Index to Reactionary Claims?

[Nolan]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

I think Revleft could benefit greatly from something like this. We have many enemies, from Austrians to Nazis to Primitivists, and sometimes it's difficult to counter all their claims. A logically organized collection of responses would be one of the most useful things on the site, much more so than any thread.

It would be a reactionary argument followed by a left-wing rebuttal.

For example:

Argument: Whites have proven themselves the superior race.

Response: :laugh:

If different responses from different tendencies are needed, that could easily be implemented.

For example:

Argument: Stalin was a butcher.

Marxist-Leninist Response: :lol::rolleyes:

Trotskyist Response: :thumbup1:

Except with words, of course.

Reactionary claims could be categorized by movement, e.g. General Anti-Communism, Fascist Claims, Capitalist Claims, Social-Democrat Claims, etc.

So there's my idea. Discuss please. :D

[Revy]

Ooh! Can I write the response to "Capitalism empowers individuals, communism represses them." :)

Good idea.

[Nolan]

Sure. I'm going to brainstorm some good reactionary claims and their responses.

[RHIZOMES]

I'd love to read this, while I can debunk the really stupid claims, I don't really give engaging with reactionaries much thought, and I really should if I ever start to advocate communism in the public sphere (which I plan on doing some day).

[JazzRemington]

Don't we have a wiki for stuff like that?

[Nolan]

Don't we have a wiki for stuff like that?

Speaking of the wiki, it's down right now.

[Nolan]

In addition to the three mentioned above, here are some more that I've heard from various reactionaries, in no particular order:

-Communism has failed; The only communist countries left are North Korea and Cuba.

-The "nail problem" in the USSR proves markets are more efficient for producing goods.

-Old style Marxism has been completely debunked.

-There is no exploitation in capitalism. There is a voluntary exchange between owner and worker.

-Anarcho-capitalism is a form of anarchism.

-Social democracy is an acceptable middle-ground between communism/socialism and capitalism.

-Communism has killed over 100 million people.

-The west is moving toward socialism already. Obama is a Marxist and the NWO is socialism.

-Whites are quickly becoming the minority. We must fight to protect our race.

-The Nazis were socialists.

-The USSR and Nazi Germany were identical in almost every way but racial ideology.

-"Animal Farm" and "1984" prove communism will always be a dictatorship.

-Homosexuality is unnatural and should be banned.

-Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a dictator.

-Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was legally deposed by congress for attempting to violate the Honduran constitution. There was no coup.

-The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot proves just how brutal and genocidal a communist regime can be.

-Socialism goes against human nature. (lets get THE best response of all time here)

-Marxism wants to pay everyone equal wages and to force everyone to be perfectly equal.

-The embargo on Cuba is a scapegoat and Castro's best little helper. The problem is communism.

-The Holodomor was an intentional genocide carried out by Stalin to crush the free spirit of the Ukraine.

-Cuba was much better off with Batista than it is now. It was the most prosperous country in Latin America.

-Chile prospered under Pinochet, who was not a dictator and stepped down on his own choice.



That's all for now. Maybe someone could start writing responses to these? And any more suggestions would be wonderful. :)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CC: Thanks for that link!:thumbup1::)

[Nolan]

You're welcome, Rosa. :)

[scarletghoul]

This would be pretty cool. I'd be willing to make a few answers maybe. However as Lenin said it takes 10 pages of truth to refute one line of opportunism. so short and concise answers might not be possible or complete in many instances

[Nolan]

This would be pretty cool. I'd be willing to make a few answers maybe. However as Lenin said it takes 10 pages of truth to refute one line of opportunism. so short and concise answers might not be possible or complete in many instances

We can link to other sources throughout if the reader needs a better/in depth explanation.

[Decolonize The Left]

Moved to Learning.

- August

[RadioRaheem84]

Don't we have a wiki for stuff like that?

Where?

NM, found it. It is down though. Anyone know when it will be up.


Also, this is a wonderful idea Cuba!

[Nolan]

Any reason in particular why this is in Learning, August? :confused:

[the last donut of the night]

I would love to take part in this. Please PM me if you need my help.

[RadioRaheem84]

Anarchist FAQ is really good but long, oh so, long. We need a smaller more condensed version of that.

[Nolan]

Anarchist FAQ is really good but long, oh so, long. We need a smaller more condensed version of that.

I'll assume the Anarchist FAQ is from...well, an ANARCHIST point of view. We need a universal one.

[bailey_187]

This is a really good idea. I have the book by the guy who runs the TalkOrigins site called the "Counter-Creationism handbook" which is similar to the website. We should, as the TalkOrgins guy does, list different responeses like response 1, 2, 3 etc.
Also, we shouldnt make this a site for anti-communists, but rather for other Communists to quickly find responses to arguments they are not familiar with (how TalkOrigins and Counter-Creationist handbook are ment to be used).




.
-The Nazis were socialists.


1.As noted in Germà Bel. “Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930’s Germany.” p. 2, the Nazis carried out much privatisation of industry in many sectors of the economy. The transfer of publicly owned assets into the hands of private capitalists is not a socialist policy.

2. Between 1935 to 1943 industrial profits increased and income for corporate leaders rose by 46% (Michale Parenti - Blackshirts and Reds pg2). If the Nazis were actual socialists, there would be no profits and corporate leaders, let alone an increase in profits and their incomes.

3. The Economist on February 1st 1936, speaking about events in Nazi Germany said "The issue of Socialism vs Capitalism that once attracted to the party a great many of have-nots, has degenerated into a mere exchange of unmeaning catchwords. On the one hand, it is affirmed that socialism in under way, while at the same time it is asserted that private capital, in land as well as in industry, must not only remain in tact but remain profit making". From this we can see that althought the Nazis paid lip-serive to what they called "Socialism", most lilkley to gain support from the Working class, in practice they kept the economy Capitalist.

- --I dont have any sources for this but if anyone does please give source evicende for:

4. The Nazis entered a poltical coalition with Conservatives
5. Western Capitalists supported the Nazis
6. Hitler was financed by big capitalists



.
-"Animal Farm" and "1984" prove communism will always be a dictatorship.

1. Orwell's books are novels. They do not give you a factual account of the Russian Revolution or life in the USSR. Orwell was a journalist and a novelist, not a historian.
2. Orwell, it can be said, was only against what is called "Stalinism". When it came to other forms of Communism, he did not have the same attitude. For example, he fought alongside the Trotsykite Communists and Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War.

[bailey_187]

Maybe we could call this "TalkCommunism.org"?

[bailey_187]

-Communism has failed; The only communist countries left are North Korea and Cuba.

1. Attempts at Communism in many countries were defeated by enemies, but did no necesarily fail. Communism, for example in China, rendered fantastic results for the workers and peasents, so in that sense it did not fail.
2. Communism is still on the agenda for many workers and peasents around the world, with Nepal on the brink of Communist revolution, India is facing a civil war between Maoist Communists and Government forces, and a Communist Guerilla war is growing in the Philippines. Columbia, Peru, Bangladesh and Turkey also have Communist insurgencies.
3. These states were not Socialist but "state-capitalist, Communism did not fail, but "state-capitalism" did.



-Old style Marxism has been completely debunked.
1. Until someone proves that all is not "matter in motion", Marxism has not be refuted
2. Until someone shows that history is not made of struggles between contending classes, Marxism has not be refuted (Someone could expand this with more references to parts Historical Materialism here in the same way)






-Communism has killed over 100 million people.
1. See "Mao killed X amount" and "Stalin killed X amount" (Assuming we answer those questions, i think it would be better to point readers to those questions rather than go through it all again?)
2. Capitalism is responsible for more than 100million deaths. Amartya Sen has shown how in India alone since independence, aproximatly 100million have died from preventable causes resulting from poverty.
3. More examples of Capitalism causing millions of deaths could be written about



-Marxism wants to pay everyone equal wages and to force everyone to be perfectly equal. .

1. As Stalin said:
"These people evidently think that socialism calls for equalization, for levelling the requirements and personal, everyday life of the members of society. Needless to say, such an assumption has nothing in common with Marxism, with Leninism. By equality Marxism means, not equalization of personal requirements and everyday life, but the abolition of classes, i.e., a) the equal emancipation of all working people from exploitation after the capitalists have been overthrown and expropriated; b) the equal abolition for all of private property in the means of production after they have been converted into the property of the whole of society; c) the equal duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of all working people to receive in return for this according to the work performed (socialist society); d) the equal duty of all to work according to their ability, and the equal right of all working people to receive in return for this according to their needs (communist society).
Moreover, Marxism proceeds from the assumption that people's tastes and requirements are not, and cannot be, identical and equal in regard to quality or quantity, whether in the period of socialism or in the period of communism."
"To draw from this the conclusion that socialism calls for equalization, for the levelling of the requirements of the members of society, for the levelling of their tastes and of their personal, everyday life -- that according to the Marxist plan all should wear the same clothes and eat the same dishes in the same quantity -- is to utter vulgarities and to slander Marxism."

"Bourgeois writers are fond of depicting Marxist socialism in the shape of the old tsarist barracks, where everything is subordinated to the "principle" of equalization. But Marxists cannot be held responsible for the ignorance and stupidity of bourgeois writers."
2.There is more quotes to similar effect from Marx, Lenin, Trotsky etc
3. An explanation of the difference (according to leninists) between Socialism and Communism etc



-The Holodomor was an intentional genocide carried out by Stalin to crush the free spirit of the Ukraine.

1. The famine in question extended outside of Ukraine, so to say it has anything to do with Ukrainian "free spirit" is rediculous.

2. Robert Conquest is the biggest source for the "Famine was intentional" claim, however, even he now no longer beleives this:
"In 2003, Dr Conquest wrote to us explaining that he does not hold the view that “Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine. - Davies & Wheatcroft in Europe-Asia Studies June 2006, p. 629.

3. As Dr. Mark Tauger has shown, the famine was largley caused by rustic plant disease. Plant rust caused the grain stocks to have much fewer grains than would be normal. Because the stalks themselves grew (while lacking the expected number of grains per stalk) this set off a rumor among the peasants that the grain was missing because the government had taken it away. The government officials were most of them not qualified agronomists either, hence they bought into the rumor that the missing grain was accounted for by a conspiracy, but attributed it to kulaks, rich peasants, as they knew that they had not taken away sufficient grain to cause the famine. Because of the failure to realize that the famine was caused principally by a failure in grain production caused by plant rust and other forms of natural disaster, the government failed to import grain from abroad and so did not relieve the crisis as well as might have been done if a call for emergency aid had been issued to grain-holders abroad. But the famine was not artifical in the sense suggested by hoaxers like James Mace and Robert Conquest who allege that crop production was sufficient to feed the majority of the populace. Nor was it caused by collectivization per se. In fact, Tauger points out very clearly that collectivization did improve Soviet grain production. The famine was caused by natural disaster, especially plant rust as a disease within the crop, and then aggravated by lack of human understanding, as occurs commonly in famines. (That paragraph i took from a wikipedia disscussion, the author left no name. I, or someone else could rewrite if that would be better?)

4. Although not suffience enough to cause the whole Famine, Terrorist actiosn by Ukrainian Nationalists can also be blame to a certain extent:

"At first there were disturbances in the kolkhosi [collective farms] or else the Communist officials and their agents were killed, but later a system of passive resistance was favored which aimed at the systematic frustation of the Bolsheviks' plans for the sowing and gathering of the harvest .... The catastrophe of 1932 was the hardest blow that Soviet Ukraine had to face since the famine of 1921--1922. The autumn and spring sowing campaigns both failed. Whole tracts were left unsown, in addition when the crop was being gathered ... in many areas, especially in the south, 20, 40 and even 50 per cent was left in the fields, and was either not collected at all or was ruined in the threshing." -Isaac Mazepa, leader of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement in "Ukraine under Bolshevist rule" Slavonic Review Volume 12, 1933-34"

5. Despite the Famine, when the USSR was invaded, many Ukrainians rallied to the defense of the Soviet Union:

"In the largest eastern portion of the Ukraine, which had been Soviet for twenty years loyalty was overwhelming and active. There were half a million organized Soviet guerillas ... and 4,500,000 ethnic Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army. Clearly that army would have been fundamentally weakened if there had been basic disaffections among so large a component." (William Mandle, p. 109)

[bailey_187]

Claim: Communism leads to starvation

Response:

1. In China agriculture grew by about 3 percent a year, exceeding it's population growth. By 1970, the age old problem of adequately feeding China's population had been solved. This was due to Socialism; integrated economic planning, a system of collective agriculture that promoted grass-roots mobilization, flood control, steady investment in rural infrastructure, and the equitable distribution of food to peasants and rationing of essential foods so that all people were guaranteed their minimal needs
See Harry Harding, China's Second Revolution: Reform After Mao (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1987), p. 30; Robert F. Dernberger, ed., China's Development Experience in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), chapters 3 and 9; Jan Prybyla, The Chinese Economy (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), chapter 3; and Mobo C.F. Gao, Gao Village: Rural Life in Modern China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999).
Speaking to agricultural performance in the Third World, agronomist and Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug said: "China is the one country which has solved its food problems." Cited in Han Suyin, Wind in the Tower (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976), p. 24.

2. See "Ukraine Famine" and "Great Leap Forward" section

3. Someone here could write about Cuba and its lack of malnutrition? I dont have the sources to do so

[bailey_187]

Does no one else think this is worth contributing to?

[RadioRaheem84]

Bailey, where do you get your info? Do you live in a library or something?

[Nolan]

Does no one else think this is worth contributing to?

I'm going to make a group.

[Nolan]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=385

[Red Commissar]

Does no one else think this is worth contributing to?

This is definitely worth contributing to.

I'll try tacking this claim, though I don't really see it as a reactionary claim so much as a social liberal position.

-Social democracy is an acceptable middle-ground between communism/socialism and capitalism.

[RadioRaheem84]

The whole Communism is theft canard.

Socialism takes from the rich gives to poor too. Destroy the whole notion that socialism is somehow an anti-worker lazy man's ideology. I hate this trick argument so much.

[bailey_187]

Bailey, where do you get your info? Do you live in a library or something?

lol, whenever i read something that i think could be of use i save it if its on a computer or write it down in my notebooks.

[bailey_187]

Claim: Karl Popper showed Marxism is not a science as it is not falsifiable

Response:

1. In The Basics: Philosophy speaking about what science is, it says "The scientist begins by making a large number of observations of some aspect of the world" - for the science of Marxism this is the study of history of which we can see is made up of struggles between contenting classes, and looking at the antogonisms between classes in the present. "The next step is to create a theory [that] will explain what was happening and what is likley to happen in the future" - the prediction being that the working class of our epoch will overthrow the capitalist class, thus creating socialism.
The book continues: "if future results do not quite with these predictions [of the scientist], then the scientist will modify the theory to cope with them" - as shown by the different tendencies in Marxism (Leninism, Trotksyism, Maoism, Left Communism), many of the predictions of the first Marxists have been modified to cope with the way working class revolutions panned out.

2. Many core elements of Marxism are falsifiable such as Dialectical Materialism. If you could show that the world is not matter in motion, a large part of Marxism would be falisified and proven wrong. Or if you could show that yes reality is made up of matter but some forms of matter do not change - that too would refute dialectical materialism.

3. A major foundations of Marxism is the claim that the basis of all society is the struggle of people to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life, and that carrying out this requires people to enter into what Marx called definite production relations (i.e. become a member of a class), irelevent of the persons will. This could be falsified by Anthropologists.

[Belisarius]

The whole Communism is theft canard.

Socialism takes from the rich gives to poor too. Destroy the whole notion that socialism is somehow an anti-worker lazy man's ideology. I hate this trick argument so much.
1.communism wants this maxim:"from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." if you then refuse to use your abilities, you won't get what you need.
2. why are people lazy and do they stop working? because they have no connection with what they are doing in the working place, they are alienated from it.you can hardly call it interesting if you had to sit an entire day behind a desk making calculations for things you will never see, or you're sitting behind the pay-desk in a supermarket scanning the same stuff over and over again. in short: capitalism has made human beings into extensions of monotonous machines.

[Red Commissar]

-Social democracy is an acceptable middle-ground between communism/socialism and capitalism.

In order to understand this claim, it is necessary to know what social democracy was in the past, and what social democracy is currently. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, social democracy was a catch-all for various groups who believed that a transition from capitalism to socialism could be achieved through the electoral system. Marxists were also present in social democratic parties, and so by extension many believed it possible to transition into communism.

After World War I, social democratic parties largely lost their Marxist wings and focused on simply transitioning to socialism. To this end many social democratic parties typically nationalized parts of the economy, provided a large amount of social services, and made labor-friendly policies.

With the rise of neoliberalism in the end of the 1980s, many social democratic parties evolved into their current state. Rather than arguing for for a transition to socialism, most focus on a middle path between capitalist and socialist principles, often being termed "third way".

However in practice the situation was much different. As evidenced by the policies of New Labour in the UK, and the actions of the social democratic parties in France (Parti Socialiste) and Germany (SPD) in the 1990s, their third-way policies were merely a way to appease capitalists. Though they claim to go between capitalism and socialism, they are still in favor of capitalism, albeit in a more "regulated" form. To claim that it's an "acceptable" middle ground between two economic principles, it would have to be different, and business still exist in the same manner they would in a capitalist country like the US that they would in Europe. After all, if social democrats were successful in this endeavor, they would have not lost their left-wing members to more genuine socialist organizations.

[JacobVardy]

1. Orwell's books are novels. They do not give you a factual account of the Russian Revolution or life in the USSR. Orwell was a journalist and a novelist, not a historian.
2. Orwell, it can be said, was only against what is called "Stalinism". When it came to other forms of Communism, he did not have the same attitude. For example, he fought alongside the Trotsykite Communists and Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War.

3. In the original introduction Orwell claimed that 1984 was about censorship in England 1948. It was meant as a general warning about political language and a specific warning to tendencies within English socialism (Ingsoc). It was not meant to be an anti-communist tract.

[Nolan]

3. In the original introduction Orwell claimed that 1984 was about censorship in England 1948. It was meant as a general warning about political language and a specific warning to tendencies within English socialism (Ingsoc). It was not meant to be an anti-communist tract.

This is interesting.

[Wolf Larson]

Yes this is defiantly a good idea. I can give responses to the capitalists human nature argument- the anarcho capitalists argument that wage slavery, rent and interest are free association - the objectivists altruism doesn't exist argument- the libertarian capitalist/anarcho capitalist argument for a private state- I can give an argument against their NAP [mostly centering around the aggression of property]. All of it. It's just a matter of having time. It would be good to have a thread, in the name of time, where we could simply copy/paste a counter argument to each of their erroneous positions BUT I would suggest newer people debate them- it can be a learning process.

[RadioRaheem84]

3. In the original introduction Orwell claimed that 1984 was about censorship in England 1948. It was meant as a general warning about political language and a specific warning to tendencies within English socialism (Ingsoc). It was not meant to be an anti-communist tract.

I thought that in the introduction to 1984 was about Soviet Russia but that the UK was not that far off from the same system.

[Red Commissar]

Wikipedia has this paragraph from one of Orwell's collections in regards to 1984


My recent novel [Nineteen Eighty-Four] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter), but as a show-up of the perversions . . . which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. . . . The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else, and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.

As far as I'm aware I've never heard of the initial claim that he wrote the book purely out of censorship that had occurred to him in England. It may've been one of the reasons, but I'd imagine he had long since been wanting to write about how ideals can be bastardized ala stalinism.

[bailey_187]

Even if you disagree with the rebuttle, it should be included if it is what some Communists say. I think Orwell was an anti-communist personally.

[ZombieGrits]

My response to all of the above reactionary comments would be: Hey, fuck off!

I'm not very witty...

But in any case I would be happy to help with this project in any way possible, since I've so often wished for a resource exactly like this. So I guess PM me or something

[bailey_187]

My response to all of the above reactionary comments would be: Hey, fuck off!

I'm not very witty...

But in any case I would be happy to help with this project in any way possible, since I've so often wished for a resource exactly like this. So I guess PM me or something

just reply to any possible claims against Communism you can think of

[RadioRaheem84]

It's not that hard if you just remember that capitalists think that socialism cannot work because they picture it as a system that overlaps the capitalist one; like a parasite. They cannot fathom that it's an entirely new system altogether.

[ZombieGrits]

ah, heres the big one that people seem to have overlooked...
"Communism/socialism/(insert leftist ideology) is utopian!"
which, after being answered, will inevitably lead to
"But nobody is ever truly equal, so to attempt egalitarianism is futile"
&
"Without a state, everybody would just kill each other!" (if the whole "state withering away" thing is brought up)

[Nolan]

:)

[Nolan]

"Communism/socialism/(insert leftist ideology) is utopian!"

No, you're utopian!



"But nobody is ever truly equal, so to attempt egalitarianism is futile

Says who? You? Who decides who is better now? Little green tickets? Communism is not about equal possession.


"Without a state, everybody would just kill each other!" (if the whole "state withering away" thing is brought up)

Why? Humans are perfectly capable of self-organizing without hierarchy by principles of common sense and liberty. The democratic workers state will wither away when the working class is ready and decides it's no longer needed.