Kope", report by
H. Frolkim.]

Yekaterinoslav
The Makhnovite pogroms in October 1919 were mostly
committed by their military units. Yekaterinoslav was in the
month of October (several?) weeks a battleground between the
Makhnovites and the Denikinites. Both sides had (illegible).
There wasn't one day when (illegible). All told, there were
(during?) this period 180 Jews killed, out of whom 66 were
(verb). (From accidental slaughter?) 37 people fell, and the
others were murdered by Denikin's and Makhno's soldiers.[12.
Materials from "Yekapo" report by M. Aspiz 8/24 1920.] The
Makhnovites alone were in Yekaterinoslav from 28 October to 6
November. Officially there was even an order from the revolu-
tionary insurgents' committee against looting, for free trade
and for (receiving?) "rat'n-gelt" (Soviet money? a revolution-
ary tax?-not sure). The poor got the "rat'n-gelt", the Jews
unwillingly. The Jewish shops were closed, and (something) the
6th of November they were forced to reopen. The Makhnovites
themselves looted very little, but they released the criminals
from the jails, who committed assaults, but not specifically
against Jews. This is when the organ of the (something) was
published, the "Nabat". The insurgents issued an order, which
came out for organized expropriations, but against looting.
This time, Makhno indubitably was present. He led negotiations
with the city council and the professional organizations about
organizing government, but they fell through.[13. Materials
from the editorial collective, testimony by student, Yehuda
Barishansky.] There are also witnesses, who saw Makhno himself
in the city, (assisting? standing in the way? not sure) while
a (comrade?) from the insurgents looted a Jewish shop.[14.
"Forward" (Forverts) #8133, 17 January 1920, New York.
Testimony of Frida Greenfeld, written down by H. Nagel. (Note:
unlike most of the references here, this is checkable. Com-
plete microfilm records of the Forverts are held in many
places, among others UCLA and the N.Y. Public Library.-JH-)

Kazatin
In October 1919 a Petliuraite unit took Kazatin. A
(something) train, which looted and murdered the local Jews.
Together with the Petliuaites were added "Makhnovites" who had
arrived from Chudnov, around 300 men. They committed atroci-
ties in Kazatin. They murdered the Jews Kodel and Belilovsky.
40 women were raped. The Makhnovites were there for 12 days.
The claims on the Jews reached a level of 5 million rubles.
The attacks on non-Jews took an episodic character. The
Makhnovites made an accord with the Petliuraites on the issue
of struggle against the Denikinites. On their path, the
Makhnovites committed pogroms in Chudnov-Wolinski, Wa(??)ovka,
Skvire, Ruzshin, Gelopolye and other points. If these were,
sincerely, Makhnovites is not known a section from them had
certainly belonged to the 4th soviet people's (something) and
the 6th people's and other bolshevik units. They (something)
said that they had split from the bolsheviks and begun an
uprising against soviet power under the slogan "Down with the
Jews and the (Whites?-not sure).[15. Materials from "Poale-
Zion". Testimony by the secretary of the Kazatin Poale-Zion
organization, Goldfein.]
...

In the possession of the editorial collective is an
official document (here Makhno's May 1919 proclamation against
pogroms is summarized-JH).
assembled by I. Klinov
(something in Yiddish script) 1922

(Here I'm inserting an excerpt from a lengthy letter from me
to Perry Matlock, commenting on the above document.-JH-)

"The document entitled The Pogrom Activity of the
Makhnovites, folios 2652 through 2659, by I. Klinov for the
"editorial committee to publish materials about the pogroms in
the Ukraine and White Russia," has dates and locations many of
which are checkable. In chronological order:
Yekaterinoslav: Arthur Adams' *Bolsheviks in the Ukraine*
(p. 94) precisely confirms the time period in which Klinov
alleges that the Makhnovites, led in this case personally by
Makhno, fought over the city with the Petliuraites...
Novo-Poltava, Novy-Bug, Romanovka, Bratskeye, Melitopol:
These pogroms all took place in the month of August, im-
mediately after the famous "congress of the partisans of the
Tauride region, Kherson and Yekaterinoslav" at which Makhno
shot Grigoriev and merged Grigoriev's former forces into his.
They all took place in Kherson gubernia, which was Grigoriev's
base area, and were presumably committed by Grigorievites now
accepted by Makhno as Makhnovites. So much for the notion,
which even Trotsky shared to a certain extent, that Makhno's
shooting of Grigoriev was some sort of service to the revolu-
tion in general and Jews in particular! Obviously, shooting
Grigoriev was merely a grandstand ploy which doubled Makhno's
fighting forces (see Adams' comments). Voline says that
"Grigoriev's young peasants, of whom the overwhelming majority
were, in spite of everything, imbued with a revolutionary
spirit that had been abused by their chief, could enter the
Makhnovist Insurrectionary Army if they wished. But nearly all
of these recruits had to be dismissed later on ... the
Makhnovist combatants ... thought that in time they could have
educated them, but in the existing conditions they could not
concern themselves with such matters, and so, in order not to
prejudice the good name of the Insurrectionary Army, they
discharged them." In the inflamed conditions of the Ukrainian
civil war, it was hardly possible to treat every insurrecting
band of peasant partisans whose hands were not spotless as
pogromist counter-revolutionaries. That's why the Bolsheviks
were willing to enlist Makhno, and even Grigoriev (although,
as Adams documents, there were serious questions about this
particular decision of Ukrainian Red Army commander Antonov-
Ovseenko among the Ukrainian Bolsheviks). But to simply enlist
Grigoriev's fighters after killing their commander, fresh from
the mass murder of Jews in Yelizavetgrad, and then to just
discharge them from the ranks without punishment as they
continued their murderous ways, means effectively that Makhno
did have a lot of Jewish blood on his hands...
Yekaterinoslav: The Makhnovites behavior in Yekaterinos-
lav does seem to have been better the second time around,
although it is hard to tell for sure, as this was the least
legible and hardest to translate section of the manuscript.
Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk) was a large industrial
city and an important Bolshevik base (the so-called "right
wing" of the Ukrainian CP, who advocated concentrating on
organizing the mostly Russian-speaking proletariat of the
Kharkov-Donbas heavy industry region and mostly ignoring the
Ukrainian peasantry, were nicknamed, according to Adams, the
"Yekaterinoslavs"). Probably Makhno seized the city from
Denikin in tacit cooperation with Bolshevik trade unionists.
As Trotsky's military writings show, Bolshevik policy towards
Makhno had become more favorable after the Grigoriev affair.
Kazatin: Makhno's main force retreated into the no man's
land between Denikin and Petliura in September. The text seems
to indicate that Kazatin (and Chudnov) were towns in this
area. The pogromists here seem to be Red Army soldiers that
had gone over to Makhno but had not participated in Makhno's
move behind Denikin's lines into the Yekaterinoslav area. So
apparently according to Tcherikover's bookkeeping this goes
down as a "Red Army pogrom"! Klinov's claim that the Makhnov-
ites "made an accord with the Petliuraites on the issue of the
struggle against the Denikinites" ... is confirmed by General
Denikin himself, who on this particular issue obviously has no
reason to lie. So if dubious semi-followers of Makhno's
imitate the pogrom habits of Makhno's temporary ally, Makhno
can hardly be excused from blame, especially given that Makhno
had the alternative option of an alliance with the much more
powerful Red Army, whose commander, Trotsky, had a semi-
favorable attitude towards him at this moment.
2660

(There is a date in Yiddish script at the head of this
document. It is unfortunate that the newspaper this article
was copied out of cannot be determined from the copy, since
the author of this article is identical to the previous one.
The translation below is hasty, and probably overly idiomatic,
but I think captures the spirit pretty well-JH):

I. Klinov
What would happen, if we had a Jewish trial for Makhno?

Makhno, the well-known hero Makhno, has unconditionally
"ferglussed" (not in my dictionary) himself to argue things
out with the Jewish people. Nobody suggested it, nobody
demanded it, but in the days of general interest in Schwartz-
bard's fate and the role of the "Petliuraites", Makhno has
gotten a bit uncomfortable, in that everyone's completely
forgot about him. And he's sent out an open letter to the
press with a special demand "to the Jewish people" to prove
that he was a pogromchik.
I don't know if some sort of institution of ours would
have an urge to get mixed up with Makhno's little paper. From
the side of Makhno and his comrades this is, in any case, not
the first try at rehabilitating him. One should have the
apprehension that in different periods and circumstances,
Makhno's name has been attached to ideological movements. Not
considering that his military units also became reknowned as
pogrom-(makers?), over no such pogrom hero has such a sharp
(something) been carried out over the columns of the world
press about the basic nature of their action, as has been seen
over the "makhnovshchina". Articles "for" and "against",
various testimony, statements of condemnation and hymns of
praise -- have all already been heard numberless times about
the rebellious Russian phenomenon who has appeared to struggle
against the Hetman and Petliura and Denikin and the Bolsheviks
-- against everything and everyone...
People have already forgot a bit about Makhno, but a
couple years back, on the eve of his treason trial in Poland,
a world, whose headquarters at that time was in a certain
sense Berlin, turned around Makhno, which had begun to lead a
counter-attack, a defense struggle for the good name of "batko
Makhno", before the trial was even begun. And the most
remarkable thing in the whole affair was then that Makhno's
friends and advocates brought out a few Jews, firstly the
famous anarchist intellectual Voline, whose Jewish name is
Eichenbaum. What this Eichenbaum and other of his comrades
maintained is very interesting. Because, if someone sincerely
should be found, who should handle the clarification of
Makhno's guilt or innocence. It would be the same charges and
the lawyers would surely be the same young Jewish anarchist
types ... Voline was the one who was (connected?) with the
"makhnovschchina" during the battles on Russian territory. The
attempt to bind up the elemental forces with anarchism was
already begun in the year 1918, mainly through a group of
returned American anarchists. Cultural work in Makhno's army
was carried out at that time by a Jewish-American woman,
Yelena Keller, and Jews were sincerely found continually
around Makhno.
But who was Makhno himself? In Berlin, in the Russian-
language "Anarkhistichesky Vyestnik", was printed Makhno's
memoirs. And from them, if you accept them as honest, is to be
seen that the whole legend that Makhno was a popular educator,
is lies; the "batko" himself maintains everywhere that his
lineage is completely kosher, he is a poor man's son, was a
shepherd, a worker. From sixteen years old a revolutionary,
later condemned to hard labor and first in the year 1918 a
mass leader.
Also at that time appeared in Berlin M. Arshinov's book,
"The History of the `Makhnovshchina'". The fellow who wrote
this book is a man with a serious past. From time to time, he
has committed terrorist deeds, in 1906 blew up a police(sta-
tion?) in Amid near Yekaterinoslav, was condemned to death,
escaped, participated in the "makhnovshchina", and if Makhno
must resort to depending on means of defense, he will doubt-
less get assistance from Arshinov's book, whose obvious goal
is to immortalize Makhno. If the "makhnovshchina" did not
appear, according to Arshinov, the hetman would be sitting
upon the Ukraine to this day and the Dekinites would be
(something) and the Bolsheviks wouldn't be able to do any-
thing.
And Arshinov gives much space (from national considera-
tions?) in the "makhnovshchina" (public school?) to make up a
list of Jews, who were vice chairman in Makhno's revolutionary
council in Gulyai-Polye, commandants in Makhno's cavalry
regiments, leaders of the agitational activity. Then he
relates how the Jewish colonies in Mariupol, Meriusker(?) and
Aleksandrovsk districts unanimously supported Makhno, ad-
ditionally participating with all working people in Makhno's
conventions, and saw in him their protection against reaction.
Arshinov even claims that in February 1919 Makhno allowed the
Jewish colonies to organize self-defense and supplied them
with weapons. And stories are told about Jewish fighters in
the ranks of the Makhnovites. Thus truly heroic feats were
performed by a tailor, who commanded an artillery battery.
Makhno himself has to thank his very survival to Jews. A
resident of Gulyai-Polye, a Jew, rescued him, when he fell in
the hands of the Germans in July with a suitcase full of
anarchist literature; the Jew bought him free, paid a ransom
for him.
Makhno's comrades in Berlin, naturally, understood in
their time, that they would hardly succeed with a system of
"something" (in quotes. Hebrew word probably). Claiming
vociferously that Makhno's army is innocent in the face of
God, has not a drop of Jewish blood on its hands, is laugh-
able, as in the different pogrom archives lie many a record of
Makhno's pogroms. What then? The intercessors come forward and
mostly condemn in the pogroms the Grigorievites and other
accidental bandits, which got into Makhno's military. The
headquarters however, the leading power, would have been clean
of anti-Semitism.
When Makhno once went through the "Verkhny Tokmak" train
station, he saw a poster with the slogan "Kill the Jews, save
the revolution, long live Makhno!"
He went and sought out which of his men had put up the
poster and shot the poor bastard on the spot.
In the Gorkaye shtetl, Aleksandrovsk district, Makhnov-
ites killed 20 Jewish families, and Makhno put 7 guilty
soldiers up against the wall.
But the special service of Makhno was that he shot down
the butcher Grigoriev with his own hands.
Arshinov describes this in detail. When Grigoriev began
his uprising against the Bolsheviks, he sent out his famous
"Universal", in which it is stated, that "with the Ukraine's
(honest men washed in the blood of the Lamb?)" Makhno answered
with a call, in which he wrote and warned:
"Don't you hear in Grigoriev's words a dark call for
Jewish pogroms?"
And as it happened July 27, 1919, in the village of
Sentovo, near Aleksandria, the conference with the participa-
tion of both Makhno and Grigoriev, Makhno made Grigoriev pay
the price for his Jewish pogrom in Yelisavetgrad and shot him
down on the spot, shouting, "such unworthy men as Grigoriev
are a shame for all (povstantses-Ukrainian word probably-JH)!"
What does all this prove? That Makhno is a tsaddik
(Hasidic saint), that he is entirely (zchai-Hebrew probably)
with respect to the Jews?
Yekaterinoslav Jews are in a position to put against this
episode ten times as many episodes, which testify to bloody
deeds of Makhno with his bands. The Jewish comrades of the
former ataman -- the ideological anarchists -- will fashion a
legend about the "makhnovshchina". In truth, the matter is
much simpler. There were many moments in which Makhno, led by
a group of intellectuals, also including Jews, behaved
decently, and one could even think that Makhno was a protector
of the poor Jewish population; these moments do not atone for
the excesses that the Jews suffered from the Makhnovites, as
from the other bands in the years of affliction.
And I think that just now the Jewish comrades of Makhno,
who can raise him so well in the divine reckoning, would have
done better to restrain their hero from this tactless publi-
city stunt, from (stirring up?) and chutzpah-ish reminders of
himself, from demanding a tribunal.

...
(end of material from "Makhno file")

The above material is not the only relevant material from
the file. The most grisly single document in the file is a
piece entitled "24 hours with the Makhnovites," which is
quite stomach-turning. Also there is a very interesting article
from a Jewish orthodox journal. And a whole slew of articles
from Yiddish, French and Russian anarchist journals defending
Makhno, none of which include any facts not found in Voline
or Arshinov's books. (One French anarchist article, with an
anti-Semitic tone, is unintentionally revealing). So, for
further information, I recommend contacting the PRL.

I visited YIVO myself in 1992, and asked Marek Webb, the main
archivist, what was the explanation for the evident contradiction
between the material in Tcherikover's "Makhno file" and
Tcherikover's statement to Voline that Makhno was innocent
of pogromism. Webb expressed the opinion that Tcherikover,
who stayed in Kiev, a center of Jewish safety and even cultural
revival, during the worst of the pogroms, had relied too
much on second-hand information vis-a-vis Makhno. He told me
that the archives now available since the collapse of the Soviet
Union all confirm overwhelmingly that Makhno's troops committed
pogroms. However, in the new Ukrainian Republic, Makhno, like
Petliura, is considered a great Ukrainian national hero, and
discussion of pogroms by Ukrainian national heros is discouraged.

The material I am posting is all from I. Klinov, an individual
I have no familiarity with.

Perhaps Tcherikover considered Klinov, who apparently was trying
to create a Ukrainian pogrom archive that would be a rival to
his own, to be unreliable for some reason. In any case, as Marek
Webb pointed out, the weight of evidence is unequivocable at this
point

[Abc]

*sigh* this is This is ridiculous.
of the 5 pogroms i did a search on that intelligitimate source listed all came back PRE russian revolution but not one mention of Makhno or after 1915 as for your argument why would jews serve in a army in army that was killing them and dont give me the jews served in nazi armys crap, the only reason they did was to hide from hitler the jews under Makhno were not forced to serve they could have fled
and if Makhno was such a anti-semite then how come he allowed jews to not only serve in his army but become officers and quick jacking off over the fact you found a non-communist source that says Makhno was a anti-semiteyour source still sucks
also you ignored over half of what i posted like the fact the U.S.S.R. controlled almost all news that came out of the Ukraine at the time so any reports about the black army would have been negative because while the lenin was having tea in the Former Tsars palace and in full control of the russian press Makhno was out fighting a revolution and didnt have the option of printing anything to counter what the soviets were saying because he was busy fighting unlike lenin who never got his saggy ass near a battle as such the main sources that historians have to go by in infact as you would put "is clearly slanted toward your views" because anybody who supported the black army or tryed to counter the idea the Makhno was killing jews was shot by the Soviets, while people who made up documents that said Makhno WAS killing jews, were left alone this means that any books that say Makhno was a anti-semite are biased because the communists controlled all information that left ukraine

[manic expression]

Obviously you didn't look hard enough:

`The `National Secretariat of Ukrainian Jews' stated during the period of the pogroms: "A special place is held for the actions of the Makhno bands which waged complete destruction in the Yekaterinoslav-Pavlograd region."


http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine/pogroms/ukrainianpogroms.htm


That took me about 5 minutes, and there's WAY more on that site (scroll down for many personal accounts on the pogroms). Nice try.

[Zolken]

*sigh* this is This is ridiculous.
of the 5 pogroms i did a search on that intelligitimate source listed all came back PRE russian revolution but not one mention of Makhno or after 1915 as for your argument why would jews serve in a army in army that was killing them and dont give me the jews served in nazi armys crap, the only reason they did was to hide from hitler the jews under Makhno were not forced to serve they could have fled
and if Makhno was such a anti-semite then how come he allowed jews to not only serve in his army but become officers and quick jacking off over the fact you found a non-communist source that says Makhno was a anti-semiteyour source still sucks
also you ignored over half of what i posted like the fact the U.S.S.R. controlled almost all news that came out of the Ukraine at the time so any reports about the black army would have been negative because while the lenin was having tea in the Former Tsars palace and in full control of the russian press Makhno was out fighting a revolution and didnt have the option of printing anything to counter what the soviets were saying because he was busy fighting unlike lenin who never got his saggy ass near a battle as such the main sources that historians have to go by in infact as you would put "is clearly slanted toward your views" because anybody who supported the black army or tryed to counter the idea the Makhno was killing jews was shot by the Soviets, while people who made up documents that said Makhno WAS killing jews, were left alone this means that any books that say Makhno was a anti-semite are biased because the communists controlled all information that left ukraine

I find it extremely difficult to take a poster such as yourself serious. I mean .. here is a person at a leftist site using the name and image of a pitch-man for brazen capitalism.

[Abc]

I find it extremely difficult to take a poster such as yourself serious. I mean .. here is a person at a leftist site using the name and image of a pitch-man for brazen capitalism.
theres one person using the name sarah palin.......ive seen one person on this site with the name Glenn Beck i dont see you critizing them, the picture and name i use have shit to do with anything your just pissed because i insulted your great U.S.S.R. and you cant think of a better come back sorry please try again when you have a better argument then attacking my profiles name :rolleyes: and if you really want to get in to it your pic is of a monk that must mean "ZoMg!11!!! uR A cAthlic REactIOnary!"

[RotStern]

ooooh boy.
Well I guess in my pursuit to become 'the ultimate leftist' I must therefore become an anarchist. :( Guess I better do some readin'.

[hugsandmarxism]

I come back from the hospital to find this piece of shit thread at 12 pages? :closedeyes: