Juche

[Buddha Samurai Cadre]

So when North Korea, or Juche is mentioned, socialists spontaniously combust into flames.

We the say Juche is not socialist and its only reason for being is to keep the dear leader in power; but is this fair?

It teaches that "man is the master of everything and decides everything," and that the Korean people are the masters of Korea's revolution.

Juche is a component of Kimilsungism, North Korea's political system.

The word literally means "main body" or "subject"; it has also been translated in North Korean sources as "independent stand" and the "spirit of self-reliance".

The first known reference to Juche was a speech given by Kim Il-sung on December 28, 1955, titled "On Eliminating Dogmatism and Formalism and Establishing Juchein Ideological Work" in rejection of the policy of de-Stalinization (bureaucratic self-reform) in the Soviet Union.

In this speech, Kim said that "Juche means Chosun's revolution" (Chosun means Korea).

Seems revolutionary to me, bourgeoise lies aside, they deserve support?

[Homo Songun]

There is no evidence to show that the DPRK upholds the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisieThis is, of course, completely false.

In the first place, whatever one thinks of the DPRK system, to doubt their anti-imperialist bona fides is simply not a serious proposition. If so, then what exactly is the struggle against imperialism, if not a struggle against the capitalist classes of the imperialist countries? Isn't this class struggle?

Secondly, the DPRK has historically been quite clear in its opposition to revisionism in the ICM, including the revisionist Khrushchevite thesis of a socialist state ruling "in the name of the whole people"; as early as 1962, Kim Il Sung said that: "modern revisionists contend that the theories of Lenin do not fit the changed new age. As they are afraid of the revolution and do not want it, the revisionists are revising Marxism-Leninism and overhauling the theory of class struggle which is the cornerstone of that doctrine in order to please the capitalists. The sources of revisionism are acceptance of domestic bourgeois influence and surrender to external imperialist pressure...in the whole Party, ideological work should be conducted thoroughly to oppose revisionism." (Kim Il Sung, On Juche In Our Revolution, pg. 282)

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

There is no evidence to show that the DPRK upholds the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

If you mean this internally to the DPRK, there's not really much of any "bourgeoisie" worth mentioning present; it is regrettable that they have become so nationalist and turned inwards, but at the same time this has its reasons, what with the constant threat and occasional aggression.

I think the future looks dire for the DPRK, regardless. I believe that China will eventually force Dengism upon them and proceed to exploit their resources.

[Invincible Summer]

Class struggle INSIDE the DPRK, duh

[~Spectre]

This is, of course, completely false.

In the first place, whatever one thinks of the DPRK system, to doubt their anti-imperialist bona fides is simply not a serious proposition. If so, then what exactly is the struggle against imperialism, if not a struggle against the capitalist classes of the imperialist countries? Isn't this class struggle?



Being able to amass huge amounts of artillery has nothing to do with class struggle.

[Revy]

Many threads are regularly posted soliciting discussion about the North Korean regime. They all end up the same way and this one will too. I'll be staying out of this one. Have fun.

[Dimentio]

Juche is a philosophy which shares many characteristics with fascism. I do not care if there are no capitalists there or if they are against the USA. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were also against the USA, and that doesn't make their ideologies any more appealing - at all.

The Juche and Songun ideologies are based on the idea that the military is comprising a class and should rule. All the ideology is merely a thin facade hiding the face of an ugly dictatorship. Even from the perspective of anti-imperialism, I find it hard to see North Korea as a bastion of freedom. It would probably be much better for the North Korean people if the country just succumbed to its massive internal contradictions and Korea was reunited under Seoul.

And before anyone is calling me a reactionary and calling South Korea a capitalist hell-hole, I would say that I do not condone the South Korean society with its mixture of rampant nationalism and deregulated capitalism, but that it is preferable to the hermit kingdom to the north.

North Korea is basically a despotic monarchy of the kind which the world thought it had grown away from during the iron age.

[BAM]

North Korea is more like a huge cult than a communist state. NK is "Branch Davidians with nukes." (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34b76c84-0e76-11de-b099-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1)

[Ismail]

Juche is a revisionist ideology which doesn't even claim to be connected to Marxism-Leninism anymore. Kim Il Sung wasn't too bad as far as revisionist leaders went, since he criticized the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, and disliked Khrushchev and Soviet social-imperialism in general. He also militarily and financially helped out a lot of African states struggling to consolidate their independence in the 1960's and 70's (which is why the DPRK is semi-popular in Africa (http://africa-juche.blogspot.com/)). But he made up for all these things in the revisionist arena internally by stressing a "peaceful transition to socialism" with the aid of the "patriotic" bourgeoisie and such, which echo the views of Mao and Le Duan, not to mention, of course, the blatant revisionism of Juche and its anti-Marxist analysis of classes (e.g. that the military is a class, or that it actually is the vanguard). He also adopted an opportunist foreign stand, refusing to directly criticize the Soviets for their revisionism, while also trying to pose as a "non-aligned" leader and as a friend of the "market-socialist" Tito.

As others have said, defend the DPRK against imperialism, but it remains a state-capitalist country which is being pressured to transform into a "market-socialist" neo-colony of China. The Chinese are basically waiting for Kim Jong Il to kick the bucket and for a Deng-esque person to take power to accomplish this.

A good read on Kim Il Sung's revisionist views from the 1940's onwards: http://web.archive.org/web/20020602173534/www22.brinkster.com/harikumar/China/KoreaNS.htm

[Buddha Samurai Cadre]

He made a 5 year industialisation programme so Korea would not beome dependent on China or the USSR.

He refused to denounce stalin and said revisionism was a clear destruction of marxismleninism

[Ismail]

He made a 5 year industialisation programme so Korea would not beome dependent on China or the USSR.

He refused to denounce stalin and said revisionism was a clear destruction of marxismleninismYes, I'm aware, but he himself pursued revisionist policies, just like Mao pursued revisionist policies. That both paid lip-service to "We don't think Stalin deserved to be condemned" doesn't change the fact that both also criticized Stalin in their own ways in order to advance their own revisionist courses.

I would argue that Kim Il Sung was progressive, despite his revisionism.

[Kléber]

KIS also supported the BPP and vice versa (http://www.bobbyseale.com/posters/v3n27-10-25-69.jpg).

I wouldn't call DPRK "state-capitalist" because it still preserves the basic economic system established by the 1917 October Revolution, and the country is ruled by officers and bureaucrats who get paid by the hour, not capitalists who personally profit from private ownership of the means of production. Of course, it's even less correct to call it "socialist" let alone "democratic" because the proletariat as a whole is politically disenfranchised.

Communists should defend the public ownership of industry against market reforms, and defend the Korean people against imperialism even if the Northern government was 100 times worse than this one, but real socialism will require a workers' political revolution against the despotic Kim clique and its pseudo-Marxist ideology.

[Uppercut]

What of the election system? Judging from this, it looks pretty democratic and participatory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYbV64Zpq1M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtH4IC6nZA

[Glenn Beck]

Juche is not the main ideological issue with the DPRK's supposed socialism, the problem is the Songun doctrine that denies the leading role of the working class in Korean revolution and assigns that role to the military. Songun became official doctrine after the fall of the USSR and the death of Kim Il-Sung and its adoption was followed by the abandonment of all references to Marxism and Leninism in the country's constitution. It's not hard to see what's going on there.

Note that the DPRK has been establishing PRC-style Special Economic Zones, though with limited success.

[Buddha Samurai Cadre]

Can anyone provide links to give me a non bourgeoise critique of North Korea.

Thankyou

[Spawn of Stalin]

Being able to amass huge amounts of artillery has nothing to do with class struggle.

Actually, it does when you are under constant threat from imperialism. Whether we like the regime or not, EVERY socialist should support the DPRK's armed forces indeed its commanders for the crucial role it has played in keeping imperialism from crossing the 38th parallel. If the DPRK didn't have such a strong army they would be fucked and things would be much worse there than they are now.

[Spawn of Stalin]

What of the election system? Judging from this, it looks pretty democratic and participatory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYbV64Zpq1M&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qtH4IC6nZA

Indeed, the only officials in the DPRK who can be accused of being "unelected" are Kim Jong-il, Kim Yong-il, and Kim Yong-nam and the commanders of the KPA. All local and regional officials are elected to the workers of Korea, they in turn decide who forms the government, the defence commission, etc.

[ЗимнийСолдат]

Nah Juche is a very sound ideology "man is the master of everything and decides everything" It saved communism in North Korea and people don't suffer like the everyone in the communist block did after the betrayal...
They removed all imperialist religion 1st country in world free of religion..
They should go to Guiness Book Of Records for that by breaking that record...

[ЗимнийСолдат]

Juche is not the main ideological issue with the DPRK's supposed socialism, the problem is the Songun doctrine that denies the leading role of the working class in Korean revolution and assigns that role to the military. Songun became official doctrine after the fall of the USSR and the death of Kim Il-Sung and its adoption was followed by the abandonment of all references to Marxism and Leninism in the country's constitution. It's not hard to see what's going on there.

Note that the DPRK has been establishing PRC-style Special Economic Zones, though with limited success.


Stupid Noob songun Is not a problem , every DPRK korean is in songun there to prevent THIS from happening : youtube.com/watch?v=2hE6q739_qQ around 5:47 in that video , and u see people without any training whatsoever doing NOTHING to help her against the vile fascists...
Songun is there so every citizen can make a difference , its Juche after all..

[Qayin]

Nah Juche is a very sound ideology "man is the master of everything and decides everything" It saved communism in North Korea and people don't suffer like the everyone in the communist block did after the betrayal...
They removed all imperialist religion 1st country in world free of religion..
They should go to Guiness Book Of Records for that by breaking that record...
Juche isn't even Socialist they dropped all reference years ago, its just an ideology for a military dictatorship.
"man is the master of everything and decides everything"
That isnt socialism or communism. That sounds like a page from Atlas Shrugged.

Communism hasn't been saved when its never been even achieved.
Free of religion? Whats that about there Dear Leader? Pretty fucking sure I've heard some cult shit they push on the people regarding there "Dear" leaders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq4DZMDaR8I


her against the vile fascists...
What Fash?


Songun is there so every citizen can make a difference , its Juche after all..
Because every citizen is in the army right?
Please re-read Marx. Your doing it wrong.

[Invincible Summer]

Stupid Noob
:rolleyes:



"man is the master of everything and decides everything"
That isnt socialism or communism. That sounds like a page from Atlas Shrugged.

It's a fairly naive form of humanism, I'd say. Humanism is a vital part of socialism/communism, as it basically posits that all humans should be/are in control of their own destinies, not leaving it up to some other higher power (whether it be god, the invisible hand of the free market, a cappie, etc).

[Qayin]

It's a fairly naive form of humanism, I'd say. Humanism is a vital part of socialism/communism, as it basically posits that all humans should be/are in control of their own destinies, not leaving it up to some other higher power (whether it be god, the invisible hand of the free market, a cappie, etc). How can you be free and in control of your destiny when your starving because the State spent all there wealth making nuclear arms.

[ЗимнийСолдат]

"How can you be free and in control of your destiny when your starving because the State spent all there wealth making nuclear arms."

Stupid Capitalist-stateworshipper
How can you believe the lies the sworn enemies of communism feed us?. ,rich motherfuckers who lied to us before and continue lie : Them fuckers starve other people , like their socialistinternational.org/ mafiosos who condemn the coup in niger that brought people water , they didnt have to die of thirst ...
But this reality was heavily censored and the DPRK lie was allover the fascist scum news.

[ЗимнийСолдат]

It is a direct Continue to good old Marx "religion is opium for the people" some communists translated it as "wtf ppl need opium" but Kim Il Sungs translation stands "Man is the master of everything and decides everything" which is the most democratic and up to date socialist ideology.

[Ismail]

They removed all imperialist religion 1st country in world free of religion..There are Orthodox, Protestant, and Buddhist religious buildings in the country staffed with clergy and allowed to exist. So long as the clergymen are politically neutral they're not touched.

Protestant Church: http://sites.google.com/site/nzdprksociety/pongsu-church

About 300 persons attend the regular Sunday morning. The Bongsu Church has quite an extensive welfare programme. It has opened a noodle factory in Pyongyang as a humanitarian project. The Presbyterian Church of the United States of America PC(USA) has a supplied wheat flour to support noodle production. The PC(USA) has also supported the Bongsu Church's orphanage with donations of grain, medicine and diapers, and because of the shortage of milk cows in North Korea, it supplies soy milk to supplement the diet of babies and children.Orthodox Church (mainly for Russians who visit, since most Koreans aren't Orthodox): http://www.korea-is-one.org/spip.php?article2775

There is also still the syncretic Chondogyo religion (Christianity + local traditions) and of the other two parties in the Front with the Workers Party, the other is the Chondoist Chongu Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondoist_Chongu_Party), which represents that faith (and was particularly strong in the 40's and 50's).

Doesn't sound like it did away with religion.

Enver Hoxha actually proclaimed the world's first 9and only) atheist state in 1967 and literally closed down every religious building and outlawed clergy as an occupation. 70% of Albania is agnostic as a result, but it wasn't a popular policy and it was a pretty arduous and long-lasting campaign.


How can you be free and in control of your destiny when your starving because the State spent all there wealth making nuclear arms.I don't particularly like the DPRK, but the North and South are still technically at war and the South continues to maintain joint military exercises with the US, puts obvious pressure upon the North, etc. Not to mention that both states maintain that the other is illegitimate.

A totally defensive policy isn't too logical for the DPRK. After all, should North Vietnam have been totally defensive in its armaments, too? Especially when South Vietnam regarded the North as illegitimate (and vice-versa) and was itself prepared for an offensive war to "free northern Vietnam from Communism"?

FWIW, it isn't like the DPRK is cutting back on its programs. Have they cut free health care or free education as guaranteed rights, for example? It doesn't make either of good quality, but they're still there as guaranteed rights and you don't actually pay for such things in the North. In such cases the problem of supply (which is intimately connected to the various sanctions, embargoes, and to general isolation) is more significant than the DPRK's military budget. It's a lot like the African countries, in this case. African health care isn't (generally) absolute shit because it's Africa, but because there's a dearth of actual medical supplies to meet the needs of the populations.

I knew a guy from East Germany, for example. In the GDR health care was free, but it wasn't very good quality. His family would get sick, but they'd have to wait quite a while to actually receive the remedies they'd need to get better again, or needed to wait for the surgeons to get certain materials, etc. It's like that in the DPRK, only on a far more serious level.

[Qayin]

Stupid Capitalist-stateworshipper
How can you believe the lies the sworn enemies of communism feed us?. ,rich motherfuckers who lied to us before and continue lie : Them fuckers starve other people , like their socialistinternational.org/ mafiosos who condemn the coup in niger that brought people water , they didnt have to die of thirst ...
But this reality was heavily censored and the DPRK lie was allover the fascist scum news.
Feedings people > Weaponry
I don't buy into any negative criticism being Bourgeois propaganda.

I'm a Post-Left Anarchist Genius, Im not a "Stupid Capitalist-stateworshipper"
Stop using Fascism in the wrong context.


It is a direct Continue to good old Marx "religion is opium for the people" some communists translated it as "wtf ppl need opium" but Kim Il Sungs translation stands "Man is the master of everything and decides everything" which is the most democratic and up to date socialist ideology.

I already responded to this.
""Man is the master of everything and decides everything""
That isnt socialism it sounds like a damn rand quote, there not even a Humanistic regime. Cuba is pretty damn Humanistic in comparison, look how there doctors help those around the world for free.


Ismail (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../member.php?u=14056) I understand the DPRK is under imperialist threat, but they themselves are feeding into the hysteria that surrounds its hatred. The fact they completely dropped marxism-leninism from there constitution and follow this Juche bullshit.
The only people I see defend this State are people with little understanding like the ЗимнийСолда, or hardcore "anti-imperialists" who would defend the most vile State because they believe any opposition are automatically Capitalist Roaders, me being an Anarchist you know what to expect as a response, I'm sure Trots(Bum bum bum!) and Left Communists feel the same way, I'm not entirely sure how Anti-Revisionists/Maoists feel.

[The Vegan Marxist]

We should still support the DPRK against the world capitalist-imperialist powers. I couldn't imagine a NK run by the U.S. or U.K. That would be a major blow against us.

[Die Rote Fahne]

The actual situation in North Korea has no resemblance to Juche.

[Ismail]

I understand the DPRK is under imperialist threat, but they themselves are feeding into the hysteria that surrounds its hatred. The fact they completely dropped marxism-leninism from there constitution and follow this Juche bullshit.The DPRK is "feeding into the hysteria," but it still exists. I'm sure North Vietnam had plenty of "hysteria" too. Most states under imperialist encirclement generally stretch stories and induce exaggerated threats. The very reason such "hysteria" exists is because of the actual conditions of the DPRK in-re the rest of the world.

Here's an example from the KCNA today:

Pyongyang, May 19 (KCNA) -- The Switzerland-Korea Committee and the Group for the Study of the Juche Idea of Switzerland issued a joint statement on May 13 in connection with the DPRK's successful nuclear fusion.

The statement said that scientists of the DPRK succeeded in nuclear fusion reaction on the occasion of the birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung, thus opening up a new phase in the Juche-oriented and independent development of the latest science and technology of the country and making a definite breakthrough toward the development of safe and environment-friendly energy.

It noted that the DPRK's successful nuclear fusion dealt a telling blow at the "UN sanctions" applied by the U.S. in a bid to suffocate the DPRK economically, adding that the imperialists can never bring the DPRK to its knees.
The only people I see defend this State are people with little understanding like the ЗимнийСолда, or hardcore "anti-imperialists" who would defend the most vile State because they believe any opposition are automatically Capitalist Roaders, me being an Anarchist you know what to expect as a response, I'm sure Trots(Bum bum bum!) and Left Communists feel the same way, I'm not entirely sure how Anti-Revisionists/Maoists feel.We defend the DPRK against imperialism, as do Maoists and I'm sure most Trots. We don't agree with the DPRK's internal policies as we feel they are state-capitalist (while Trots consider the DPRK either state-capitalist or a "deformed workers state"), but they still maintain a generally progressive foreign policy in regards to countries in Africa, South America, etc.

I've already noted that the DPRK is very revisionist in its Juche ideology. Hoxha himself called Kim Il Sung a "vacillating revisionist megalomaniac" in his diary. Even then, North Vietnam was revisionist too (it employed much of the "We can unite the patriotic bourgeoisie with the peasantry in anti-imperialist struggle and socialist construction" rhetoric as the DPRK did), but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have defended it against imperialism.

[Kléber]

Developing nuclear arms doesn't necessarily mean taking away money from the workers, it could be a way for the North Korean leadership to cut military spending and thus improve the people's living standards. That was Khrushchev's perspective. Obviously though, without genuine proletarian democracy to direct the economy, most if not all the money freed up this way will go to fatten the pockets of the ruling caste.

Regardless of what we choose to call the DPRK regime, I think the really important question is, what course of action do we propose for the North Korean proletariat who suffer under the despotism of the Kim clique but would be even worse off if that yoke were to be replaced by a foreign one due to an imperialist invasion or capitulation by the DPRK bureaucracy like what happened with the DPR of (South) Yemen? I advocate the following measures for a political overturn in the DPRK, more or less taken straight from the program of the Bolshevik-Leninist Group of Vietnam in 1974:

* the right for several independent workers’ parties to co-exist;
* right of tendency in the Workers' Party;
* independence of the trade unions;
* democratic administration of the state by a pyramid of councils starting from the rank and file level;
* suppression of the privileges of the members of the party and of the state apparatus.

[Qayin]

We defend the DPRK against imperialism, as do Maoists and I'm sure most Trots. We don't agree with the DPRK's internal policies as we feel they are state-capitalist (while Trots consider the DPRK either state-capitalist or a "deformed workers state"), but they still maintain a generally progressive foreign policy in regards to countries in Africa, South America, etc.Quick question.
What would it be called to be both against the DPRK State and Imperialism?
For some reason it appears I cant be against both without me being a "closet liberal" or imperialist according to some, not saying you of course.


Ismail how would Anti-Revisionists fix North Korea to a manner that resemble that of ML? Just purge the party and Juche?

[Homo Songun]

I advocate the following measures for a political overturn in the DPRK, more or less taken straight from the program of the Bolshevik-Leninist Group of Vietnam in 1974:
Ah yes, a "political overturn" in a country at war with the United States. I'm sure that will go swell.


* the right for several independent workers’ parties to co-exist;'Independent' of what? The dictatorship of the proletariat? And what is so great about about being a party of workers per se? The British Labour Party is described as 'workers party' by some, but that doesn't make it any good. The point is to have a socialist programme, guided by Marxism-Leninism. In reply you are going to say that it will "insure more democracy", or that competing programmes will "give more choice to the workers", but neither democracy nor choice is inherent to the bourgeois parliamentary model.

* right of tendency in the Workers' Party;That is fine as far as it goes, but it has never been a Bolshevik nor a Leninist position.

* independence of the trade unions;You mean like Solidarinosc in Poland?

[Qayin]

'Independent' of what? The dictatorship of the proletariat?
"The term, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, hence, not the dictatorship of a single individual, but of a class, ipso facto precludes the possibility that Marx, in this connection, had in mind a dictatorship in the literal sense of the term." - Kautsky


The point is to have a socialist programme, guided by Marxism-Leninism
I'm not a ML this is all Theoretical Masturbation BUT the point Kleber is making is a way to open up the state to allow Marxism in to fight the Caste system of the Privileged and to allow more then hardline "Jucheists"

[Homo Songun]

"The term, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, hence, not the dictatorship of a single individual, but of a class, ipso facto precludes the possibility that Marx, in this connection, had in mind a dictatorship in the literal sense of the term." - Kautsky I've no truck with this. But what has this got to do with anything concretely?


I'm not a ML this is all Theoretical Masturbation BUT the point Kleber is making is a way to open up the state to allow Marxism in to fight the Caste system of the Privileged and to allow more then hardline "Jucheists" Thank you for the truthiness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness), but I'm still wondering what good is a workers party per se.

[Kléber]

Ah yes, a "political overturn" in a country at war with the United States. I'm sure that will go swell.
Actually, for the proletariat to preserve public ownership of the means of production, such a revolution will be necessary because the DPRK ruling clique is actually in the process of restoring market capitalism right now, aided closely by capitalist China. If the workers do not stop the restorationists in positions of authority, the DPRK may be wiped off the map like the DPRY.


'Independent' of what? The dictatorship of the proletariat? And what is so great about about being a party of workers per se? The British Labour Party is described as 'workers party' by some, but that doesn't make it any good. The point is to have a socialist programme, guided by Marxism-Leninism. So how do you propose we keep the great leaders faithful to the revolutionary ideals? Praying for their souls perhaps? I don't see any logical solution other than a radical turn toward proletarian democracy.


In reply you are going to say that it will "insure more democracy", or that competing programmes will "give more choice to the workers", but neither democracy nor choice is inherent to the bourgeois parliamentary model.Actually, the DPRK government is basically the bourgeois parliamentary model, a relic of the popular front era under a WPK dictatorship with state ownership of most of the means of production. A better form of government would be one based directly on workers councils.


That is fine as far as it goes, but it has never been a Bolshevik nor a Leninist position.On the contrary, the Bolsheviks did not set out to destroy all rival factions in October 1917, they were forced to do so by the pressures of war, and the blows against dissenters accelerated the process of bureaucratization and the disempowerment of the broad working masses in favor of a cultured bureaucratic elite.

Dogmatically holding onto temporary policies for eternity is not a Bolshevik or a Leninist position either. The ban on factions in the RCP(B) turned out to be unhealthy for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Many of these peerless Stalinist leadership cliques across the world have privately decided to restore capitalism in their great socialist nations and the proletariat had practically no means within the "socialist" apparatus to put up a fight in defense of public industry and the revolutionary gains. Obviously something is wrong with the political model; the holdover of semi-capitalist relations is inevitable, but the working class needs the power to keep the bureaucracy in check, or else the best-paid and most-cultured elements will jealously hold political power and enrich themselves at the expense of the masses, leading the country toward restoration.


You mean like Solidarinosc in Poland? No, in that case workers' organizations were co-opted by restorationists due to the immense hatred of workers for the bureaucracy and the lack of a socialist opposition to direct anti-bureaucratic sentiment away from anti-communism toward socialist egalitarianism and the expansion of the revolution. The political suppression of every movement to the left of the bureaucratic general line by governments like the Polish "Communist" one is directly to blame for the political disenfranchisement of the working class and the subsequently inevitable failure of the world Communist movement.


I've no truck with this. But what has this got to do with anything concretely?I think he means that the dictatorship of Kim and his generals is not quite a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Ismail]

Quick question.
What would it be called to be both against the DPRK State and Imperialism?
For some reason it appears I cant be against both without me being a "closet liberal" or imperialist according to some, not saying you of course.There's a difference between stands like "WHY DOES THE DPRK SPEND ALL ITS MONEY ON THE MILITARY" and "We oppose state-capitalism." We are against Kim's government because it is revisionist, but we realize that defend against imperialism is a more important task, while the workers in the DPRK themselves should learn genuine Marxist-Leninist theory and should wage a struggle of their own for genuine Marxist-Leninist leadership.


Ismail how would Anti-Revisionists fix North Korea to a manner that resemble that of ML? Just purge the party and Juche?Actual proletarian rule under Marxist-Leninist theory.


"The term, “dictatorship of the proletariat”, hence, not the dictatorship of a single individual, but of a class, ipso facto precludes the possibility that Marx, in this connection, had in mind a dictatorship in the literal sense of the term." - Kautskyhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/common_liberal.htm


You mean like Solidarinosc in Poland?For what it's worth, although Hoxha noted the anti-communist tendency of Solidarity, he also noted that Marxist-Leninists in Poland should have (and did) strive for independent trade unions against both the revisionist state and against the reactionary Solidarity trade union.


* the right for several independent workers’ parties to co-exist;Having one or a hundred "workers' parties" has nothing to do with proletarian rule. It was Hoxha who criticized Mao's "Hundred Flowers" phraseology, for example, along with rightfully noting the opportunism of Mao, who said that "the bourgeoisie grows within the party" and thus used it as a justification for anti-Marxist stands. Multi-candidate elections and such are far more important than parties, especially since parties are not meant to be electoral entities, but vanguards.

Writing in 1978, Hoxha said that:

The class struggle in the ranks of the party, as a reflection of the class struggle going on outside the party, has nothing in common with Mao Tsetung's concepts on the "two lines in the party". The party is not an arena of classes and the struggle between antagonistic classes, it is not a gathering of people with contradictory aims. The genuine Marxist-Leninist party is the party of the working class only and bases itself on the interests of this class. This is the decisive factor for the triumph of the revolution and the construction of socialism. Defending the Leninist principles on the party, which do not permit the existence of many lines, of opposing trends in the communist party, J. V. Stalin emphasized:


" ... the communist party is the monolithic party of the proletariat, and not a party of a bloc of elements of different classes."


Mao Tsetung, however, conceives the party as a union of classes with contradictory interests, as an organization in which two forces, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the "proletarian staff" and the "bourgeois staff", which must have their representatives from the grassroots to the highest leading organs of the party, confront and struggle against each other. Thus, in 1956, he sought the election of the leaders of right and left factions to the Central Committee, presenting to this end, arguments as naive as they were ridiculous. "The entire country," he says, "the whole world knows well that they have made mistakes in the line and the fact that they are well known is precisely the reason for electing them. What can you do about it? They are well known, but you who have made no mistakes or have made only small ones don't have as big a reputation as theirs. In a country like ours with its very large petty-bourgeoisie they are two standards". While renouncing principled struggle in the ranks of the party, Mao Tsetung played the game of factions, sought compromise with some of them to counter some others and thus consolidate his own positions. With such an organizational platform, the Communist Party of China has never been and never Could be a Marxist-Leninist party. The Leninist principles and norms were not respected in it. The congress of the party, its highest collective organ, has not been convened regularly. For instance, 11 years went by between the 7th and the 8th congresses. and after the war, 13 years between the 8th and the 9th congresses. Besides this, the congresses which were held were formal, more parades than working meetings. The delegates to the congresses were not elected in conformity with the Marxist-Leninist principles and norms of the life of the party, but were appointed by the leading organs and acted according to the system of permanent representation.
On the contrary, the Bolsheviks did not set out to destroy all rival factions in October 1917, they were forced to do so by the pressures of war, and the blows against dissenters accelerated the process of bureaucratization and the disempowerment of the broad working masses in favor of a cultured bureaucratic elite.

Dogmatically holding onto temporary policies for eternity is not a Bolshevik or a Leninist position either. The ban on factions in the RCP(B) turned out to be unhealthy for the dictatorship of the proletariat.I'd like proof that the ban on other parties and factions was "temporary." I'd like to note Furr here: http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/factionalism_ginzburg_lies1109.html



But the real question is: Is it true? Did "the Bolshevik leadership, including Lenin", intended the "ban on factions within the party" to be "temporary"?
Fortunately the transcript of the 10th Party Congress of 1921 is available online in Russian, at http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#010 (http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/KPSS/_KPSS.html#010) (DejaVu format). So I downloaded it and read the relevant passages.
There is NO suggestion at all, either from Lenin or from anyone, that the ban on factions -- Resolution No. 12, "On Party Unity" -- was intended to be "temporary", or anything other than permanent.

[Kléber]

Having one or a hundred "workers' parties" has nothing to do with proletarian rule. It was Hoxha who criticized Mao's "Hundred Flowers" phraseology, for example, along with rightfully noting the opportunism of Mao, who said that "the bourgeoisie grows within the party" and thus used it as a justification for anti-Marxist stands. Writing in 1978, Hoxha said that:
Indeed, a ruling party can set up Zubatov-style puppet parties to create the illusion of pluralism, the PRC and DPRK both do this. But I also think revolutionary communists who defend the DPRK against imperialism - say there was a group of North Korean Hoxhaists - they should have the right to organize an independent political party, run in fair elections, criticize state policy and propose alternatives. Molotov and his bunch also deserved a fair democratic chance to make their case against Khrushchev before the proletariat. Would you agree?


I'd like proof that the ban on other parties and factions was "temporary." I'd like to note Furr here: http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/factionalism_ginzburg_lies1109.htmlFurr's argument is moot because he has no proof that Lenin believed policies should be permanent. The ban was necessary to preserve discipline at the time it was enacted but ended up being a menace to Party democracy and by extension whatever democracy remained in a one-party state. Stalin, representing the bureaucracy in alliance with the Right (against whom he would also use the ban) used it to shut up the Left Opposition but the passage of events confirmed Trotsky's line about the necessity of industrialization, collectivization, degeneration of the party, etc. Thus, like so many policies which Lenin had advocated and then discarded when they became problematic, the ban on Party factions should have been annulled to allow for debate and a diversity of political opinions.

[Homo Songun]

Actually, for the proletariat to preserve public ownership of the means of production, such a revolution will be necessary because the DPRK ruling clique is actually in the process of restoring market capitalism right now, aided closely by capitalist China. If the workers do not stop the restorationists in positions of authority, the DPRK may be wiped off the map like the DPRY.
This is not simply not true.


So how do you propose we keep the great leaders faithful to the revolutionary ideals? Praying for their souls perhaps? I don't see any logical solution other than a radical turn toward proletarian democracy.I'm not the one counterpoising reality with some airy fairy non-falsifiable ideal, so this is not something I have to answer.


Actually, the DPRK government is basically the bourgeois parliamentary model, a relic of the popular front era under a WPK dictatorship with state ownership of most of the means of production. A better form of government would be one based directly on workers councils. You say the state owns the means of production. I think thats a simplified view, but fine. You are the one arguing for 'independent workers parties', how would this be not be even more like the "bourgeois parliamentary model"?


On the contrary, the Bolsheviks did not set out to destroy all rival factions in October 1917, they were forced to do so by the pressures of war, and the blows against dissenters accelerated the process of bureaucratization and the disempowerment of the broad working masses in favor of a cultured bureaucratic elite.I didn't argue otherwise. I only pointed that factionalism wasn't a Bolshevik or Leninist policy. So now we agree on this, we can move on.


I think he means that the dictatorship of Kim and his generals is not quite a dictatorship of the proletariat. What class controls the means of production in DPRK? This is the question I ask of you.

[Kléber]

This is not simply not true.
Quite a few red military dictatorships have restored capitalism, so it shouldn't be such a shock.

China’s plans to open up North Korea for foreign investment (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/kore-m14.shtml)


I'm not the one counterpoising reality with some airy fairy non-falsifiable ideal, so this is not something I have to answer.The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union and China was not something you can wish away, we need to learn from this failure, not try to resurrect discredited regimes.


You are the one arguing for 'independent workers parties', how would this be not be even more like the "bourgeois parliamentary model"? The DPRK, like the GDR did, already permits a select few quasi-bourgeois parties to exist under the firm guidance of the ruling bureaucracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Social_Democratic_Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondoist_Chongu_Party


I didn't argue otherwise. I only pointed that factionalism wasn't a Bolshevik or Leninist policy. So now we agree on this, we can move on.Keeping policies forever was not how Lenin did business. Unlike the dogma of "Marxism-Leninism" the Bolshevik leader did not confuse tactics and principle. The RSFSR was breaking new ground and had to constantly experiment with policies and reverse ineffective or harmful ones. The ban on factions ended up strangling the democratic centralism of the Bolshevik party after Lenin died so it's not accurate to say that some policy Lenin's administration put into effect had to stand for all time, even if it helped bring down Lenin's own party.


What class controls the means of production in DPRK? This is the question I ask of you.It's the form of a workers' state, but there is a severe bureaucratic deformation. Supreme power does not even leave the Kim family.

[Ismail]

But I also think revolutionary communists who defend the DPRK against imperialism - say there was a group of North Korean Hoxhaists - they should have the right to organize an independent political party, run in fair elections, criticize state policy and propose alternatives. Molotov and his bunch also deserved a fair democratic chance to make their case against Khrushchev before the proletariat. Would you agree?In such conditions the DPRK would have moved from a state-capitalist and revisionist state to a market-capitalist bourgeois democracy, so that's rather irrelevant.

Molotov was a vacillating type.


Furr's argument is moot because he has no proof that Lenin believed policies should be permanent.There's no language at all to suggest that it was to be temporary. You'd think there would at least be words such as "Due to current temporary conditions" or "For now," but there isn't. The Bolshevik Party was seen as the party of the working class, and as its vanguard.


The ban was necessary to preserve discipline at the time it was enacted but ended up being a menace to Party democracy and by extension whatever democracy remained in a one-party state.It was enacted because of growing opposition "from below." It was ultimately not a good path, but then again I would argue that more proletarian control over the state itself was necessary, so we are in agreement.


Stalin, representing the bureaucracy in alliance with the Right (against whom he would also use the ban) used it to shut up the Left Opposition but the passage of events confirmed Trotsky's line about the necessity of industrialization, collectivization, degeneration of the party, etc.Stalin stood for industrialization and collectivization, and for guarding the party against degeneration. Unlike Trotsky, however, Stalin believed in going about it a different way, and at a later date. The Rightists used the opportunity to align with Stalin and Co. After Trotsky was exiled the Rightists immediately went against Stalin.


Thus, like so many policies which Lenin had advocated and then discarded when they became problematic, the ban on Party factions should have been annulled to allow for debate and a diversity of political opinions.The point is that workers control over the means of production in the USSR was severely hampered, and this has its origins in the situation in 1917.

In the 1930's the Soviet Government seriously considered having multi-party elections. J. Arch Getty noted this (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2500596), and Furr wrote a detailed article (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html) about it, but it was decided to be shelved both because of bureaucrats who were against Stalin, who advocated it, and because of security concerns, e.g. the "Great Terror," rising international tensions, and the fear of right-wingers winning elections in the countryside.

And it was Stalin who was pushing for non-party candidates in multi-candidate elections. As Getty notes, the Soviet Government got very close to implementing such a system (including mass letter campaigns from Soviet peoples on suggestions, etc.), but it was closed at the last minute. The only thing that did get through was some democratization within the party.

[Homo Songun]

You are the one arguing for 'independent workers parties', how would this be not be even more like the "bourgeois parliamentary model"?
The DPRK, like the GDR did, already permits a select few quasi-bourgeois parties to exist under the firm guidance of the ruling bureaucracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Social_Democratic_Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondoist_Chongu_Party

Yes, I've heard of these. But this isn't an answer to the question.

[Kléber]

In such conditions the DPRK would have moved from a state-capitalist and revisionist state to a market-capitalist bourgeois democracy, so that's rather irrelevant.
Just because no proletarian state has been stable enough to develop a democratic political culture does not mean that it is impossible.

Also, the DPRK is not capitalist. Kim and the rest of the ruling stratum are paid a regular wage like Stalin. They do not profit from private control of the means of production nor are they subservient to a class of North Korean capitalists.


Molotov was a vacillating type.Well, regardless of whether he was Maoist, Hoxhaist, Trotskyist, anarchist or just plain opportunist, the Soviet workers could not be expected to challenge the restorationist ambitions of the ruling bureaucrats without freedom of discussion and independent organizations.


There's no language at all to suggest that it was to be temporary. You'd think there would at least be words such as "Due to current temporary conditions" or "For now," but there isn't.But this language wasn't there in other policies that were reversed or annulled. Even if Lenin said "The ban on factions is the most glorious policy of our proletarian state. We must continue to ban factions for 1,000 years," it should have been discarded when it became seriously unhealthy for proletarian democracy.


The Bolshevik Party was seen as the party of the working class, and as its vanguard.Yes, but free discussion and debate were still seen as necessary within that.


Stalin stood for industrialization and collectivization, and for guarding the party against degeneration. Unlike Trotsky, however, Stalin believed in going about it a different way, and at a later date. The Rightists used the opportunity to align with Stalin and Co. After Trotsky was exiled the Rightists immediately went against Stalin.Stalin knew industrialization and collectivization would eventually be necessary but his alliance with the Rightists postponed the most vital tasks of the Soviet power. And his strict cultivation of yes-men did not exactly bequeath a leadership of high moral fiber to subsequent generations.


The point is that workers control over the means of production in the USSR was severely hampered, and this has its origins in the situation in 1917.I agree. But a decade after the revolution, Soviet power was much more secure and there was no invading army whose presence justified the silencing of left-wing critics of state policy.


In the 1930's the Soviet Government seriously considered having multi-party elections. J. Arch Getty noted this (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2500596), and Furr wrote a detailed article (http://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html) about it, but it was decided to be shelved both because of bureaucrats who were against Stalin, who advocated it,Furr's logic is beyond me. It seems multi-party elections were impossible because rivals would actually run against Stalin in such elections.


and because of security concerns, e.g. the "Great Terror," rising international tensions, and the fear of right-wingers winning elections in the countryside.Well then right-wingers could not be permitted at first. But the terror of 1936-41 definitely canceled out whatever democratic gains were made on paper.


And it was Stalin who was pushing for non-party candidates in multi-candidate elections. As Getty notes, the Soviet Government got very close to implementing such a system (including mass letter campaigns from Soviet peoples on suggestions, etc.), but it was closed at the last minute.If Stalin genuinely intended to implement a more democratic political order once he had eliminated any opponents, he must have forgot about it during WWII.


The only thing that did get through was some democratization within the party.If by democratization you mean everyone who was on the Gensek's bad side being taken out and shot, then sure.


Yes, I've heard of these. But this isn't an answer to the question.
I answered that point separately - the current bourgeois republican system of government used in the DPRK should be scrapped in favor of a state based directly on workers' councils.

[Ismail]

Just because no proletarian state has been stable enough to develop a democratic political culture does not mean that it is impossible.It does mean that we shouldn't adopt liberal theoretical views à la Mao and such.


Also, the DPRK is not capitalist. Kim and the rest of the ruling stratum are paid a regular wage like Stalin. They do not profit from private control of the means of production nor are they subservient to a class of North Korean capitalists.The DPRK is state-capitalist.

For more info: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htm


Well, regardless of whether he was Maoist, Hoxhaist, Trotskyist, anarchist or just plain opportunist, the Soviet workers could not be expected to challenge the restorationist ambitions of the ruling bureaucrats without freedom of discussion and independent organizations.It was up to the workers themselves, yes. This is what Hoxha stressed.

As for Molotov's generally right-wing views, see: http://ml-review.ca/aml/BLAND/Molotov.html


But this language wasn't there in other policies that were reversed or annulled. Even if Lenin said "The ban on factions is the most glorious policy of our proletarian state. We must continue to ban factions for 1,000 years," it should have been discarded when it became seriously unhealthy for proletarian democracy.Proletarian democracy had little to do with the ban on factions, however. The ban on factions was to uphold democratic centralism. The focus is on actual direct proletarian role, not on the banning of factions.


Yes, but free discussion and debate were still seen as necessary within that.The point was for the party to lay the conditions necessary for the realization of socialism by the workers.


And his strict cultivation of yes-men did not exactly bequeath a leadership of high moral fiber to subsequent generations.This was, of course, a problem under both Stalin and Hoxha. Anyone could say they're Marxist-Leninists, could adopt all sorts of positions, etc. But ultimately it is proletarian power—direct power—which separates phraseology from actual practice. Both the USSR and Albania were lacking in this area.

As Kaganovich noted in his 1980's-early 90's interviews when talking about Khrushchev: "I was the one who pushed him up as I thought him to be a capable person. But he had been a Trotskyist. I informed Stalin that he had been a Trotskyist. I told this to Stalin when Khrushchev was elected a member of the Moscow Committee. Stalin asked: 'How is he now?' I replied: 'He is fighting against the Trotskyists, genuinely, actively'. Stalin then asked me to support him on behalf of the CC at the conference."


I agree. But a decade after the revolution, Soviet power was much more secure and there was no invading army whose presence justified the silencing of left-wing critics of state policy.Except, of course, such "left-wing critics" were seen as pseudo-communist or liberal.


Furr's logic is beyond me. It seems multi-party elections were impossible because rivals would actually run against Stalin in such elections.Stalin's position was secure. The proposed multi-candidate elections were for the Supreme Soviet, not Party elections.


Well then right-wingers could not be permitted at first. But the terror of 1936-41 definitely canceled out whatever democratic gains were made on paper.From 1936-1939 and then 1940-1946 there wasn't much potential for domestic reforms.


If Stalin genuinely intended to implement a more democratic political order once he had eliminated any opponents, he must have forgot about it during WWII.As Hoxha said in 1980:

When Khrushchev began to advocate these theses [of the transition to communism by the 1980's], the construction of communism in the Soviet Union not only had not begun, but moreover, the construction of socialism was not yet completed. True, the exploiting classes had been eliminated as classes, but there were many remnants of them still existing physically, let alone ideologically. The Second World War had hindered the broad emancipation of relations of production, while the productive forces, which constitute the necessary and indispensable basis for this, had been gravely impaired.
If by democratization you mean everyone who was on the Gensek's bad side being taken out and shot, yes.I guess when Stalin and Molotov didn't want Avel Enukidze to be expelled from the Communist Party but Yezhov insisted upon it, and Enukidze was later found to have been in the Bloc, that this was some sort of aberration? (As Getty notes in Stalinist Terror)

Or that it's generally known that Stalin placed much trust in the NKVD and its organs, and their conclusions in investigations? (I think it was Prof. Thurston in Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia who noted this)

Etc.

Virtually all of the people who were tried during the Moscow Trials were the same people who were singing Stalin's praises and occupied government posts, hence why there was a conspiracy, not "You openly opposed Stalin. How could you do this? You evil [insert]!"

[Qayin]

I've no truck with this. But what has this got to do with anything concretely?Everything involving the nature of socialist revolution itself and the contradiction of the DPRK State.


There's a difference between stands like "WHY DOES THE DPRK SPEND ALL ITS MONEY ON THE MILITARY" and "We oppose state-capitalism." We are against Kim's government because it is revisionist, but we realize that defend against imperialism is a more important task, while the workers in the DPRK themselves should learn genuine Marxist-Leninist theory and should wage a struggle of their own for genuine Marxist-Leninist leadership.First doesn't the heavy military spending come as a by product of "state capitalism"? Correct me if I'm wrong.


How would the workers wage there own struggle against a Military Dictatorship with a Songun policy? How would they learn ML theory with state censorship, a limit on tendencies within the state parties and a general lack of means to access information like most of us do?



Actual proletarian rule under Marxist-Leninist theory.A citizen and the Privileged Bureaucracy that has risen from Leninism are two separate entities. It has happened in every Marxist-Leninist state has it not? Or is it all because of "Revisionism". We see a Nomenklatura(New Class) rise in almost every ML State.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/mf-state/ch03.htm



http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/common_liberal.htmJust read.
Kautsky is a liberal according to Lenin? :laugh:
This is almost as good as Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder.

Why would Marx speak of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and not a Dictatorship of a Proletariat or Communist Party?

Dictatorship of the Proletariat, a dictatorship of a whole class over the Bourgeois class, the first time I read Marxism this is how it came of as, it continues even now. How Lenin revises what Marx meant to justify Vanguardism is absurd.

Kautsky

“He speaks here not of a form of government, but of a condition, which must necessarily arise wherever the proletariat has gained political power. That Marx in this case did not have in mind a form of government is proved by the fact that he was of the opinion that in Britain and America the transition might take place peacefully, i.e., in a democratic way”Key word, might.
Parties like the PSL a lot of ML's here support run in elections in a democratic manner, whats the big deal?

I'm not a huge Kautsky fan but I see his analysis to ring true, I believed in the same analysis before I even heard of Kautsky regrading the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. I can see what Left Communists mean on this when they refer to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, that the class itself must rise up from the bottom up over the Bourgeoisie.

[Ismail]

First doesn't the heavy military spending come as a by product of "state capitalism"?In the USSR it did, but that was because the USSR under Khrushchev and onwards aimed to become an imperialist power, to invade and occupy countries like Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, etc.

There's a difference between that and heavy military spending for defense.


How would the workers wage there own struggle against a Military Dictatorship with a Songun policy? How would they learn ML theory with censorship and a lack of means to access information like most of us do?You could ask how they'd learn Anarchist theory. Difference is, we believe in the vanguard party.


A citizen and the Privileged Bureaucracy that has risen from Leninism are two separate entities. It has happened in every Marxist-Leninist state has it not? Or is it all because of "Revisionism". We see a Nomenklatura(New Class) rise in almost every ML State.It was because of insufficient workers control over the means of production, and this "New Class" arose, took over the state, condemned genuinely Marxist-Leninist theory, and restored capitalism.


Parties like the PSL a lot of ML's here support run in elections in a democratic manner, whats the big deal?The PSL is a joke, FWIW. Their "Marxism-Leninism" is a blend of Maoist and Breznhevite revisionism.

[Kléber]

It does mean that we shouldn't adopt liberal theoretical views à la Mao and such.
Mao suppressed left-wing dissidents in 1957 once the working class started to voice radical criticisms of the regime. Still, the opening of 1956 shouldn't be unilaterally condemned just because Mao did it and it was in line with Khrushchevism. There is nothing anti-communist about political freedom and democracy. Stalin's abortive democratic turn of 1936 is comparable to Hundred Flowers, and the reasons it was discarded say everything about the character of that regime.


The DPRK is state-capitalist.

For more info: http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htmIt's no more state-capitalist than the RSFSR/USSR was under Lenin and Stalin. There are inequalities, as there were in Albania, but North Korea is ruled by a caste of bureaucrats and army officers, not a bourgeoisie.


The ban on factions was to uphold democratic centralism.It upheld the center but made things less democratic.


The point was for the party to lay the conditions necessary for the realization of socialism by the workers.But the political dictatorship of the bureaucrats over the workers prevented the transition to that next stage.


This was, of course, a problem under both Stalin and Hoxha. Anyone could say they're Marxist-Leninists, could adopt all sorts of positions, etc. But ultimately it is proletarian power—direct power—which separates phraseology from actual practice. Both the USSR and Albania were lacking in this area.Yes.. a radical turn to proletarian democracy was needed. That means non-sectarian willingness to accept other socialist viewpoints and that they can coexist and work together around common goals.


Except, of course, such "left-wing critics" were seen as pseudo-communist or liberal.More like slandered as such. The Left Opposition were not liberals, the Stalin-Rightist bloc's pandering to the petty bourgeoisie had more in common with liberalism.


Stalin's position was secure. The proposed multi-candidate elections were for the Supreme Soviet, not Party elections.If the center was so secure it could have tolerated free elections.


I guess when Stalin and Molotov didn't want Avel Enukidze to be expelled from the Communist Party but Yezhov insisted upon it, and Enukidze was later found to have been in the Bloc, that this was some sort of aberration?Yenukidze was indeed an interesting case. It is still not clear why he was shot.


Or that it's generally known that Stalin placed much trust in the NKVD and its organs, and their conclusions in investigations? (I think it was Prof. Thurston in Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia who noted this)Since he practically appointed NKVD chiefs it isn't surprising he trusted his vassals. Maybe too much, if Beria did him cold.


Virtually all of the people who were tried during the Moscow Trials were the same people who were singing Stalin's praises and occupied government posts, hence why there was a conspiracy, not "You openly opposed Stalin. How could you do this? You evil [insert]!"Almost every Bolshevik leader of note who had opposed Stalin at some point, capitulated by or during the 1930's in return for a nice job within the apparatus. Regardless of which charges were real and which made up, there was massive opposition there.

But getting back to the DPRK, if you don't think the things I advocate are a revolutionary strategy, what do you propose for the North Korean workers?

[Qayin]

You could ask how they'd learn Anarchist theory. Difference is, we believe in the vanguard party, you don't have that.

I'm not preaching for social Anarchism for there situation right now it's not that black and white when it comes to Totalitarianism and Imperialism. Kléber (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../../member.php?u=26589) has put forth some interesting ideas on the DPRK situation and I think we should all think of ways we could get the DPRK back to where it should be in a true Humanistic and Socialist manner, instead of just say "Don't touch the State, imperialism is lurking!" a serious problem exists and needs to be desperately corrected before nuclear tensions/war tensions increase and the People of the DPRK have to pay for there wack job leaders mistakes due to Imperialist intervention being justified by the crimes of the DPRK State against its people.

Platformism to an extent is our "Vanguard" theory but I'm not a Platformist.


In the USSR it did, but that was because the USSR under Khrushchev and onwards aimed to become an imperialist power, to invade and occupy countries like Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, etc.
Then how is the DPRK any different if its State Capitalist and the functions exist like it did in the USSR? If it had the chance it wouldn't it take South Korea? If the South Korean people resisted occupation by the DPRK like they did in Czechoslovakia would it still be Imperialism?


It was because of insufficient workers control over the means of production, and this "New Class" arose, took over the state, and condemned genuinely Marxist-Leninist theory.
Well don't you think that MIGHT have something to do with the theory of the Vanguard? "Professional" revolutionaries taking control of the movement itself, separate from the working class attempting to steer it. When the "workers state" is established then creates a Red Bureaucracy with those same "Professionals" at the head of the States organs? The problem is with Leninism itself. We can do better then this.


The PSL is a joke, FWIW.
American Party of Labor is more of a joke then the PSL.
How many Vanguards/Internationals will it take and how many splits within those Vanguards and Internationals(which seems to happen quite a lot) until we scrape the whole idea as a failure in America?

[Ismail]

Mao suppressed left-wing dissidents in 1957 once the working class started to voice radical criticisms of the regime. Still, the opening of 1956 shouldn't be unilaterally condemned just because Mao did it and it was in line with Khrushchevism. There is nothing anti-communist about political freedom and democracy. Stalin's abortive democratic turn of 1936 is comparable to Hundred Flowers, and the reasons it was discarded say everything about the character of that regime.As Bill Bland noted in Class Struggles in China (http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/historymaotable.html), the "Hundred Flowers Campaign" was merely an attempt by Mao to gain lost power through uniting his forces with other elements of the bourgeoisie.

The multi-candidate proposals were, as Furr noted, opposed by bureaucratic segments in the government. Stalin supported them, but was later forced to table the proposals after opposition both from government officials ("Rightists could win and assist foreign imperialism") and the NKVD ("There are increasing reports of sabotage and spies, this will make things worse").


It's no more state-capitalist than the RSFSR/USSR was under Lenin and Stalin. There are inequalities, as there were in Albania, but North Korea is ruled by a caste of bureaucrats and army officers, not a bourgeoisie.The state operates in a state-capitalist manner. The DPRK has never had a socialist revolution.


More like slandered as such. The Left Opposition were not liberals, the Stalin-Rightist bloc's pandering to the petty bourgeoisie had more in common with liberalism.The so-called "Stalin-Rightist bloc" was not operable after Trotsky was expelled from the party. From the question of collectivization to the Stakhanovites, the right-wing was continuously opposed to the "Stalinist" (or whatever you want to call it) portion of the party, which supported anti-bureaucratic proposals and irritated managers.


If the center was so secure it could have tolerated free elections.Not in the context of fears of war with Japan, of a significant conspiracy against the state, and of problems of securing the support of the party in the countryside.


Yenukidze was indeed an interesting case. It is still not clear why he was shot.Enukidze did confess to being part of the Rightists within the Bloc.

There was also Béla Kun, who in E.H. Carr's view was a strong proponent of "social-fascism" as an analysis in contradiction to Dimitrov's "Popular Front" views. As Bland noted in an article on Hungary:

The biography of Kun, officially approved by the Hungarian revisionists, by Belane Kun, relates that a few days after this meeting Stalin telephoned and:

"asked Kun to receive a French reporter and refute a rumor of Kun's arrest".
(B. Kun; "Kun Bela" (Bela Kun); Budapest; 1966; in R. Conquest: ibid.; p. 580).

This he did and the denial was published. A few days later, on May 30th., 1937, Kun was arrested by the NKVD.

Clearly, either Stalin possessed a perverted and sadistic "sense of humour", for which there is no evidence, or the moves to eliminate Kun were not made on Stalin's initiative.Unlike Enukidze, however, Kun was never in the Moscow Trials, and IIRC was just convicted of "Trotskyist" views in a random trial (the "random trials" organized by the NKVD and known for their shoddiness) and sent to a Gulag, where the NKVD later deemed him bad enough to execute.
Since he practically appointed NKVD chiefs it isn't surprising he trusted his vassals. Maybe too much, if Beria did him cold.The fact is that he trusted NKVD reports. He didn't just brush them off. It'd be akin to a US President ignoring FBI reports in a time of crisis.


Almost every Bolshevik leader of note who had opposed Stalin at some point, capitulated by or during the 1930's in return for a nice job within the apparatus. Regardless of which charges were real and which made up, there was massive opposition there.There was opposition. This opposition took the form of conspiracy. The point, however, is that they were not openly anti-Stalin and conveyed a pro-Stalin view even in private, and as such there was little incentive to hold treason trials for so many of them. After all, Khrushchev, as Kaganovich noted, was an ex-Trot who recanted.


But getting back to the DPRK, if you don't think the things I advocate are a revolutionary strategy, what do you propose for the North Korean workers?As Hoxha wrote in 1981 to Soviet workers:

The Khrushchevite revisionist clique keep you in the dark... You don't know many things about the sufferings and persecution of honest people in your country, because the present gang which oppresses you is silent about such things... You must not delay reflecting deeply about your future and that of mankind. The time has come for you to become what you were when Lenin and Stalin were alive-glorious participants in the proletarian revolution. Therefore, you must not remain under the yoke of enemies of the revolution and the peoples, enemies of the freedom and independence of states. You must never allow yourselves to become tools of... [those] using Leninism as a mask. If you follow the road of the revolution and Marxism-Leninism, if you link yourselves closely with the world proletariat, then American imperialism and the decaying capitalism in general will be shaken to their very foundations, the face of the world will be changed and socialism will triumph. You, the Soviet peoples, Soviet workers, collective farmers and soldiers, have great responsibilities and duties to mankind. You can perform these duties honourably by refusing to tolerate the domination of the barbarous clique which now prevails over the once glorious Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Stalin and over you. In your country the party is no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. You must build a new party of the Lenin-Stalin type through struggle....

In this glorious work you will have the support of all the peoples of the world and the world proletariat. The strength of the ideas of socialism and communism is based on this revolutionary overthrow and not on the empty words and underhand actions of the clique ruling you. Only in this way, proceeding on this course, will the genuine communists, the Marxist-Leninists everywhere in the world, be able to defeat imperialism and world capitalism. They will assist the peoples of the world to liberate themselves, one after the other, will assist great China to set out on the genuine road to socialism and not become a superpower so that it, too, can rule the world, by transforming itself into a third partner in the predatory wars which American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and the clique of Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping which is ruling in China at present, are preparing.

In this glorious jubilee, we Albanian communists, as loyal pupils of Lenin and Stalin and soldiers of the revolution, remind you to think over these problems, vital to you and the world ' because we are your brothers, your comrades in the cause of the proletarian revolution and the liberation of the peoples. If you follow the road of the predatory, imperialist war, on which your renegade leaders are taking you, then, without doubt, we shall remain enemies of your system and your counterrevolutionary actions. This is as clear as the light of the day. It cannot be otherwise.
I'm not preaching for social Anarchism for there situation right now it's not that black and white when it comes to Totalitarianism and Imperialism."Totalitarianism" is a buzzword (http://theredphoenix.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/the-myth-of-totalitarianism/).


Then how is the DPRK any different if its State Capitalist and the functions exist like it did in the USSR? If it had the chance it wouldn't it take South Korea? If the South Korean people resisted occupation by the DPRK like they did in Czechoslovakia would it still be Imperialism?The problem is that South Koreans have a significantly better standard of living owing to the South's role in the world economy and its domestic economy enjoying significant American support. The South censors or prohibits pro-DPRK activity and portrays the North as illegitimate. It isn't like Vietnam where the Southern government was generally hated. US foreign policy became smarter after the 1970's, and the huge amount of investments poured into the South Korean economy in the 1980's brought it from being a bit behind the North to quickly topping it.

Czechoslovakia was a different matter. In the case of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union invaded to keep a compliant satellite regime that would continue to function as a Soviet neo-colony as opposed to an American one. In the Korean case the DPRK would probably immediately pull a "Provisional Government" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Revolutionary_Government_of_the_Republ ic_of_South_Vietnam) followed by integration and declare a glorious victory for all Koreans and such. It would then treat the South as provinces of a united Korea. So the situation is not comparable.


American Party of Labor is more of a joke then the PSL.The PSL takes revisionist lines, defends Cuba as a socialist state, defends Soviet social-imperialist aggression, defends Maoism, etc.

[Qayin]

The PSL takes revisionist lines, defends Cuba as a socialist state, defends Soviet social-imperialist aggression, defends Maoism, etc.
Which is all theoretical masturbation, the great mass of Proles enough to challenge Capital aren't going to line up at any Vanguard in the US, it won't happen unless the "left" make new noise, like they attempted to in the 60's.


"Totalitarianism" is a buzzword (http://www.anonym.to/?http://theredphoenix.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/the-myth-of-totalitarianism/).
The character or quality of an autocratic or authoritarian individual, group, or government

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The character or quality of an autocratic or authoritarian individual, group, or government

A terrible degenerated dictionary definition doesn't make it so.

Totalitarianism refers to the idea of the total state, and has its origins in Italian fascism. Just throwing it around like some insult means nothing.

[Qayin]

A terrible degenerated dictionary definition doesn't make it so.Hits the main idea good enough, an all powerful state that restricts rights. ML's don't like the big scary word because most of the time its used its thrown at your gulag infested new class dominated States. Lets take the definition from someone who has a tendency of Authoritarian Socialist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../group.php?groupid=287), look im an authoritarian tough guy.




Totalitarianism refers to the idea of the total state, and has its origins in Italian fascism. Just throwing it around like some insult means nothing.

Maybe to the ML's. Alot of us on here know exactly what it means.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1940/statecapitalism.htm

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Hits the main idea good enough, an all powerful state that restricts rights. ML's don't like the big scary word because most of the time its used its thrown at your gulag infested new class dominated States. Lets take the definition from someone who has a tendency of Authoritarian Socialist (http://www.revleft.com/vb/../group.php?groupid=287), look im an authoritarian tough guy.



Blah blah. I don't care about words. If you want to use it like some slur as the anarchist tough guy rebel you are, then whatever. This just doesn't actually make it so anywhere but in your perverted fantasy.

[Kléber]

As Bill Bland noted in Class Struggles in China (http://ml-review.ca/aml/China/historymaotable.html), the "Hundred Flowers Campaign" was merely an attempt by Mao to gain lost power through uniting his forces with other elements of the bourgeoisie.
Indeed, Mao was happy to let rightist intellectuals run their mouths, but when serious left-wing criticism emerged, he ended the campaign with the "Anti-Rightist" movement and the anti-labor crackdown of 1957. I don't see a serious difference between that, and Stalin's decision to purge all opponents, especially those to his left, after an abortive political opening.


The multi-candidate proposals were, as Furr noted, opposed by bureaucratic segments in the government. Stalin supported them, but was later forced to table the proposals after opposition both from government officials ("Rightists could win and assist foreign imperialism") and the NKVD ("There are increasing reports of sabotage and spies, this will make things worse").So either the bourgeoisie was correct that people get greedy in socialism, or there were apparently serious social antagonisms under Stalin. His policies crushed what remained of proletarian democracy and made it possible for the bureaucratic center to restore capitalism almost bloodlessly.


The state operates in a state-capitalist manner. The DPRK has never had a socialist revolution.The USSR and Albania were not socialist either, they still exploited workers and farmers to pay for industrialization and arms production, they traded with imperialist countries, and in each case a cultured bureaucratic caste monopolized political power. The relations of production, not the rhetorical preferences of the leaders, are what determine the mode of production. And there is no qualitative difference between the economic and political structures of Stalin's USSR, Kim's DPRK and Hoxha's SPRA. Whether you choose to call that social form state-capitalist or a deformed workers' state, it has to be across the board.


From the question of collectivization to the Stakhanovites, the right-wing was continuously opposed to the "Stalinist" (or whatever you want to call it) portion of the party, which supported anti-bureaucratic proposals and irritated managers.The center came down on the right and left, yes, but by establishing that no opinions contrary to the general line would be permitted, it made the task of restoration much easier for the people in charge.

In any event, the bureaucracy can not be trusted to resist bureaucratism. Only proletarian democracy that puts officials up to popular criticism, in the spirit of the commune, can safeguard the gains of the revolution.


Not in the context of fears of war with Japan, of a significant conspiracy against the state, and of problems of securing the support of the party in the countryside.Was there not significant international bourgeois pressure on the Soviet Union from 1953-1991, during "the sufferings and persecution of honest people" as bemoaned by Hoxha? And did he not basically call for a conspiracy against the "capitalist" Soviet state?


Enukidze did confess to being part of the Rightists within the Bloc.A lot of good that did him.


The fact is that he trusted NKVD reports. He didn't just brush them off. It'd be akin to a US President ignoring FBI reports in a time of crisis.When Stalin didn't like the reports, say Yagoda was not finding enough spies or Yezhov was finding too many, he killed the guy writing the reports and found someone new to run the NKVD. So I don't buy that he was just haplessly accepting the truth of whatever the NKVD chiefs put in front of him.

Even if Stalin convinced himself that his old Bolshevik comrades were spies, so he could sleep easy at night, that doesn't make the charges true. George W. Bush might have genuinely believed that a consortium of terrorists was responsible for all the world's problems, as reported to him by Homeland Security.


There was opposition. This opposition took the form of conspiracy. The point, however, is that they were not openly anti-Stalin and conveyed a pro-Stalin view even in private, and as such there was little incentive to hold treason trials for so many of them. There were probably conspiracies, but not Nazi ones going back to 1918; rival bureaucrats and officers may have tried to remove Stalin, but it is a leap of faith to say that they would have established a whiteguardist pro-German bourgeois republic after doing so. The Bolshevik Party still had some degeneration to go through before restoration became the order of the day.

The Party did not go from the heroism of 1917 to the pusillanimity of its later years due to a mere accident; the mass murder of anyone aside from Stalin with an independent streak or the backbone to criticize a wrong policy turned the Party into a den of two-faced cowards. If Stalin really represented the working class and Khrushchev restored capitalism, why was the only "opposition" to the "capitalists" from a pathetic "vacillating type?"


As Hoxha wrote in 1981 to Soviet workers:I don't see how this is good advice to the North Korean or Soviet workers. Instead of an end to the market reforms, political opening for socialist pluralism, and suppression of the privileges of bureaucrats and officials, Hoxha calls for - correct me if wrong -

You must not delay reflecting deeply about your future and that of mankind. The time has come for you to become what you were when Lenin and Stalin were alive-glorious participants in the proletarian revolution. ... In this glorious jubilee, we Albanian communists, as loyal pupils of Lenin and Stalin and soldiers of the revolution, remind you to think over these problems, vital to you and the world ' because we are your brothers, your comrades in the cause of the proletarian revolution and the liberation of the peoples.
deep spiritual reflection and an anti-papal jubilee,

In your country the party is no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. You must build a new party of the Lenin-Stalin type through struggle....and for Soviet Hoxhaists to overthrow the capitalist CPSU/USSR.

If you follow the road of the predatory, imperialist war, on which your renegade leaders are taking you, then, without doubt, we shall remain enemies of your system and your counterrevolutionary actions. This is as clear as the light of the day. It cannot be otherwise. This quote seems to refer to the war in Afghanistan, but the only "predatory, imperialist war" afflicting the DPRK is that of the United States and its South Korean bourgeois allies against the Korean people. The Soviet bureaucracy was also strategically opposed to the US imperialists not until 1956 but until 1991 and the North Koreans, to my knowledge, still are - under the leadership of Kim Jong-il. Despite our shared dislike for this man he is not bourgeois nor is the DPRK run by private capitalists, Kim and co. receive regular wages like Stalin. To imply that the North Korean government is responsible for its own predicament, or that the Soviets were the aggressor during the Cold War, is rather sectarian.

This is why I am against the "state capitalism" analysis. If the USSR was or the DPRK is capitalist, that means either the state must be destroyed by the workers, or you must take a reformist position toward a bourgeois government. I am not for the destruction of the DPRK nor was Trotsky in favor of destroying USSR, although apparently Hoxha, like Max Shachtman and Tony Cliff, took an ultra-left stance in both of these cases.

The DPRK is a deformed workers' state, ultra-deformed perhaps, but still a workers' state with public industry that must be defended. This can not be done by the current bureaucratic leadership; the Kim clique which is inviting foreign investment and market reforms needs to be removed by the proletariat.

[danyboy27]

We should still support the DPRK against the world capitalist-imperialist powers. I couldn't imagine a NK run by the U.S. or U.K. That would be a major blow against us.

no.

[Bright Banana Beard]

no.

no u.

[Kléber]

no.
Believe it or not I support The Vegan Marxist on this one. The Aztec Emperors sacrificed people alive, their rule was unspeakably oppressive, but the conquest of Mesoamerica by the Spanish colonialists made the people a thousand times worse off. Likewise, Kim is a vampire who feeds off the setbacks of the Korean struggle for independence, which will not attain victory until it shows its true proletarian face, throws off the despotic Kim and his generals, and expels the American imperialists and their puppets from the Korean peninsula.

[Homo Songun]

Korean struggle for independence, which will not attain victory until it shows its true proletarian face, throws off the despotic Kim and his generals, and expels the American imperialists and their puppets from the Korean peninsula....and Communism will come after the capitalist system is overthrown world-wide, enabling our socialist scientists to develop nuclear fusion and robotic technology in order to make work and scarcity obsolete for good. In other words, this is just a sophistic non-answer. Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, socialists and anti-imperialists correctly side with the DPRK today against yankee imperialist provocations and the ongoing occupation of the southern part of the peninsula.

[Kléber]

...and Communism will come after the capitalist system is overthrown world-wide, enabling our socialist scientists to develop nuclear fusion and robotic technology in order to making work and scarcity obsolete for good. In other words, this is just a sophistic non-answer. Meanwhile, in the reality-based community, socialists and anti-imperialists correctly side with the DPRK today against yankee imperialist provocations and the ongoing occupation of the southern part of the peninsula.
The real sophistic non-answer is the willful naïveté of "anti-revisionists" as regards the question of the ongoing market reforms and foreign investment which are undermining public industry and rolling back everything that is progressive about North Korean society.

Like I said, what is the proletarian solution to the market reforms if Korean workers can't oppose the treacherous line of the Kim regime? Praying for the souls of the great leaders? Please Comrade Kim, don't listen to Beijing, you mustn't restore capitalism!

If you don't support freedom to criticize the DPRK government, you are really aiding the collapse of the DPRK, it is actually you "anti-revisionists" helping the imperialists by cheering the fact that the working class is muzzled in both Koreas and our only hope is that the North Korean bureaucracy will spontaneously change its line, some great leaders will come down from Mt. Paektu with new Marxist-Leninist commandments. This religious faith in Stalinist autocracy which has failed worldwide, not the Trotskyist call for a political revolution to preserve and deepen the revolutionary gains, is the real fantastic utopian line.

[28350]

Given a worldwide socialist revolution, the DPRK (as we know it) would collapse. It's entire economy, political climate, and culture is based on military resistance to the US and imperialism.

Think of it like tug-of-war. When both teams are pulling back hard, and the first lets go, the second falls over.

Hardcore geopolitical analysis through questionable analogies, fuck yeah. :cool:

[Homo Songun]

The real sophistic non-answer is the willful naïveté of "anti-revisionists" as regards the question of the ongoing market reforms and foreign investment which are undermining public industry and rolling back everything that is progressive about North Korean society.

Personally, I don't believe that socialism merely equals the absence of market mechanisms. This is a very mechanical notion imported from prevailing bourgeois ideas about capitalism being synonymous with the market, and socialism being state control.

That said, North Korea today has far less market "reforms" and foreign investment than any other socialist state today; for example, Cuba. North Korean political economy is very admirable considering its location, resources, the current international situation it finds itself in, and so on. But again, this sort of thing is the provenance of the reality-based community...

[RED DAVE]

This is why I am against the "state capitalism" analysis. If the USSR was or the DPRK is capitalist, that means either the state must be destroyed by the workers, or you must take a reformist position toward a bourgeois government. I am not for the destruction of the DPRK nor was Trotsky in favor of destroying USSR, although apparently Hoxha, like Max Shachtman and Tony Cliff, took an ultra-left stance in both of these cases.With all due respect Comrade, this makes no sense. If the DPRK is state capitalist, then it will, as history shows, either be destroyed by the working class (not yet) or revert to private capitalism (Russia, China, etc.).


The DPRK is a deformed workers' state, ultra-deformed perhaps, but still a workers' state with public industry that must be defended.Sigh! When is this ridiculous line going to fade away? "Public industry" is perfectly compatible with various forms of capitalism. Taiwan, for example, was developed after WWII, as a counter-point to China, by the development of a system of "public industry," which has been gradually converted to private capitalism.


This can not be done by the current bureaucratic leadership;That's saying a mouthful.


the Kim clique which is inviting foreign investment and market reforms needs to be removed by the proletariat.But if they're just a "clique," it shoul be possible to replace them very much like a shitty union leadership. But if they're a class ... :D

RED DAVE

[The Ben G]

We should still support the DPRK against the world capitalist-imperialist powers. I couldn't imagine a NK run by the U.S. or U.K. That would be a major blow against us.

Agree, but the Kims still need to go.

[Ismail]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1940/statecapitalism.htmA German anti-communist social-democrat who later condemned Marxism as he was dying in 1941 (an entire year after he wrote that work), and whose views in that work are blatantly un-Marxist and crapped upon by both M-Ls and Trots? ("Rudolf Hilferding and the Theoretical Foundations of German Social Democracy, 1902-33," article by William Smaldone in Central European History, Sep., 1988, pp. 297-299.)

Sounds unreliable.


Indeed, Mao was happy to let rightist intellectuals run their mouths, but when serious left-wing criticism emerged, he ended the campaign with the "Anti-Rightist" movement and the anti-labor crackdown of 1957. I don't see a serious difference between that, and Stalin's decision to purge all opponents, especially those to his left, after an abortive political opening.The "Great Purges" were ongoing at that point. That's the difference. Stalin stuck to the idea for quite a while, even as there were treason trials and such.


So either the bourgeoisie was correct that people get greedy in socialism, or there were apparently serious social antagonisms under Stalin. His policies crushed what remained of proletarian democracy and made it possible for the bureaucratic center to restore capitalism almost bloodlessly.There were significant social antagonisms, traceable to Lenin's rule.


The USSR and Albania were not socialist either, they still exploited workers and farmers to pay for industrialization and arms production, they traded with imperialist countries, and in each case a cultured bureaucratic caste monopolized political power.Except to think that trading with the West and producing arms equals capitalism would make you an idiot.


The relations of production, not the rhetorical preferences of the leaders, are what determine the mode of production.And analyses of the post-50's Soviet economy show that it was state-capitalist. To say that the DPRK was socialist without ever having a socialist revolution is odd, although I guess it ties into your liberal "MULTIPLE PARTIES" fetish, which precedes parliamentarism.


Was there not significant international bourgeois pressure on the Soviet Union from 1953-1991, during "the sufferings and persecution of honest people" as bemoaned by Hoxha?There was "pressure" in the same way as the Great Powers during the years leading up to WWI were "pressuring" each other. As Hoxha noted, the USSR had become an imperialist state in an inter-imperialist rivalry with the USA.


And did he not basically call for a conspiracy against the "capitalist" Soviet state?You'd be foolish to equivocate the state-capitalist USSR and the USSR under Stalin. Otherwise you might as well support any capitalist state who acts against any leftists ever.


A lot of good that did him.Everyone knew that the charge of treason was death, so I doubt he thought otherwise.


When Stalin didn't like the reports, say Yagoda was not finding enough spies or Yezhov was finding too many, he killed the guy writing the reports and found someone new to run the NKVD.He "killed the guy"? Yagoda was criticized for being lax a few years before the trials in which he took part were held. The point was that sabotage was increasing and that bigger conspiracies were being found, hence the move to replace Yagoda with Yezhov.


If Stalin really represented the working class and Khrushchev restored capitalism, why was the only "opposition" to the "capitalists" from a pathetic "vacillating type?"Because he died. Because Beria and others were executed, and a series of purges was conducted throughout the 1950's within the party and government, as noted by Hoxha in 1969:

Under the slogan of the “fight against Stalin's personality cult,” or under the pretext of rotation, the Khrushchevite revisionists rode roughshod over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Seventy per cent of the members of the members of the Central Committee elected at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in 1952 were no longer figuring on the list of the Central Committee members elected at the 22nd Congress in 1961. Sixty per cent of the CC members in 1956 were no longer figuring on the list of the CC members that were elected at the 23rd Congress in 1966. A still greater purge has been carried out in the lower party organs. For instance, during 1963 alone, more than 50 per cent of the members of the party central and regional committees in the Republics of the Soviet Union were relieved of their functions, while in the city and district party committees three quarters of their members were replaced with others. The purge of the revolutionary cadres has been carried out on a large scale also in the State organs, and especially in those of the army and State security.
Obviously there was a lack of proletarian control over the means of production.


I don't see how this is good advice to the North Korean or Soviet workers. Instead of an end to the market reforms, political opening for socialist pluralism, and suppression of the privileges of bureaucrats and officials, Hoxha calls for - correct me if wrong -You'd think a return to Marxism-Leninism would entail an end to revisionism, which propagates "market reforms" and revisionism.

[Qayin]

Blah blah. I don't care about words. If you want to use it like some slur as the anarchist tough guy rebel you are, then whatever. This just doesn't actually make it so anywhere but in your perverted fantasy.

I dont call myself an Authoritarian, im not the tough guy. You scare away many with this crap.

[danyboy27]

Believe it or not I support The Vegan Marxist on this one. The Aztec Emperors sacrificed people alive, their rule was unspeakably oppressive, but the conquest of Mesoamerica by the Spanish colonialists made the people a thousand times worse off. Likewise, Kim is a vampire who feeds off the setbacks of the Korean struggle for independence, which will not attain victory until it shows its true proletarian face, throws off the despotic Kim and his generals, and expels the American imperialists and their puppets from the Korean peninsula.

Opression is wrong, no matter who does it.

I will never support a ruthless dictatorship.

[Invincible Summer]

How can you be free and in control of your destiny when your starving because the State spent all there wealth making nuclear arms.

I'm not defending the DPRK. I'm saying that the phrase that you quoted is a very naive and simplistic form of humanism. You say that the phrase has nothing to do with socialism/communism, but humanism itself is very much a part of socialism/communism.

[Turinbaar]

Juche is an obscurantist dream of a militant society derived from the korean feudal era and decked out in drag as a"revolutionary" system. It is even more reactionary than the ideology of the bourgeoisie, and rightly akin to fascism. It's rhetoric is increasingly religious and racialist in tone. Juche in north korea is ultimately the negation of socialism.

[Homo Songun]

It is even more reactionary than the ideology of the bourgeoisieThis is a strong claim. In order for this to make any sense you have to describe 'the' ideology of the bourgeoisie and then you have to show how Juche is more reactionary than it.


Juche in north korea is ultimately the negation of socialismThe negation of socialism is capitalism. Can you describe how Juche is capitalism?

[The Vegan Marxist]

This is a strong claim. In order for this to make any sense you have to describe 'the' ideology of the bourgeoisie and then you have to show how Juche is more reactionary than it.

The negation of socialism is capitalism. Can you describe how Juche is capitalism?

I'd actually like for him to explain how he see's Juche as being "fascist", & yes, the negation of socialism as well.

[Turinbaar]

This is a strong claim. In order for this to make any sense you have to describe 'the' ideology of the bourgeoisie and then you have to show how Juche is more reactionary than it.

The ideology I had in mind was the Reagan republican or Ayn Rand Objectivist bourgeoisie (in other-words selfishness is a virtue, taxes are evil etc.). These seem watered down compared with the reactionary North Korean ideology, which is best described in this book called "The Cleanest Race" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933633913?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933633913


The negation of socialism is capitalism. Can you describe how Juche is capitalism?

No socialism is the transcending of capitalism. The negation of Socialism is National Socialism, of which north korea bares some of the major features. These are an economy and ideology centered around generalized and perpetual war (a "sacred war" as stated in the recent response to the sinking of the south korean ship) against impure races, and this mission is embodied in an absolute leader. The Fascists were catholic, and the Nazi's were pagan, and the Japanese worshiped the emperor as god, but none of these powers did what North Korea did by maintaining Kim il Sung as the president even after he died, so I suppose the DPRK did a one-up one them in fanaticism.

[Homo Songun]

The ideology I had in mind was the Reagan republican or Ayn Rand Objectivist bourgeoisie There at least 3 problems with what you are saying here. First of all, "Reagan republican" and "Ayn Rand Objectivist" are radically different things. How can they both be "the" ideology of the bourgeoisie? Secondly, even if they were the same thing, you haven't even tried to show us how Juche is "even more" reactionary than bourgeois ideology or ideologies. Thirdly, in addition to describing Juche as "even more reactionary" than "the ideology of the bourgeoisie" you say Juche is "akin to Fascism". Fascism is a bourgeois ideology. How can something be bourgeois and not bourgeois at the same time?


The negation of Socialism is National SocialismAnd National Socialism -- as a kind of Fascism -- is by definition the openly terroristic rule of the most reactionary section of the... bourgeoisie. In other words, capitalism. I'd prefer to be clear about it and just stick with my original formulation. So, how is Juche capitalism?

[Ismail]

The ideology I had in mind was the Reagan republican or Ayn Rand Objectivist bourgeoisie (in other-words selfishness is a virtue, taxes are evil etc.).I'm sure Marx clearly had Ronald Reagan and a dipshit pseudo-philosopher in mind in the 19th century when analyzing capitalism. To limit "bourgeois ideology" to Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand is asinine. What about Smith? Ricardo? J.S. Mill? Keynes? Hell, what about the Fascist ideologues? The "bourgeois ideology" is one which seeks to fortify and perpetuate capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie.


No socialism is the transcending of capitalism.No, socialism is the abolishment of class-based societies in general and an end to the capitalist mode of productin in particular. You don't "transcend" capitalism. Did the French bourgeoisie "transcend" feudalism during the French Revolution?


The negation of Socialism is National Socialism, of which north korea bares some of the major features."National Socialism" is Fascism, which is a form of capitalism in the same way as 1980's Sweden was capitalist and as any idealistic Objectivist society would be capitalist: the fundamental contradiction of bourgeoisie and proletariat still exists, and the capitalist mode of production still exists.

The only people claiming that fascism is "neither capitalism nor socialism" are the fascists themselves and social-democrats who don't even use Marxian analysis.


These are an economy and ideology centered around generalized and perpetual war (a "sacred war" as stated in the recent response to the sinking of the south korean ship) against impure races, and this mission is embodied in an absolute leader.While you can certainly say that Korean nationalism produces reactionary sentiments (same as any other nationalism accentuated in certain ways), an "economy and ideology centered around generalized and perpetual war" could be used to describe anything from North Vietnam to the Chinese Communists to the Albanians to the Bolsheviks. The North and South regard each other as illegitimate states which must be liberated and freed under the "true" Korean states. I seriously doubt that, say, the DPRK talks about taking over Japan and China. The North and South technically still are in a state of war.

Juche, being a revisionist ideology, promotes a personality cult in a way significantly worse than Maoism. Personality cults are harmful to Marxism, but they do not equal Fascism.


The Fascists were catholic, and the Nazi's were pagan, and the Japanese worshiped the emperor as god, but none of these powers did what North Korea did by maintaining Kim il Sung as the president even after he died, so I suppose the DPRK did a one-up one them in fanaticism.The post of President has had all of its constitutional powers stripped from it after Kim Il Sung died. It's a purely honorary title now limited to a small mention in the DPRK's constitution. It's a reflection of how inane Kim Il Sung's personality cult was, but it isn't worse than the worship of Hitler or the Japanese Emperor-God.

[hardlinecommunist]

The ideology I had in mind was the Reagan republican or Ayn Rand Objectivist bourgeoisie (in other-words selfishness is a virtue, taxes are evil etc.). These seem watered down compared with the reactionary North Korean ideology, which is best described in this book called "The Cleanest Race" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933633913?ie=UTF8&tag=slatmaga-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1933633913



No socialism is the transcending of capitalism. The negation of Socialism is National Socialism, of which north korea bares some of the major features. These are an economy and ideology centered around generalized and perpetual war (a "sacred war" as stated in the recent response to the sinking of the south korean ship) against impure races, and this mission is embodied in an absolute leader. The Fascists were catholic, and the Nazi's were pagan, and the Japanese worshiped the emperor as god, but none of these powers did what North Korea did by maintaining Kim il Sung as the president even after he died, so I suppose the DPRK did a one-up one them in fanaticism.do you have any proof for your statement about Juche being against impure races. Juche is an Internationalist Ideology and is anti- Racist.

[GreenCommunism]

the only mention of impure race from north korea was that they criticize south korea of inviting and keeping the americans on their soil, thus they complain about foreign intervention, not impure race.

also it isn't true that any mention of socialism is removed from their constitution, i looked at it and juche clearly mentions socialism in the 1st or second paragraph and other times.

when it comes to censorship or political repression i think those things happen when the country is unstable,on the verge of war or face external threat, a fascist dictatorship would allow much more dissident voice when those dissident voice are not listened to by the population. the same goes for the united states,using chomsky's theory of limiting debate within certain limits but allowing as many opinion as possible within that limit would be the model used to repress on dissident opinion. the spectrum of different opinion would be larger in a stable country than an unstable country.

actually can you tell me which one is the most recent constitution? i might be wrong, but the one i am looking at right now is the 1998 juche constitution, i do not know of any other.

[zubovskyblvd]

the only mention of impure race from north korea was that they criticize south korea of inviting and keeping the americans on their soil, thus they complain about foreign intervention, not impure race.

also it isn't true that any mention of socialism is removed from their constitution, i looked at it and juche clearly mentions socialism in the 1st or second paragraph and other times.

when it comes to censorship or political repression i think those things happen when the country is unstable,on the verge of war or face external threat, a fascist dictatorship would allow much more dissident voice when those dissident voice are not listened to by the population. the same goes for the united states,using chomsky's theory of limiting debate within certain limits but allowing as many opinion as possible within that limit would be the model used to repress on dissident opinion. the spectrum of different opinion would be larger in a stable country than an unstable country.

actually can you tell me which one is the most recent constitution? i might be wrong, but the one i am looking at right now is the 1998 juche constitution, i do not know of any other.

There was a new constitution some time last year that has supposedly dropped the word 'communism', but not the word 'socialism'- however, last time I checked there hadn't been an english translation of this new constitution, so I can't be certain exactly what it contains

[Kléber]

The "Great Purges" were ongoing at that point. That's the difference. Stalin stuck to the idea for quite a while, even as there were treason trials and such.
Meh, Stalin was an opportunist who blamed things on subordinates (Yagoda, Yezhov), at least Trotsky took responsibility for stuff he wasn't even involved in, like Kronstadt.


There were significant social antagonisms, traceable to Lenin's rule.Yes, but according to Ludo Martens, pointing this out makes you a counter-revolutionary.


Except to think that trading with the West and producing arms equals capitalism would make you an idiot.So let's create a list of Kim Jong-il's sins that were not also comitted by Stalin and Hoxha.


And analyses of the post-50's Soviet economy show that it was state-capitalist.The Soviet economy was never anything but state capitalist, but there was no bourgeoisie until 1991. There is no significant bourgeoisie in North Korea either.


To say that the DPRK was socialist without ever having a socialist revolution is odd, although I guess it ties into your liberal "MULTIPLE PARTIES" fetish, which precedes parliamentarism.I never said the DPRK was socialist, I said its economy was virtually indistinguishable from that of "socialist" USSR or Albania. And Stalinists are the ones with the "multiple parties" fetish, look at DDR/DPRK, the Stalin Constitution, "People's Republics" etc.

Having multiple parties would not be necessary if there was democracy in the ruling party. I'm for actual accountability for the bureaucracy: instant recallability (not rule for life), worker-level wages (not 10/20x the average), on the model of the commune.


There was "pressure" in the same way as the Great Powers during the years leading up to WWI were "pressuring" each other. As Hoxha noted, the USSR had become an imperialist state in an inter-imperialist rivalry with the USA.So invading Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan is imperialist, but invading Poland and Hungary, and dissolving the Comintern to please the "Allies" isn't?


You'd be foolish to equivocate the state-capitalist USSR and the USSR under Stalin. Otherwise you might as well support any capitalist state who acts against any leftists ever.Key phrase: "acts against." Khrushchev didn't actually kill those poor oppressed Stalinists - Molotov, Kaganovich, etc. Stalin's regime, on the other hand, is neck-and-neck with Suharto's for most leftists killed. My comparison between Stalin and Khrushchev only besmirches the latter.


Everyone knew that the charge of treason was death, so I doubt he thought otherwise.On the contrary, as Getty and co. note, denying the false charges meant certain death.


He "killed the guy"? Yagoda was criticized for being lax a few years before the trials in which he took part were held. The point was that sabotage was increasing and that bigger conspiracies were being found, hence the move to replace Yagoda with Yezhov.First you said Stalin was a hapless fool who believed the NKVD reports, and merely signed off what was put in front of him. But now you are saying that Stalin had an omniscient inkling of bigger conspiracies, and based on this, replaced the NKVD chief with one more predisposed to "finding" hundreds of thousands of spies.


Because he died. Because Beria and others were executed, and a series of purges was conducted throughout the 1950's within the party and government, as noted by Hoxha in 1969:Capitalism was restored because Stalin died? Where did this army of anti-Stalin, anti-Beria demons come from if not the greedy, overpaid state bureaucracy who had been ennobled in 1931 with the abolition of partmaximum?


Obviously there was a lack of proletarian control over the means of production.Yes, and the ban on factions and brutal suppression of dissent, whether Lenin had meant it to last for the Civil War's duration or the next 10,000 years, helped ensure the proletariat would never assert full democratic control over the economy.


You'd think a return to Marxism-Leninism would entail an end to revisionism, which propagates "market reforms" and revisionism."A return to Marxism-Leninism" is subjective nonsense. Khrushchev and Tito were ardent "Marxist-Leninists." Do you support the right of a North Korean Hoxhaist party to exist, run candidates, and criticize Kim or not?


Seventy per cent of the members of the members of the Central Committee elected at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in 1952 were no longer figuring on the list of the Central Committee members elected at the 22nd Congress in 1961.
And what about the 17th Congress? So it's OK for Stalin to execute 2/3 of a CPSU Congress, but if as many voted out under Khrushchev, it's state capitalism?

[Kléber]

With all due respect Comrade, this makes no sense. If the DPRK is state capitalist, then it will, as history shows, either be destroyed by the working class (not yet) or revert to private capitalism (Russia, China, etc.).
But by this logic, Lenin was wrong and workers had to destroy the USSR to create socialism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/apr/29.htm


Sigh! When is this ridiculous line going to fade away? "Public industry" is perfectly compatible with various forms of capitalism. Taiwan, for example, was developed after WWII, as a counter-point to China, by the development of a system of "public industry," which has been gradually converted to private capitalism.Yes, but despite the prominence of state industry there was a bourgeoisie in Taiwan.


But if they're just a "clique," it shoul be possible to replace them very much like a shitty union leadership. But if they're a class ... :DThe North Korean ruling caste, like the Cuban one, is on the threshold of transforming itself into an outright capitalist class. The ruling clique can indeed be obliged to step down almost without a fight, we saw this happen in the Stalinist countries but there were no mass workers' movements to take power from them. To my knowledge, Kim Jong-il doesn't personally own any stocks or companies.

[Kléber]

Personally, I don't believe that socialism merely equals the absence of market mechanisms. This is a very mechanical notion imported from prevailing bourgeois ideas about capitalism being synonymous with the market, and socialism being state control.
Ah, so you don't think the Kosygin reforms represented the restoration of bourgeois rule? I thought you ran with that crew. Well then, are you a Khrushchevist, a Titoist, a Dengist, an anarcho-syndicalist or what? What's your explanation for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR?


That said, North Korea today has far less market "reforms" and foreign investment than any other socialist state today; for example, Cuba. North Korean political economy is very admirable considering its location, resources, the current international situation it finds itself in, and so on. But again, this sort of thing is the provenance of the reality-based community...And Osama bin Laden is very admirable to still be alive considering how hard the imperialists are trying to hunt him down and kill him. Don't you dare criticize someone who is at war with imperialism! Long live Marxism-Leninism-bin Laden Thought!

The "reality-based community" knows that the DPRK is not democratic and therefore not socialist.

[Proletarian Ultra]

and osama bin laden is very admirable to still be alive considering how hard the imperialists are trying to hunt him down and kill him.

lolololol.

[Kléber]

lolololol.
Apparently you think the USSR still exists or you missed my point. Your beloved "socialist states" are no longer the primary antagonist of US imperialism, the torch has passed to radical Islam. If you want to be part of the movement most hated by the Washington imperialists, delete your account at this kuffar site and go register at RevolutionMuslim.

Asia Times Online: US cartoons 'made in North Korea' (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IC14Dg03.html)

[Proletarian Ultra]

Apparently you think the USSR still exists or you missed my point. Your beloved "socialist states" are no longer the primary antagonist of US imperialism, the torch has passed to radical Islam. If you want to be part of the movement most hated by the Washington imperialists, delete your account at this kuffar site and go register at RevolutionMuslim.

Asia Times Online: US cartoons 'made in North Korea' (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IC14Dg03.html)

No, it's not that. I was laughing because no one's exactly breaking their ass to find OBL. They're about as interested in tracking him down as the Boston FBI is in finding Whitey Bulger.

[28350]

If you want to be part of the movement most hated by the Washington imperialists, delete your account at this kuffar site and go register at RevolutionMuslim.

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