Pan-Socialism?

[Zanthorus]

I've heard Hoxhaists use the term "Pan-Socialism" to describe the work of Ludo Martens as well as other Marxist-Leninist parties including the KKE. What does this actually mean? Google throws up a bunch of links to articles on Pan-Africanism and socialism but that doesn't seem to fit.

[bailey_187]

those who accept every country that called itself socialist (i.e. Korea, China, Eastern Bloc) as socialist

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've heard Hoxhaists use the term "Pan-Socialism" to describe the work of Ludo Martens as well as other Marxist-Leninist parties including the KKE. What does this actually mean? Google throws up a bunch of links to articles on Pan-Africanism and socialism but that doesn't seem to fit.

It's just what Trotskyists would call "pan-Stalinism."

This is an attempt to unite tankies of the "Brezhnevite" variety, supporters of Cuban and Vietnamese anti-imperialism back in the day, and the three tendencies claiming the "Anti-Revisionist" label: "Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Only-ists" like in Russia, Hoxhaists, and most Maoists (probably excluding Three Worlds Theory activists). I don't think Juche-ists or Pol Pot wackos are included, and neither are Titoists, tankies of the "Khrushchevite" variety, etc.

[Ismail]

It's just what Trotskyists would call "pan-Stalinism."

This is an attempt to unite tankies of the "Brezhnevite" variety, supporters of Cuban and Vietnamese anti-imperialism back in the day, and the three tendencies claiming the "Anti-Revisionist" label: "Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Only-ists" like in Russia, Hoxhaists, and most Maoists (probably excluding Three Worlds Theory activists). I don't think Juche-ists or Pol Pot wackos are included, and neither are Titoists, tankies of the "Khrushchevite" variety, etc.Basically this, yes. Except Jucheists are often included, albeit they're seen as being on the fringe and not taken too seriously. "Pan-Socialists" are only really split on issues like China, wherein some call it capitalist, and others socialist. Other than that, they basically accept everyone as socialist (except usually Tito and Pol Pot).

Here's an example of an early Pan-Socialist tract: http://www.marxists.org/archive/haywood/1984/04/11.htm


History demonstrates that, overall, Soviet foreign policy has been basically defensive and non-aggressive. This fact does not mean that everything the Soviet Union does is correct or that it cannot make serious mistakes or pursue wrong lines. For example, its relations with China and other socialist countries have been marked at times by chauvinism and hegemonism. But these problems do not make the Soviet Union a social imperialist power....


These developments make it all the more urgent for American communists to cast aside outmoded and incorrect political ideas so we can begin to give direction to the trends. Our first step is to begin to seeking a process of unity based around strategic direction that clearly recognizes U.S. imperialism as the center of world reaction, the main threat to world peace and the main enemy of the world's people.

[mykittyhasaboner]

History demonstrates that, overall, Soviet foreign policy has been basically defensive and non-aggressive. This fact does not mean that everything the Soviet Union does is correct or that it cannot make serious mistakes or pursue wrong lines. For example, its relations with China and other socialist countries have been marked at times by chauvinism and hegemonism. But these problems do not make the Soviet Union a social imperialist power....


These developments make it all the more urgent for American communists to cast aside outmoded and incorrect political ideas so we can begin to give direction to the trends. Our first step is to begin to seeking a process of unity based around strategic direction that clearly recognizes U.S. imperialism as the center of world reaction, the main threat to world peace and the main enemy of the world's people....and what about this is untrue or 'revisionist'? I'm not baiting you btw, I just don't see how 'social-imperialism' is correct. Which is why some clarification would be good. What exactly is revisionist about recognizing that the US is the foremost imperialist power and the center of world reaction, instead of the Soviet Union?

[Ismail]

...and what about this is untrue or 'revisionist'? I'm not baiting you btw, I just don't see how 'social-imperialism' is correct. Which is why some clarification would be good. What exactly is revisionist about recognizing that the US is the foremost imperialist power and the center of world reaction, instead of the Soviet Union?Just because the US was in a stronger position in the Cold War does not excuse the fact that the USSR itself was a social-imperialist power. It's like saying that "Germany is the foremost imperialist power" in WWI or something, and thus excusing French, British, and Russian imperialism because it's "reactive."

Soviet foreign policy certainly was aggressive. The invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan ring a bell?

[manic expression]

Soviet foreign policy certainly was aggressive. The invasions of Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan ring a bell?
:rolleyes: The "invasion of Czechoslovakia" stopped an ongoing counterrevolution. I have no idea why you'd want to politically align yourself with Shirley Temple, or a movement that bears every resemblance to the anti-socialists of the 80's and 90's. The "invasion" of Afghanistan was not an invasion whatsoever, the USSR was responding to a request from the PDPA government for military assistance in the fight against CIA-backed reactionaries.

Remember the invasion(s) of Poland? I await your criticism of Lenin and Stalin for being "aggressive social-imperialists".

[Ismail]

:rolleyes: The "invasion of Czechoslovakia" stopped an ongoing counterrevolution.There was no "counter-revolution" in Czechoslovakia. It was a pro-US clique versus a pro-Soviet clique.

As Hoxha said in 1969:

How can they [the Soviets] defend the gains of socialism in another country who have destroyed socialism in their own country, how can they avoid the danger of counterrevolution who themselves are the head of counterrevolution?... all the “arguments” of the Soviet revisionist leadership are empty and false. Their actions have no political, ideological, moral or legal foundation whatsoever.

Fully defeated also, was the “legal” argument of the Soviet revisionists to justify their aggression in Czechoslovakia. The “famous” letter of some Czechoslovak personalities allegedly addressed to the Soviets and to some other Warsaw Treaty countries “to ask for their aid in suppressing counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia” was absolutely proved to be a fraud. Nobody came out to confirm being the author of that letter. The Soviet troops were not invited either by the Czechoslovak Government, or by the President of the Republic, by the parliament or the Central Committee of the Party. Even Hitler in his time acted with some tact: at least he obtained by force the signature of the President Hacha, when he occupied Czechoslovakia....

As an important instrument of the implementation of its imperialist policy, the Soviet leading clique is using the Warsaw Treaty military alliance. This treaty, which has changed its nature from top to bottom, from a treaty of peace into a means of war, from a defensive treaty into a weapon of aggression, is being used by the Soviet leading clique also against the very participants in this treaty.... The so-called “socialist family” or “socialist community” resembles a concentration camp, a prison of peoples, Soviet troops are stationed everywhere and they make the law in these countries.


The "invasion" of Afghanistan was not an invasion whatsoever, the USSR was responding to a request from the PDPA government for military assistance in the fight against CIA-backed reactionaries.This "request" allegedly came from the same man (Hafizullah Amin) who the Soviets subsequently shot dead.

As Hoxha noted in 1980:

The fact is that the Soviet social-imperialists had carefully prepared the ground for this occupation beforehand, intervening and aggravating the situation inside the country in their favour and binding Afghanistan with the chains of enslaving treaties which the Soviet social-imperialists use openly as instruments to occupy other peoples and countries or to keep them under their dependence and control. The fall of the monarchy and later on of Daoud was a cynical utilization by the Moscow rulers of the desires of the Afghan people for liberation because the people felt the heavy burden of the oppression and exploitation of the monarchy and feudalism and their Soviet allies and wanted to see their country free and sovereign.

To disguise their imperialist aims and to realise these aims as quickly as possible, the staff in the Kremlin brutally interfered in Afghanistan, bringing their own people to power there and eliminating them one after another in their efforts to find the most suitable and obedient to Moscow. The Soviet Union is not interested in either the freedom or independence of Afghanistan as is claimed or in the liberation of the much-suffering people of that country. What interests Moscow the most is Afghanistan’s strategic position in the Middle East, its proximity to the oil resources, its key position in a major region where the savage rivalry between the two superpowers is developing....


The Albanian people express the profound conviction that the courageous people of Afghanistan will deal crushing blows to the Soviet social-imperialist aggressors and will oust them from their homeland.
Remember the invasion(s) of Poland? I await your criticism of Lenin and Stalin for being "aggressive social-imperialists".The Soviets stepped into Poland because the Polish Government had ceased to exist owing to a German invasion. The League of Nations concurred, as did every other government including the Polish government in exile.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html

[manic expression]

There was no "counter-revolution" in Czechoslovakia. It was a pro-US clique versus a pro-Soviet clique.

As Hoxha said in 1969:
Tell us all how socialism was "destroyed" in the Soviet Union at that time. Until then, you have no argument. Due to this little detail, Hoxha certainly didn't.


This "request" allegedly came from the same man (Hafizullah Amin) who the Soviets subsequently shot dead.It wasn't one request, there were many. And the PDPA, as a party, was appealing to the Soviet Union. Taraki was especially vocal in this, IIRC.


As Hoxha noted in 1980:That is completely incomprehensible and anti-historical. The USSR did not want to go into Afghanistan, and the PDPA was more than willing to have close ties with the Soviet Union. Hoxha was obviously reading the US version of the events, which is fitting enough.


The Soviets stepped into Poland because the Polish Government had ceased to exist owing to a German invasion. The League of Nations concurred, as did every other government including the Polish government in exile.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.htmlSo if the Afghan government, the same one that was requesting military assistance, ceased to exist, then it would have been OK for the Soviet Union to go in? Does that make any sense? No, it doesn't. Further, if we want to use Hoxha's words when he said the Soviet Union "carefully prepared the ground for this occupation beforehand"...how is that not what happened with the non-aggression pact with Germany?

And was there a Polish government in 1921? I await your condemnation of Lenin as an "aggressive social-imperialist".

For those of you keeping score at home, the Hoxhaist position is in support of Shirley Temple and the CIA-backed Mujaheddin.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This "request" allegedly came from the same man (Hafizullah Amin) who the Soviets subsequently shot dead.

No, it came from the guy Amin overthrew in a coup d'etat. See, a democratic and Soviet-friendly overthrow occurred. Then the new guys in power enacted reforms for women and such. Already there was CIA activity and funding of the mujahedeen in immediate response. The guy whom Amin overthrew called for Soviet aid. When in power, Amin was asked by the Soviets to not be too bloody (purges), but Amin retorted by asking about Stalin's role in Soviet development.

It was discovered, however, that the increasingly unpopular Amin entertained the idea of dealing with US imperialism in a double play, much like what Saddam would do a few years later. The Soviets did their thing afterwards.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Just because the US was in a stronger position in the Cold War does not excuse the fact that the USSR itself was a social-imperialist power. It's like saying that "Germany is the foremost imperialist power" in WWI or something, and thus excusing French, British, and Russian imperialism because it's "reactive."

This is not at all what I meant. I was challenging the view that the Soviet Union was the center of world reaction, as the Chinese claimed, which is what the article was refuting. I asked what was revisionist (since the "pan-socialists" or what Haywood was arguing is revisionist right?) about denying this, as it is obviously false, and recognizing that the US was and still is in fact the center of world reaction? The question still stands.

If recognizing that the Soviet Union was a "social-imperialist" power means recognizing it as the center of world reaction as the Chinese claimed, and that forces who oppose them (such as the American backed insurgents in Afghanistan) are to be supported--then your accusations of revisionism or 'social-imperialism' are mere political justification for allying with American imperialism...actual imperialists.

Furthermore to prove 'social-imperialism', would be to prove that economic exploitation of states allied with the Soviet Union. This is also false....the Soviets always had to buy their friends.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I can only think of one or two instances wherein the Soviet Union did act in an economically imperialist manner; the Aswan Dam Project in Egypt (export of capital) is one of them.

[Ismail]

Tell us all how socialism was "destroyed" in the Soviet Union at that time. Until then, you have no argument. Due to this little detail, Hoxha certainly didn't.That is a debate within itself.

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrmenu.html


It wasn't one request, there were many. And the PDPA, as a party, was appealing to the Soviet Union. Taraki was especially vocal in this, IIRC.Amin was the leader of the country when the Soviets invaded.


That is completely incomprehensible and anti-historical. The USSR did not want to go into Afghanistan,I'm sure the US didn't "want" to go into Vietnam, either. Imperialist connections, however, necessitated it.


So if the Afghan government, the same one that was requesting military assistance, ceased to exist, then it would have been OK for the Soviet Union to go in?If the US (or Iran, or Pakistan) invaded it and the Afghan government fled to another country, then the Soviets would at least have entered under the pretext of restoring the original government.


how is that not what happened with the non-aggression pact with Germany?Because the Germans were the one who invaded and caused the Polish State to collapse. The Soviets came in days later to uphold the Curzon Line.


And was there a Polish government in 1921? I await your condemnation of Lenin as an "aggressive social-imperialist".Stalin was apprehensive about continuing the struggle in Poland and believed that the workers were not sufficiently class conscious there. (Stalin: A New History, p. 141)

Entering a country is not, however, an imperialist act simply because a bourgeois state ceases to exist. I've written about this in the past.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/anti-imperialism-nationalist-t128292/index.html?t=128292


For those of you keeping score at home, the Hoxhaist position is in support of Shirley Temple and the CIA-backed Mujaheddin.The Pan-Socialist position is in support of aggression and social-imperialism.


It was discovered, however, that the increasingly unpopular Amin entertained the idea of dealing with US imperialism in a double play, much like what Saddam would do a few years later. The Soviets did their thing afterwards.... You mean Amin didn't want Afghanistan to be a Soviet puppet, so he expanded ties with the Arab world?


This is not at all what I meant. I was challenging the view that the Soviet Union was the center of world reaction, as the Chinese claimed, which is what the article was refuting.Well I'm not a Maoist, so that isn't my concern. Hoxha didn't claim that. He stated that both US and Soviet imperialism were to be opposed equally; that's why he opposed Mao's "Three Worlds Theory," which put emphasis on the US being "a worse imperialist state" than the Soviets, which is a revisionist position.


Furthermore to prove 'social-imperialism', would be to prove that economic exploitation of states allied with the Soviet Union. This is also false....the Soviets always had to buy their friends.The British, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese colonialists in the 18th and 19th centuries brought tribal chieftains and African Kings, too. That's how protectorates were established.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Well I'm not a Maoist, so that isn't my concern. Hoxha didn't claim that. He stated that both US and Soviet imperialism were to be opposed equally; that's why he opposed Mao's "Three Worlds Theory," which put emphasis on the US being "a worse imperialist state" than the Soviets, which is a revisionist position.

OK, well to oppose both equally, you first have to prove that the Soviets were imperialists. There's no doubt they were hegemonic (but this goes back to the Third International really), but to be social imperialists they would have to invade countries and exploit them economically. The Soviet Union never did this, and they probably would have never succeeded if they tried.

If I concede that the Soviets were in fact imperialists for the sake of argument, then surely US imperialism is much, much more worthy of opposition than any hegemonic military action the Soviets ever took.

How in the world does Hoxha come up with this stuff? The US was more of a threat to socialism and worker's states than the Soviet Union. History quite clearly attests to this.


The British, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese colonialists in the 18th and 19th centuries brought tribal chieftains and African Kings, too. That's how protectorates were established.The analogy doesn't fit. The Soviets weren't involved in exploiting allied countries after buying them out.


I can only think of one or two instances wherein the Soviet Union did act in an economically imperialist manner; the Aswan Dam Project in Egypt (export of capital) is one of them.

Details? I'm not very knowledgeable on Soviet relations with Egypt, aside from Egypt getting decent amounts of aid.

[manic expression]

That is a debate within itself.
See my previous comment.


Amin was the leader of the country when the Soviets invaded.
What's your point? The PDPA was in full support of the Soviet intervention, that's why both factions were in support of the invitations.


I'm sure the US didn't "want" to go into Vietnam, either. Imperialist connections, however, necessitated it.
The US did want to go into Vietnam. Nevertheless, the USSR went into Afghanistan at the behest of the progressive government under siege by the CIA. The US went into Vietnam at the behest of an illegitimate regime under siege by the workers. You figure out the difference, maybe Shirley Temple can help you out if you're having trouble.


If the US (or Iran, or Pakistan) invaded it and the Afghan government fled to another country, then the Soviets would at least have entered under the pretext of restoring the original government.
They entered under the reality of defending the then-present government from the US and Pakistan. So you're dodging the issue again.


Because the Germans were the one who invaded and caused the Polish State to collapse. The Soviets came in days later to uphold the Curzon Line.
Yes, the Germans invaded, with an agreement made with the Soviet Union entailing precisely that.


Stalin was apprehensive about continuing the struggle in Poland and believed that the workers were not sufficiently class conscious there. (Stalin: A New History, p. 141)

Entering a country is not, however, an imperialist act simply because a bourgeois state ceases to exist. I've written about this in the past.
So you're going to dodge this point once again. Answer my questions or stop wasting our time.


The Pan-Socialist position is in support of aggression and social-imperialism.
Making more stuff up, I see, just like your anti-Soviet friends over at Langley.

Here: imperialist-socialism. See, it's fun and easy to make up things that have nothing to do with reality. That's Hoxhaism in a nutshell.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Details? I'm not very knowledgeable on Soviet relations with Egypt, aside from Egypt getting decent amounts of aid.

The Soviets exported capital and lended expertise to the Egyptians so that they could build their dam. Remember: the dam was a capital investment project. This was more than a typical trade subsidy the Soviets had with other countries.

[mykittyhasaboner]

The Soviets exported capital and lended expertise to the Egyptians so that they could build their dam. Remember: the dam was a capital investment project. This was more than a typical trade subsidy the Soviets had with other countries.

Indeed. Could you recommend some reading?


If the Soviets funded the dam, basically building it alongside the Egyptians, how did the capital they invest turn around and come back to them if it did at all? Did they profit from this?

It's difficult for me to guess how a dam would be used to repay Soviets--since the aid given to third world countries was usually re-payed with domestic goods, usually produced by enterprises receiving Soviet aid in the first place.

[Ismail]

OK, well to oppose both equally, you first have to prove that the Soviets were imperialists. There's no doubt they were hegemonic (but this goes back to the Third International really), but to be social imperialists they would have to invade countries and exploit them economically. The Soviet Union never did this, and they probably would have never succeeded if they tried.They did, in fact, exploit them economically. What do you think the "socialist division of labor" was?


If I concede that the Soviets were in fact imperialists for the sake of argument, then surely US imperialism is much, much more worthy of opposition than any hegemonic military action the Soviets ever took.Nope.


How in the world does Hoxha come up with this stuff? The US was more of a threat to socialism and worker's states than the Soviet Union. History quite clearly attests to this.No, it wasn't.


The analogy doesn't fit. The Soviets weren't involved in exploiting allied countries after buying them out.They gained neo-colonies like Cuba, which was forced to become a sugar plantation for the Soviets.


See my previous comment.How about stay on the topic at hand: Soviet social-imperialism.


What's your point? The PDPA was in full support of the Soviet intervention, that's why both factions were in support of the invitations.Using this logic if a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus wanted it, the US could freely invade X country because "Oh, well, some people wanted it."

I don't doubt that quite a few wanted it, of course. After all, it was only through becoming a Soviet puppet state that the PDPA could survive.


The US did want to go into Vietnam. Nevertheless, the USSR went into Afghanistan at the behest of the progressive government under siege by the CIA. The US went into Vietnam at the behest of an illegitimate regime under siege by the workers.The USSR saw an opportunity to secure a compliant neo-colony, as did the Americans. Both didn't "want" to go to war because it would have been unpopular at home and taken much resources, but both were operating under the view that the war wouldn't be "too long" or "too bad."


They entered under the reality of defending the then-present government from the US and Pakistan. So you're dodging the issue again.I was unaware of a US or Pakistani invasion of Afghanistan. I am aware, of course, that both funded and armed Mujahidin rebels, but those pro-US and pro-Pakistani rebels did not constitute the entirety of the rebellion.


Yes, the Germans invaded, with an agreement made with the Soviet Union entailing precisely that.Nope. You're free to read Prof. Furrs' work, but there was nothing saying "The Germans can invade Poland." It simply said that if the Germans invaded, they would have to stop at the Curzon Line. Then the Polish Government would engage in negotiations and such. That never happened because the Polish Government fled and the state collapsed, making the non-aggression pact void, hence why renegotiation of the treaty was necessary a bit later on after the events, and after both German and Soviet forces had been in Poland.


So you're going to dodge this point once again. Answer my questions or stop wasting our time.Quite funny coming from the person who wants us to move from Soviet social-imperialism to "Oh, well, what made the Soviets not socialist, huh?"

The Bolsheviks in battle against the Poles was not an imperialist action. I already said (if you looked at my whole post) that the disappearance of a state was not an imperialist action by itself, and I gave a link to a long post I made about the subject back in January.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Indeed. Could you recommend some reading?

Alas, no. I watched this many years ago on CNN's long-forgotten documentary on the Cold War, which also covered what I said on Afghanistan.


If the Soviets funded the dam, basically building it alongside the Egyptians, how did the capital they invest turn around and come back to them if it did at all? Did they profit from this?

It's difficult for me to guess how a dam would be used to repay Soviets--since the aid given to third world countries was usually re-payed with domestic goods, usually produced by enterprises receiving Soviet aid in the first place

I don't know what profits came out of this. Maybe it was an interest-free loan? Maybe trade agreements to export certain goods and import others?

Anyway, the soft "profit" to come out of this was an ally, but more importantly the booting out of Anglo-French imperialist adventurism.


They gained neo-colonies like Cuba, which was forced to become a sugar plantation for the Soviets.

Yeah, exporting sugar to the Soviets at higher-than-market prices and importing Soviet oil at lower-than-market prices is an imperialist trade agreement. Whatever happened to all that propaganda about Soviet self-sufficiency? :rolleyes:

[Ismail]

Yeah, exporting sugar to the Soviets at higher-than-market prices and importing Soviet oil at lower-than-market prices is an imperialist trade agreement. Whatever happened to all that propaganda about Soviet self-sufficiency? :rolleyes:"Everything was geared to this single aim during the 1969-1970 sugar harvest which normally terminates in the spring. Other sectors of the economy were reduced in importance, large outlays in capital being geared towards improving the sugar-producing plants so that they could respond to the occasion. However the sugar harvest fell short of reaching 10,000,000 tons. The revolutionary leadership came to the conclusion that the failure was indicative of a major problem which had emerged in the basic Cuban social/political system." (Arnold August, Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections, p. 203.)

Che Guevara criticized the "sugarization" of the economy in the early 1960's, and as a result the Soviets told Fidel to shut him up.

[mykittyhasaboner]

They did, in fact, exploit them economically. What do you think the "socialist division of labor" was?

Care to make the argument yourself? For all I know you could be referring to the division of labor under socialism...which exists under socialism.

Perhaps your referring to some kind of Kruschevite economic principle that geared the Soviet economy towards profitability (even though it obviously didn't work).

Neither of these would prove that the Soviet Union exploited the workers of other (allied or not) countries.


Nope.So nothing the US ever did to exploit or kill working people or to invade entire nations was more worthy of opposition than supposed Soviet imperialism?


No, it wasn't.Are you serious?


They gained neo-colonies like Cuba, which was forced to become a sugar plantation for the Soviets.As Jacob already mentioned, Soviet trade with Cuba was quite favorable to Cuba.

[Ismail]

Perhaps your referring to some kind of Kruschevite economic principle that geared the Soviet economy towards profitability (even though it obviously didn't work).It was never renounced.


So nothing the US ever did to exploit or kill working people or to invade entire nations was more worthy of opposition than supposed Soviet imperialism?We must oppose imperialism in all its forms; we are internationalists. Hoxha did not apologize for US imperialism, he condemned it as he condemned Soviet imperialism.


As Jacob already mentioned, Soviet trade with Cuba was quite favorable to Cuba.
... in a 1992 interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera Castro stated that "Our basic problems are the economic blockade and the disappearance of the socialist camp. Some 85 percent of our trade was with those countries.. The value of our sugar in fact, balanced the cost of the petroleum we got from the USSR... That trade has almost disappeared with the disappearance of the socialist countries. We had to turn to new markets. We have lost imports, credit, and technology, and sought fuel, raw materials, and drugs elsewhere."Cuba was a neo-colony.

[manic expression]

How about stay on the topic at hand: Soviet social-imperialism.
:lol: A theory for which you refuse to provide an argument. Right. Until you provide the slightest support for "the topic at hand", you're grasping at straws and nothing more.


Using this logic if a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus wanted it, the US could freely invade X country because "Oh, well, some people wanted it."The Hoxhaist denial of history marches on. It wasn't "a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus", the party that was in control of Afghanistan wanted Soviet intervention almost without reservation. It wasn't an invasion if the Soviets were invited by a legitimate government, which they were. You keep ignoring this because anti-socialism is your game.

But go ahead. Tell me how Daoud's government was legitimate and the Saur Revolution wasn't. Why do you persist in ignoring the actions, words and policies of the PDPA? Giving a straight answer would lend a shred of honesty to your arguments, for a change.


I don't doubt that quite a few wanted it, of course. After all, it was only through becoming a Soviet puppet state that the PDPA could survive.It was only through the aid of the Soviet Union that the PDPA could survive against CIA-backed aggression. Just like the Spanish Republic could only survive against Franco for as long as it did with Soviet aid (or was that imperialist too?). I'm not sure why you continue to end up on the CIA's end of things, but that's what keeps happening.


The USSR saw an opportunity to secure a compliant neo-colony, as did the Americans. Both didn't "want" to go to war because it would have been unpopular at home and taken much resources, but both were operating under the view that the war wouldn't be "too long" or "too bad."Justify the word "neo-colony", or else you have no argument...just like your refusal to justify the term "social-imperialism". Keep dancing.


I was unaware of a US or Pakistani invasion of Afghanistan. I am aware, of course, that both funded and armed Mujahidin rebels, but those pro-US and pro-Pakistani rebels did not constitute the entirety of the rebellion.What do you call CIA support for the Mujaheddin, then? Anti-imperialist aid? Freedom money? I'm curious to hear from someone on their side of things.


Nope. You're free to read Prof. Furrs' work, but there was nothing saying "The Germans can invade Poland." It simply said that if the Germans invaded, they would have to stop at the Curzon Line. Then the Polish Government would engage in negotiations and such.That's like saying "the Germans can invade Poland".


Quite funny coming from the person who wants us to move from Soviet social-imperialism to "Oh, well, what made the Soviets not socialist, huh?"It's hard to move from something that doesn't exist.


The Bolsheviks in battle against the Poles was not an imperialist action.And what leads you to that conclusion? Cause Shirley Temple told you so?

[Ismail]

:lol: A theory for which you refuse to provide an argument. Right. Until you provide the slightest support for "the topic at hand", you're grasping at straws and nothing more.It is assumed that both of us are working under the assumption that the USSR was state-capitalist, that way you can "refute" such arguments as I am putting forward. If not you can just continue to say "THE USSR WAS SOCIALIST IT COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN IMPERIALIST HOW DARE YOU" etc.


The Hoxhaist denial of history marches on. It wasn't "a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus", the party that was in control of Afghanistan wanted Soviet intervention almost without reservation. It wasn't an invasion if the Soviets were invited by a legitimate government, which they were.They were not. Amin did not want Soviet troops into the country, and certainly didn't want the KGB to kill him.


You keep ignoring this because anti-socialism is your game.Too bad the PDPA was busy killing socialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shola-y-Jaweid) in Afghanistan.


But go ahead. Tell me how Daoud's government was legitimate and the Saur Revolution wasn't. Why do you persist in ignoring the actions, words and policies of the PDPA? Giving a straight answer would lend a shred of honesty to your arguments, for a change.I never said that Daoud's government was particularly nice. Zahir Shah turned the country from a total monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in which revisionist and reformist parties like the Parcham could participate in. Daoud turned it into an autocracy.


It was only through the aid of the Soviet Union that the PDPA could survive against CIA-backed aggression.This isn't like Spain where the Fascists had a military superiority. The fact that the PDPA needed to become a puppet of the USSR to stay afloat against a people's rising* says a lot about the "legitimacy" of the "Saur Revolution."

* Does not include opportunist Mujahidin leaders.


Just like the Spanish Republic could only survive against Franco for as long as it did with Soviet aid (or was that imperialist too?). I'm not sure why you continue to end up on the CIA's end of things, but that's what keeps happening.The Soviet Union had nothing to do with Spain before then, unlike the Soviets of the 1970's who wanted to covet Afghanistan as a neo-colony.


Justify the word "neo-colony", or else you have no argument...just like your refusal to justify the term "social-imperialism". Keep dancing.As Enver Hoxha said in 1977:

... the Soviet Union has placed itself more inextricably in the clutches of American imperialism and world capitalism, by accepting immense foreign credits. Its agriculture is bankrupt and its industry likewise. By means of Comecon, in which it makes the law, the Soviet Union savagely exploits its satellites, while the aggressive Soviet army is gobbling up vast sums from the budget in order to turn into an army of the Hitlerite type by means of which it intends to dominate the world.And in 1982:

At present the United States of America and the Soviet Union are struggling to retain and extend their spheres of influence, to strengthen neo-colonialism. Local wars, which are incited by these two superpowers and their allies, are on the agenda today. Now there are many such hotbeds of local wars all over the world: in Africa, Asia, Central and Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere.
What do you call CIA support for the Mujaheddin, then? Anti-imperialist aid? Freedom money?Opportunism.


That's like saying "the Germans can invade Poland".No, it isn't. It was a guarantee that both the Polish State could survive an invasion and that the Germans could not pass the Curzon Line in the event of an invasion of Poland by Germany.


And what leads you to that conclusion?Because you can't read.

[khad]

They were not. Amin did not want Soviet troops into the country, and certainly didn't want the KGB to kill him.
The USSR spent much of that time begging Amin to release jailed Parchamis.

Amin murdered Taraki and usurped the office of president. He deserved every bit of retribution that was coming to him.

Too bad the PDPA was busy killing socialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shola-y-Jaweid) in Afghanistan.Who cares? They were marginal, and plenty of their members ended up being absorbed into Khalq and Parcham, which incidentally Amin was purging like a madman.

In the final analysis, the USSR's intervention saved more socialists from Amin's butchery.

Hoxhaists can take a however "principled" though irresponsible line on political realities simply because Albania was in no position to do anything that mattered.
For real countries, actions have consequences, and geopolitical reality will often mean getting one's hands dirty.

If Hoxhaites and Maoists weren't so keen on giving tacit and open support to the Mujahideen (China gave 400 million US in aid), they would have been finished in a couple of years and Afghanistan could have marched towards the path of socialism. The politically immature left has no right to show their face. They on "principle" shouted down the Afghan government when it was receiving assistance from the USSR, but then they on "principle" switched sides to support Dr. Najib when the Soviets left.

Instead of whining and backstabbing, would it have been too much to ask the "socialist world" to support the Afghan government in defeating the mercenaries of Western imperialism, so that Afghanistan wouldn't need Soviet intervention? Hell, they could have even competed for influence vis-a-vis the USSR in Afghanistan after the defeat of the insurgency.

Apparently for the politically immature and opportunist "left," it was too much to ask.

[Ismail]

The USSR spent much of that time begging Amin to release jailed Parchamis.Of course. The Parcham were the rightist and reformist grouping. The Khalq group which Amin belonged too at least carried out the 1978 coup.


Hoxhaists can take a however "principled" though an irresponsible line on political realities simply because Albania was in no position to do anything that mattered.Nice chauvinist position. This being the same Albania which successfully motioned to have the PRC admitted into the UN in 1972.


For real countries, actions have consequences, and geopolitical reality will often mean getting one's hands dirty.Albania enjoyed international scorn and isolation because of its stands. It's not like Hoxha just jotted down stuff in notebooks for his heirs to read 30 years later.


If Hoxhaites and Maoists weren't so keen on giving tacit and open support to the Mujahideen (China gave 400 million US in aid), they would have been finished in a couple of years and Afghanistan could have marched towards the path of socialism.Bull. Over 70% of the country had been in rebel hands by 1979. There was popular sentiment against the regime.

[manic expression]

It is assumed that both of us are working under the assumption that the USSR was state-capitalist, that way you can "refute" such arguments as I am putting forward. If not you can just continue to say "THE USSR WAS SOCIALIST IT COULD NOT HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN IMPERIALIST HOW DARE YOU" etc.
I assumed we were working under the assumption that you would support your position. I guess, on this, I was wrong.


They were not. Amin did not want Soviet troops into the country, and certainly didn't want the KGB to kill him.

Too bad the PDPA was busy killing socialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shola-y-Jaweid) in Afghanistan.
See above.


I never said that Daoud's government was particularly nice. Zahir Shah turned the country from a total monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in which revisionist and reformist parties like the Parcham could participate in. Daoud turned it into an autocracy.
So you're going to sidestep this as well, I see. Are you or are you not going to deny the legitimacy of the Saur Revolution? It's quite a simple question.


This isn't like Spain where the Fascists had a military superiority. The fact that the PDPA needed to become a puppet of the USSR to stay afloat against a people's rising* says a lot about the "legitimacy" of the "Saur Revolution."

* Does not include opportunist Mujahidin leaders.
Then that "people's rising" doesn't include much of anyone, because the opportunist CIA assets were the driving force behind the whole thing, certainly the threat as seen by the Soviet Union. And the PDPA was losing military superiority as the CIA entered the scenario.


The Soviet Union had nothing to do with Spain before then, unlike the Soviets of the 1970's who wanted to covet Afghanistan as a neo-colony.
Of course they had to do with Spain before then. The PCE was a member of the Comintern and one of the leading members of the Spanish Republican government. You keep throwing around neo-colony without giving an ounce of thought to the matter.


... the Soviet Union has placed itself more inextricably in the clutches of American imperialism and world capitalism, by accepting immense foreign credits. Its agriculture is bankrupt and its industry likewise. By means of Comecon, in which it makes the law, the Soviet Union savagely exploits its satellites, while the aggressive Soviet army is gobbling up vast sums from the budget in order to turn into an army of the Hitlerite type by means of which it intends to dominate the world.
:lol: This is rich. So the Soviet Union is "Hitlerite" because they devoted part of the budget to the military. Oh, and since they take on credits, they're capitalist. Genius stuff. Too bad it doesn't prove anything.


Opportunism.
Precisely, that's why the Soviet Union aided the PDPA against it. Why do you have a problem with this?


No, it isn't. It was a guarantee that both the Polish State could survive an invasion and that the Germans could not pass the Curzon Line in the event of an invasion of Poland by Germany.
Which means they could invade Poland.


Because you can't read.
Not Hoxha's stuff, not really.

[manic expression]

Nice chauvinist position. This being the same Albania which successfully motioned to have the PRC admitted into the UN in 1972.
How very revolutionary.


Bull. Over 70% of the country had been in rebel hands by 1979. There was popular sentiment against the regime.
Sure there was "popular sentiment", in Langley, VA. I'm sure you'll criticize the Spanish Republic, too, seeing as how quickly Franco's forces took over large portions of the country.

[bie]

By the way - is it the Hoxaist statement?
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n2/ucpa.htm (This is an excerpt from an article which was written for the United Communist Party of Albania. Courtesy ‘Alliance’ No. 40.). I am surprised to find there statements like:


The Albanian Communists greeted the NATO-attack on the side of the liberator Albanians of Kosova without feeding illusions about the imperialist powers. They are free from the responsibilities that rest on the shoulders of those who denied the Albanian national question of the divided territories and their population. We consider now the first step is to denounce these treaties that made this criminal parcelling. On contrary we have the right to think that this pro-KLA line, was done only for another aim that has its origin in an expansionist imperialism. (...) Long live the immortal work of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Enver!

How can we understand that?

[khad]

Albania enjoyed international scorn and isolation because of its stands. It's not like Hoxha just jotted down stuff in notebooks for his heirs to read 30 years later.
Thanks for proving my point. Political immaturity and irresponsibility is possible for those with no responsibility.


Bull. Over 70% of the country had been in rebel hands by 1979. There was popular sentiment against the regime.By that degenerated logic, the Bolsheviks should have just given up, because they only initially controlled a few cities and regions. And they embroiled the country in a civil war that killed millions.

Likewise, the same with Mao and the Chinese Communists, who at one point were reduced to pretty much their outpost in Yenan.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Amin did not want Soviet troops into the country, and certainly didn't want the KGB to kill him.

Amin was a CIA collaborator who carried out his own military coup in order to prevent fuller alignment with the Soviets.

Khad, thanks for naming Taraki. I forgot his name. :(


They were marginal, and plenty of their members ended up being absorbed into Khalq and Parcham, which incidentally Amin was purging like a madman.

In the final analysis, the USSR's intervention saved more socialists from Amin's butchery.

Yes, I think these were the specific purges that caused Amin to invoke Stalin in his response to the Soviets.

In the "final analysis," the Hoxhaists are in the same camp as pretentious Third Campists and worse elements such as the Cliffites of the 1980s.

[Ismail]

How very revolutionary.It was a response to a chauvinist "Albania is irrelevant to mankind" statement.


I'm sure you'll criticize the Spanish Republic, too, seeing as how quickly Franco's forces took over large portions of the country.Except up until the aid of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany kicked in, the Republic was winning.


How can we understand that?Simple: Kosovo is Albanian.


Thanks for proving my point. Political immaturity and irresponsibility is possible for those with no responsibility.Hoxha was in touch with plenty of Communists worldwide. He did have responsibility.


By that degenerated logic, the Bolsheviks should have just given up, because they only initially controlled a few cities and regions. And they embroiled the country in a civil war that killed millions.The Soviets grew from those few cities and regions. The puppet government of Afghanistan went from controlling pretty much all of the country at least to a moderate extent to controlling less than 30% within the course of a year.


Amin was a CIA collaborator who carried out his own military coup in order to prevent fuller alignment with the Soviets.There is zero evidence for this.

[bie]

Simple: Kosovo is Albanian.
Should I understand that you express support for the NATO invasion on Yugoslavia and to KLA? Are you aware that KLA during ethnic cleansing in Kosovo were killing native Serb population for the organ-trafficking? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_organ_theft).

[Ismail]

Should I understand that you express support for the NATO invasion on Yugoslavia and to KLA? Are you aware that KLA during ethnic cleansing in Kosovo were killing native Serb population for the organ-trafficking? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_organ_theft).The Serbs were killing ethnic Albanians as part of their fascist-like "Greater Serbia."

We are against the KLA and NATO, but we do support the independence of Kosovo (or a union with Albania), and Hoxha advocated it being reunited with Albania if the people of Kosovo voted on it in a referendum. The problem is that Kosovo is (right now) an American neo-colony.

[manic expression]

It was a response to a chauvinist "Albania is irrelevant to mankind" statement.
It's hardly chauvinist to point out how Hoxha was irrelevant.


Except up until the aid of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany kicked in, the Republic was winning.
Your misunderstandings of history aside, that's just like how the PDPA had control of the country until your buddies at Langley decided to submarine them and fund the reactionaries. Thanks for proving my point.


Hoxha was in touch with plenty of Communists worldwide. He did have responsibility.
:lol: Once again, how revolutionary.


There is zero evidence for this.
He was trying to gain American and Pakistani support. What more evidence do you need to know what stuff he was made of?

[manic expression]

The Serbs were killing ethnic Albanians as part of their fascist-like "Greater Serbia."

We are against the KLA and NATO, but we do support the independence of Kosovo (or a union with Albania), and Hoxha advocated it being reunited with Albania if the people of Kosovo voted on it in a referendum. The problem is that Kosovo is (right now) an American neo-colony.
So you're not going to answer a very simple question. Again. Noted.

[Ismail]

It's hardly chauvinist to point out how Hoxha was irrelevant.You could tell that the MLLT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLLT) in Ethiopia, or the Ecuadorian Communists, or the Red Flag Party (which in the 1970's had an insurrection which Señor Chávez helped put down), or the Malian Communists, etc.

Adopting a "Hah, Albania" attitude is chauvinist.


Your misunderstandings of history aside, that's just like how the PDPA had control of the country until your buddies at Langley decided to submarine them and fund the reactionaries. Thanks for proving my point.Not at all. The Spanish Republic was winning the war. The Afghan regime was losing its war. The Afghan regime had military superiority over the rebels, the Spanish Republic did not. "A Soviet writer later stated by that the end of 1979 armed insurgency had broken out in 18 of the country's 29 provinces. The trend... pointed to a loss of control over the countryside." Even the Soviets said that Afghanistan pre-invasion was on "the verge of disintegration." (Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation, p. 41.)


He was trying to gain American and Pakistani support. What more evidence do you need to know what stuff he was made of?Having ties with the US (or pro-US states) means that a leader is CIA? Well, besides this making Hoxha a "CIA agent" (Albania had more active trade with West Europe than the Eastern Bloc in the 1980's), it'd also make Angola a land wherein every government official belonged to the CIA.

"When the Portuguese left in 1975, Gulf Oil Company had refused to abandon its offshore platforms in the Cabinda region. A contract with the MPLA government was arranged... President José Eduardo dos Santos assigned squads of Cuban soldiers to guarantee the safety of Gulf and the other Western oil giants based in Luanda, including Chevron's new office tower [on the Avenida Lenin]. And thus, Angola became the only place in the world where Cuban troops, supposedly sworn to the destruction of capitalism, were protecting U.S. multinational oil companies against attacks from U.S.-backed guerrillas."
(Tom Zoellner. The Heartless Stone: a Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2006. p. 180.)

[manic expression]

You could tell that the MLLT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLLT) in Ethiopia, or the Ecuadorian Communists, or the Red Flag Party (which in the 1970's had an insurrection which Señor Chávez helped put down), or the Malian Communists, etc.

Adopting a "Hah, Albania" attitude is chauvinist.
Echoes of the ultra-leftist denial. Your tendency has been irrelevant outside of Albania. It's about time you got used to it.


Not at all. The Spanish Republic was winning the war. The Afghan regime was losing its war.
This is false. The Republic was getting rolled up until the fascists got to Madrid. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.


Having ties with the US (or pro-US states) means that a leader is CIA? Well, besides this making Hoxha a "CIA agent" (Albania had more active trade with West Europe than the Eastern Bloc in the 1980's), it'd also make Angola a land wherein every government official belonged to the CIA.
No, but being on the CIA's side of things makes you on the side of the CIA. It's quite self-explanatory.


"When the Portuguese left in 1975, Gulf Oil Company had refused to abandon its offshore platforms in the Cabinda region. A contract with the MPLA government was arranged... President José Eduardo dos Santos assigned squads of Cuban soldiers to guarantee the safety of Gulf and the other Western oil giants based in Luanda, including Chevron's new office tower [on the Avenida Lenin]. And thus, Angola became the only place in the world where Cuban troops, supposedly sworn to the destruction of capitalism, were protecting U.S. multinational oil companies against attacks from U.S.-backed guerrillas."
So now you're an apologist for apartheid's foreign policy. Cool.

[Ismail]

Echoes of the ultra-leftist denial. Your tendency has been irrelevant outside of Albania. It's about time you got used to it.Apparently so irrelevant that the FARC attends meetings hosted by them, and they win seats in legislatures. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_Popular_Democr%C3%A1tico) So irrelevant that they participate in the Malian Government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malian_Party_of_Labor). There are various cases of Hoxhaist groups in the 80's and 90's winning seats and waging guerrilla war, too.

More relevant than your crypto-Trot group could ever be.


This is false. The Republic was getting rolled up until the fascists got to Madrid. You obviously don't know what you're talking about.Apparently you disagree with Landis' assessment of the situation.

As early as the 22nd of July, 1936, a first reckoning of the fight between the people and the Fascist-Military could be made. The strategic provisions of the plan, as elaborated by the Africanist Generals, had failed in its basic points.

They had failed utterly to seize the fleet which meant that only a small portion of the Army of Africa could be transferred to the mainland.

In Santander, Euzkadi and Levante—areas where easy victories had been contemplated—the opposite was the case.

Of the four columns the Fascist-Military had hoped to launch against Madrid, only two had materielized; those of Valladolid and Navarre. Both of these were contained in the Sierra.

The Africanist Generals were victims of their own propaganda. Having nothing but contempt for the people; having accepted too the spectacle of disorders, dissention and confusion given them by certain republican leaders—they had simply disregarded the people as any serious force in their plans for rebellion.

And all had been brought to naught.

The Rebels were now isolated within three zones of Spain. The Protectorate of Morocco, a section of Andalucía, describing an arc from La Línea to Córdoba, inclusive of Cádiz, Seville and Granada, and the north of Old Castile—Navarre, León and Galicia. It was separated from the south by approximately two hundred kilometers at its narrowest point.

The rebels controlled a territory of 175,000 square kilometers. The Government more than 350,000, with a population more than triple that of those in the Fascist zone.

The popular forces occupied the principal mountain passes on the French border, and the greater part of the Mediterranean littoral, from El Cabo de Cruez to Málaga. Loyal to the Republic too were the principal industrial zones of Euzkadi, Catalonia, Asturias, Levante etc. In respect to agriculture the Government controlled the best. The huertas of Valencia and Murcia, and the great wheat zones of La Mancha and Estremadura.

And though the Cantabrian terrain of the Republic had been isolated from the rest of loyal Spain, the general situation of the republican forces was, without a doubt, more favorable than that of the Fascists.

A brief glance at the map will show us that, in effect, on one side was industrial Spain of the great political, cultural and economic centers wherein the greatest influence was that of the organized working classes, and on the other was backward Spain. This was the Spain of a feudal, agricultural economy, where the wretched peasants and villagers were dominated completely by the great landowners, the latifundists, and the church.Etc.


No, but being on the CIA's side of things makes you on the side of the CIA. It's quite self-explanatory.The charge was that Amin was a CIA agent. There is no proof of this, and there's no proof of him being "on the side of the CIA" either.


So now you're an apologist for apartheid's foreign policy. Cool.Well, UNITA was at least against social-imperialism. It sold itself out in the 1980's (and paid for that in the 90's when the US promptly dumped it and the CIA tried to kill Savimbi), but it had a good thing going in the 60's and 70's.

[manic expression]

Apparently so irrelevant that the FARC attends meetings hosted by them, and they win seats in legislatures. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movimiento_Popular_Democr%C3%A1tico) So irrelevant that they participate in the Malian Government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malian_Party_of_Labor). There are various cases of Hoxhaist groups in the 80's and 90's winning seats and waging guerrilla war, too.
Yes, that's pretty relevant. Having actual communists attend your meetings and being part of a government are all tell-tale signs of true revolutionaries...just ask every reformist organization in Europe. :lol:


More relevant than your crypto-Trot group could ever be.
Learn the first thing about the American left, then call me. Until then, keep dreaming.


Apparently you disagree with Landis' assessment of the situation.
Etc.
No, I disagree with your inventive interpretation of Landis' assessment. What do you call the capture of Ferrol? Of Irun? Of San Sebastian? Of Toledo? A string of Republican victories? The fascists got to the gates of Madrid by November 1936. Please tell me how the Republicans were winning at that point.


The charge was that Amin was a CIA agent. There is no proof of this, and there's no proof of him being "on the side of the CIA" either.
Of course there is. On the latter, he was murdering the PDPA for his own personal aims. On the former, he was collaborating with the US. What more evidence do you need? Oh, I forgot that you don't care about all that.


Well, UNITA was at least against social-imperialism. It sold itself out in the 1980's (and paid for that in the 90's when the US promptly dumped it and the CIA tried to kill Savimbi), but it had a good thing going in the 60's and 70's.
:rolleyes: UNITA was collaborating with the SADF in the 1970's. Thanks for admitting yourself to be a friend of apartheid. Here's a hint: sucking up to racists isn't what revolutionaries are supposed to do.

[khad]

Not at all. The Spanish Republic was winning the war. The Afghan regime was losing its war.
So I guess the moment a government holds less than 50% of a country, it automatically forefits its right to exist? :rolleyes:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Spanish_Civil_War_August_September_1936.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Spanish_Civil_War_August_September_1936.png)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Octubre_1937.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Octubre_1937.png)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Spanish_Civil_War_November_1938.png (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Spanish_Civil_War_November_1938.png)

Just like the Afghan anti-revisionists in the ALO joining up with Hekmatyar, tell me, when will you have pulled out support for the Spanish republicans and joined up with the fascists on the grounds of fascism representing the "will of the people?"

[khad]

And another thing about accusations of chauvinist attitudes. Hoxhaites have no right to even mention chauvinism except when talking about themselves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#Evolution_under_the_People.27 s_Republic_of_Albania_.281945-1991.29


Enver Hoxha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha) had declared[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-One_World_Divisible_2001.2C_page_233-3)
"the only religion would be "Albanianism"

In Communist Albania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Albania), an Illyrian origin of the Albanians (without denying Pelasgian roots[28] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-schwandner2-27) a theory which has been revitalized today[24] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-European_Cultures_2009-23)) continued to play a significant role in Albanian nationalism,[29] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-28) resulting in a revival of given names suppposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with Christianity. At first, Albanian nationalist writers opted for the Pelasgians as the forefathers of the Albanians, but as this form of nationalism flourished in communist Albania under Enver Hoxha, the Pelasgians became a secondary element[28] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-schwandner2-27) to the Illyrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrians) theory of Albanian origins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_origins), which could claim some support in scholarship.[30] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-29) The Illyrian descent theory soon became one of the pillars of Albanian nationalism, especially because it could provide some evidence of continuity of an Albanian presence both in Kosovo and in southern Albania, i.e., areas that were subject to ethnic conflicts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_conflict) between Albanians, Serbs and Greeks.[31] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-30). Under the regime of Enver Hoxha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha), an autochthonous ethnogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnogenesis)[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7) was promoted and physical anthropologists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologists)[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7) tried to demonstrate that Albanians were different from any other Indo-European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans)[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-31) Communist-era Albanian archaeologists claimed[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7) that ancient Greek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek) poleis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poleis), gods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods), ideas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas), culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture) and prominent personalities were wholly Illyrian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian) (example Pyrrhus of Epirus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus)[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-32)Epirus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epirus_%28region%29)[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-33).).They claimed that the Illyrians were the most ancient people[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7)[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-34) in the Balkans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans) and greatly extended the age of the Illyrian language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrian_language).[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7)[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-35) This is continued in post-communist Albania[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7) and has spread to Kosovo. populations, a theory now disproved. and the region of [8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7)[37] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-36) Nationalist theories developed during communism have survived largely intact into the present day.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_nationalism#cite_note-Michael_L._Galary_page_8-17-7)No wonder the Hoxhaite line on Kosovo is such utter shit.

[Astinilats]

To quote someone from the CMKP (Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party) of Pakistan:

“…unlike the Maoists and Hoxhaists, we do not subscribe to the view that a communist leader has to be correct on every single question every single time in order for us to consider him/her a Marxist-Leninist. Lenin’s attitude towards Rosa Luxemberg is very instructive on this issue…Lenin upheld that Rosa was an “Eagle” (that is a great Marxist leader) because despite her mistakes her overall contributions were great and perhaps most importantly because she fought and gave her life against the most important question of her time: The World War. On this crucial question Rosa and Karl Liebnecht struggled against the opportunism of the second international that supported imperialism under the slogan of “defence of the fatherland”…

Both Maoism and Hoxhaism uphold that when the “leadership” of a socialist state falls into the hands of revisionists the socialist state becomes a capitalist state. That was the basis upon which it was asserted that the Soviet Union was capitalist after the death of Stalin. Similarly, it was the basis upon which it was asserted that China was capitalist after the death of Mao (or the defeat of the so-called Gang of Four and Lin Piao).”

“I do not agree with the Maoist assessment of Hoxha nor with the Hoxhaism assessment of Mao! They both seem to have lost the wood for the trees in my opinion. I simultaneously reject the “Three World’s Theory” which in my opinion was never a serious theory of revolution but merely China’s foreign policy touted as a theory.

I also bitterly criticize the support that the Communist Party of China gave to Afghan Mujahideen, Pinochet, and UNITA. This was a disastrous policy decision.
What I agree with in the context of the great work of Mao Tse-Tung and Enver Hoxha are the excellent critiques they presented of Khrushchev’s revisionism in the early 1960s.

In the final analysis what we must take from Mao and Hoxha are their critiques of modern revisionism while rejecting their ultra-leftist errors or the ultra-leftist errors made in their name (especially those arising from the ridiculous theory of Soviet Social Imperialism).

The pro-Soviet parties have to wake up and realize that the Soviet Union was destroyed because of the opportunist policies undertaken under the rhetoric of de-Stalinization. The anti-revisionists have to get over their ultra-leftist errors. Only by correcting both revisionism as well as ultra-leftism can a Marxist-Leninist party be built up that can lead the world proletariat to victory.”

[Kléber]

Just like the Afghan anti-revisionists in the ALO joining up with Hekmatyar, tell me, when will you have pulled out support for the Spanish republicans and joined up with the fascists on the grounds of fascism representing the "will of the people?"
Hekmatyar was the one who had ALO founder Faiz Ahmad and his comrades assassinated. Also, people from all factions of the PDPA and the Afghan left wound up with Mujahideen. The wave of purges conducted by KhAD under Khalqi and Parchami leadership were in effect a mini-civil war within the DRA that demoralized its defenders. Kinda like the Spanish Civil War, except most of the defections were by fascists in that one. Franco had to capture his T-26's, Hekmatyar had Soviet armor defecting into his lap.

IIRC the Afghan Maoists and Hoxhaists didn't choose to get forced out into the countryside and into conflict with the state, they came under attack in the repression that accompanied the 1979 Soviet invasion.

[khad]

The pro-Soviet parties have to wake up and realize that the Soviet Union was destroyed because of the opportunist policies undertaken under the rhetoric of de-Stalinization. The anti-revisionists have to get over their ultra-leftist errors. Only by correcting both revisionism as well as ultra-leftism can a Marxist-Leninist party be built up that can lead the world proletariat to victory.”
Ideally.

However, if the gun were to my head and I had to choose between revisionists and imperialist collaborators, I'd take my revisionist poison.


Hekmatyar was the one who had ALO founder Faiz Ahmad and his comrades assassinated. Also, people from all factions of the PDPA and the Afghan left wound up with Mujahideen.

Besides, the Afghan Maoists and Hoxhaists didn't choose to get forced out into the countryside and into conflict with the state.
Plenty of Afghan leftists joined up with the PDPA during the 1980s. The party ranks grew, not shrank, for much of the conflict. Lots of Afghan leftists didn't commit to wage jihad from the countryside, but these particular wreckers in the ALO did.

Ahmad getting killed by Hekmatyar was if anything well-deserved. Anyone who challenges revisionism by taking up arms for imperialists deserves everything that comes down on their heads.

[Kléber]

Plenty of Afghan leftists joined up with the PDPA during the 1980s. The party ranks grew, not shrank, for much of the conflict.
Sure, the Parchamis incorporated all kinds of soft and wavering petty-bourgeois elements into the PDPA in their "reconciliation" plan to build Islamic market socialism, while brutally purging the hard Khalqi core, the actual military vanguard of the party, who had carried out the Saur Revolution and had a solid majority in the party until the Soviet Army slaughtered their leaders, up to and including the President, and forced the rest into submission.

No government could have survived the resulting demoralization and defection of swaths of its army to the rebel camps. It's a testament to clout of the sectarian revisionist butcher in your avatar that the DRA lasted as long as it did. But the Soviet bureaucracy is ultimately to blame for putting its own interests above those of the Afghan people and the international workers' movement, and thus compromising the struggle against US imperialism and setting the workers back by decades.

[khad]

Sure, the Parchamis incorporated all kinds of soft and wavering petty-bourgeois elements into the PDPA in their "reconciliation" plan to build Islamic market socialism, while brutally purging the hard Khalqi core, the actual military vanguard of the party, who had carried out the Saur Revolution and had a solid majority in the party until the Soviet Army slaughtered their leaders, up to and including the President, and forced the rest into submission.
Actually, check your history.

Amin was purging both Parchamis AND Khalqis, since Khalqis were the main faction behind Taraki, whom the bastard assassinated. The Soviet intervention saved Khalqis and Parchamis alike.

What the Soviet intervention accomplished was a truce within the Afghan government. The violent purging of Amin's generation was replaced by power sharing agreements. Parchamis dominated the civilian government, but the Khalqis had much of the military and continued to have much of the military up until the very end.

Also, I would like to add that the Soviet read on the Khalqis' ultraleft tendencies was absolutely correct, considering the fact that a number of major Khalq leaders defected into the Taliban--one of them was #3 in the Taliban at one point.

[Kléber]

Amin was purging both Parchamis AND Khalqis, since Khalqis were the main faction behind Taraki, whom the bastard assassinated. The Soviet intervention saved Khalqis and Parchamis alike.
Taraki had also done his fair share of purges. Whatever was going on it was the Afghans' business to settle amongst themselves without a foreign army coming in, shooting the President and saying "actually, we like those guys."

Saying that the Soviet installation of a Parchami dictatorship "saved" people is a dubious hypothetical claim akin to the argument that the United States "had to act" in [insert country here] to save the people from their own bad government.


What the Soviet intervention accomplished was a truce within the Afghan government. The violent purging of Amin's generation was replaced by power sharing agreements. Parchamis dominated the civilian government, but the Khalqis had much of the military and continued to have much of the military up until the very end.Can you clarify for the definition of much? Grumbling Khalqis were tolerated for their military experience, but the majority faction was still replaced by a foreign invasion.


Also, I would like to add that the Soviet read on the Khalqis' ultraleft tendencies was absolutely correct, considering the fact that a number of major Khalq leaders defected into the Taliban--one of them was #3 in the Taliban at one point.The 1990 coup was definitely ultraleft, but Najib's national reconciliation program was an epic failure itself with defections left and right. The Khalqi officers switched sides because they were being marginalized while the government was pampering the shadow of the liberal Islamic bourgeoisie. The right-wing deviation of the Parchamis, their arrogance encouraged by Soviet arms, provoked the defections.

EDIT: Thanks for the negrep ^_^

[Ismail]

Yes, that's pretty relevant. Having actual communists attend your meetings and being part of a government are all tell-tale signs of true revolutionaries...just ask every reformist organization in Europe. :lol:I guess the Parcham wasn't revolutionary either, then (it actually wasn't, it was absolutely reformist). It participated in the parliament under the King, while the Khalq were arrested and/or driven into hiding. The Parchami continuously took rightist lines on every issue.

At least the MPD is a electoral front for a party which is still technically illegal, and the MPD's Presidential candidate was assassinated by pro-government agents in 1999. That and they don't take right-wing lines.


No, I disagree with your inventive interpretation of Landis' assessment. What do you call the capture of Ferrol? Of Irun? Of San Sebastian? Of Toledo? A string of Republican victories? The fascists got to the gates of Madrid by November 1936. Please tell me how the Republicans were winning at that point.The point was that the Republic was actually popular and that the people were willing to defend it themselves.


Of course there is. On the latter, he was murdering the PDPA for his own personal aims. On the former, he was collaborating with the US. What more evidence do you need?I need evidence of:

A. Amin "collaborating" with the US and;
B. Amin being a CIA agent.


UNITA was collaborating with the SADF in the 1970's. Thanks for admitting yourself to be a friend of apartheid. Here's a hint: sucking up to racists isn't what revolutionaries are supposed to do.He was forced to collaborate with the SADF because the MPLA was collaborating with Soviet social-imperialism. Savimbi himself said this in the 1970's, saying something to the effect of, "They can't criticize us."


No wonder the Hoxhaite line on Kosovo is such utter shit.Apparently our line is based on Albanian anthropology and cultural analysis from the 1940's-80's, and not on a basic analysis of self-determination. News to me.

[khad]

Taraki had also done his fair share of purges. Whatever was going on it was the Afghans' business to settle amongst themselves without a foreign army coming in, shooting the President and saying "actually, we like those guys."
His fair share of purges that were in fact orchestrated in large part by Amin. He was the hardliner behind the throne, so to speak. In fact Taraki acted as an intermediary for requests to release jailed Parchamis, but Amin kept dragging his feet and eventually murdered Taraki to begin his wholescale destruction of the PDPA.


Saying that the Soviet installation of a Parchami dictatorship "saved" people is a dubious hypothetical claim akin to the argument that the United States "had to act" in [insert country here] to save the people from their own bad government.Saving it from a murderous usurper that threatened to destroy the PDPA, Khalq and Parcham alike--I'm willing to live with the consequences of that.


Can you clarify for the definition of much? Grumbling Khalqis were tolerated for their military knowledge, but the majority faction was still replaced by a foreign invasion.Your ignorance of history does nothing to make your argument convincing. Khalqis formed a major part of Dr. Najib's support because he was in fact opposed by the majority of Parcham. Khalqis were the only reason why he was able to become president. You make it seem like Khalqis were enslaved or something--clearly they still had a lot of make or break power in Afghan politics.


How's sending 500 soldiers into the President's house to rub him out for "ultraleft?"A murderous traitor deserved what he got.


The 1990 coup was definitely ultraleft, but Najib's national reconciliation program was an epic failure with defections left and right. The Khalqis left because they were being marginalized while the government was pampering the shadow of the liberal Islamic bourgeoisie.Actually, those mujahids invited into the government under the reconciliation plan were kept under the government's thumb. It wasn't like they had any real power. They were the ones being marginalized, and that's why most of the mujahideen continued to fight. However, it was a deft PR maneuver, because even today Afghans will talk about Najibullah the man of peace and the bestial ashrars who didn't want it. It still works to undermine the legitimacy of the mujahideen.


The right-wing deviation of the Parchamis, their arrogance encouraged by Soviet arms, provoked Khalqi ultraleftism.The right-wing deviation of the MPLA, their arrogance encouraged by Soviet arms, provoked UNITA ultraleftism. :rolleyes:


He was forced to collaborate with the SADF because the MPLA was collaborating with Soviet social-imperialism. Savimbi himself said this in the 1970's, saying something to the effect of, "They can't criticize us."


EDIT: Thanks for the negrep ^_^If you weren't such a troll, I'd be posrepping you.

[Kléber]

His fair share of purges that were in fact orchestrated in large part by Amin.
Amin would have wanted to kill both of us, but it was the Afghan people's business to throw him out. Even so, a Khalqi regime might have won the civil war whereas the Soviet invasion was doomed from the start.


Saving it from a murderous usurper that threatened to destroy the PDPA, Khalq and Parcham alike--I'm willing to live with the consequences of that.The purges of Babrak Karmal (who, having been expelled in 1978, was not even a party member when the Soviet military returned him from exile and placed him in power) destroyed the PDPA leadership, replaced them with quislings handpicked by Moscow and even a couple old monarchist officials from Daud Khan's regime.
From Afghanistan's Two-Party Communism by Anthony Arnold:
"At least six Central Committee members who spanned Taraki's and Amin's administrations (Amin himself, Jauzjani, Hashemi, Katawazi, Misaq, Wali, and Waziri - over a third of the identified members of Taraki's Central Committee) give mute but convincing evidence of their oposition to Babrak - all died or disappeared when he took over. Earlier, when Amin seized power, he dismissed those whose loyalty he doubted and packed the expanded committee (now 31 members) with men he trusted, apparently erring in only two cases. (The personal committment of Amin to Guldad and Noorzai, who survived to serve in Babrak's Central Committee, must be suspect). The political careers of no fewer than seventeen other identified Central Committee members under Amin terminated abruptly with the death of their leader. Together with the holdovers from Taraki's regime who also vanished, the committee's political casualty list came to over 75 percent."


You make it seem like Khalqis were enslaved or something--clearly they still had a lot of make or break power in Afghan politics.Arnold again:
"The network of Parchami allegiances and organization remained intact, abetted by some crypto-Parchami independents, whereas Khalq had been decapitated organizationally first by Amin's purge of pro-Taraki elements and then by the Babrak-Soviet eliminations of leading Amin supporters. Those few Khalqis who retained top-level party or state positions were not organized and had to tread very softly, currying favor with personal and professional Soviet contacts and counting on Khalq's numerical superiority in the party to force some decree of Parchami accomodation."


They were the ones being marginalized, and that's why most of the mujahideen continued to fight. However, it was a deft PR maneuver, because even today Afghans will talk about Najibullah the man of peace and the bestial ashrars who didn't want it. It still works to undermine the legitimacy of the mujahideen.The memory of the Soviet invasion "works" wonders to undermine the legitimacy of socialism.


The right-wing deviation of the MPLA, their arrogance encouraged by Soviet arms, provoked UNITA ultraleftism. :rolleyes:Collaborating with the SADF or the Mujahideen was simply opportunist, but so is whitewashing and apologizing for the failed course of the MPLA or PDPA for emotional comfort. If the Soviet bureaucracy and its satellites were so great, what's your materialist explanation for why they capitulated?


If you weren't such a troll, I'd be posrepping you.Thanks but no thanks, keep your imaginary troll tokens.

[khad]

Arnold again:
"The network of Parchami allegiances and organization remained intact, abetted by some crypto-Parchami independents, whereas Khalq had been decapitated organizationally first by Amin's purge of pro-Taraki elements and then by the Babrak-Soviet eliminations of leading Amin supporters. Those few Khalqis who retained top-level party or state positions were not organized and had to tread very softly, currying favor with personal and professional Soviet contacts and counting on Khalq's numerical superiority in the party to force some decree of Parchami accomodation."
The fact that Khalqi support was crucial to Najibullah's presidency obviates this. Khalq retained a great deal of clout within the state up until the very end.

Then again, according to your source it was Amin who was responsible for starting this implosion of the Khalqi faction. And given what Amin did to all socialists in Afghanistan, it was absolutely necessary to marginalize his supporters. I don't see how this can even begin to be held against Karmal.


Collaborating with the SADF or the Mujahideen was simply opportunist, but so is whitewashing and apologizing for the failed course of the MPLA or PDPA for emotional comfort.
Somehow siding with apartheid and imperialists is morally equivalent in your mind to defending against them. Thank you for reminding me just how much of a failure ultraleftism is.

[Kléber]

The fact that Khalqi support was crucial to Najibullah's presidency obviates this. Khalq retained a great deal of clout within the state up until the very end.

Then again, according to your source it was Amin who was responsible for starting this implosion of the Khalqi faction. And given what Amin did to all socialists in Afghanistan, it was absolutely necessary to marginalize his supporters. I don't see how this can even begin to be held against Karmal.
Amin wasn't responsible for his own assassination and the purge of his supporters. After that wound the PDPA was bleeding to death despite the Soviets trying to hold up the corpse. As for Karmal he was a joke (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XENX0J9JcsI). It goes without saying that criticisms of Karmal are criticisms of Moscow.


Somehow siding with apartheid and imperialists is morally equivalent in your mind to defending against them. Thank you for reminding me just how much of a failure ultraleftism is.So the fact that you support the murder of Afghanistan's President and his supporters by a foreign invasion isn't "siding with imperialists?" Please. Blue imperialism can not be fought with red imperialism any more than fire can be fought with fire. The Soviet bureaucracy undermined the anti-imperialist struggles it led because it prioritized Soviet bureaucratic interests and trampled over workers and peoples it was supposed to be defending. The dialectical materialist analysis of history is not a debate over which military dictatorship was the most morally superior. Thank you for reminding me how tankies see the world.

[Zanthorus]

I love how majorly off-topic this thread has gotten. My original question was answered by the first four posts and there are now fifty three replies. Not that this debate isn't interesting :)

[Prairie Fire]

Okay, it has been requested that I get involved with this thread.

To address the initial question, yes, generally "Pan-Socialist" refers to tendencies that really don't differentiate between various socialists in various countries (or at least, are willing to over-look a lot), and generally throw their lot in with any organization or individuals that fly the red flag, regardless of political content and tangible actions and policies.

As far as Afghanistan, Czechoslavakia and other Soviet interventions are concerned, these interventions can not be defended except by accepting the premise of 'socialism via tank brigade', which is too common among Brezhnevites, Marcyites, etc, etc.

I think that the point that Ismail is trying to make about Afghanistan is what exactly was in Afghanistan that was worth defending, and who exactly were the Soviets defending it from?

I can remember having an argument with Manic expression at a previous time in regards to Mengistu's Ethiopia, where Manic Expression took the side of the Derg and Mengistu government.

Wether defending Ethiopia or Afghanistan, both of these thesis spring from erroneous concepts like

a.) Coup d'état and putsches are a viable means of establishing a socialist state
(as in Afghanistan and Ethiopia).

b.) Foriegn military intervention is a viable means of maintaining a socialist state


These notions that socialism can be imposed on a populace, and maintained by external force (economic, military,etc) run contrary to the most basic principles of what socialism is.

No one is denying the role of CIA aid, and US and Pakistani interference in Afghanistan.

No one is denying that the Saur 'revolution' was relatively progressive (compared to the previous status quo,); That said, it was a political coup. It was a palace putsch, not a 'revolution'.

This is where the root of the problem lies.

It would be a strawmyn argument to accuse us of cheerleading for the Mujahideen and CIA interests in Afghanistan. No one here is condoning the dissolution of the DRA, necesarilly. What we are calling for, is the dictatorship of the proletariat in Afghanistan, however, and the advocates of the Soviet intervention have yet to prove that the PDPA was it.

While some accuse Ismail of 'dancing' and refusing to clarify his position, I think that Brezhnevite/Marcyite position requires not only clarification but needs to be rationalized as well here:

a.) Was the Saur 'Revolution' an actual revolution (or was it a political coup)? If so, what was the class composition of said 'revolution'?

b.) Was the PDPA the dictatorship of the proletariat? Was this party the practical application of the political power of the working class in Afghanistan, or was it simply a rival faction of an exploiter class siezing political power for themselves?

c.) Were modes of economic exploitation abolished in the DRA?

d.) Who, exactly, where the Soviets protecting the state of the DRA from? How prominent were these forces, that the PDPA government couldn't deal with them themselves?

e.) If the PDPA was as popular as it is claimed to be, and the Saur 'revolution' was a genuine revolution of any kind (let alone a socialist/proletarian revolution), then where did these large numbers of oppostion among the Peasantry and working class in Afghanistan come from?

And, of course, the big one:

f.) Can socialism be imposed on a people, or does it have to be brought into being by the people?


That, of all questions, is something that needs to be clarified by Brezhenvites, Marcyites, and other advocates of 'Tank brigade' socialism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I never said anything about socialist economic revolution.


Coup d'état and putsches are a viable means of establishing a socialist state
(as in Afghanistan and Ethiopia)

You should read the "Brezhnevite" stuff on National-Democratic Revolution. I have an old thread on this, then posed the question "More Maoist than Mao: Brezhnev?"

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=434

The Afghan coup/putsch triggered a National-Democratic Revolution.


Foriegn military intervention is a viable means of maintaining a socialist state

The foreign military intervention was an attempt to save the National-Democratic Revolution in Afghanistan.

[khad]

<snip>
All Hoxhaism boils down to is some ultraleft rationalization of surrender and apathy. When Western imperialists attempt to conquer a nation by giving insurgent mercenaries billions of dollars of aid, you deny the right to self-defense through getting outside aid for oneself.

I see nothing here but disgusting self-serving opportunism. I know Hoxha's line on Afghanistan. He spent his time blasting the PDPA when they were locked in a death struggle with the agents of Western imperialism but then completely flipped around to support Dr. Najib once Soviet forces withdrew. If he was going to end up supporting Dr. Najib anyway, then why did he spend all those years trashing the Afghan government? I guess it is still too much to ask for some political maturity from an ultraleft tendency that ends up being Cliffism with a Stalin fetish.

My question still stands. When would you folks have pulled support from the Spanish Republic and joined up with the fascists? Clearly republicanism was failing even with foreign aid. Clearly fascism was where this mythical "people's movement" was at.

[Robocommie]

As I understand it, the premise of Hoxhaism is that after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's ascension, the Soviet Union became social-imperialist. Please correct me if I'm wrong, however, assuming I am correct, how does one address the fact that the Soviet Union essentially looted the industrial base of Eastern Bloc nations as reparations for the war?

[khad]

As I understand it, the premise of Hoxhaism is that after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's ascension, the Soviet Union became social-imperialist. Please correct me if I'm wrong, however, assuming I am correct, how does one address the fact that the Soviet Union essentially looted the industrial base of Eastern Bloc nations as reparations for the war?
How does one address the fact that the standard of living was higher in Eastern European satellite states than in the USSR, even down to the level of meat per capita consumption?

[Barry Lyndon]

Hoxahists are truly the ultra-Stalinists. For them, what makes a country socialist is not its stance against imperialism, not its property relations, not the workers control over the means of production, not its economy, not its alliances.

No. What makes a country 'socialist' is its fanatical adherence to Stalin. Worship of Stalin is truly the center of their politics.

Therefore, Hoxha, the arch-Stalinist of Eastern Europe, is the only 'true socialist' and Albania by extension was the only 'true socialist' country. The Soviet Union overnight became 'revisionist social-imperialist' because it denounced Stalin* and all the countries who went to the Soviet Union for help are by extension revisionist and/or 'neo-colonies'(for some reason, they didn't want to go to a piss-poor, tiny, isolated country on the Adriatic Sea run by a megalomaniac for aid, as opposed to a superpower. I wonder why......)

And now the Hoxhaists will descend on me like vultures.

*Yes I know you argument about the Lieberman reforms. You don't answer how any of that was different from the NEP, and why there was no resistance whatsoever from the Soviet people. Don't you think the overthrow of socialism would take more then a palace coup?

[Prairie Fire]

Okay, let's do this.

Manic Expression,

So far you have gone on the offensive against Ismail, baiting him as a supporter of Apartheid, a reformist (and, simultaneously an ultra-leftist :rolleyes:), on the side of the CIA, etc, etc.

What you have failed to do is rationalize your own position,

* that the Soviet occupation (let's be honest; it was an occupation) of Afghanistan was in the interests of socialism and/or in the interests of the people of Afghanistan

* that the PDPA was the party that represented the Afghan workers and Peasants

*that there even was socialism in Afghanistan, or that exploitation was being abolished

* that the Saur 'Revolution' was a revolution of any kind (national-liberation, bourgeois-democratic, socialist,etc), rather than a putsch accomplished by a political faction against another.


You can not rationalize your position, aside from callous real-politik to block the interests of American imperialism, and therefore deducing that the Soviets were the lesser of two evils.

In this version, the people of Afghanistan become props in their own liberation, rather than participants, who's only job is to support their enlightened liberators and coup government that claims the working class as the basis of it's authority.



http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif The "invasion of Czechoslovakia" stopped an ongoing counterrevolution.

A simplistic one sentence answer such as that raises the same questions.

* what was the (class) basis of this counter-revolution? What gave rise to it?

* why were the Czech forces unable to handle it themselves?

* were the counter-revolutionaries the majority among the population?

* can it acurrately be refered to as a counter-revolution in a country where no revolution has taken place?

* Can socialism be imposed via foriegn Tank brigades.

For someone who accuses others of dancing, you leave questions unanswered yourself, and run circles around them continuously.


The "invasion" of Afghanistan was not an invasion whatsoever, the USSR was responding to a request from the PDPA government for military assistance in the fight against CIA-backed reactionaries.


Even if this is 100% the case, you still dance around the issues:

* Was the PDPA the party of the Afghan working class? (Certainly there were other contenders, Like Shola-y-Jaweid, who may have had numerical superiority, and no-doubt were more politically advanced than the Putschist PDPA)

* So if a Putschist government, which came to power largely with the support of a foriegn power, 'invites' that foriegn power into their country to save their ass, does that change the objective nature of what is and what is not an 'invasion'?


* Is a coup d'état, completely side-lining the people, the way to enact any sort of political emancipation, wether it be nation-democratic, socialist, etc?



Remember the invasion(s) of Poland? I await your criticism of Lenin and Stalin for being "aggressive social-imperialists".

Actually, Ismail has dissected these things in detail, and he has made some criticisms.

In regards to Poland though, the situation is historically not the least bit similar. Poland went to war with the USSR prior to the Second World War, in 1919-1920. It invaded the USSR, and annexed territories in the Ukraine and Belarus.


The Soviet Army marched onto the territory of Poland only when the Polish state was in a condition of complete collapse. It marched onto the territories of the Ukraine and Byelorussia annexed by Poland during the Polish-Russian war of 1919-1920. The majority of the population inhabiting these territories were either Ukrainian or Byelorussian and relatively less were Polish. Of a total population of 13 million people, more than 7 million were Ukrainian, 3 million were Byelorussian, more than 1 million were of Jewish origin and 1 million were Poles. No doubt one of the reasons the former Polish state did not want to enter into a mutual assistance defence treaty with the Soviet Union is because the oppressed nationalities within their own borders would demand self-determination and their desire to be re-united with the Ukraine and Byelorussia. The London Government-in-exile never gave up trying to re-incorporate these territories, and Polish chauvinists today still complain about the “lost territories”.

Hardial Bains, 'On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by Germany under Adolph Hitler on September 1, 1939', a talk delivered in Montreal, Sept.1,1989.



Tell us all how socialism was "destroyed" in the Soviet Union at that time.

Well, following the rise of the Kruschev clique, all of the hall marks of Capitalism were re-introduced:

http://www.mltranslations.org/Ireland/ico.htm

For the sake of argument though, even if the USSR was still a socialist state, you still have yet to answer how one socialist state rolling their tanks into another state would result in socialism (or any sort of progress) for the state on the recieving end of a military invasion.


Until then, you have no argument.

:lol:.

Your point of view is in support of an enlightened occupation, coming to the aid of a government that was established by a coup d'état, and you claim that in the process of foriegn troops defending a putsch government, somehow the interests of the people are upheld?



It wasn't one request, there were many. And the PDPA, as a party, was appealing to the Soviet Union.

Round and round in circles we go, where we stop, no one knows.

Unlike the USSR, unlike Albania, unlike many other socialist, anti-imperialist, national-democratic and progressive countries, Afghanistan had no revolution.

Even if the PDPA were not Soviet Puppets (which is contrary to most evidence), the facts remains that they were a political party that came into power by side-lining the people.

The appeals of a putschist party don't necessarilly equal the appeals of the people who they in no way involved in their rise to power.


For those of you keeping score at home, the Hoxhaist position is in support of Shirley Temple and the CIA-backed Mujaheddin.

Yer eether fer us, or agin' us. :rolleyes:

Opposing the Soviet intervention/ Putshists and puppets =/= "supporting" the Mujahideen and a 30's American child film actor (What?).

As we continue to point out, there were other forces in Afghanistan, which had more clout with the people and were trying to build towards an actual revolution in Afghanistan.

This is the Hoxhaist position, refusing to choose the ' lesser of two evils' (three evils, if you include the Chinese). To call us 'ultra-left' for not picking sides between CIA funded feudalists and Soviet occupiers/ Afghan putschists is an attempt to avoid discussion of your own politics of enlightened occupation.

It is very unfortunate that the Binary "Soviet or American", "Warsaw Pact or NATO" pressures to support one camp or the other still exist.

As Marxist-Leninists, we stand for all power to the working class, not for the bipolar division of the world that was taking place during the cold war.

We also stand for national soveriegnty, and how much of a pretzel do you have to twist yourselves into before you can argue that "yes, foriegn military invasion and occupation in order to put down domestic reactionaries was the only way to preserve national soveriegnty in Afghanistan"?



What's your point? The PDPA was in full support of the Soviet intervention, that's why both factions were in support of the invitations.

Answer my previous questions about the legitimacy of the PDPA, instead of going around in circles about who-invited-who, Tankie.



Nevertheless, the USSR went into Afghanistan at the behest of the progressive government under siege by the CIA.

Progressive government, perhaps (relative to what previously existed).

That said though, was it the most progressive government possible? Was a coup government the best that Afghanistan had to offer?

Also, if the PDPA was truly the workers party, where were the masses of Afghan workers and peasants to protect them from an internal dispute with their domestic reactionaries?

Surely, in other revolutionary/progressive countries besieged by the CIA, the people come to the aid of their revolutionary government against local reactionaries and CIA agents.

Where were all of the masses that Putschists side-lined in their bid for power, come to defend those who rule in their name?



The US went into Vietnam at the behest of an illegitimate regime under siege by the workers.

Well, it may not have been the working class (in it's entirety) attacking the PDPA government, but other than that, as far as an imperialist power entering a country to defend an illigitemate government....



You figure out the difference, maybe Shirley Temple can help you out if you're having trouble.

lol, Wut?

http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Shirley/images9/gallery/shirley.jpg


(The Face of Evil)




They entered under the reality of defending the then-present government from the US and Pakistan. So you're dodging the issue again.


No, you are dodging the issue because the issue is what, exactly, was the government that they were defending from the reactionaries?

So far, from what I have gathered, it was a coup government that frequently murdered members of a more genuine socialist party.



So you're going to dodge this point once again. Answer my questions or stop wasting our time.


Pot. Kettle.


Making more stuff up, I see, just like your anti-Soviet friends over at Langley.

Again, this is that cold-war binary outlook. The old Kruschevites in Canada frequently used to accuse members of the CPC-ML of being "anti-Soviet".

No state is above and beyond criticism, and any revolutionary state worth their salt can stand up to scrutiny.


Here: imperialist-socialism. See, it's fun and easy to make up things that have nothing to do with reality. That's Hoxhaism in a nutshell.

Social-imperialism, unfortunately, is/was a very real concept.




The Hoxhaist denial of history marches on. It wasn't "a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus", the party that was in control of Afghanistan wanted Soviet intervention almost without reservation.


The "party that was in control of Afghanistan" =/= "a bunch of men in a legislature or party apparatus" ?

The point that we are trying to drive home is that it doesn't matter what the putschist government wanted. Their views did not represent the people; if they did, they wouldn't have had to come to power by coup.


It wasn't an invasion if the Soviets were invited by a legitimate government, which they were.

Okay, so you are taking the firm stand that a government established by coup d'état (no revolution, no elections, no popular legitimacy of any kind,) is the legitimate representation of the people.

A government who's base among the people is so strong that they made their bid for political power without them, and instituted themselves in office by their own hand without consultation.... This passes for a 'legitimate government', in your view?

Sheesh, then you go on to call us "anti-socialists" in the next sentence, when your program is to impose a political clique onto the working class.


You keep ignoring this because anti-socialism is your game.


Pot and Kettle, putchist.


Tell me how Daoud's government was legitimate and the Saur Revolution wasn't.

Again, that Binary, 'lesser evil' thinking.

We have to choose between putchists and other putchists, apparently. Revolution and working class political power, present in Afghanistan in some organizational incarnations at the time, is somehow not even an option on the table for discussion.



Why do you persist in ignoring the actions, words and policies of the PDPA? Giving a straight answer would lend a shred of honesty to your arguments, for a change.


Straight answer: Because the PDPA was a government established by military coup, not any sort of working class political actions.

The words, actions and policies of a putschist government mean little to nothing to revolutionaries.


It was only through the aid of the Soviet Union that the PDPA could survive against CIA-backed aggression.

You keep doing circles around the issue.

If the PDPA governement (or whichever revolutionary government ran Afghanistan) was not established by coup, do you think that it would have been possible for the party to actually have a mass base, and possibly counter domestic reactionaries themselves?

The CIA dropped guns in a lot of countries. In countries where there had actually been a revolution, the CIA wasn't as succesful.

You dance around the fact that the putchist governments (wether Daoud or PDPA) had no mass base to protect their new state from domestic reaction. For this reason is was "necessary" to call in the Soviets.


Just like the Spanish Republic could only survive against Franco for as long as it did with Soviet aid (or was that imperialist too?).

Again, you compare apples and oranges.

The Soviet aid to the Spanish was material. The Spanish Republic actually had a base of mass support among the people of Spain, so their primary challenges in beating back the fascists were material in nature (ie. armaments and war technologies).

If the PDPA had called to the Soviets for guns for their own masses of people to weild against domestic reactionaries, it would have been a different story. Instead, they had to call in Soviet soldiers because they had no base among the working class to defend them, because their government was established by putsch.


I'm not sure why you continue to end up on the CIA's end of things, but that's what keeps happening.


Either a benevolent Soviet military occupation and a government established by putsch or the CIA and feudalist Mujahideen. There is no other options on the table, and any discourse that involves an actual party that empowers the people of Afghanistan, or a revolutionary government established through actual revolution is forbidden.

Yer eether fer us or agin us.



Justify the word "neo-colony", or else you have no argument...just like your refusal to justify the term "social-imperialism".


I gave you a link that talks a bit about the re-surface of market and capitalist mechanisms in the USSR under the Kruschev clique.

As for Neo-Colony, Ismail gave you a fantastic example of how Cuba was specialized into Sugar production (which really screwed them when the USSR ceased to exist), and dependent on the USSR for finished goods and manufcturing.

This is the basic colonial model. Raw materials are extracted from the colony, they go to mother country, and the colony then becomes a captive market for finished goods from the mother country.



Keep dancing.


Do I need to go there? What hasn't been said?



What do you call CIA support for the Mujaheddin, then? Anti-imperialist aid? Freedom money?


Ismail said that he was unaware of any US or Pakistani military invasion of Afghanistan, not financing of proxies.

You continue to be completely unable to break out of the "Soviet of American" paradigm.




And what leads you to that conclusion? Cause Shirley Temple told you so?


Keep repeating the Shirley Temple line. Apparently, some how, that is a more scathing indictment than being accused of being one and the same with the Mujahideen and and CIA.



Are you or are you not going to deny the legitimacy of the Saur Revolution? It's quite a simple question.

You are controlling the parametres of this "simple question"; a better starting point for the question would be "was the Saur 'revolution' a revolution? ".



And the PDPA was losing military superiority as the CIA entered the scenario.


Is this a logical consequence for a military coup government, that has no base among the population?


You keep throwing around neo-colony without giving an ounce of thought to the matter.

Ismail gave a clear example, and lame retort that he got was that somehow it 'wasn't colonialism' because the USSR paid higher that market price for the sugar, and sold them oil below market price.

So, basically a Soviet version of Most Favoured Nation trade status somehow negates the return that they were making on the Sugar, their finance capital invested in Cuban Sugar (looking for a return on it's investment) and their captive dominance of Cuban markets for their manufactured goods.

If you still aren't convinced, there is more in depth source material. I recommend the RCP-USA pamphlet (if you can find it,), 'Cuba: the evaporation of a Myth'.



So the Soviet Union is "Hitlerite" because they devoted part of the budget to the military.


'Hitlerite' may have been a strong word, but it has little to do with Soviet investments in their military and more to do with Soviet military interventions in several countries that border them.



Oh, and since they take on credits, they're capitalist.


Noooooooo.... they were on the road to capitalism, because they re-introduced market measures and incentives into their own economy, some private ownership, started exporting finance capital to other countries in their sphere, etc, etc.



How very revolutionary.


Aren't you the one who has been defending a government established by military coup as legitimate? And you are the one who is going to call other peoples revolutionary street cred into question?



I'm sure you'll criticize the Spanish Republic, too, seeing as how quickly Franco's forces took over large portions of the country


Was the Spanish republic established by coup?

You continue to compare things that aren't alike, in order to legitimize and justify naked commandism and governments established by cliques rather than revolution.


It's hardly chauvinist to point out how Hoxha was irrelevant.

Troll.



that's just like how the PDPA had control of the country until your buddies at Langley decided to submarine them and fund the reactionaries. Thanks for proving my point.


Round and round and round we go, where we stop, no one knows.

On what basis did they have control over the country?

In what way did the PDPA achieve state power?


http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif Once again, how revolutionary.

Uh....

I think having relations with several communists and communist organizations world wide (and collaberating with these organizations) is pretty revolutionary, yes.....

Again, you are not in any position to call the revolutionary credentials of others into question, as long as you hold a putchist, 'socialism by tank brigade' point of view.



Your tendency has been irrelevant outside of Albania. It's about time you got used to it.

....Says the Trotskyist.

Rocks and Glass houses, tankie.



This is false. The Republic was getting rolled up until the fascists got to Madrid.

But not because of lack of working class support for the republic.

Get it?


No, but being on the CIA's side of things makes you on the side of the CIA. It's quite self-explanatory.

Yer Eether fer us, or agin' us.

Pro-Putchist or pro-CIA. No other options, and the people of Afghanistan are inanimate props who have no place in governance or their own liberation.


So now you're an apologist for apartheid's foreign policy. Cool.

Wow.

Ismail points out one of the various concrete erronous actions of the MPLA, collaborating with monopoly capital, and your response is to bait him as a supporter of apartheid.

Critical thinking and facts are reactionary. :rolleyes:



Yes, that's pretty relevant. Having actual communists attend your meetings and being part of a government are all tell-tale signs of true revolutionaries...just ask every reformist organization in Europe. http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif

Again, aren't you the one defending a putchist government, and supporting a foriegn intervention to maintain a putsch government?



The fascists got to the gates of Madrid by November 1936. Please tell me how the Republicans were winning at that point.

The issue at hand is that the Spanish republicans were qualitatively different than Afghani putschists who required Soviet protection to stay in power.

One had mass support, the other did not.


What more evidence do you need? Oh, I forgot that you don't care about all that.

...Said the guy who just baited someone as an Afrikaaner white supremist for presenting un-flattering facts about the MPLA.

And then, just in case we missed it, he does it again:




http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif UNITA was collaborating with the SADF in the 1970's. Thanks for admitting yourself to be a friend of apartheid.


For the record, the Marxist-Leninist left no longer supports UNITA. We did at the time, because Savimbi was an intriguer who knew how to talk the talk, and walk the walk.

I have criticized UNITA several times, in connection with China for providing them with support.

That said, you are still using a binary approach that says that one has to choose between apartheid South Africa and the MPLA. In addition to that, you initially baited Ismail as a white supremacist for presenting un-flattering facts about Cubans assigned to work as mercinaries for oil conglomerates.



Here's a hint: sucking up to racists isn't what revolutionaries are supposed to do.


Here's another: Defending governments established by coup d'état, and military occupations are also on the list of things that revolutionaries aren't supposed to do.

As long as you cling to your "socialism by tank brigade" outlook on things, you have no high ground to bring anyone elses revolutionary politics into question.


You accuse others of dancing, but put the very basis of your own prejudices and outlook off limits for discussion.

[Ismail]

Hoxahists are truly the ultra-Stalinists. For them, what makes a country socialist is not its stance against imperialism, not its property relations, not the workers control over the means of production, not its economy, not its alliances.You're quite right that alliances and "the economy" have nothing to do with socialism. You are quite wrong that Hoxhaists ignore workers control.


Therefore, Hoxha, the arch-Stalinist of Eastern Europe, is the only 'true socialist' and Albania by extension was the only 'true socialist' country. The Soviet Union overnight became 'revisionist social-imperialist' because it denounced Stalin* and all the countries who went to the Soviet Union for help are by extension revisionist and/or 'neo-colonies'This is bull, of course. Hoxha did not explicitly state the state-capitalist nature of the Soviet economy until the 1970's, and in the late 60's adopted a "It's going to descend into state-capitalism" attitude, which was a correct analysis as the 1970's were a period of more market reforms. The Soviets actually offered more aid to Albania in 1957, as a sign of "good will" during a time wherein private relations between Hoxha and Khrushchev were deteriorating, and after Albania left the Warsaw Pact in 1968 the Soviets tried yearly to get Hoxha and Co. to return to it, but each time Hoxha said "No." (Evidence of former can be found in A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, p. 44.)

So the idea of the Soviets withdrawing aid or whatever and then Hoxha condemning them is incorrect.


(for some reason, they didn't want to go to a piss-poor, tiny, isolated country on the Adriatic Sea run by a megalomaniac for aid, as opposed to a superpower. I wonder why......)Khrushchev told that "piss-poor" country to become a "garden of the socialist bloc" and to cease its focus on heavy industrial development in favor of exportable foodstuffs, thus condemning it to a neo-colonial economy in perpetuity. Of course, Hoxha condemned this and refused to go along with it, and Albania was thus in a position to "go it alone" after 1978.


*Yes I know you argument about the Lieberman reforms. You don't answer how any of that was different from the NEP,The NEP was the transition between "war communism" and the construction of socialism. The Liberman reforms (not "Lieberman," which shows how much you know) signified an end to attempts at socialist construction in the USSR and the road of state-capitalism.

As Hoxha said in 1977:"The Soviet Society has become bourgeois down to its tiniest cells, capitalism has been restored in all fields."


and why there was no resistance whatsoever from the Soviet people. Don't you think the overthrow of socialism would take more then a palace coup?The same reason there was no initial resistance to Perestroika. All reformists and revisionists get stuff through via promising "good stuff" to workers. Not to mention the fact that, as Hoxha said, the construction of socialism in the USSR had not been completed by 1953.

[khad]

Opposing the Soviet intervention/ Putshists and puppets =/= "supporting" the Mujahideen and a 30's American child film actor (What?).

As we continue to point out, there were other forces in Afghanistan, which had more clout with the people and were trying to build towards an actual revolution in Afghanistan.
Yes, yes, we all know the ALO which signed up with Hekmatyar who was working for the Americans--only that the ALO could never be accused of working for the imperialists. Nope, never. They were the pure, unsullied acolytes of true anti-revisionism.

Do all ultralefts live in a fantasy world? You sound like a bunch of kids pining for the Korean anarchists.

I can just imagine it.

"If only Kim il Sung hadn't betrayed the revolution...the DPRK could have become a free federation of anarcho-syndicalist communes...with free love and free freedom in liberty everywhere."

[Prairie Fire]

Mykittyhasaboner:


...and what about this is untrue or 'revisionist'? I'm not baiting you btw, I just don't see how 'social-imperialism' is correct. Which is why some clarification would be good.

This link may shed a bit more light, especially on the re-implementation of capitalist economic mechanisms in the USSR:

http://www.mltranslations.org/Ireland/ico.htm




What exactly is revisionist about recognizing that the US is the foremost imperialist power and the center of world reaction, instead of the Soviet Union?


Well, at the time they were actually pretty neck to neck.

For a country like Czechoslavakia, Hungary or Afghanistan, I don't think it really matters wether or not the USSR is the foremost imperialist power; all that counts is that the USSR was the one occupying them.



I was challenging the view that the Soviet Union was the center of world reaction, as the Chinese claimed, which is what the article was refuting.

Well, Hoxha also decried the Chinese for this claim. The Albanians and their fraternal parties held all imperialists in equal contempt.


I asked what was revisionist (since the "pan-socialists" or what Haywood was arguing is revisionist right?) about denying this, as it is obviously false, and recognizing that the US was and still is in fact the center of world reaction? The question still stands.

I suppose there is nothing revisionist about it, but if it is sone for the purposes of exhonerating the USSR of it's imperialist actions, then it becomes opportunistic.

The issue though is to take a stand against all empires, regardless of their international standing, as a matter of principle.




If recognizing that the Soviet Union was a "social-imperialist" power means recognizing it as the center of world reaction as the Chinese claimed, and that forces who oppose them (such as the American backed insurgents in Afghanistan) are to be supported--then your accusations of revisionism or 'social-imperialism' are mere political justification for allying with American imperialism...actual imperialists.

To us, that is not what social-imperialism is about at all.

Social-imperialism is not a Quaddafi-style call to support everyone who opposes the USSR; it is simply a sober analysis of the prevailing economic situation in the former Soviet Union, and the role that they played on the world stage from the late fifties onwards.


Furthermore to prove 'social-imperialism', would be to prove that economic exploitation of states allied with the Soviet Union. This is also false....the Soviets always had to buy their friends.

Several empires 'bought friends' (and then proceeded to exploit them).
Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a comprador bourgeoisie?


OK, well to oppose both equally, you first have to prove that the Soviets were imperialists. There's no doubt they were hegemonic (but this goes back to the Third International really), but to be social imperialists they would have to invade countries and exploit them economically. The Soviet Union never did this, and they probably would have never succeeded if they tried.

Of course they did, Cuba being the prime example.

Again, I recommend "Cuba: the evaporation of a myth"



If I concede that the Soviets were in fact imperialists for the sake of argument, then surely US imperialism is much, much more worthy of opposition than any hegemonic military action the Soviets ever took.


That is easy to say in hidsight. At the time, countries facing military intervention on the part of both powers didn't really distinguish between lesser and greater evils.



The US was more of a threat to socialism and worker's states than the Soviet Union.


Actually, in some ways it was even. The difference was the approach.

The USA exterminated, imprisoned and tortured communists around the world; the cold-war Soviets co-opted them, de-clawed them, and made them unwitting agents of international capital.



The analogy doesn't fit. The Soviets weren't involved in exploiting allied countries after buying them out.

Of course they were.

The Warsaw pact countries became captive markets for Soviet goods, and captive sources of Soviet raw materials, and finance capital was extended to them.



It's difficult for me to guess how a dam would be used to repay Soviets--since the aid given to third world countries was usually re-payed with domestic goods, usually produced by enterprises receiving Soviet aid in the first place.


If a company seeds plantations in a country, pays the workers little, and then gets a return on their own investment by selling the harvest, would you argue that no exploitation took place because the company in question financed the creation and cultivation of the plantation in the first place?

Just as Nike builds factories in Asia, the Soviets built factories in their sattellites. Which part doesn't make sense?


Care to make the argument yourself? For all I know you could be referring to the division of labor under socialism...which exists under socialism.

He is refering to the specialization of national production that took place in the warsaw pact and allies.

Cuba was specialized to produce sugar, initially Albania was going to be specialized to grow wheat (before they told Moscow to go fuck themselves), and the USSR would be the industrial base with the rest of the countries as captive markets, dependent for finished goods.


So nothing the US ever did to exploit or kill working people or to invade entire nations was more worthy of opposition than supposed Soviet imperialism?

The idea is that imperialism is imperialism. Making use of inter-imperialist contradictions is one thing, but one should never have any illusions about who you dealing with.



As Jacob already mentioned, Soviet trade with Cuba was quite favorable to Cuba.

And American multinationals and sweatshops in many countries are "quite favourable", because without them there would be no employment at all.
Still, that doesn't make it any less of an exploitive relationship.

Barry Lyndon.


Hoxahists are truly the ultra-Stalinists. For them, what makes a country socialist is not its stance against imperialism, not its property relations, not the workers control over the means of production, not its economy, not its alliances.

No. What makes a country 'socialist' is its fanatical adherence to Stalin. Worship of Stalin is truly the center of their politics.


Câlice, I knew that this was going to ignite a tendency war.

Fuck off, Troll. I'm not even going to address your inane nonsense logically.

Ritcher:


See, a democratic and Soviet-friendly overthrow occurred.

I hope that you are being sarcastic to make a point.


I can only think of one or two instances wherein the Soviet Union did act in an economically imperialist manner; the Aswan Dam Project in Egypt (export of capital) is one of them.

Then you aren't looking hard enough.

The Cuban sugar industry is the most glaringly obvious, of course (You're going to tell me that the Soviets were operating at a loss?)



This was more than a typical trade subsidy the Soviets had with other countries.


Even if trade was 'subsidized', there was still a colonial relationship, of a large industrial power and it's sattellites which were not only sources of raw materials, but captive markets for finished goods as well.


Yeah, exporting sugar to the Soviets at higher-than-market prices and importing Soviet oil at lower-than-market prices is an imperialist trade agreement.

Higher than Market or not, I find it hard to believe that they were not still making a return on their investment.

As I said, MFN status does not negate exploitation.


In the "final analysis," the Hoxhaists are in the same camp as pretentious Third Campists and worse elements such as the Cliffites of the 1980s.

Not at all; our parties often come to power, and actually organize the masses of workers in various countries.

Our rejection of rival imperialisms is not simply sanctimonious "prolier than thou" arrogance; it is a stance based on the materiall realities of situations, notably that socialist states outside of the soviet sphere found themselves the target of Soviet interference and Regime change just as surely as from NATO (how many times did the USSR attempt to remove Kim Il Sung?).

There is a difference between pretentious and principled.



I never said anything about socialist economic revolution.


Then on what grounds are we defending the DRA? That it was a progressive state?

A progressive state with no roots among the people isn't very progressive, IMO.


The Afghan coup/putsch triggered a National-Democratic Revolution.

In what way? There was an actual revolution? With the participation of masses and mass organizations, that legitimized the putsch?



The foreign military intervention was an attempt to save the National-Democratic Revolution in Afghanistan.


Again, what national democratic revolution? Are you speaking on the putsch government, and their struggle with the Mujahideen?


I'm so tired. I'm going to sleep, and I may or may not resume this, because I wanted to address Khad as well.

[Barry Lyndon]

Barry Lyndon.


Câlice, I knew that this was going to ignite a tendency war.

Fuck off, Troll. I'm not even going to address your inane nonsense logically.


It takes one to know one, doesn't it?

[Barry Lyndon]

You're quite right that alliances and "the economy" have nothing to do with socialism. You are quite wrong that Hoxhaists ignore workers control.

This is bull, of course. Hoxha did not explicitly state the state-capitalist nature of the Soviet economy until the 1970's, and in the late 60's adopted a "It's going to descend into state-capitalism" attitude, which was a correct analysis as the 1970's were a period of more market reforms. The Soviets actually offered more aid to Albania in 1957, as a sign of "good will" during a time wherein private relations between Hoxha and Khrushchev were deteriorating, and after Albania left the Warsaw Pact in 1968 the Soviets tried yearly to get Hoxha and Co. to return to it, but each time Hoxha said "No." (Evidence of former can be found in A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, p. 44.)

So the idea of the Soviets withdrawing aid or whatever and then Hoxha condemning them is incorrect.

Khrushchev told that "piss-poor" country to become a "garden of the socialist bloc" and to cease its focus on heavy industrial development in favor of exportable foodstuffs, thus condemning it to a neo-colonial economy in perpetuity. Of course, Hoxha condemned this and refused to go along with it, and Albania was thus in a position to "go it alone" after 1978.

The NEP was the transition between "war communism" and the construction of socialism. The Liberman reforms (not "Lieberman," which shows how much you know) signified an end to attempts at socialist construction in the USSR and the road of state-capitalism.

As Hoxha said in 1977:"The Soviet Society has become bourgeois down to its tiniest cells, capitalism has been restored in all fields."

The same reason there was no initial resistance to Perestroika. All reformists and revisionists get stuff through via promising "good stuff" to workers. Not to mention the fact that, as Hoxha said, the construction of socialism in the USSR had not been completed by 1953.

Hoxha said it, so it must be true. Reading the collected works of Enver Hoxha late into the night while stroking yourself does not make you an expert in Marxist-Leninism or the class nature of the Soviet Union I'm sorry to say.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Hoxha said it, so it must be true. Reading the collected works of Enver Hoxha late into the night while stroking yourself does not make you an expert in Marxist-Leninism or the class nature of the Soviet Union I'm sorry to say.
The question begged, did you read any of it? That still doesn't make you better than Ismail or expert in Marxist-Leninism, does it?

Try to provide argument it wasn't state-capitalism beside it cuz Hoxha said so.

[Guerrilla22]

One thing that should be pointed out is that Cuba wasn't turned into a "sugar plantation" for the USSR. It was a mono export economy long before the revolution. They had trouble diversifying their economy so the USSR bought sugar from them in mass to keep Cuba afloat.

[manic expression]

So far you have gone on the offensive against Ismail, baiting him as a supporter of Apartheid, a reformist (and, simultaneously an ultra-leftist :rolleyes:), on the side of the CIA, etc, etc.

What you have failed to do is rationalize your own position,
So I take it you're not going to defend Ismail's opinions.

Makes sense. No one can. :lol: Thanks for validating my positions.



* that the Soviet occupation (let's be honest; it was an occupation) of Afghanistan was in the interests of socialism and/or in the interests of the people of AfghanistanSo you're saying the Mujahideen was better for Afghanistan?


* that the PDPA was the party that represented the Afghan workers and PeasantsDo you deny this?


*that there even was socialism in Afghanistan, or that exploitation was being abolishedI never said this, so it's a moot point. Do try to keep up.


* that the Saur 'Revolution' was a revolution of any kind (national-liberation, bourgeois-democratic, socialist,etc), rather than a putsch accomplished by a political faction against another.The Saur Revolution was an act of a popular, progressive leftist group against a regime that was repressing communists. If you want to oppose this and support Daoud, be my guest.


You can not rationalize your position,I just did. Have fun writing another tome of anti-socialist garbage, I'll stick to the facts. :lol:

On Czechoslovakia, the fact is that the revolt was anti-socialist to the core. It consisted greatly of the legalization of anti-socialist forces in the country. Further, tanks (oh, no!) can defend socialism, yes, and they are quite good at this task. Just as a revolutionary movement can make a revolution with firearms, so too can a socialist state defend a revolution with tanks. Your liberalism is noted.

On the Spanish Civil War, Soviet aid also consisted of many military advisers, so you're once again showing your hatred for facts.

On Poland, you can certainly say all you've said, but how does this, in principle differ from responding to multiple PDPA requests to fight CIA-backed reactionaries? And before you say how Afghanistan wasn't socialist, check out Stalin's aid to Spain. Thanks a bunch!

I look forward to your next puddle of anti-socialist absurdity. Take your time, you'll need it.

[manic expression]

I guess the Parcham wasn't revolutionary either, then (it actually wasn't, it was absolutely reformist). It participated in the parliament under the King, while the Khalq were arrested and/or driven into hiding. The Parchami continuously took rightist lines on every issue.
So you're as revolutionary as the Parchami. Good to know. Too bad that only exposes the bankruptcy of your sad, pathetically irrelevant tendency and does nothing to undermine my position on Afghanistan.


At least the MPD is a electoral front for a party which is still technically illegal, and the MPD's Presidential candidate was assassinated by pro-government agents in 1999. That and they don't take right-wing lines.
"Hoxhaism: at least we don't take right-wing lines, according to us"

Good slogan.


The point was that the Republic was actually popular and that the people were willing to defend it themselves.
You can say the exact same thing about the PDPA government. The Afghan military was very competent by the late 80's.


A. Amin "collaborating" with the US and;
At the same time, however, apparently reflecting both US hopes of offering Amin alternatives and Amin's efforts to assuage US concerns, Washington agreed to resume a small program for training Afghan military officers in the US that had been cut off after the April coup.
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record/predicting-the-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-the-intelligence-communitys-record.html
From the horse's mouth.


He was forced to collaborate with the SADF because the MPLA was collaborating with Soviet social-imperialism. Savimbi himself said this in the 1970's, saying something to the effect of, "They can't criticize us."
:lol: So accepting aid from the Soviet Union is exactly the same as accepting aid from APARTHEID. You are, clearly, an apologist of racism, as we can see here:


Apparently our line is based on Albanian anthropology and cultural analysis from the 1940's-80's, and not on a basic analysis of self-determination. News to me.
:lol: You're building up quite a resume. Promoting an apartheid invasion and now this. Keep going, it's quite entertaining to see you keep running into your own walls.

[Robocommie]

How does one address the fact that the standard of living was higher in Eastern European satellite states than in the USSR, even down to the level of meat per capita consumption?

Well, which period are those statistics from?

[Robocommie]

One thing that should be pointed out is that Cuba wasn't turned into a "sugar plantation" for the USSR. It was a mono export economy long before the revolution. They had trouble diversifying their economy so the USSR bought sugar from them in mass to keep Cuba afloat.

Hah, you read my mind. Cheers! :thumbup1:

Also I'd like to point out that it was with Soviet aid that Cuba was able to establish a semi-industrialized economy that had been non-existent prior to the revolution. If Cuba had been a "colony" of the Soviet Union they would have been quite satisfied to leave it an island producing solely bananas, cigars and cabarets.

A friend of mine recently pointed out that Cuba was a touch dependent on Soviet aid, as shown by the severe economic crisis they faced when the Soviets collapsed, I'd argue that this was more because Soviet developmental aid to Cuba had been designed with the assumption that the Soviet Union would be around for a lot longer than it ended up being.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Well, which period are those statistics from?

Generally early 1960's onwards, after the end of the Soviet reparations payments.

[Robocommie]

Generally early 1960's onwards, after the end of the Soviet reparations payments.

That would be in keeping with what I myself have read. Soviet tourists to the Eastern Bloc nations in the 1960s were often surprised by the fact that the quality of life was often better there than in the USSR.

However, if you're not going to dispute the reparations payments then I have two questions, 1) How do you explain this disparity of wealth?

And 2) Is it particularly socialist, in light of the Theory of Productive Forces, to impose reparations payments on a nation for the benefit of the controlling nation? Isn't that imperialistic?

[Barry Lyndon]

And 2) Is it particularly socialist, in light of the Theory of Productive Forces, to impose reparations payments on a nation for the benefit of the controlling nation? Isn't that imperialistic?

Certainly not for most of Eastern Europe, but when it comes to Germany....I thinks its kind of justified, given the level of death and destruction Germany wreaked on the Soviet Union. Not sure how well that jibes with Marxist theory, though.

[Kléber]

Also I'd like to point out that it was with Soviet aid that Cuba was able to establish a semi-industrialized economy that had been non-existent prior to the revolution. If Cuba had been a "colony" of the Soviet Union they would have been quite satisfied to leave it an island producing solely bananas, cigars and cabarets.
Actually, Cuba was already the most industrialized country in Latin America in 1959 thanks to being a de facto US colony. As Guerrilla22 notes, it already had a largely monoculture sugar export economy. Diversifying agricultural production for the benefit of farmers and the economic stability of the island (the country was subject to world sugar prices, which led to crises now and then) was a long-standing demand of Cuban nationalists and socialists that remains unfulfilled, unless you count the restoration of the tourist economy.

[Robocommie]

Certainly not for most of Eastern Europe, but when it comes to Germany....I thinks its kind of justified, given the level of death and destruction Germany wreaked on the Soviet Union. Not sure how well that jibes with Marxist theory, though.

Eh, I mean, I'm of German descent, got family in Bavaria. I'm not down with that notion of collective German guilt for WW2. Generally, collective ethnic guilt is problematic, I think.

[Robocommie]

Actually, Cuba was already the most industrialized country in Latin America in 1959 thanks to being a de facto US colony. As Guerrilla22 notes, it already had a largely monoculture sugar export economy. Diversifying agricultural production for the benefit of farmers and the economic stability of the island (the country was subject to world sugar prices, which led to crises now and then) was a long-standing demand of Cuban nationalists and socialists that remains unfulfilled, unless you count the restoration of the tourist economy.

Most industrialized in Latin America, but what does that mean? Perhaps I went too far in stating that Cuban industry was non-existent before the Revolution, but the Revolution DID increase industrialization significantly and reduced agriculture's dominance over the economy.

[Ismail]

Hoxha said it, so it must be true. Reading the collected works of Enver Hoxha late into the night while stroking yourself does not make you an expert in Marxist-Leninism or the class nature of the Soviet Union I'm sorry to say.And why is that? Is it because Hoxha was an Albanian, and thus irrelevant? Is it because Albanians are stupid? Because otherwise you could apply that to every socialist person ever (Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, etc.)

It'd be nice if Hoxha's Collected Works were in English, but they aren't. 71 volumes—quite a record.

It isn't like Hoxha didn't make analyses of the state-capitalist economy of the USSR. It isn't like actual PLA economists didn't actually note the nature of the economy of the USSR (http://www.mltranslations.org/Albania/socalb2.htm). It isn't like Hoxhaists inside East Germany (among other East European revisionist states) weren't spied on constantly (http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv5n1/gdrkpd.htm) by the Stasi (or other East European security agents) because the Hoxhaists in the USSR were the ones putting Albanian-made journals and such into Soviet Army newsstands, calling upon the soldiers in Afghanistan to "Make war-weary 1981/82/83/84/etc. a new 1917," etc.

It also doesn't follow that Hoxhaists have had no importance on Marxist-Leninist theory or discussions. I know plenty of non-Hoxhaists who cite Bill Bland's works, and Bland was a "Hoxhaist before Hoxhaism." (He was calling Mao a rightist in the 60's)


So you're as revolutionary as the Parchami. Good to know. Too bad that only exposes the bankruptcy of your sad, pathetically irrelevant tendency and does nothing to undermine my position on Afghanistan.The Parchami were rightists, pro-Soviet revisionists, and anti-communists all-around. We have little to do with them.


At the same time, however, apparently reflecting both US hopes of offering Amin alternatives and Amin's efforts to assuage US concerns, Washington agreed to resume a small program for training Afghan military officers in the US that had been cut off after the April coup.Horses mouth, eh? Here's another one from the horses mouth: J. Bruce Amstutz, the US Chargé d'Affaires in Kabul: "In fact, Amin never enjoyed good relations with the US Government during his time in power... Amin did not harbor pro-American feelings." (Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation, p. 44)

A huge amount of the Afghan Army was Soviet-trained, so the idea of limiting Soviet influence via appealing to other states for training programs isn't exactly "OH MY GOD CIA CIA CIA" or anything. It was Amin who constantly maintained a "left" (you could say ultra-left) line in-re bringing "socialism" to Afghanistan. The Parchami were the ones more likely to join up with the USA in different circumstances.

[manic expression]

The Parchami were rightists, pro-Soviet revisionists, and anti-communists all-around. We have little to do with them.
You just said that you're just as reformist as they are, so you've contradicted yourself again.


Horses mouth, eh? Here's another one from the horses mouth: J. Bruce Amstutz, the US Chargé d'Affaires in Kabul: "In fact, Amin never enjoyed good relations with the US Government during his time in power... Amin did not harbor pro-American feelings." (Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation, p. 44)
So you're denying that Amin was promoting US influence? I just showed you how this was the fact of the matter.


A huge amount of the Afghan Army was Soviet-trained, so the idea of limiting Soviet influence via appealing to other states for training programs isn't exactly "OH MY GOD CIA CIA CIA" or anything. It was Amin who constantly maintained a "left" (you could say ultra-left) line in-re bringing "socialism" to Afghanistan. The Parchami were the ones more likely to join up with the USA in different circumstances.
Getting the US to train personnel is not "limiting Soviet influence", it's capitulating to and collaborating with the US.

First, you said Amin had nothing to do with US aid, now you're rationalizing the US aid. So you're backtracking. As usual.

But that's better than your line on apartheid, you've abandoned that issue completely, and for good reason.

[Lenin II]

I noticed that no one in this thread has responded to PF's criticisms at length aside from the geopolitics-first attitude.

[Prairie Fire]

Manic Expression:



:lol: Thanks for validating my positions.


I have done nothing of the kind.



So you're saying the Mujahideen was better for Afghanistan?


And again we return to captain bipolar division, baiting his opponents of supporting the rival imperialism.

Out of curiosity, does taking an anti-fascist stand during World War II make me a de-facto 'supporter' of Britain, France and the United States?

Do you see the flaws in your black and white logic?




Do you deny this?



Wow.

God dammit, I shouldn't have wasted so much time last night reading your responses and replying to them. I was under the impression that you were actually going to read what I wrote as well.

So even if you just skimmed my responses, I think that yes, that is pretty much the gist of what I'm trying to get across.

Note the frequent use of the terms "Putsch" and "coup d'état" in my previous posts.

We are still struggling over wether or not a coup government can be a peoples government in any sense of the term, and the best that you can do is bait me as being one and the same with rival imperialists, or give these wonderful little one sentence answers.


I never said this, so it's a moot point. Do try to keep up.

Don't be condescending. I won't tell you again.

To this, you may have noticed (if you bothered to read my replies,) that Ritcher said something similar, so I'll ask you the same question:

On what grounds are we defending the DRA?

There was no socialist revolution or construction, no national liberation or bourgeois democratic revolution....

What exactly are we defending? A putsch government that flew a red flag?

And don't say "womyns rights"; that's the NATO answer that they use today.

You still refuse to address the basic point of contention that I raised: The PDPA government, and it's predecessor as well, were establish through coup, and kept in power by external military intervention (take note of the word external.)


The Saur Revolution was an act of a popular, progressive leftist group

If they were so popular, why a military coup?


against a regime that was repressing communists.

The PDPA also repressed and murdered communists.

( Waiting for inevitible 'well, those wern't commnists' retort. The only real communists in Afghanistan were those who side-lined the proletariat and took power by military coup).


If you want to oppose this and support Daoud, be my guest.

This is why it helps to read what I write:



You dance around the fact that the putchist governments (wether Daoud or PDPA) had no mass base to protect their new state from domestic reaction. For this reason is was "necessary" to call in the Soviets.


We have to choose between putchists and other putchists, apparently. Revolution and working class political power, present in Afghanistan in some organizational incarnations at the time, is somehow not even an option on the table for discussion.


- Prairie Fire, Yesterday.

Again, you are unable to break away from a 'black and white' worldview. I am not very supportive of the PDPA, so by extrapolation I must therefore be in favour of their predecessors.

I'm not in favour of Hitler, so therefore by extrapolation I must be in favour of the Kaiser. :rolleyes:

In doing this, you ignore the root of my argument. The Daoud government was also a government established by putsch.

I am not in favour of putschist governments, and neither are any genuine Marxist-Leninists. The particular features make little difference.


I just did.

To yourself, perhaps. To me, all that you demonstrated is that you are sticking to your guns on anti-Marxist positions, and baiting all nay sayers as being CIA supporters.



Further, tanks (oh, no!) can defend socialism, yes, and they are quite good at this task. Just as a revolutionary movement can make a revolution with firearms, so too can a socialist state defend a revolution with tanks. Your liberalism is noted.

So in this version of events, Prague spring becomes fucking Kursk, and I become some sort of granola-eating, tamborine banger who is opposed to all violence in absolute.

So, the persyn who has been decrying the PDPA for not waging an actual revolution is apparently the one who is a pacifist here. Okay.

You specifically dodge the one word in the sentence that conveys my point of contention.

When I asked you about your "socialism by Tank brigade" position, my specific words were:


Can socialism be imposed via foriegn Tank brigades.
- Prairie Fire, yesterday.

In your version of events, rolling tanks across borders and into a foriegn city is the exact same thing as using tanks to defend the borders of a socialist state. Invasion is self-defense.

It isn't the tanks in abstraction that I'm objecting to, and I think that you know that.

My real point of contention, which I have articulated and made abundantly clear over the course of our discussion, was against commandism, putchism and imposing a government on the masses, rather than imposing a government through the masses.

The issue is wether or not socialism can be imposed on a populace, not the use of tanks.


On Czechoslovakia, the fact is that the revolt was anti-socialist to the core. It consisted greatly of the legalization of anti-socialist forces in the country.

And this is the Tankie mentality:

"If the people aren't socialist, we can make 'em be socialist."

Socialism doesn't come from the people, it comes from enlightened militaries and enlightened political cliques that sieze power via coup. :rolleyes:

I'll check Marx and Lenin again, but I'm fairly certain that they were all about, y'know, revolution.

All the countries of Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia and Hungary, were peoples democracies at best, and Afghanistan was a "Democratic republic" established by military coup.

The common denominator is that none of these countries were established by a revolution of any kind (Hungary had one in 1919, but the Peoples Republic of Hungary from '49-'89 was not established by a revolution).

Had they been, things would have been different.

*These countries would have mass bases among the working class, and would have forces to come to their aid against American Proxies (no need for foriegn troops or foriegn occupation)

* There would be less domestic reactionaries to oppose them, because they would have been largely smashed and swept away in the initial act of siezing state power

* They could have developed their own nation-building project, like other states that had revolutions, and in the process developed their own productive forces to a point where they didn't require rescue from another state in order to deal with domestic reactionaries.



On the Spanish Civil War, Soviet aid also consisted of many military advisers, so you're once again showing your hatred for facts

You are side-stepping the point...

Military advisers are not the same thing as platoons of military regulars, needed to defend a state because that state has no forces or base of support of it's own.



On Poland, you can certainly say all you've said, but how does this, in principle differ from responding to multiple PDPA requests to fight CIA-backed reactionaries?


How does the USSR reclaiming historical territories that were previously siezed by an aggressive imperialist state differ from the USSR occupying a country on the "invitation" of a political clique that achieved power via military coup?

Do you really not see a difference?



And before you say how Afghanistan wasn't socialist, check out Stalin's aid to Spain. Thanks a bunch!


If Ismail was dancing, you are doing a fucking foxtrot around the most basic point of contention here.

The issue is not which states were and were not socialist.

The issue is that the PDPA, unlike the Spanish Republicans, was a coup government that side-line the people and had no support base of their own (hence they had to call in foriegn troops to save their ass from what was, at best, a tiny internal reaction that could have been handled easily by the PDPA if they had any credibility at all with the Afghan workers and Peasants).




You can say the exact same thing about the PDPA government. The Afghan military was very competent by the late 80's.

You are equating the state military of Afghanistan with the volunteers and irregular forces of the Spanish republic.

A salaried/conscripted regular army is proof positive that a coup government is popular among the people. No military coup has ever had the support of the regular army before. :rolleyes:


http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies2/laugh.gif So accepting aid from the Soviet Union is exactly the same as accepting aid from APARTHEID.

Quit baiting Imail as a supporter of Aparthied. Criticizing the actions of the MPLA doesn't make a persyn an Afrikaaner.


You are, clearly, an apologist of racism, as we can see here:

Erm, in the quote you provided, Ismail is sarcastically pointing out that our line is based on the Leninist principle of right to self determination of all nations, not on some sort of Albanian anthropology that we have never heard of until now (nor did the Albanians themselves mention at any point).


Promoting an apartheid invasion and now this.

Nobody promoted Aparthied, you liar. Have an intellectually honest discussion, and lose the strawmyn.


You can start by justifying (to the rest of us, not yourself,) how a military coup can be a progressive and popular government or revolutionary in any way.


Khad:



Who cares?

Who cares that coup leaders were murdering Marxist-Leninists?


They were marginal,

Wikipedia seems to think that they were numerically superior to both of the Khalq and Parcham factions by themselves.

Either way though, at least Eternal flame had a base among the people, and was actually organizing the people for working class political power.

The Khalq, Parchams and Daoud government that preceeded them were all putschists who achieved power by military coup, which the PDPA supporters her keep dancing around.


In the final analysis, the USSR's intervention saved more socialists from Amin's butchery.


Saved more coup leaders, perhaps.

Are military putsches 'socialist' now? I must have missed a memo.


Hoxhaists can take a however "principled" though irresponsible line on political realities

So the only possible option for Afghanistan was various coup governments?

Socialist revolution wasn't even an option?

By this logic, it is fine that Mao supported Mobutu, because it would have been irresponsible to support the Maoist revolutionaries in that country in light of the political realities.

I'm all for taking things in the context of the times and global situation. What I see in Afghanistan, however, was that there was at least one organization mobilizing the working class to take political power for themselves, who could have easilly dealt with domestic feudalists, CIA armed or otherwise.

I can not see how the coup governments were Afghanistans only hope.


simply because Albania was in no position to do anything that mattered.

Perhaps, but Albania's fraternal comrades in Afghanistan were, more so than the coup government, and this is something that you refuse to address.


For real countries, actions have consequences, and geopolitical reality will often mean getting one's hands dirty.

Yeah, yeah, give me the Ollie North "You can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs" congressional hearing defense.

As supporters of Albania, as supporters of the early Soviet Union, we know all about consequences.

The USSR suffered economic consequences for cutting off trade with Italy after they invaded Ethiopia. Certainly in a real-politik sense, the USSR should have continued to shake hands with Mussolini, rather than come to the aid of a country that they had nothing material to gain from on a principled basis.


Albania suffered economic consequences for cricitizing the USSR, and then China, their largest trading partners.


Anyways, realpolitik is based on necessity, and you still have not thoroughly demonstrated that a military coup government was necessary in Afghanistan.


If Hoxhaites and Maoists weren't so keen on giving tacit and open support to the Mujahideen (China gave 400 million US in aid),

Whoa whoa who, don't lump us in with them!

Hoxha specifically criticized this shit in one entire section of his book "Imperialism and the Revolution".

Should the fraternal Comrades of Albania also take the blame for Chinese funds given to Pinochet and Mobutu?

Also, as you probably know, the "Mujahideen' were not a monolithic entity, in fact they frequently fought each other. Technically, the ALO that you referenced were "Mujahideen".

Even you have to aknowledge though that the Mujahideen would never have become the problem that they had if a foriegn intervention hadn't polarized the people of Afghanistan into their camp.


they would have been finished in a couple of years and Afghanistan could have marched towards the path of socialism.

If the coup government had empowered the people, the Mujahideen could have been finished off even easier without foriegn intervention.

Also, the DRA would have marched down the path to socialism with a coup government at the helm?


Phase 1: Military coup

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Socialism

Phase 4: Profit

Got it.


The politically immature left has no right to show their face.

Because desiring a government not established by coup is juvenile crap, I suppose (especially when there were non-coup contenders historically present at the time).


They on "principle" shouted down the Afghan government when it was receiving assistance from the USSR,

No, Vietnam was "recieving assistance from the USSR".

Afghanistan was under a military occupation, at the behest of a coup government.


but then they on "principle" switched sides to support Dr. Najib when the Soviets left.

Yes....

Situations change.

With present day Afghanistan, many of us tactically support the Afghani resistance, and some of it's more unsavoury elements, against the NATO occupation.

As soon as the NATO occupation withdraws, you will find that our position will change, and we will condemn the same un-savoury politically forces that we tollerated in their capacity as anti-imperialists.

Which part doesn't make sense?



Instead of whining and backstabbing, would it have been too much to ask the "socialist world" to support the Afghan government in defeating the mercenaries of Western imperialism, so that Afghanistan wouldn't need Soviet intervention?

Who on this thread, despite baiting to the contrary, is defending the domestic reactionaries?

Yes, I would have supported the PDPA government taking down these reactionaries by themselves, and handling their own buisness internally.

My position is that the PDPA was unable to deal with the Mujahideen, because they had no base of support of their own,
besides paid/conscripted regular forces.



Thanks for proving my point. Political immaturity and irresponsibility is possible for those with no responsibility.


Yes, forces that held state power in some countries had no responsibility.

Forces that actually mobilized and organized the working class, unlike coup governments, had no responsibility.

:rolleyes:

You're not talking to left-communists and Trots here, you're talking to ML's, and we aren't preaching lofty idealism.



By that degenerated logic, the Bolsheviks should have just given up, because they only initially controlled a few cities and regions. And they embroiled the country in a civil war that killed millions.


You are comparing things that aren't alike.

Did the Bolsheviks come to power by military coup? Did the Bolsheviks impose themselves on the workers and Peasants of Russia?


Likewise, the same with Mao and the Chinese Communists, who at one point were reduced to pretty much their outpost in Yenan.

And the Chinese, for all of their flaws... where they also coup leaders? Did Mao and a small clique arrest the Kuomintang leaders one night with some dissaffected army officers, and then declare the PRC the next day?

Apple. Orange.


So I guess the moment a government holds less than 50% of a country, it automatically forefits its right to exist? http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

The point that Ismail is trying to make is that, unlike the Spanish republic, the PDPA had no mass support, which is to be expected from a Coup government.


Just like the Afghan anti-revisionists in the ALO joining up with Hekmatyar, tell me, when will you have pulled out support for the Spanish republicans and joined up with the fascists on the grounds of fascism representing the "will of the people?"

Okay, for starters, we are in favour of Sholah y Jaweid. The ALO that you are talking about was a Maoist break-away group.

I told you allready, don't lump us in with the Maoists.

Also, even with the ALO, the ALO had armed battles with Mujahideen as much as Soviet occupiers.

And, last I checked, the ALO is still around and opposing the current occupation. Where have all the PDPA coup leaders gone, in their peoples current dire time of need?


And another thing about accusations of chauvinist attitudes. Hoxhaites have no right to even mention chauvinism except when talking about themselves:

As far as the 'the only religion would be "Albanianism' quote, Nexhmije Hoxha, Envers wife, later put it this way:

"Enver and I only wanted Muslims, Orhodox Christians and Catholics to live peacably side by side. And we were right. We wanted everyone to feel that they were just Albanians. And see what is happening now in the Balkans as the result of religious and ethnic conflicts..."
Talk of the Devil, Riccardo Orizio

The quote you provided demonstrates that Albanians were trying to prove that they were of Ilyrian descent. It does not prove that they felt that Ilyrians were superior to any other people.

I think that your quote makes it clear that the were simply trying to determine their descent in order to discern the extent of their territories (which, in the Balkans, is no easy task). There was no superiority implied though, and the Albanians aided neighbouring peoples, especially the Greeks in their struggle against the Monarchist forces.

This is not chauvenist in the least.


No wonder the Hoxhaite line on Kosovo is such utter shit.

The line that Kosovo has a majority Albanian population, and former Yugoslavia had no legitimate claims to it?


However, if the gun were to my head and I had to choose between revisionists and imperialist collaborators, I'd take my revisionist poison.

Your error is starting from the postiont that the USSR did not become an imperialist state itself.


Plenty of Afghan leftists joined up with the PDPA during the 1980s. The party ranks grew, not shrank, for much of the conflict

But does this negate their position as a coup government?

If their ranks were so swelled, why were they unable to put down domestic reactionaries?

Also, the issue is not only in the political left in Afghanistan, who were allready politicized, gravitated towards the PDPA. The issue is if the workers and Peasants of Afghanistan did so as well.


What the Soviet intervention accomplished was a truce within the Afghan government. The violent purging of Amin's generation was replaced by power sharing agreements. Parchamis dominated the civilian government, but the Khalqis had much of the military and continued to have much of the military up until the very end.

A truce and power sharing among coup leaders. Brilliant.



Actually, those mujahids invited into the government under the reconciliation plan were kept under the government's thumb. It wasn't like they had any real power. They were the ones being marginalized, and that's why most of the mujahideen continued to fight.


You boast that all enfranchisement for the people was ceremonial, and that the overwhelming majority of Afghans (Beyond Mujahideen) were unrepresented by the Coup government?


If you weren't such a troll, I'd be posrepping you.

Ismail has in no way been Trolling. His arguments have been presented in an articulate way, even if you disagree (I also disagree with support for UNITA).


All Hoxhaism boils down to is some ultraleft rationalization of surrender and apathy.

Which is why so many Hoxhaists have taken up arms, siezed political power, and are still organizing on a tangible basis to this day.

Got it.


When Western imperialists attempt to conquer a nation by giving insurgent mercenaries billions of dollars of aid, you deny the right to self-defense

Again, no one is defending Afghanistans domestic reactionaries.

Wether or not the PDPA had the right to put down the reactionaries is not contested here; we are simply arguing what the basis of PDPA political power was, and why the PDPA was unable to do so (rooted in their side-lining of the Afghan workers and peasants).


He spent his time blasting the PDPA when they were locked in a death struggle with the agents of Western imperialism but then completely flipped around to support Dr. Najib once Soviet forces withdrew.

As I said, things change.

Many who decried the Taliban of the 90's changed their tune after the NATO occupation.


If he was going to end up supporting Dr. Najib anyway, then why did he spend all those years trashing the Afghan government?

Because the Afghan government was a coup government that criminalized genuine Marxist-Leninist organizations and invited a foriegn military occupation onto their soil.


My question still stands.

Your question is facetious trolling, and you are comparing things that are not alike.

The Mujahideen were significantly poorer armed and less organized than Francos fascists. If the PDPA was as popular as you say, it should have had no trouble dealing with poorly armed, disorganized reactionaries who were prone to violent infighting among themselves.

[manic expression]

I have done nothing of the kind.
Mere denial is usually proof.


Out of curiosity, does taking an anti-fascist stand during World War II make me a de-facto 'supporter' of Britain, France and the United States?

Do you see the flaws in your black and white logic? So now you're putting the Soviet Union on the level of the Nazis. Try justifying that. Go ahead.


Wow.

God dammit, I shouldn't have wasted so much time last night reading your responses and replying to them. I was under the impression that you were actually going to read what I wrote as well.

So even if you just skimmed my responses, I think that yes, that is pretty much the gist of what I'm trying to get across.

Note the frequent use of the terms "Putsch" and "coup d'état" in my previous posts.

We are still struggling over wether or not a coup government can be a peoples government in any sense of the term, and the best that you can do is bait me as being one and the same with rival imperialists, or give these wonderful little one sentence answers.You can call it a coup all you like, it is a subjective term, after all. So if you're going to base your argument on that, then I see little to respond to.


Don't be condescending. I won't tell you again.

To this, you may have noticed (if you bothered to read my replies,) that Ritcher said something similar, so I'll ask you the same question:

On what grounds are we defending the DRA?

There was no socialist revolution or construction, no national liberation or bourgeois democratic revolution....

What exactly are we defending? A putsch government that flew a red flag?

And don't say "womyns rights"; that's the NATO answer that they use today.

You still refuse to address the basic point of contention that I raised: The PDPA government, and it's predecessor as well, were establish through coup, and kept in power by external military intervention (take note of the word external.)The difference is that NATO lies. What communists defend in the DRA is a front against reaction, a popular progressive government that was defending women's rights and other forms of progress against a CIA-backed insurgency.

The Spanish Republic was kept in power by external military intervention. Will you extend your condemnation to that as well? I've asked you this before, and yet I get nothing.

I've already dealt with your subjectivity on the coup.

By the way, after your Shirley Temple picture, I hardly think it's honest of you to call me condescending.


If they were so popular, why a military coup?Popularity doesn't stop a regime from suppressing your supporters, now does it?


The PDPA also repressed and murdered communists. Those crimes, if you read your history, were stopped by the Soviet response to requests for military assistance.


This is why it helps to read what I write::lol: So you're making no distinction between Daoud and the PDPA? By the same logic, nothing changed in Spain between 1934 and 1936. There was no revolution, as you said, simply a change in government. Your inability to see subtlety, it seems, is your problem, and it stems from a desire to see the world through an ultraleftist worldview.


Again, you are unable to break away from a 'black and white' worldview. I am not very supportive of the PDPA, so by extrapolation I must therefore be in favour of their predecessors.

I'm not in favour of Hitler, so therefore by extrapolation I must be in favour of the Kaiser. :rolleyes:Right, because the PDPA is just like Hitler. :rolleyes:

Are you denying that, in comparison to Daoud, the PDPA was progressive? Are you denying that the PDPA was responding to Daoud's repression in the Saur Revolution? Are you denying that the PDPA was not worth defending from the CIA-backed insurgency? Answer those questions because they actually pertain to the topic. Hitler comparisons aren't going to cut it.


So in this version of events, Prague spring becomes fucking Kursk, and I become some sort of granola-eating, tamborine banger who is opposed to all violence in absolute.Prague was not "fucking Kursk", Prague was Prague. It was an anti-socialist campaign that was stopped by the arrival of pro-socialist military force. Just because there are tanks instead of firearms, the dynamics are quite the same. It is your inability to realize this that leads you to your anti-socialist position.


In your version of events, rolling tanks across borders and into a foriegn city is the exact same thing as using tanks to defend the borders of a socialist state. Invasion is self-defense.In both cases, tanks are used to defend socialism. It is not difficult to see this.


The issue is wether or not socialism can be imposed on a populace, not the use of tanks.Socialism was no more imposed and no less imposed in 1968 than in 1945.


You are side-stepping the point...

Military advisers are not the same thing as platoons of military regulars, needed to defend a state because that state has no forces or base of support of it's own.Semantics. Soviet aid kept the Republic alive and everyone knows this. Stop side-stepping history.


The issue is not which states were and were not socialist.

The issue is that the PDPA, unlike the Spanish Republicans, was a coup government that side-line the people and had no support base of their own (hence they had to call in foriegn troops to save their ass from what was, at best, a tiny internal reaction that could have been handled easily by the PDPA if they had any credibility at all with the Afghan workers and Peasants).First it was about the PDPA not making a revolution, and now that has nothing to do with the matter. Make up your mind.

Anyway, the PDPA did have credibility among the Afghan workers, this is made clear by the events of the Saur Revolution.


Quit baiting Imail as a supporter of Aparthied. Criticizing the actions of the MPLA doesn't make a persyn an Afrikaaner.I never called anyone an Afrikaner, I pointed out how Ismail is rationalizing and defending the apartheid invasion of Angola and Namibia. I'm baiting no one, just recognizing Ismail's position for what it is.


Nobody promoted Aparthied, you liar. Have an intellectually honest discussion, and lose the strawmyn.Someone defended apartheid's foreign policy on this very thread.

[Kléber]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-socialismi-t134908/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif
Military advisers are not the same thing as platoons of military regulars, needed to defend a state because that state has no forces or base of support of it's own.
The International Brigades were regulars, the model units of the People's Army of the Spanish Republic until they were withdrawn, and the Soviets sent tanks, planes, crews, pilots and staff officers to Spain, in addition to advisers.


The point that Ismail is trying to make is that, unlike the Spanish republic, the PDPA had no mass support, which is to be expected from a Coup government.Actually, the PDPA was fairly popular after it came to power.. it was replacing a monarchy after all. The Spanish Republic also lacked mass support in the countryside as the liberals and social-democrats, eagerly supported by the PCE, refused to launch substantial land reform, so as not to alienate Catholic landowners (who, surprise surprise, took the fascist side anyway, but the peasants weren't mobilized to stop them). Also, the bourgeois Republicans, supported by Soviet foreign policy from the Laval-Stalin pact, were afraid to give Morocco freedom or autonomy for fear of alienating the French bourgeoisie who owned the rest of Northwest Africa. Thus, Morocco was used by Franco and Mussolini as a launch pad for Spanish fascism when it could have been a pro-Republican autonomous zone like the Basque and Catalan areas.

The internecine Khalqi-Parchami feud weakened the PDPA and the Soviet invasion, which purged the Khalqi victors (Amin and his clique), ensured the DRA's steady slide toward obliteration. If it hadn't been for Soviet bureaucratic meddling the DRA might have survived to the present day. The Spanish Republic might have won too if its staunchest proletarian defenders weren't demoralized by the crushing of workers' power in 1937, for which the Comintern gave the green light.

[khad]

Hoxhaites, or should I say, national Cliffites with a Stalin fetish, are nothing more than falsifiers of history. They are the worst kind of sectarian blowhard--they actively work to undermine movements so that they may score some petty sectarian points, so that they can chauvinistically hold their head up high and lambaste any socialist who fails to live up to their xenophobic ethnonationalist standards.


The issue is that the PDPA, unlike the Spanish Republicans, was a coup government that side-line the people and had no support base of their own (hence they had to call in foriegn troops to save their ass from what was, at best, a tiny internal reaction that could have been handled easily by the PDPA if they had any credibility at all with the Afghan workers and Peasants).Laughable. Simply laughable. Unlike the pathetically weak Spanish Republicans, the forces of the Afghan government grew consistently stronger throughout the conflict. By 1989, they were capable of fighting on their own, as demonstrated in at the battle of Jalalabad. There was fought the biggest battle of the entire war, and the Afghan army crushed a combined mujahideen offensive and pushed them back across the border.

Could you say that about the Spanish republic in 1938?

The crumbling of the communist bloc and all the political crises associated with it was what eventually caused the Afghan economy and state to collapse. Until then, all sorts of commentators were claiming that the mujahideen were finished.

This argument of being reliant on foreign troops holds no water.

In fact, the DRA would have been militarily self-sufficient EARLIER if all those politically immature wreckers from the socialist periphery weren't so concerned with helping Western imperialism do its dirty work.


You are equating the state military of Afghanistan with the volunteers and irregular forces of the Spanish republic.

A salaried/conscripted regular army is proof positive that a coup government is popular among the people. No military coup has ever had the support of the regular army before.The Jalalabad militia, and especially the women's militia, would have disagreed.

I have no inclination to debate an ultraleft falsifier of history, but I do expect a response with more deliberate falsifications.

[Kléber]

This argument of being reliant on foreign troops holds no water.

In fact, the DRA would have been militarily self-sufficient EARLIER if all those politically immature wreckers from the socialist periphery weren't so concerned with helping Western imperialism do its dirty work.
That's half true. PF's argument does hold no water, but that's because the Soviet troops were only "relied upon" after 1979 to solve a problem which their own government had inflamed out of control with its chauvinist invasion of Afghanistan and purge of the PDPA leadership.

Also, re. the argument that foreign military aid means a country is a comprador puppet state, the Spanish Republic for its part was also reliant on the Soviet Union, no other country (except Mexico) would sell let alone give them modern arms. As Moscow gave up on joining the Allies and moved towards the Axis with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Internationals were withdrawn from Spain, Soviet aid dried up, and soon enough Republican officers in the besieged capital surrendered to an Italian- and German-backed enemy.

[khad]

That's half true. PF's argument does hold no water, but that's because the Soviet troops were only "relied upon" after 1979 to solve a problem which their own government had inflamed out of control with its chauvinist invasion of Afghanistan and purge of the PDPA leadership.
Out of control is Amin murdering the PDPA, Khalq and Parcham alike. If he wasn't such an animal, and if Taraki had remained president, there would not have been a need to take anyone down.

Operation Storm-333 was given the go-ahead precisely because of the murder of Taraki and the subsequent destruction of the PDPA.

I think we both agree on the fact that Amin was a bastard. We just have different perspectives on the solution to him.

[Kléber]

Out of control is Amin murdering the PDPA, Khalq and Parcham alike. If he wasn't such an animal, and if Taraki had remained president, there would not have been a need to take anyone down.

Operation Storm-333 was given the go-ahead precisely because of the murder of Taraki and the subsequent destruction of the PDPA.

I think we both agree on the fact that Amin was a bastard. We just have different perspectives on the solution to him.
I do agree that Amin was a bastard, he would probably have everyone involved in this thread taken out and shot. But it's funny how you can justify a foreign invasion to kill the Afghan President, to stop him doing purges, as if Brezhnev and co. knew better how to purge Afghanistan than the PDPA itself. But when someone call for Soviet workers to rise up against Stalin, the worst purger of all time, who beside his own faction even purged his own family members, it's "Nazi sympathizer. Liberal. Trot. Lie. Die. Bye."

[khad]

I do agree that Amin was a bastard, he would have you me and Ismail taken out and shot. But it's funny how you can justify a foreign invasion to kill the Afghan President, to stop him doing purges. But when someone call for Soviet workers to rise up against Stalin, the worst purger of all time, who beside his own faction even purged his own family members, it's "Nazi sympathizer. Liberal. Trot. Lie. Die. Bye."
Actually, I wouldn't have cared if the USSR got a replacement who was ironfisted enough to industrialize the country enough to carry them through WW2.

My "support" of Stalin has always been contingent on the fact that he wasn't destroying the USSR as a political entity, which Amin was doing to Afghanistan. In fact the USSR spent many months begging Amin to release jailed party members to no avail, while the country was going to hell.

Concerns of geostrategy are important for anyone living in the real world.

[Barry Lyndon]

I do agree that Amin was a bastard, he would probably have everyone involved in this thread taken out and shot. But it's funny how you can justify a foreign invasion to kill the Afghan President, to stop him doing purges, as if Brezhnev and co. knew better how to purge Afghanistan than the PDPA itself. But when someone call for Soviet workers to rise up against Stalin, the worst purger of all time, who beside his own faction even purged his own family members, it's "Nazi sympathizer. Liberal. Trot. Lie. Die. Bye."

I support the killing of Amin, and would have supported a plan by revolutionaries to take out Stalin had the situation materialized(I am very approving of the fact that General Zhukov took out Beria). Amin was a mini-Stalin, he even quoted Stalin to justify his behavior when the Soviets objected to his brutal methods.

[Kléber]

Actually, I wouldn't have cared if the USSR got a replacement who was ironfisted enough to industrialize the country enough to carry them through WW2.

My support of Stalin has always been contingent on the fact that he wasn't destroying the USSR as a political entity, which Amin was doing to Afghanistan.

Concerns of geostrategy are important for anyone living in the real world.
The political purges killed off a generation of Bolshevik leaders, stifling differences of opinion and reducing power to a tiny despotic clique, whose private decisions would eventually lead to the restoration of market capitalism. The military purges, and the passage of the "deep operations" school into disfavor, led to an absolute military disaster in 1941 despite the fact that the Red Army grossly outnumbered the Wehrmacht in armor and aviation. Without the mid-war return to the military theories of Triandafillov and Tukhachevsky (though not the names) it is doubtful the Red Army could have used its armored units effectively. Nevertheless, Stalin faced considerable internal political opposition and saw a vast purge of real and potential political opponents as the only way to ensure his hold on power in the event of a national crisis.

Amin's purges were no more justifiable than Stalin's, but neither are they somehow worse. In any case Storm-333 was not a solution any more than a foreign invasion was a solution to the despotism of Stalin's clique. We can't say how long Amin's regime would have lasted, whereas Parcham definitely failed to hold the country together "in the real world."

Putting "concerns of geostrategy," ie the concerns of the Soviet elite, over the geostrategic concerns of the working class is why the world revolution crapped out and we wound up with no Soviet Union at all.


I support the killing of Amin, and would have supported a plan by revolutionaries to take out Stalin had the situation materialized(I am very approving of the fact that General Zhukov took out Beria). Amin was a mini-Stalin, he even quoted Stalin to justify his behavior when the Soviets objected to his brutal methods.
But would you support the killing of Stalin by.. a German firing squad after the fall of Moscow? Najibullah was a butcher too, but the mujahideen had no moral high ground to take when they murdered him. I would have loved it if the Iraqi workers rose up and killed Saddam Hussein, but I refuse to watch the video of him being killed by pro-imperialist thugs. The overthrow of Amin was the business of the Afghan workers and farmers and theirs alone.

[Ismail]

You just said that you're just as reformist as they are, so you've contradicted yourself again.No, I didn't.


So you're denying that Amin was promoting US influence? I just showed you how this was the fact of the matter.Hoxha was "promoting US influence" by opening trade with Western Europe, then. I guess he should have been overthrown? Lenin had the NEP to encourage Western investments and such. I guess Lenin should have been overthrown? Trading with a country that wasn't the Soviet Union, especially when said country was seen as being of particular geo-strategic importance, was pretty much "promoting US influence" in the eyes of Moscow.

But when the Warsaw Pact states opened up trade with Western Europe to get stuff which they could later transform into exports for the USSR, that's nothing, because the USSR got to profit from that.


Getting the US to train personnel is not "limiting Soviet influence", it's capitulating to and collaborating with the US.Considering that Daoud came to power with the support of the Soviet-backed Army, that's bull.


First, you said Amin had nothing to do with US aid, now you're rationalizing the US aid. So you're backtracking. As usual.No, I'm saying that Amin had nothing to do with the CIA.


But that's better than your line on apartheid, you've abandoned that issue completely, and for good reason.I never praised apartheid.


Actually, the PDPA was fairly popular after it came to power.. it was replacing a monarchy after all.What? It overthrew the Republican regime of Daoud. Daoud overthrew the constitutional monarchy of Zahir Shah (in 1973, with Soviet-trained Army support), who had more or less tolerated right-wing "socialists" like the Parchami and allowed them to sit in the parliament.

Compared to Daoud and the PDPA, Zahir Shah was objectively more progressive. He actually kept his country neutral and was instituting fairly liberal reforms. If I get someone going "ISMAIL WHY DO YOU SUPPORT A MONARCHY" then they can kindly read a history book, look up extensive Soviet support (under Lenin and Stalin) of progressive monarch Amanullah Khan, and then shut their faces. And this support didn't come in the form of a hundred tanks racing across the Afghan border to crush uppity peasants.


Thus, Morocco was used by Franco and Mussolini as a launch pad for Spanish fascism when it could have been a pro-Republican autonomous zone like the Basque and Catalan areas.The PSOE was against the independence/autonomy of Spanish Morocco, so the blame belongs with them. It was a serious issue since the PSOE was afraid of alienating France, and it could have easily developed a situation wherein the Popular Front would be split. Landis talks about it in his book.

As for your "The STALINISTS crushed the WORKERS UPRISING in 1937," I don't think I need to note how odd it is that a bunch of anarchists and trots/left-comms in a city making barricades for about a week and this coming to an inglorious end constitutes a national kick in the balls to proletarian morale or whatever.


I support the killing of Amin, and would have supported a plan by revolutionaries to take out Stalin had the situation materialized(I am very approving of the fact that General Zhukov took out Beria).Beria was the one who noted the gross injustices under Yezhov. And it was Zhukov who helped Khrushchev solidify his hold on power with his coup d'état against the "anti-party group."

That you side with Brezhnevites is not surprising, considering that Breznhevism is just tankie Trotskyism.


My "support" of Stalin has always been contingent on the fact that he wasn't destroying the USSR as a political entity,Trot.

[manic expression]

No, I didn't.
You certainly did by saying your fellow Hoxhaists in Mali had acted just as the PDPA did before the Saur Revolution.


Hoxha was "promoting US influence" by opening trade with Western Europe, then. I guess he should have been overthrown? Lenin had the NEP to encourage Western investments and such. I guess Lenin should have been overthrown? Trading with a country that wasn't the Soviet Union, especially when said country was seen as being of particular geo-strategic importance, was pretty much "promoting US influence" in the eyes of Moscow.
Did Lenin have US arms training the Red Army? Did Lenin do so in the hope of being conciliatory with imperialism? Don't make comparisons you can't justify.


But when the Warsaw Pact states opened up trade with Western Europe to get stuff which they could later transform into exports for the USSR, that's nothing, because the USSR got to profit from that.
Too bad that's not the point here. Stick to the topic.


Considering that Daoud came to power with the support of the Soviet-backed Army, that's bull.
Not in 1973, no.


No, I'm saying that Amin had nothing to do with the CIA.
And I've shown you that he had quite a bit to do with collaborating with US imperialism. It's all there.


I never praised apartheid.
You rationalized apartheid's invasion of Angola.

[Ismail]

You certainly did by saying your fellow Hoxhaists in Mali had acted just as the PDPA did before the Saur Revolution.Let's see where I said that.


Did Lenin have US arms training the Red Army?Soviet Russia had its own army well taken care of.


Did Lenin do so in the hope of being conciliatory with imperialism?Did Amin?


Too bad that's not the point here. Stick to the topic.How ironic.


Not in 1973, no.He did, in fact, come to power with the support of the Soviet-backed Army (which was led by Khalq elements), unless you'd like to posit a version of events wherein Daoud went into the palace and gloriously told all the King's servants to never let the King return, and then proceeded to bloodlessly proclaim a Republic.


And I've shown you that he had quite a bit to do with collaborating with US imperialism. It's all there.You think that allowing the US to train some segments of a very poor and up-to-that-point Soviet-dominated Army is "collaboration with US imperialism"?


You rationalized apartheid's invasion of Angola.UNITA was in rebellion against the MPLA before South Africa became involved.

FWIW I don't particularly "like" UNITA, they were Maoists, but they do deserve a tad more credit than they usually do. Savimbi never really abandoned his Maoist philosophy.

[manic expression]

Let's see where I said that.
I guess the Parcham wasn't revolutionary either, then (it actually wasn't, it was absolutely reformist). It participated in the parliament under the King, while the Khalq were arrested and/or driven into hiding. The Parchami continuously took rightist lines on every issue.

Clear comparison to the Parcham in relation to your tendency.


Soviet Russia had its own army well taken care of.Right, so they weren't collaborating with imperialists to train security personnel. Unlike Amin. Exactly my point.


Did Amin?Yes, it clearly says so in the source I quoted. You still haven't addressed that.


He did, in fact, come to power with the support of the Soviet-backed Army (which was led by Khalq elements), unless you'd like to posit a version of events wherein Daoud went into the palace and gloriously told all the King's servants to never let the King return, and then proceeded to bloodlessly proclaim a Republic.I know you can say that, but can you prove it?


You think that allowing the US to train some segments of a very poor and up-to-that-point Soviet-dominated Army is "collaboration with US imperialism"?Yes, and the CIA document I quoted clearly says it was done in order to try to promote a better relationship between the US and Afghanistan. Go back and read the quote.


UNITA was in rebellion against the MPLA before South Africa became involved.And when the SADF did "become involved", UNITA collaborated with apartheid like the traitors they were.


FWIW I don't particularly "like" UNITA, they were Maoists, but they do deserve a tad more credit than they usually do. Savimbi never really abandoned his Maoist philosophy.Interesting to know that your interpretation of "Maoist philosophy" means taking up the cause of institutionalized racism.

If you don't want to defend UNITA, don't defend UNITA. Don't defend their apartheid collaboration and then tell me they're not exactly your cup of tea.

[Ismail]

Clear comparison to the Parcham in relation to your tendency.You forgot the ()'s.

And so I quote, "(it actually wasn't, it was absolutely reformist)"


Right, so they weren't collaborating with imperialists to train security personnel. Unlike Amin. Exactly my point.Amin was collaborating with the Soviet imperialists, if that makes you sleep better at night.


Yes, it clearly says so in the source I quoted. You still haven't addressed that.Training soldiers does not equal collaboration.


I know you can say that, but can you prove it?The Army was dominated by the Khalq faction, which is why Daoud was forced to appoint communists to many positions after the 1973 coup.


Yes, and the CIA document I quoted clearly says it was done in order to try to promote a better relationship between the US and Afghanistan. Go back and read the quote.Yes, but that doesn't suddenly mean that Amin would go from "Glorious socialism and the immortal Soviet Union" to singing the US anthem on the Whitehouse lawn.

There's no evidence from anywhere that Amin was pro-US, or that the CIA or US Government regarded him as pro-US, just that "We should try to promote a better relationship," not "Amin is our puppet, we will now commence operation (insert name) and have Amin carry out strict land reform, a hardline internal policy, and a firm commitment to opposing reformism."

On an odd note for such an apparently "ultra-left" grouping, the Khalq faction apparently had more members than the Parchami in the 70's. (Amstutz, p. 31.)


And when the SADF did "become involved", UNITA collaborated with apartheid like the traitors they were.It was either that or face extinction due to the Cubans fighting them in Angola, kinda like how Khad went on for a bit about how "Oh, well, you may dislike the USSR, but isn't it better to support a state that can only exist because of Soviet puppetry, rather than damning it?"


Interesting to know that your interpretation of "Maoist philosophy" means taking up the cause of institutionalized racism.Quite a few of Hoxha's charges were that Mao was a chauvinist (and even a racist), but that's neither here nor there.


If you don't want to defend UNITA, don't defend UNITA. Don't defend their apartheid collaboration and then tell me they're not exactly your cup of tea.I think that in the 1960's and 70's UNITA was preferable to Soviet social-imperialism, though in the 80's it lost much of its internal support due to collaboration with South Africa, which doomed it in another way.

[Kléber]

What? It overthrew the Republican regime of Daoud. Daoud overthrew the constitutional monarchy of Zahir Shah (in 1973, with Soviet-trained Army support), who had more or less tolerated right-wing "socialists" like the Parchami and allowed them to sit in the parliament.

Compared to Daoud and the PDPA, Zahir Shah was objectively more progressive. He actually kept his country neutral and was instituting fairly liberal reforms. If I get someone going "ISMAIL WHY DO YOU SUPPORT A MONARCHY" then they can kindly read a history book, look up extensive Soviet support (under Lenin and Stalin) of progressive monarch Amanullah Khan, and then shut their faces. And this support didn't come in the form of a hundred tanks racing across the Afghan border to crush uppity peasants.
As I understand it, PDPA legislation was much more progressive even if the political system wasn't. The DRA was still in a much better state under Amin, even after his wave of purges, than it was after the Soviet invasion.


The PSOE was against the independence/autonomy of Spanish Morocco, so the blame belongs with them. It was a serious issue since the PSOE was afraid of alienating France, and it could have easily developed a situation wherein the Popular Front would be split. Landis talks about it in his book.But France and England never did come to the aid of the Spanish Republic. On the contrary their "non-intervention" hurt the Republic and gave equal legitimacy to the Franco junta. The English and French bourgeoisie already saw the Republic as part of the Soviet sphere, Churchill called the Republic the "red coalition" and the Nationals "anti-communists."

And, the Popular Front did split. By siding with the liberal Republicans and right-wing Socialists against the working class, and allowing itself to be used as their pawn and hired assassin, the PCE fucked over itself, the Republic, and the world revolution.


As for your "The STALINISTS crushed the WORKERS UPRISING in 1937," I don't think I need to note how odd it is that a bunch of anarchists and trots/left-comms in a city making barricades for about a week and this coming to an inglorious end constitutes a national kick in the balls to proletarian morale or whatever.No more than a bunch of Hoxhaist student guerrillas getting wiped out by Soviet arms represents a betrayal of socialism.

The POUM were centrists, not left-coms. And the May Days in 1937 were just one part of a civil war within the Civil War, behind Republican lines, being waged by liberal Republicans, right-wing Socialists, the PCE and GPU agents against those parties who saw the expropriation of the bourgeoisie as the only way to win the civil war. It was precisely the enthusiasm of revolutionary-minded proletarians that had sustained the Republic against an international fascist offensive; once this had been beaten out of the army by the PCE commissars, they could not even rally enough support to stop the Casado-Besteiro junta.

The same was true in Afghanistan. Even though the Soviet representatives inaugurated their total takeover with a purge of Khalqis, it took years of stomping on the Afghan people to destroy popular support for the DRA. The crude attempts to wipe out political opposition behind the lines under the guise of "covering the rear" backfired, causing Madrid CNTistas to join the Casado coup and Kabul Khalqis to betray Parcham in ultraleft acts of revenge that doomed each republic.

Before anyone says "hindsight is 20/20," there were comrades proposing alternatives to the "general line" back then and they were being actively assassinated by GPU/SIM and KGB/KhAD agents to enforce the interests of the Soviet ruling clique over those of the world's revolutionary workers and peoples.


Beria was the one who noted the gross injustices under Yezhov. And it was Zhukov who helped Khrushchev solidify his hold on power with his coup d'état against the "anti-party group."It must have been some comfort for all the Communist revolutionaries who were purged after Yezhov's downfall to know that Beria had categorically denounced his predecessor.


Yes, and the CIA document I quoted clearly says it was done in order to try to promote a better relationship between the US and Afghanistan. Go back and read the quote.
Ha, a Mao apologist accusing someone of cozying up to US imperialism. (Let me guess your response.. "what it was just a ping-pong game!")

[manic expression]

You forgot the ()'s.

And so I quote, "(it actually wasn't, it was absolutely reformist)"
Just after you equivocated the programs of the two. Those ()'s are just your opinion, in contradiction to your observations.


Amin was collaborating with the Soviet imperialists, if that makes you sleep better at night.
It's hard to collaborate with something that doesn't exist. Keep making stuff up.


Training soldiers does not equal collaboration.
Of course it does, it's giving imperialism access to one's defense forces. Further, if you read what I quoted, it was about Amin trying to get warmer relations with the US more generally.


The Army was dominated by the Khalq faction, which is why Daoud was forced to appoint communists to many positions after the 1973 coup.
So it wasn't Soviet-backed after all. Good to know.


Yes, but that doesn't suddenly mean that Amin would go from "Glorious socialism and the immortal Soviet Union" to singing the US anthem on the Whitehouse lawn.
It does mean he was working to increase US influence in Afghanistan, which is more than enough to justify the claims you have questioned.


There's no evidence from anywhere that Amin was pro-US,
Yes, there is, I already showed it to you.


It was either that or face extinction due to the Cubans fighting them in Angola, kinda like how Khad went on for a bit about how "Oh, well, you may dislike the USSR, but isn't it better to support a state that can only exist because of Soviet puppetry, rather than damning it?"
Wrong. The Cubans only went into Angola AFTER the SADF invaded the country. UNITA had been collaborating with apartheid before the first Cuban soldier set foot in Angola. Cuba whooped apartheid's ass, along with all their petty apologists, who you shamelessly support. More apartheid-apologism, more historical denial.


I think that in the 1960's and 70's UNITA was preferable to Soviet social-imperialism, though in the 80's it lost much of its internal support due to collaboration with South Africa, which doomed it in another way.
So apartheid's pawn is better than the Soviet Union. Spoken like a true defender of apartheid.

[Ismail]

As I understand it, PDPA legislation was much more progressive even if the political system wasn't. The DRA was still in a much better state under Amin, even after his wave of purges, than it was after the Soviet invasion.I am not denying this.


But France and England never did come to the aid of the Spanish Republic. On the contrary their "non-intervention" hurt the Republic and gave equal legitimacy to the Franco junta. The English and French bourgeoisie already saw the Republic as part of the Soviet sphere, Churchill called the Republic the "red coalition" and the Nationals "anti-communists."Si, although by 1939 they were beginning to change their views.


And, the Popular Front did split. By siding with the liberal Republicans and right-wing Socialists against the working class, and allowing itself to be used as their pawn and hired assassin, the PCE fucked over itself, the Republic, and the world revolution.... And then those right-wing Socialists proceeded to oppose the PCE, accuse it of trying to take over the government, etc.


No more than a bunch of Hoxhaist student guerrillas getting wiped out by Soviet arms represents a betrayal of socialism.Except the invasion of Afghanistan was imperialist, the PDPA did not take power in a revolution, and the PDPA ruled like a military dictatorship than an actual proletarian democracy.


It must have been some comfort for all the Communist revolutionaries who were purged after Yezhov's downfall to know that Beria had categorically denounced his predecessor."The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: 'Ezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!'"
(Ian Grey. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., p. 290.)

"Speakers at the Eighteenth Party Congress, held in March 1939, consistently suggested that the struggle against internal enemies was largely over. Beria... spoke about this problem mostly in the past tense and pointedly stated that troubles in the economy could not be explained solely by reference to sabotage... Perhaps the most remarkable speech of the congress was Andrei Zhdanov's... The purges had allowed enemy elements inside the party to persecute honest members. Following his lead, the congress resolved to ban mass purges and to strengthen the rights of communists at all levels to criticize any party official....

Of course, Stalin's words on the subject were the most important. At the Eighteenth Party Congress he indicated that internal subversion was largely a thing of the past and specifically noted that the punitive organs had turned their attention 'not to the interior of the country, but outside it, against external enemies.' Between the end of the congress in March 1939 and the German invasion in June 1941, he offered no more comments on spies and saboteurs. The official slogans for the May Day holiday in 1939 contained not a word about the NKVD or enemies but dwelt on the glories and responsibilities of the army, fleet, and border guards."
(Robert W. Thurston. Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1996. pp. 130-131.)

So yes, significant improvement.


Just after you equivocated the programs of the two. Those ()'s are just your opinion, in contradiction to your observations.I never equivocated them. Why would I equivocate the program of the MDP, which is Hoxhaist, with a rightist and reformist party like the Parcham?


It's hard to collaborate with something that doesn't exist. Keep making stuff up.The Soviet Union didn't exist? Damn, that's something.


Of course it does, it's giving imperialism access to one's defense forces. Further, if you read what I quoted, it was about Amin trying to get warmer relations with the US more generally.It was Amin trying to expand ties with other states, which was not a bad move considering that the US, Pakistan, and other states generally agreed that the PDPA was illegitimate and a puppet state of the Soviets under Amin and onwards.


So it wasn't Soviet-backed after all. Good to know.Well if you don't call an Army trained by the Soviets completely and dominated by them ideologically "Soviet-backed," then something is amiss.


It does mean he was working to increase US influence in Afghanistan, which is more than enough to justify the claims you have questioned.I fail to see how "Improve ties with the US to get them to recognize our government via training segments of the military" equals "Completely sell out Afghanistan, proclaim a Capitalist McDonalds Republic, engage in espionage and terrorism against the Soviet Union."


Yes, there is, I already showed it to you.No you didn't. Using this logic you could argue that Hoxha was pro-US because he improved relations with Western states in the 80's.


Wrong. The Cubans only went into Angola AFTER the SADF invaded the country. UNITA had been collaborating with apartheid before the first Cuban soldier set foot in Angola. Cuba whooped apartheid's ass, along with all their petty apologists, who you shamelessly support. More apartheid-apologism, more historical denial.Not quite (http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001975/Wright/Wright15/Wright15.html).

"We have white specialists, but not necessarily mercenaries or South Africans. Obviously our white Angolan brothers are also fighting in our ranks. Let me tell you that after the Soviet and Cuban intervention on the MPLA side, the MPLA are not entitled to criticize us for whatever outside help we may obtain."


So apartheid's pawn is better than the Soviet Union. Spoken like a true defender of apartheid.It wasn't "apartheid's pawn" in the 60's and 70's, though by the 80's it had indeed shot itself in the foot by aligning with anti-communism and alliance with South Africa.

If it helps you sleep better, this was Enver Hoxha's stand in 1978:

The Soviet Union also involves its allies, or better, its satellites in its interference. We are seeing this concretely in Africa, where the Soviet social-imperialist and their Cuban mercenaries are intervening on the pretext that they are assisting the revolution. This is a lie. Their intervention is nothing but a colonialist action aimed at capturing markets and subjugating peoples... They have never had the slightest intention of assisting the Angolan revolution, but their aim was and is to get their claws into that African country which had won a certain independence after the expulsion of the Portuguese colonialists The Cuban mercenaries are the colonial army dispatched by the Soviet Union to capture markets and strategic positions in the countries of Black Africa, and to go on from Angola to other states, to enable the Soviet social-imperialists, too , to create a modern colonial empire.... Agostinho Neto is playing the game of the Soviets. In the struggle against the other faction, in order to seize power for himself, he called in the Soviets to help him. The struggle between the two opposing Angolan clans did not have anything of a people's revolutionary character.

[Kléber]

Si, although by 1939 they were beginning to change their views.
Yes, but so was Moscow, which abandoned the Spanish Republic as Gorbachev would later abandon the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1989. Before the Popular Front could pay its political dividends, the Comintern ditched it and Soviet foreign policy turned to a reconciliation with the Axis. By late 1938, with things already looking bad for the Republic, the International Brigades were withdrawn, Soviet aid stopped; the PCE and the Republic - their enemies still armed and bolstered by fascism - were left to die.

Already in a 22 February 1937 letter to Voroshilov and the NKVD, Yan Berzin, head of the GRU wrote, "The current task: to succeed in removing [Asensio and Cabrera] and dissolving the counterrevolutionary officer corps. If this is not done in the near future, then the chances of victory will not be great and we need to think how to get out of the game because our presence here will be useless." (Radosh, Habeck, and Sevastianov, Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. Yale University Press: 2001. Page 150, Document 37.)


... And then those right-wing Socialists proceeded to oppose the PCE, accuse it of trying to take over the government, etc.Yes. By going along with Prieto's mini-civil war, the PCE split the revolutionary working class ranks, misused the prestige of Leninism, the Comintern and the Soviet Union to support the line of treasonous right-wing reformists who wanted nothing to do with Communism. The CNT/FAI and POUM were not the fifth column and neither was the PCE the villain of the story, the real traitors who ended up betraying the Republic were the "liberal" bourgeoisie who pit the leftists against each other, and the Popular Front, which represented political submission to liberalism, completely failed the working class. The liberals and right-wing Socialists had no intention of letting the PCE infiltrate the officer corps to facilitate a post-war coup. Trotsky warned that the Popular Front's chasing after the "shadow of the bourgeoisie" would result in failure, because the mainstay of the Republican cause and Republican morale was mass working-class enthusiasm to defend the workers' movement from fascist annihilation, not the ideals of the tiny liberal bourgeoisie or the phantom hope of Allied support. Sure enough the Allies never came around, at least not while the USSR was still in a pop front mood, and the right wing of the Popular Front ended up preferring surrender to fascism than permitting any growth of revolutionary proletarian influence.

The Popular Front course doomed not only the Spanish revolution but the Republic as well, confirming the perspective that democratic struggle would be defeated if it did not assume a proletarian character. It is not just a matter of me saying this 70 years after the fact, comrades who made this analysis of the situation then were being butchered by the long arm of the GPU and SIM. The Comintern's priority, assassinating its political opponents to gain a monopoly over the left, was stated in Pravda that "cleaning up of Trotskyist and anarcho-syndicalist elements will be carried out with the same energy as in the USSR" and in a December 1936 EC communication to the PCE that "Whatever happens, the final destruction of the Trotskyists must be achieved, exposing them to the masses as a fascist secret service carrying out provocations in the service of Hitler and General Franco, attempting to split the Popular Front, conducting a slanderous campaign against the Soviet Union, a secret service actively aiding fascism in Spain." (Haslam, Jonathan. The Soviet Union and the struggle for collective security in Europe, 1933-39‎. Palgrave Macmillan, November 1984, page 116.)

The following excerpt from a report by GRU deputy chief A.M. Nikonov highlight the motivated Soviet policy to aggressively execute left-wing political deviants within the ranks of the Republican armed forces. "With the connivance of the 'orthodox' anarchists, the Trotskyists (POUMists) at the beginning of the war had their own special regiment with two thousand rifles on the Catalan front. This has now increased to thirty-two hundred men and has received weapons for everyone. This regiment is the rottenest unit of the entire Republican army, but it has nonetheless existed up to now and receives supplies, money, and ammunition. It goes without saying that it is impossible to win the war against the rebels if these scum within the Republican camp are not liquidated." (Radesh, Habeck and Sevastianov, pages 132-133, document 33)

I am not trying to glorify the opportunist CNT/FAI either. They also submitted to the bourgeois Front and allowed themselves to be used as pawns against the PCE defencists during the Casado-Besteiro junta of surrender, flinging open the gates of Madrid to the common enemy, thus playing into the sectarian division which the liberals and reformists used to split the left and abandon the fight.


Except the invasion of Afghanistan was imperialist, the PDPA did not take power in a revolution, and the PDPA ruled like a military dictatorship than an actual proletarian democracy.The USSR did not end up using its troops to seize the Spanish government, but why else was the PCE, nominally a workers' party, in effect a party of Republican military officers, if the plan was not to stage a military coup? This statement by Dimitrov on 23 July 1936, a week after the fascist rising, is one of many archived documents that shows the PCE's controllers had no qualms about the methods it might use to seize power: "The question is also connected with the army. The army is smashed to pieces. The [rebellion] began in the army units in Morocco. If the garrison in the center had been seized, we might, in the Bulgarian or Greek way, have carried out a revolution in twenty-four hours, overthrown the Azaña government early in the morning, issued a manifesto from the new government, a real Republican democratic government, and so on. The Popular Front actually has the predominant position in Madrid." (ibid., page 12, document 5.)

Semyon Krivoshein, a tank commander in Spain, on 10 March 1937, in a letter which was forwarded to Stalin by Voroshilov who noted "I ask that you read it - it's worth it," after a jeremiad in which he blamed the CNT/FAI for being full of fascists and responsible for all the Republic's defeats, wrote, "Conclusion. Revolutionary Spain needs a strong government that is able to organize and guarantee the victory of the revolution. The Communist party ought to come to power even by force, if necessary." (ibid., page 145, Document 36.)

Nor was the USSR ruled like an actual proletarian democracy when Communist revolutionaries who worked side by side with Lenin were being summarily shot after 15-minute trials by NKVD troikas. The Comintern's open willingness to export the purges of 1937 to Spain was a death warrant for the Spanish proletarian movement, the mainstay of the Republican cause. By 1939 the Republican zone had indeed become a dictatorship over the working class. The POUM and CNT/FAI were smashed, the army had been reorganized on a bourgeois model, Soviet help was a thing of the past. Capitalism reasserted itself within the Republican zone, thanks largely to the enormous influence of Moscow in suppressing the Spanish workers. I'm not saying Stalin had some conspiracy to lose the Spanish Civil War, but the Soviet policy of supporting the quasi-existent Republican bourgeoisie in stifling the Spanish working class demoralized the Republic's best defenders to the point where PCE officers, detached from the prestige and material support of Soviet aid post-1938, could not rally the workers of Madrid in 1939 as mass workers' organizations had done in 1936.


"The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: 'Ezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!'"
(Ian Grey. Stalin: Man of History. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1979., p. 290.)Didn't Beria also brag to Molotov about poisoning Stalin?


"Speakers at the Eighteenth Party Congress, held in March 1939, consistently suggested that the struggle against internal enemies was largely over. Beria... spoke about this problem mostly in the past tense and pointedly stated that troubles in the economy could not be explained solely by reference to sabotage... Perhaps the most remarkable speech of the congress was Andrei Zhdanov's... The purges had allowed enemy elements inside the party to persecute honest members. Following his lead, the congress resolved to ban mass purges and to strengthen the rights of communists at all levels to criticize any party official....

Of course, Stalin's words on the subject were the most important. At the Eighteenth Party Congress he indicated that internal subversion was largely a thing of the past and specifically noted that the punitive organs had turned their attention 'not to the interior of the country, but outside it, against external enemies.' Between the end of the congress in March 1939 and the German invasion in June 1941, he offered no more comments on spies and saboteurs. The official slogans for the May Day holiday in 1939 contained not a word about the NKVD or enemies but dwelt on the glories and responsibilities of the army, fleet, and border guards."
(Robert W. Thurston. Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1996. pp. 130-131.)The sweeping purges were not an accident, a mistaken irrational policy, a facet of Stalin's paranoia which was massaged by this naughty kid Yezhov, nor could it be said a that the end of the repressions constituted recognition of the mistake and a calming down of the nerves of Stalin and co. On the contrary, the mass killing of Communist opponents was a rational maneuver to wipe out actual political opposition to the Stalin clique and its policies. They knew what Yezhov was planning when they hired him for the job, and he was encouraged to seek out enemies until they decided to use him as a scapegoat. Stalin himself had said "the GPU is four years late in this matter."

It makes perfect sense that once the opposition had been liquidated, the liquidators themselves would also be liquidated so that the center could be artificially dissociated from Yezhovshchina (http://dimpost.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/yezhov.jpg) and absolved of responsibility. This is the same dynamic in which Stalin was chiseled out of history by his poisoners despite their maintenance of the repressive apparatus, and great debt to the Gensec for bequeathing them a superpower, unquestioned political dominance, the "joyous and happy life" of Soviet bureaucrats.


So yes, significant improvement.For a tiny layer of obviously innocent people, but not significant enough for all the innocent comrades who were shot in the various purges under Beria's tenure and those who died while carrying out forced labor in sentences previously incurred under Yagoda and Yezhov, under the eye of such characters as the bourgeois scum Naftaly Frenkel.

[syndicat]

The evidence is that the strategy of the PCE was to permeate the hierarchies of the police and army, and then use this to gain state power. The documents in "Spain Betrayed," as Kleber points out, supports this conclusion. The PCE fought for the rebuilding of a conventional top-down military with autocratic control by officers over ranks. Their beating the drum for this was connected with their strategy also of recuiting mainly from the middle classes -- small farmer owners, shopkeepers and middlemen, lawyers, cops, etc. Only 40 percent of the PCE's membership were from the working class. The PCE started out as a small party and was not able to recruit from the working class because the anarcho-syndicalist movement and the Left Socialists and, to a lesser extent, the POUM, had the dominant working class support. These were the main revolutionary tendencies in the Spanish revolution.


The liberals and right-wing Socialists had no intention of letting the PCE infiltrate the officer corps to facilitate a post-war coup.


I think this isn't clearly true. The ERC in Catalonia used the PCE/PSUC to counter-balance the anarchosyndicalists and ended up being sidelined as the PCE/PSUC gained control. The moderate social dems in the PSOE allowed themselves to be manipulated all over the place by the PCE, such as Negrin's stupid action sending 70 percent of the gold to Moscow in Oct 1936. Totally destroyed Republic's bargaining position in its arms deals with Stalin. Also, undermined the value of the Spanish currency, making it harder to buy needed supplies on world market. Keep in mind that USSR did not "give" arms to the Republic. It sold them arms, and exacted as much as it could get. The author of "Arms for Spain" argues, in intricate detail, that USSR looted the Republic.


I am not trying to glorify the opportunist CNT/FAI either. They also submitted to the bourgeois Front and allowed themselves to be used as pawns against the PCE defencists during the Casado-Besteiro junta of surrender, flinging open the gates of Madrid to the common enemy, thus playing into the sectarian division which the liberals and reformists used to split the left and abandon the fight.


You seem to suppose that the Republican army was still capable of fighting. In fact the battle of Ebro, designed by PCE and Republican officers, essentially destroyed the Republican army, that and various other mass infrantry assaults such as Belchite and others.

The PCE/Comintern policy of trying to win over the "progressive" sectors of capital, such as the UK and USA and France, through a policy of downplaying the actual proletarian revolution, and maintaining that the fight was "to defend a democratic republic," was naive and bound to fail. As various anarchists pointed out at the time, the capitalist elites in UK, France and elsewhere knew what was going on in Spain. The industrial and agricuultural capitalist elite in Spain had been expropriated through mass worker action. More than 18,000 companies had been expropriated from below by the workers.

And the policy of Stalin and the PCE in Spain was sectarian in destructive ways. Thus at start of revolution CNT unions had converted more than 200 metal and chemical factories in Catalonia to arms production but were lacking funds to buy equipment and supplies. This was not provided because USSR didn't want resources to go to the anarchosyndicalists. Similarly, in 1937 Garcia Oliver proposed to Negrin the parachuting of 200 anarchist organizers into the mountains of Andalucia, behind fascist lines, to organize a guerrilla army. it was known that 20,000 left anti-fascists were hiding out there in the mountains. Negrin supported this but the Soviet ambassador veto'd. Didn't want arms to go to the anarchists.

They pursued such a policy because this fits in with their aim of having the PCE end up in control of the army and police, that is, a party monopoly over the armed forces, to be able to capture state power.

The radical wing of the CNT developed in August 1936 a counter policy to the PCE. To overcome lack of coordination and training in the militias, they proposed joint taking of power by the CNT and UGT unions, to run a unified people's militia, with a unified command and new training schools.

This was strenuously opposed by the Soviet ambassador Marcel Rosenberg, who said it would "destroy the international legitimacy" of the Republic. As if that done them any good! This pressure persuaded Largo Caballero and the Left Socialists to turn down the CNT proposal. Durruti then proposed that the CNT take power alone in the regions where it was the majority (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia), and it did so in Aragon, but unfortunately many FAI members in the CNT ranks wavered and did not go along with this in Catalonia, where it mattered most. The idea was to pressure Largo Caballero and the PSOE Left to accept their proposal for a direct working class government.

The Spanish case is important because it is the only proletarian revolution to occur in an iindustrialized country.

[Ismail]

Yes, but so was Moscow, which abandoned the Spanish Republic as Gorbachev would later abandon the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1989. Before the Popular Front could pay its political dividends, the Comintern ditched it and Soviet foreign policy turned to a reconciliation with the Axis. By late 1938, with things already looking bad for the Republic, the International Brigades were withdrawn, Soviet aid stopped; the PCE and the Republic - their enemies still armed and bolstered by fascism - were left to die.The withdrawal of the International Brigades was an attempt by Negrín and others to hope that the Italians and Germans would withdraw their troops under an expected (or hoped for) greater scrutiny on the part of Britain and France, who Negrín and others felt adopted a "Well, the Soviets have their men in Spain too" approach.

Spain fell in April of 1939. Stalin pretty much said "Fuck it" and began to negotiate with the Nazis soon after, not during the fall of the Republic, and the Spanish experience was obviously quite influential seeing as how both the aim of Collective Security and the destruction of the Republic both showcased that Britain and France did not fancy working against Fascism.


... Sure enough the Allies never came around, at least not while the USSR was still in a pop front mood, and the right wing of the Popular Front ended up preferring surrender to fascism than permitting any growth of revolutionary proletarian influence.This does, of course, have basis.


The USSR did not end up using its troops to seize the Spanish government, but why else was the PCE, nominally a workers' party, in effect a party of Republican military officers, if the plan was not to stage a military coup?Ibárruri in her memoirs does note that many PCE members did want to see a PCE coup, but the leadership decided against it, feeling that it would cause a complete collapse of the Front.


Didn't Beria also brag to Molotov about poisoning Stalin?That is how Molotov reports it, yes.


On the contrary, the mass killing of Communist opponents was a rational maneuver to wipe out actual political opposition to the Stalin clique and its policies. They knew what Yezhov was planning when they hired him for the job, and he was encouraged to seek out enemies until they decided to use him as a scapegoat. Stalin himself had said "the GPU is four years late in this matter."You are indeed correct that there was political opposition. This same opposition united with fascists in their effort to eliminate the so-called "Stalin clique," which included the assassination of Kirov, among others. At least you can admit that there was an organized opposition.

It's always ironic to see Trots talk about how Stalin killed the "true Communists" when those killed were more or less "bureaucratic" as anyone else. At least Trotsky denounced people like Bukharin in public.

I also cannot find the Stalin quote you've noted on Google.


It makes perfect sense that once the opposition had been liquidated, the liquidators themselves would also be liquidated so that the center could be artificially dissociated from Yezhovshchina (http://dimpost.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/yezhov.jpg) and absolved of responsibility.As Robert W. Thurston notes in his work Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, there is, in fact, plenty of evidence that Yezhov's activities caught the government by surprise. Yezhov was the one who generally set quotas and was in charge of the NKVD. He had a lot of responsibility.

[Kléber]

You seem to suppose that the Republican army was still capable of fighting. In fact the battle of Ebro, designed by PCE and Republican officers, essentially destroyed the Republican army, that and various other mass infrantry assaults such as Belchite and others.
Both sides relied on mass infantry assaults. But the USSR did abandon armored warfare doctrines in 1938 during the army purges, and they started using their tanks dispersed like in WWI or the French army rather than in modern armor formations like the Germans. The Ebro was a disaster indeed, the Internationals were cut up and withdrawn during the battle, but if Soviet aid hadn't stopped, the Republican army could have made up for the lost assets and materiel. Anything other than WWI-style engagements was difficult once all the fronts had been established because the primitive armor of the period was relatively ineffective against anti-tank guns, so even once the Nationalists captured half the T-26 tank fleet, they were stuck doing the same sort of massed infantry and artillery assaults against Republican positions. The final defeat of the Republic came while it still had hundreds of thousands of armed defenders, but Madrid was handed over almost without a fight after infighting between the Republican troops and the victory of the Casado-Besteiro surrender junta.


The ERC in Catalonia used the PCE/PSUC to counter-balance the anarchosyndicalists and ended up being sidelined as the PCE/PSUC gained control. The moderate social dems in the PSOE allowed themselves to be manipulated all over the place by the PCE, such as Negrin's stupid action sending 70 percent of the gold to Moscow in Oct 1936.Still, the social-democrats and liberals were vocally opposed to the PCE and ended up violently turning on it. As for the gold thing, they didn't really have a choice, the Republican "leaders" feared the fall of Madrid so much they spent the war in Valencia, although that Negrín was more or less subservient to the USSR is certain.


The radical wing of the CNT developed in August 1936 a counter policy to the PCE. To overcome lack of coordination and training in the militias, they proposed joint taking of power by the CNT and UGT unions, to run a unified people's militia, with a unified command and new training schools.Yes a unified, trained and regular army was needed, but not of the strictly capitalist model no different from the Nationalist army that was advocated and strictly enforced by the PCE. As in the Red Army from 1935, bourgeois ranks and regular saluting were restored in the People's Army from 1937 and along with the politically-motivated executions demoralized the Republican defenders.


They pursued such a policy because this fits in with their aim of having the PCE end up in control of the army and police, that is, a party monopoly over the armed forces, to be able to capture state power.In doing so they directly betrayed the principle enumerated by Marx and Lenin among others that the working class can not simply lay hold of the ready-made bourgeois state machinery and wield it for its own uses.


The withdrawal of the International Brigades was an attempt by Negrín and others to hope that the Italians and Germans would withdraw their troops under an expected (or hoped for) greater scrutiny on the part of Britain and France, who Negrín and others felt adopted a "Well, the Soviets have their men in Spain too" approach.
Yes, and the enhancement of the blockade had something to do with the abrupt cut-off of Soviet aid. But the original argument was, IIRC, that the Dem Rep Afghanistan was less independent than the Second Spanish Republic because it required foreign aid to stay intact. The fact that the Spanish Republic collapsed soon after the end of Soviet assistance seems to disprove this.


Spain fell in April of 1939. Stalin pretty much said "Fuck it" and began to negotiate with the Nazis soon after, not during the fall of the Republic, and the Spanish experience was obviously quite influential seeing as how both the aim of Collective Security and the destruction of the Republic both showcased that Britain and France did not fancy working against Fascism.They sure didn't waste any time. Maxim Litvinov was removed in May following a Nazi campaign to smear him as "Finkelstein."


Ibárruri in her memoirs does note that many PCE members did want to see a PCE coup, but the leadership decided against it, feeling that it would cause a complete collapse of the Front.Yeah, once the optimism vanished so did coup plans apparently. But Ibárruri was a puppet of Moscow, who actively purged her fellow refugees in the USSR and had nothing nice to say about Hoxha for starters. The Comintern and Red Army leaders were at least open to the idea of a coup, so I don't think the PCE was qualitatively less opportunist than the PDPA.


You are indeed correct that there was political opposition. This same opposition united with fascists in their effort to eliminate the so-called "Stalin clique," which included the assassination of Kirov, among others. At least you can admit that there was an organized opposition.I wouldn't use the term "admit," the Party was far from degenerated enough at that point that nobody had a mind to oppose Stalin's revisionist general line. Two-thirds of the Seventeenth Party Congress had to die for some real reason. How organized of an opposition existed is also debatable. Stalin referred to the surviving Trotskyists as the "castrated forces" because their organization, having been completely subordinated to the Party had been easily bureaucratically disassembled, thousands of its supporters executed and the rest scattered far and wide away from their political base.

It seems that there may well have been a military coup in the offing, but the idea that Marshal Tukhachevsky, commander of the Moscow garrison, who apparently had the support of the vast majority of the army, needed Luftwaffe air support to take the Kremlin is.. laughable. Neither Nazis, English imperialists, nor Trotskyists had anything to do with the planned Right/army coup if there was one, they were thrown in as a matter of course to complete the inquisitorial narrative.

The assassination of Kirov appears to have been the subject of a sloppy cover-up. The trigger-man practically had Kirov pointed out to him, and one of the most important witnesses "fell off a truck" in NKVD custody shortly after the crime. Besides, Marxists had been against individual terrorism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1909/xx/tia09.htm) for some time. Kirov had participated in all the purges but he advocated moderation in executing fellow Communists, and being the next most popular within the party he was Stalin's #1 rival for power. Thus it would be an absolute suicidal political move for the "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" to kill him, in addition to a reversal of their position on the political uses of terrorism.


It's always ironic to see Trots talk about how Stalin killed the "true Communists" when those killed were more or less "bureaucratic" as anyone else. At least Trotsky denounced people like Bukharin in public.Yes, quite a few Left Oppositionists and practically all the centrist waverers and Right Oppositionists were bought off by the bureaucratic center with well-paying jobs and comfortable positions in the labor aristocracy. The bureaucracy's control of the apparatus of distribution gave it an anvil on which to break political opponents with the hammer of repression.


As Robert W. Thurston notes in his work Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, there is, in fact, plenty of evidence that Yezhov's activities caught the government by surprise. Yezhov was the one who generally set quotas and was in charge of the NKVD. He had a lot of responsibility.It isn't surprising that a mangy creature like Yezhov would bite the hand that fed it.


I also cannot find the Stalin quote you've noted on Google.Page 27 in Getty, John Arch and Manning, Roberta. Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives (http://books.google.com/books?id=NWYvGYcxCjYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false). Cambridge University Press: 2003

During the spring and summer of 1936, the NKVD sent a number of directive to local offices concerning the intensified battle against the Trotskyists. At the same time, their activity in terms of "rooting out Trotskyist nests" was under the constant control of the party organs and, most importantly, of the Politburo, which is to say, under Stalin and Ezhov's personal control. In April of 1936, by the order of the Politburo, all of those whose guilt in the terror had been established were to "be turned over to the court of the military collegia of the Supreme Court of the USSR with execution by firing squad as the ultimate penalty." On May 20, 1936, a directive of the Politburo instructed that "all Trotskyists should be sent to a concentration camp for 3-5 years. This primarily concerned those who had shown some signs of hostile activity and who lived in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and other cities of the Soviet Union." The intensification of the preparations for the first Moscow show trial began. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and others found themselves in the dock.

The investigation wasn't even finished when, on July 26, 1935, a closed letter entitled "About the Terrorist Activities of the Trotskyist-Zinovievist, Counterrevolutionary Bloc" was sent out to local party organs in the name of the Central Committee, in the letter, it was asserted that Kamenev and Zinoviev were not just responsible for ideologically inspiring terrorist activities against other party and state leaders, but that more importantly they had prepared an attempt on Stalin's life, and that a united bloc of Trotskyists and Zinovievists had directed all of the terrorist activity. This terrorist activity began in 1932 as a result of talks between the leaders of the counterrevolutionary groups. The main condition for "the unification of the two groups was the acceptance of terror directed at party and state leaders as the only and decisive means of gaining power." The author of the letter was N.I. Ezhov. on the eve of the Kamenev-Zinoviev trial, local party and government organs were given a directive to organize mass demonstrations and meetings of workers who would demand the conviction of all of the accused according to the highest category.

However, very few people in the country and in the party believed that these old, honored revolutionaries had become terrorists. Stalin considered this a sign that the organs of the NKVD and, most of all, its head, G.G. Iagoda, had not done enough preparatory work. In September of 1936 it was decided to change the leadership of the NKVD. On September 25, 1936, Stalin sent a telegram from Sochi with the following contents:
We consider it absolutely necessary and urgent to appoint Comrade Ezhov to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Iagoda clearly was not up to the task of bringing to light the Trotskyist-Zinovievist bloc. The OGPU was four years late in this affair. All of the party workers and most of the regional representatives of the NKVD are talking about this. We can leave Agranov as Ezhov's assistant in the Commissariat of Internal Affairs.
Stalin and Zhdanov signed the telegram. A little later Ezhov acquired the lofty title of General Commissar of State Security of the USSR.From page 90-92, Rogovin, Vadim Z., 1937: Stalin's Year of Terror (http://books.google.com/books?id=PZ92ueBx7MQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false). Mehring Books: 1998:

The phrase about being late by four years was prompted by Stalin's demand to henceforth place the date of the terrorism and sabotage by the Oppositionists from 1932, when the bloc of opposition inner-party groupings was formed. This sentence directly spurred the NKVD to "make up for lost time" by carrying out new mass arrests.
The day after receiving the telegram, the Politburo passed by referendum a resolution to free Yagoda from his responsibilities and to appoint Yezhov to this post, "so that he could give ten-tenths of his time to the NKVD." Yezhov had been working at two jobs simultaneously, secretary of the Central Committee of the VKP(b) and chairman of the Party Control Commission. Henceforth Yezhov not only combined more prominent party and state posts than any other of the party leadership, but as secretary of the Central Committee, which oversaw the organs of state security, he was, so to speak, keeping tabs on himself, while remaining subordinate only to Stalin.Kaganovich wrote to Ordzhonikidze,
Our main news of late has been the appointment of Yezhov. This remarkably wise decision of our parent [Stalin] ripened and was warmly received both in the party and in the nation.and penned a Politburo resolution ordering
a) Until recent times the Central Committee of the VKP(b) viewed the Trotsky-Zinoviev scoundrels as the advance political and organizational detachment of the international bourgeoisie. Recent facts say that these men have descended even further and that they now must be seen as intelligence agents, spies, saboteurs and wreckers of the fascist bourgeoisie in Europe.
b) In connection with this, reprisals are needed against the Trotsky-Zinoviev scoundrels, including not only the consistent ones such as Muralov, Piatakov, Beloborodov and others, whose cases are not concluded, but against those who earlier had been exiled."Pravda made the fantastic declaration that,
the counterrevolutionary sabotage of the Trotskyists in our industry, in the factories and mines, on the railways , on construction sites and in agriculture had been proven and even acknowledged by a whole number of the most prominent Trotskyists.

Just looking at the propaganda of Yezhov period, the play on words about "hedgehog gloves," seems to fit the analysis that Yezhovshchina was just a temporary policy of the Soviet state to be put on and taken off.
http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/yezhov/ye-ctn.jpghttp://img299.imageshack.us/img299/5899/yezhov.jpg

[syndicat]

Still, the social-democrats and liberals were vocally opposed to the PCE and ended up violently turning on it. As for the gold thing, they didn't really have a choice, the Republican "leaders" feared the fall of Madrid so much they spent the war in Valencia, although that Negrín was more or less subservient to the USSR is certain.



You're wrong about this. In Sept 1936 Durruti and Companys had negotiations with the PSOE over the CNT's demand that half the gold be transferred to Barcelona, to build up the war industry program initiated by workers of the CNT, who converted over 200 chemical and metal factories to war production. Largo Caballero told them he would do this. But then he allowed Negrin, at Soviet insistence, to send the gold out of the country, thus betraying their promises to Catalonia and the CNT.

[Ismail]

Yes, and the enhancement of the blockade had something to do with the abrupt cut-off of Soviet aid. But the original argument was, IIRC, that the Dem Rep Afghanistan was less independent than the Second Spanish Republic because it required foreign aid to stay intact. The fact that the Spanish Republic collapsed soon after the end of Soviet assistance seems to disprove this.In the PDPA's case, it had military superiority but had no popularity among the masses, who arose in revolt against the regime. It was more like Vietnam.

In the Spanish Republic's case, it had a significant shortage of personnel and arms, and definitely was at a disadvantage, even with Soviet assistance, when it came to battling the Francoists who enjoyed extensive German and Italian support. It was, however, more popular than the PDPA regime ever was.


They sure didn't waste any time. Maxim Litvinov was removed in May following a Nazi campaign to smear him as "Finkelstein."Litvinov had also been the guy who didn't want to send arms to the Spanish Republic, so I don't particularly care that he was removed.


Neither Nazis, English imperialists, nor Trotskyists had anything to do with the planned Right/army coup if there was one, they were thrown in as a matter of course to complete the inquisitorial narrative.The trial transcripts suggest that the Trots and Rights often disagreed on a lot of things.


The assassination of Kirov appears to have been the subject of a sloppy cover-up. The trigger-man practically had Kirov pointed out to him, and one of the most important witnesses "fell off a truck" in NKVD custody shortly after the crime. Besides, Marxists had been against individual terrorism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1909/xx/tia09.htm) for some time.According to Yagoda in the trials, he opposed killing Kirov because he was against terrorism. Furthermore, speaking at the trial, Konon Berman-Yurin said that: "In the evening we [Berman-Yurin and Trotsky] continued our conversation. I asked him how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism. To this Trotsky replied: problems cannot be treated in a dogmatic way. He said that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen." There were disagreements between individual persons on the acceptability of individual terrorism.


Kirov had participated in all the purges but he advocated moderation in executing fellow Communists, and being the next most popular within the party he was Stalin's #1 rival for power. Thus it would be an absolute suicidal political move for the "bloc of Rights and Trotskyites" to kill him, in addition to a reversal of their position on the political uses of terrorism.Actually, Kirov and Stalin were quite close. I mean, Molotov often disagreed with a few of Stalin's policies in private, but Molotov and Stalin generally remained close friends for many years.

Speaking of relations between Kirov and Stalin, Getty writes that:

"In the first place, virtually no evidence suggests that Kirov favored or advocated any specific policy line other than Stalin's General Line. One scholar has recently concluded that 'the problem exists of establishing to what extent the rise of Kirov and the new direction of Soviet policy were connected. As we have seen, they are often so interwoven that it is difficult to single out a line put forward by Kirov which is distinguishable from the official one.' The rumor that Kirov favored lenient treatment for dissidents, for example, is offset by opposite contemporary speculations... A contemporary article in Nicolaevsky's Sotsialisticheskii [Socialist herald] labeled Kirov a hard-liner. If Kirov was soft on the oppositionists, the opposition certainly did not know it.

Certainly Kirov's public speeches do not reflect a moderate attitude toward members of the opposition. In his speech to the Seventeenth Congress, he ridiculed members of the opposition, questioning their 'humanity' and the sincerity of their recantations. He sharply denounced Trotsky's 'counterrevolutionary chatter' and applauded the services of the secret police, including their use of forced labor on canal construction projects. It was upon Kirov's motion that Stalin's speech was taken as the basis for the congress's resolution...

Indeed, as one scholar has recently shown, Stalin had identified himself with more relaxed social and educational policies as early as 1931. Stalin made conciliatory gestures to the 'bourgeois specialists' and relaxed educational restrictions that had excluded sons and daughters of white-collar specialists. In May 1933, Stalin and Molotov ordered the release of half of all labor camp inmates whose infractions were connected with collectivization. The following summer, the political police (NKVD) were forbidden to pass death sentences without the sanction of the procurator of the USSR. The November 1934 plenum of the Central Committee abolished food rationing and approved new collective farm rules that guaranteed kolkhozniki the right to 'private plots' and personal livestock...

The end of the violent class struggle in the countryside, the time for rallying supporters (the winning over of 'men's minds' in Stalin's Seventeenth Congress speech), political education, and a fight against bureaucratism had been parts of Stalin's analysis of the situation and are not attributable solely to Kirov. A 'policy of relaxation' was also perceived on the literary scene. At the Soviet Writers' Congress in August 1934, the venerable Maksim Gorky contrasted 'proletarian humanism' to vicious fascism. This, in the wake of the dissolution of the contentious Russian Association of Proletarian Workers (which, in the name of 'proletarian literature' had attacked writers considered too 'bourgeois'), seemed to augur a more tolerant attitude toward literature. Previously suppressed artists were now allowed to return and work within the new Union of Soviet Writers. Young Andrei Zhdanov presided over these affairs in the name of the party.

If Stalin and Kirov were antagonists, it would be difficult to explain Kirov's continued rise. Stalin chose Kirov for the sensitive Leningrad party leadership position and trusted him with delicate 'trouble-shooter' missions to supervise critical harvests (like Kirov's journey to Central Asia in 1934). Kirov was elected to the Secretariat and Politburo in 1934, and Stalin wanted him to move to the Central Committee Secretariat in Moscow as soon as possible. Unless one is prepared to believe that Stalin did not control appointments to the Secretariat and Politburo (despite his alleged practice of manipulating ballots at congresses), one must assume that he and Kirov were allies.

Much more probable than a Kirov-versus-Stalin scenario is one in which Stalin, Kirov, and Zhdanov collaborated to overhaul the party's educational curriculum. These efforts would eventually result in significant revisions in educational curricula and formed the foundation for the famous History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Short Course, in 1938. Such a collaboration would explain the thrust of Stalin's and Kirov's remarks at the Seventeenth Congress. Kirov's promotion to the Secretariat, and Stalin's wish for Kirov to take up his work in Moscow.

More obvious than 'terror' in 1934-5 was the continuation of the Kirov-Stalin policy of socioeconomic relaxation combined with the activation and radicalization of party work. Although many of these social and political measures have been attributed to Kirov in opposition to Stalin, it is more likely that Stalin supported the new policies."
(J. Arch Getty. Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 92-95.)

So yes, it did make sense to assassinate Kirov in the same way as it made sense to assassinate Kaganovich, Molotov, and others.

[Kléber]

You're wrong about this. In Sept 1936 Durruti and Companys had negotiations with the PSOE over the CNT's demand that half the gold be transferred to Barcelona, to build up the war industry program initiated by workers of the CNT, who converted over 200 chemical and metal factories to war production. Largo Caballero told them he would do this. But then he allowed Negrin, at Soviet insistence, to send the gold out of the country, thus betraying their promises to Catalonia and the CNT.
I didn't know Caballero had made such a promise. What would the CNT have done with the gold though? The best offer the Republicans got for modern weapons was from the USSR, which as you note manipulated and robbed them, but so did all the other powers and those only offered obsolete equipment. Only the Soviets were willing to send state-of-the-art tanks and aircraft. Also the shipping problem got really bad as the war progressed, if the gold hadn't been sent at the very start it is unlikely it could have been shipped at all during the international blockade.


In the PDPA's case, it had military superiority but had no popularity among the masses, who arose in revolt against the regime. It was more like Vietnam.

In the Spanish Republic's case, it had a significant shortage of personnel and arms, and definitely was at a disadvantage, even with Soviet assistance, when it came to battling the Francoists who enjoyed extensive German and Italian support. It was, however, more popular than the PDPA regime ever was.
It is interesting to hear a Hoxhaist talk about fair election standards but yes, the Popular Front was elected in fairer circumstances than the PDPA. It's still somewhat of a subjective distinction since PF and PDPA rule were both marked by widespread extrajudicial killings against perceived enemies of their Republics, by all involved factions. The important thing is that in both cases the failure of the pro-Soviet regimes to conduct serious land reform was grist to the mill of rural reactionaries, and Soviet policy favoring half-assed reformist measures is largely to blame.


Litvinov had also been the guy who didn't want to send arms to the Spanish Republic, so I don't particularly care that he was removed.The switch to a foreign policy that promoted the "anti-imperialists" of Berlin and Rome was a demoralizing shock to a steadily degenerating Comintern.


According to Yagoda in the trials, he opposed killing Kirov because he was against terrorism. Yagoda also said "That is not quite how it was ... It was not like that." According to the trials, Stalin's security chief, with his hired gunmen and poison lab, was assassinating people at leisure throughout his tenure. How do we know Frunze and Dzerzhinsky were not among his victims?


Furthermore, speaking at the trial, Konon Berman-Yurin said that: "In the evening we [Berman-Yurin and Trotsky] continued our conversation. I asked him how individual terrorism could be reconciled with Marxism. To this Trotsky replied: problems cannot be treated in a dogmatic way. He said that a situation had arisen in the Soviet Union which Marx could not have foreseen." There were disagreements between individual persons on the acceptability of individual terrorism.Individual terrorism goes against the very core of Marxism, and also Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union. Marxism, in Russia in particular, was founded in the staunchest opposition to the terroristic methods of the populists, anarchists and SRs. If Trotsky had wanted to take power in such a manner he would have staged a military coup and not have resigned from the post of War Commissar to counter charges he was planning one.

The Marxist revolutionary who reverted to the methods of assassination was in fact Stalin. There was never a Trotsky-Zinoviev Fascist Terrorist Center killing loyal Stalinists. On the contrary the Soviet intelligence apparatus and Comintern revisionists were busily assassinating as many Trotskyists as they could, particularly in the USSR, Spain, Greece, Vietnam and China.


Actually, Kirov and Stalin were quite close. I mean, Molotov often disagreed with a few of Stalin's policies in private, but Molotov and Stalin generally remained close friends for many years.Yes, IIRC official propaganda hammered in the point that they were great pals. But Molotov was not approached by old party members who said they would prefer him as an alternative to Stalin.


More obvious than 'terror' in 1934-5 was the continuation of the Kirov-Stalin policy of socioeconomic relaxation combined with the activation and radicalization of party work. Although many of these social and political measures have been attributed to Kirov in opposition to Stalin, it is more likely that Stalin supported the new policies."
(J. Arch Getty. Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. 92-95.)Why is it unfathomable that Stalin would kill someone and then take his policies? Stalin took up the Left Opposition's policies of industrialization and collectivization after he defeated them by allying with the Right.


So yes, it did make sense to assassinate Kirov in the same way as it made sense to assassinate Kaganovich, Molotov, and others.Killing Kaganovich and Molotov would be an absolute waste of time. The Trotsky-Fascist-Rightist Conspiracy Center might as well have assassinated the comrade who shined Stalin's boots, if it wasn't one of those two. There was even a humorous "Molotov affair" when toady #1 was conspicuously left out of the list of people who the Trotsky-fascists were planning to kill.