Hoxhaism

[scarletghoul]

Honestly I don't know much about Hoxhaism. Please answer-

What is it that makes Hoxhaism Hoxhaism, and not just antirevisionist Marxism-Leninism ? I understand the split with Mao, but that seems to be mostly about upholding Marxism-Leninism.. I wanna know, what did Hoxha contribute theoretically and such ?

Thanks

[Os Cangaceiros]

Honestly I don't know much about Hoxhaism. Please answer-

What is it that makes Hoxhaism Hoxhaism, and not just antirevisionist Marxism-Leninism ? I understand the split with Mao, but that seems to be mostly about upholding Marxism-Leninism.. I wanna know, what did Hoxha contribute theoretically and such ?

Thanks

My impression (I'm not a Hoxhaist, obviously) is that they do consider themselves to be anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists. After Stalin's death, they considered Hoxha to be the last bastion of anti-revisionism, so that's why they're called Hoxhaists...I don't believe that they think Hoxha actually contributed any breakthroughs in theory, just upheld Marxist-Leninism, as they see it.

At least, that's how it has seemed to me over the years.

[The Ben G]

Maybe this is helpful:

From http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/round-2-fist-worldist-hoxhaists-versus-maoist-third-worldists-on-counter-revolution/


Recently, a debate took place between First Worldist Hoxhaists and Maoist-Third Worldists. This debate touched on many areas. One of the main issues was the process of counter-revolution and dealing with enemies of the revolution. One of the main advances of Maoism over previous Marxism is that Maoism advances a whole understanding continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. A big part of this is understanding the process of counter-revolution and how to prevent it. In practice, these aspects of Maoism materialized as the Maoist-side of the Great Leap Forward, and, later, as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The scientific advances in this area is a big part of why Maoism was understood to be the “third stage of Marxism.” Maoism-Third Worldism, the fourth and highest stage of revolutionary science, upholds, and improves upon, these advances of Maoism.
In this debate, the First Worldists Hoxhaists claimed that Maoist-Third Worldists have a liberal approach to class enemies under socialism. However, by treating enemies as friends and friends as enemies, the First Worldists are the ones who completely miss the mark. First Worldists embrace class enemies by embracing First World labor aristocrats. First Worldists, including Hoxhaists, don’t even know what the dictatorship of the proletariat is. How can they be trusted to build socialism? Again and again, the Hoxhaists raise the point about Deng Xiaoping being let back into the Chinese Communist Party. However, Maoism-Third Worldism have criticized these errors of the 1970s from a scientific point of view. It is more important to focus on class, not individuals. Maoist-Third Worldists, by contrast, are the only ones who have correctly drawn the lines of global class. Maoist-Third Worldists are the only ones who have explored the link between the new comprador bourgeoisie in socialism and the imperial working class of the First World. Thus Maoist-Third Worldists are the only ones have any hope of implementing proletarian dictatorship and leading the masses through socialism to communism. Unfortunately, this discussion shot off in different directions. However, one can still see some of the differences between Hoxhaism and Maoism-Third Worldism.
First Worldist Hoxhaist Endruj Lusha:

“Reality check it was 1961 when the CCP finally broke with the CPSU, and reproached them again after Brezhnev’s coup, when the Secret Speech came out Mao said he agreed with some of Khrushchev’s criticisms and made his own criticisms of Stalin on “innocents killed” and “ideological mistakes”, what makes me wonder is why he never brought these criticisms WHILE Stalin was alive and why be an opportunist and do it while Khrushchev was using Anti-Stalinism to mask his anti-communism? The Mao from “Stalin’s Place in History ” in 1956 was different from the Mao in the 60s, as the years went on his criticism of Stalin became more and more critical…”

“The Righteous anger of the proletariat is not something to be condemned, and it is not always implemented unless needed. Surrounded by fascism on all sides, the Soviet Union was right in implementing its purges of leadership, the PPSh was right in purging and exiling class traitors ad reactionaries to remote spots in Albania, the CCP was wrong when it forgave repeat offenders and expected a different result. The notion of bourgeois in a Party is not entirely wrong, but when you foster their growth by tolerating their bullshit and allowing their proponents like Liu Shaoqi and Deng to remain after their repeat offenses then the blame for capitalist restoration is not on something unpreventable but due to complete carelessness and idiocy…”
Maoist-Third Worldist Prairie Fire:

“Their [the Hoxhaist] simplistic, vulgar approach to class is only matched by their simplistic, vulgar approach to socialist construction. Only the Maoist-Third Worldists have criticized the Chinese Communist Party of the Mao-era from a communist, scientific standpoint. And, if Hoxhaists bothered doing any research, they would know this. Instead, the Hoxhaists are content to keep things shallow, dumb-downed, on a surface level. There is a Maoist-Third Worldist saying: when all you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. The Hoxhaists fail to understand that the construction of socialism is a complex process. They see the problem of class enemies through the police paradigm. For them, the class enemy is mainly the infiltrator, the criminal, the spy, the wrecker, etc. Their only answer: the hammer. Maoists, by contrast, recognized that because socialism is a transitional society, the very nature of socialism is to generate a new capitalist class. To combat this reborn enemy class, the proletarian dictatorship must be extended to all spheres, especially, the super-structure. Also, there must be a constant forward motion toward communism. The structural problems, the inequalities, that generate the new bourgeoisie, have to be restricted. These complex tasks require more than terror. They require a socialism that is creative and intelligent, not dead and dull. Maoism-Third Worldism is communism today. Only Maoism-Third Worldism is brave and honest enough to look at the world as it is. If there is to be a revival of the proletarian movement, then our banner will be at its head.”
Stay tuned for round 3!
Notes.
1. Movie Review: Avatar. http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/movie-review-avatar-james-cameron-2009/
* Our comrades have never been afraid of open debate. We do not censor our critics unless it is for security or similar reasons. In other words, we do not censor anyone simply because they disagree with us. In fact, we encourage our critics to take their best shot. We don’t fear debate because truth is on our side. By contrast, our opponents in the online community return our generosity with slanders and rumor mongering. Because this discussion was originally buried in the comments section of the Avatar review, we are putting up slightly edited excerpts from the debates. These edited versions will omit any unnecessary and off-topic text. Unprincipled behavior and name-calling will also be omitted. Instead, they will present both sides in the best light. Those who wish to read the original debate can read the comments section of the Avatar review: http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/movie-review-avatar-james-cameron-2009/

[Os Cangaceiros]

Maybe this is helpful:

From http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/round-2-fist-worldist-hoxhaists-versus-maoist-third-worldists-on-counter-revolution/

Is that our Prairie Fire? :blink:

[the last donut of the night]

Is that our Prairie Fire? :blink:

I don't think so -- she's a Hoxhaist, after all.

[scarletghoul]

No there's 2 Prairie Fires lol. It's a great name I guess.


My impression (I'm not a Hoxhaist, obviously) is that they do consider themselves to be anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists. After Stalin's death, they considered Hoxha to be the last bastion of anti-revisionism, so that's why they're called Hoxhaists...I don't believe that they think Hoxha actually contributed any breakthroughs in theory, just upheld Marxist-Leninism, as they see it.

At least, that's how it has seemed to me over the years. That was my impression too. Just wondering why they call themselves Hoxhaists tho ? Why dont they just call themselves antirevisionists


Maybe this is helpful:

From http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/round-2-fist-worldist-hoxhaists-versus-maoist-third-worldists-on-counter-revolution/
I actually agree with the Maoist-third worldist response in this completely (just replace 'maoism third worldism' with 'maoism'.) This is my main criticism of Hoxhaists too, they are way too rigid and 'orthadox' stalinists, not very creative it seems. Just seeing it as a case of good and bad individuals, rather than processes and contradictions between ideas and social forces. They essentially lack a dialectical materialist approach, and instead go for a mechanical individualist approach...

[x359594]

No there's 2 Prairie Fires lol. It's a great name I guess...

The expression comes form a quote attributed to Mao (or John Brown): "It only takes a single spark to start a prairie fire."

[scarletghoul]

Yeah, one of the great Mao quotes. I've never heard it attributed to John Brown though.

[Jolly Red Giant]

My impression (I'm not a Hoxhaist, obviously) is that they do consider themselves to be anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists. After Stalin's death, they considered Hoxha to be the last bastion of anti-revisionism, so that's why they're called Hoxhaists...I don't believe that they think Hoxha actually contributed any breakthroughs in theory, just upheld Marxist-Leninism, as they see it.
From 1955 - 1971/2 the Albanians supported Mao. It was only when the Chinese started doing deals with Nixon that Hoxha began to pull back. Hoxha didn't officially split with Maoism until 1977 when he declared China revisionist.

[28350]

(just replace 'maoism third worldism' with 'maoism'.)

I know this is a little off topic, but what the hell is third worldism?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I know this is a little off topic, but what the hell is third worldism?

The ideology of people who fetishize "Third World" struggles, and who think (often at their own admission) that Western workers are not exploited. Western workers are running dogs of the bourgeoisie, according to the Third Worlders.

Oh, and "KKK" will automatically be inserted in any word where the "c" or "k" is, if aforementioned word contains "c" or "k".

[Os Cangaceiros]

From 1955 - 1971/2 the Albanians supported Mao. It was only when the Chinese started doing deals with Nixon that Hoxha began to pull back. Hoxha didn't officially split with Maoism until 1977 when he declared China revisionist.

Do Hoxhaists today consider China from 1955-1971 to have been an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist country?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Bunkers. It's all about bunkers.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Albania_bunkers.jpg

[28350]

The ideology of people who fetishize "Third World" struggles, and who think (often at their own admission) that Western workers are not exploited. Western workers are running dogs of the bourgeoisie, according to the Third Worlders.

Oh, and "KKK" will automatically be inserted in any word where the "c" or "k" is, if aforementioned word contains "c" or "k".

Thankkks.
Yeah, they seem kind of anti-American working class.

[Kléber]

His hand-picked successor, Ramiz Alia, promptly restored capitalism without any struggle.
LOL, yah, unlike the struggle when Khrushchev and Deng teleported down from their amerikkkan alien spaceships and vaporized thousands of Anti-Revisionist Maoist-Stalinists with their death ray lasers

[Nolan]

LOL, yah, unlike the struggle when Khrushchev and Deng teleported down from their amerikkkan alien spaceships and vaporized thousands of Anti-Revisionist Maoist-Stalinists with their death ray lasers

Seeing UFOs, huh? I guess that icepick to the head did brain damage so severe that it automatically affects all future Trots.

[scarletghoul]

:laugh: Who'd have thought a thread on such an insignificant group could turn into a sectarian *****fest so quickly ??

[Weezer]

:laugh: Who'd have thought a thread on such an insignificant group could turn into a sectarian *****fest so quickly ??

There's an English swear consisting of five letters?

[thomasludd]

before this degenerates into a total sectarian conflict, i searched for Hoxhaist parties on the net and found that they are few and mostly minor parties. Wouldn't it be better if they just merge with some Maoist party for a common line of anti-revisionism? :)

[#FF0000]

before this degenerates into a total sectarian conflict, i searched for Hoxhaist parties on the net and found that they are few and mostly minor parties. Wouldn't it be better if they just merge with some Maoist party for a common line of anti-revisionism? :)

Because they explicitly oppose Maoists, and I am pretty sure there are a couple of Hoxhaist parties that have a good number of seats in certain countries.

EDIT: I told Ismail about this thread and now you're all gonna get it. >:|

[Ismail]

before this degenerates into a total sectarian conflict, i searched for Hoxhaist parties on the net and found that they are few and mostly minor parties. Wouldn't it be better if they just merge with some Maoist party for a common line of anti-revisionism? :)Hoxhaists shouldn't merge with pseudo-communists, that's why. Maoists are not anti-revisionist. You might as well ask us to align with social-democrats.

There are plenty of notable Hoxhaist parties. The largest is in Ecuador, where the militant Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador (which is illegal) has an electoral wing known as the MPD (http://www.mpd15.org.ec/), which has seats in the legislature and has a reputation inside Ecuador for being uncompromising and "sectarian," since they oppose Rafael Correa.

There are also notable Hoxhaist parties in Togo, Mali, Turkey, Tunisia, the Ivory Coast, Mexico, and Brazil.

Photos of the MPD in Ecuador: http://coffeemarxist.wordpress.com/2010/05/04/to-all-anti-hoxhaist-idiots/

As for Hoxha's views, there's always Imperialism and the Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/imp_rev/toc.htm). On China, this (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1978/07/30.htm) sums up Hoxha's views:

The slogans originate from one source and every man and woman in China, be they small or big, has to repeat them, without deviating only for one millimetre from them. This was a struggle to lull creative thinking, this oppressed every form of democracy, this was nothing else but the cult of the "Steersman" and the reign of bureaucracy. Such an aberrant ideology has to suffer defeats in certain moments and it did suffer them. Mao Zedong preached about this, calling it "revolutions and counter-revolutions" periodically returning every seven years....

Maoism as anti-Marxist theory is dying. It will face the same destiny as the other theories invented by world capitalism by the decaying imperialism....

Terrible waves have befallen the Chinese people and will keep doing so, but the day will come when the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin will triumph, too. The current and future generations in China will come to understand this and say: "The Party of Labour of Albania has opened our eyes, has acted correctly, it has unmasked the Mao Zedong Thought, because it was for the proletarian revolution in China, it wanted to dispel the the devastating myths which were created in China and which hindered the happiness of this great people which wished to lived in true socialism."


Bunkers. It's all about bunkers. Becoming a Soviet, Yugoslav, or Western neo-colony was not an option.

[Lenin II]

Bunkers. It's all about bunkers.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Albania_bunkers.jpg

A socialist state defending itself is stupid.

[#FF0000]

A socialist state defending itself is stupid.

The bunkers are pointed inwards, iirc.

[Ismail]

A socialist state defending itself is stupid.Lord knows Albania had excellent relations with all the countries around it. Sure, Greece was technically at war with Albania since 1944 (à la DPRK-RoK relations) and claimed Albanian territory. And sure, Albania left the Warsaw Pact in protest of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, whereas the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia precisely because it wanted to move away from the Warsaw Pact. And sure, Yugoslavia wanted to annex Albania in 1948. And sure, the West tried to topple the government throughout the 1940's and 1950's.

But hey, BUNKERS! Har-de-har. I guess something like Cuba, where the Soviets turned it into a neo-colony and mouthpiece of Soviet social-imperialism, would have been better. Such is the logic NHIA uses.


The bunkers are pointed inwards, iirc.No, they aren't. Nothing I've ever read about Albania has mentioned that.

Hoxhaism is in a tight spot. They can't rely on Maoists because Maoists are ultra-left and expect everyone to bow to the Great Chairman Mao and his Glorious Thought, they can't work with Trots because Trots are Trots, they cannot work with Brezhnevites because they take ridiculous lines such as defending modern-day China and red-flag-waving imperialism, they can't work with social-democrats because they despise reformism, and they uphold Marxism-Leninism against revisionism.


Also, China cut trade with Albania.They cut trade with Albania because Hoxha was condemning the Three Worlds Theory. Hoxha's critiques had begun to emerge after Nixon met with Mao in 1972. So the idea that Hoxha suddenly opposed China because he didn't get a paycheck is incorrect.


His hand-picked successor, Ramiz Alia, promptly restored capitalism without any struggle.You mean after thoroughly purging the party of Marxist-Leninists. In 1997 Albania practically had a civil war between Communists and the state. "Without any struggle" is incorrect.


Do Hoxhaists today consider China from 1955-1971 to have been an anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninist country?Hoxha joined with the Maoists because they did condemn Soviet revisionism, but the Maoists condemned it only to build up their own revisionism: Mao Zedong Thought. Hoxha noted in 1978 that, "Mao Tsetung was not a Marxist-Leninist, but a progressive revolutionary democrat, who remained for a long time at the head of the Chinese Communist Party and played an important role in the triumph of the Chinese democratic anti-imperialist revolution." China did not, however, advance on the Marxist-Leninist road and never attempted to build a socialist society.

[#FF0000]

No, they aren't.

Yeah-huh robert conquest said so

Keep the non-serious responses to a minimum in this thread from here on out, everyone. -TBMiRLH

[Lenin II]

His hand-picked successor, Ramiz Alia, promptly restored capitalism without any struggle.

This is not accurate. Else you'd be hard-pressed to explain the civil unrest, the party purges, the protests and the party later taking over the entire southern half of Albania.

Funny also this is in a thread where "Hoxhaists" are accused of blaming everything on historical figures.

[thomasludd]

Originally Posted by Ismail
they can't work with Trots because Trots are Trots

no need to qualify huh? :lol:

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

I actually agree with the Maoist-third worldist response in this completely (just replace 'maoism third worldism' with 'maoism'.) This is my main criticism of Hoxhaists too, they are way too rigid and 'orthadox' stalinists, not very creative it seems. Just seeing it as a case of good and bad individuals, rather than processes and contradictions between ideas and social forces. They essentially lack a dialectical materialist approach, and instead go for a mechanical individualist approach...

Hoxhaists too rigid? Nawwww, couldn't be... :rolleyes:

I wasn't originally going to say anything, but I had to. I was once sucked into an Enver-Addiction by my former friend. Now I'm going to leave it at that.

[Kléber]

no need to qualify huh? :lol:
What's there to qualify? The medieval church forbade its adherents to listen to heretics or look in their eyes. Their tongues must be cut out and they must be burnt without delay, for the (Pope/Gensec) has declared their line to be false. Anyone who speaks out against the (holy church/socialist party) is automatically in league with (Satan/imperialism). But when Tito or Khrushchev does the purging, suddenly it's a heinous betrayal, a tragic repression..

[AK]

There's an English swear consisting of five letters?
*****? Not really a swear, but still.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I do love the way Hoxhaist engage in a retrospective changing of history

Albania left the Warsaw Pact in protest of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968,
Albania was booted out of the Warsaw Pact in 1961 - Hoxha used the invasion of Czechslovakia as the excuse to 'formally' leave. The condemnation of the invasion of Czechslovakia had more to do with a fear the Russians would do the same to Albania rather than any genuine opposition to the invasion. Hoxha condemned the workers movement at the time (just as he did with every other move against the Stalinist bureaucracy).


But hey, BUNKERS! Har-de-har.
All 750,000 bunkers - one for every four people in the country (including kids)



Hoxhaism is in a tight spot. They can't rely on Maoists because Maoists are ultra-left and expect everyone to bow to the Great Chairman Mao and his Glorious Thought, they can't work with Trots because Trots are Trots, they cannot work with Brezhnevites because they take ridiculous lines such as defending modern-day China and red-flag-waving imperialism, they can't work with social-democrats because they despise reformism, and they uphold Marxism-Leninism against revisionism.
Hoxha took paranoia to unseen heights.



Hoxha joined with the Maoists because they did condemn Soviet revisionism, but the Maoists condemned it only to build up their own revisionism: Mao Zedong Thought. Hoxha noted in 1978 that, "Mao Tsetung was not a Marxist-Leninist, but a progressive revolutionary democrat, who remained for a long time at the head of the Chinese Communist Party and played an important role in the triumph of the Chinese democratic anti-imperialist revolution." China did not, however, advance on the Marxist-Leninist road and never attempted to build a socialist society.
Along with paranoia Hohxa was also brilliant at swinging his political position from one extreme to the other - this is from 1969 -

Allow me, on behalf of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour, of the Albanian Communists and the whole Albanian people, who followed with indescribable enthusiasm and great attention the proceedings of the Ninth National Congress of the fraternal Communist Party of China, to express to you the most cordial revolutionary congratulations on the full success of the Ninth National Congress of your glorious Party and on the historic decisions it adopted.

The Ninth Congress marks a brilliant page in the long history of the great Communist Party of China, which is full of heroic and legendary struggles. It affirmed the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist line of Chairman Mao and the decisive victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It firmly held and raised higher the red banner of revolution and socialism. It further strengthened and tempered the Party, its unity of thought and action on the basis of the invincible thought of the great Marxist-Leninist Comrade Mao Tse-Tung.

[Ismail]

Albania was booted out of the Warsaw Pact in 1961 - Hoxha used the invasion of Czechslovakia as the excuse to 'formally' leave.It was an "excuse"? The invasion and occupation of a country occurred, one which was allegedly to be "protected" by the Warsaw Pact treaty. It wasn't "protected" at all, it was invaded, and the Warsaw Pact treaty thus became an absolutely obvious farce to anyone not a Brezhnevite.

As Hoxha noted in 1969:

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. In reality, with the exception of Rumania, all the other member countries of this ill-famed treaty are under the control of the armed forces of Soviet revisionism. 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. In these conditions, the freedom, independence, equality and sovereignty of the peoples, have been turned into empty slogans which are used to deceive and lull the peoples.
The condemnation of the invasion of Czechslovakia had more to do with a fear the Russians would do the same to Albania rather than any genuine opposition to the invasion.
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....

The recent events, especially those in Czechoslovakia, are a catastrophic defeat for the whole of modern revisionism, which most obviously indicates its complete degeneration, especially of the head of modern revisionism—the Khrushchevite clique of the Soviet Union, into a social-fascist and social-imperialist clique. Nobody should allow himself to be deceived by the maneouvres to conceal this degeneration with demagogy, with the slogans of "internationalism." It is the duty of all the real Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries to expose and smash this dangerous manoeuvre. In the first place, the Soviet people themselves must rise with determination against this imperialist aggressive course and should not allow the Khrushchevite renegade clique in power to use Soviet men and women, the Soviet armed forces, for the realisation of its imperialist and oppressive aims. One should not forget for a single moment the great teaching of Marx that the people of a country that oppresses other peoples are not and can never be free.Yeah, I guess saying "The proletarians of the Red Army should disobey their revisionist commanders" doesn't count as opposing it.

I mean, they could have gone the timid bourgeois route, and just said "We disagree with the Soviet interference in the domestic affairs of Czechoslovakia bla bla," but that didn't happen at all. Albania went out of its way to condemn the Soviet invasion, liken it to Nazi Germany, call for the Czechoslovak people to resist, etc. It isn't like the USSR was publically hostile to Albania, either. Year after year Brezhnev and Co. would try to convince Hoxha to rejoin the Warsaw Pact (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qgQ1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=HU8KAAAAIBAJ&pg=4150,385178&dq=enver-hoxha&hl=en), but Hoxha would refuse each and every time from 1969-1985.


Hoxha condemned the workers movement at the time (just as he did with every other move against the Stalinist bureaucracy).I guess when Hoxha called for independent Marxist-Leninist trade unions in 1981 against both Solidarity and the state-capitalist Polish regime, that was an instance wherein Hoxha "condemned the workers movement," or when in 1980 Hoxha said that:

You, the Soviet peoples, Soviet workers, collective farmers and soldiers, have great responsibilities and duties to mankind. You can perform these duties honourably by refusing to tolerate the domination of the barbarous clique which now prevails over the once glorious Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Stalin and over you. In your country the party is no longer a Marxist-Leninist party. You must build a new party of the Lenin-Stalin type through struggle. You must understand that the Soviet Union is no longer a union of peoples for freedom, in full harmony with one another. It was Bolshevism which succeeded in creating the fraternal unity of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Revisionism has done the opposite: it has split the peoples of your country, has aroused chauvinism in every republic, has incited hostility amongst them, has aroused the hatred of other peoples against the Russian people, who were the vanguard in the revolution under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin. Will you go on allowing yourselves to be downtrodden? Will you go on allowing the deepening of the process of bourgeois degeneration in all fields of life in your country, as the revisionists are doing? Will you accept the yoke of a new capital, under the cloak of a false socialism? We Albanian communists and people, like all the communists and freedom-loving peoples of the world, have, loved the true socialist Soviet Union of the time of Lenin and Stalin. We resolutely follow the road of Lenin and Stalin and have faith in the great revolutionary strength of the Soviet peoples, the Soviet proletariat, and that gradually express itself, through struggle and sacrifices, will be built up to the level the time demands and will smash Soviet social-imperialism to its very foundations.

The revolution and sacrifices you will make will not weaken your country but will revive the true socialist Soviet Union. They will overthrow the socialimperialist dictatorship and the Soviet Union will emerge from this stronger than ever.
All 750,000 bunkers - one for every four people in the country (including kids)Apparently building a lot of bunkers discredits everything else Albania and/or Hoxha did or advocated.

I really don't see the point of talking about the bunker program. Albania had no air force; it had a weak army, and its defense plan was essentially "Everyone has a gun in their home, and by Lenin they better learn to use it." They were still technically at war with Greece, relations with Yugoslavia were obviously not at all good, and both the US and UK never recognized Hoxha's government as legit after 1946.


Hoxha took paranoia to unseen heights.I hear Lenin didn't like puppies.

What other random, emotional statements are you going to make?



Along with paranoia Hohxa was also brilliant at swinging his political position from one extreme to the other - this is from 1969 -Oh no! Hoxha spoke highly of Mao and the Chinese Government at a time when both countries were allied and when any government ever would have expected congratulatory letters at the conclusion of major political conferences!

I guess when Lenin met with Afghan ambassadors (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/14.htm) (Afghanistan being a monarchy and all that) the correct option was to spit in their face.

But what did Hoxha really think? After all, what people say in public obviously isn't what they think in private (e.g. Khrushchev and Hoxha praising each other pre-open split in 1960), right?

Well, let's see what Hoxha's memoirs say; in Reflections on China Vol. I:

October 21st., 1968;
Chou En-lai's proposal with regard to Yugoslavia has been accompanied by a statement of lack of readiness to supply us with heavy weapons. He suggests that at the first attack of the enemy we should take to the mountains, relying on partisan warfare and an alliance with Tito for our salvation!

[...]

September 19th., 1969;
Chou En-lai was so irritated during his talk with comrade Rita that, although he had invited him to a banquet, he failed to propose a toast to our leadership. Could this have been an oversight? I don't believe so. It was pressure.

[...]

June 22nd., 1970;
The Romanian plans in the Balkans consist of the "Romanian-Yugoslav-Albanian alliance' and other dirty revisionist deals, unacceptable to us but pleasing to Chou En-lai provided such alliances are directed against the Soviets. We shall not step on a rotten plank.

July 7th., 1970:
China is being guided by the principle: "Approaches should be made to anyone who is anti-Soviet". The Romanians are developing a clearly anti-Marxist internal and foreign policy. They are up to their ears in debt to the USA, West Germany and other capitalist countries. This is the basis of Ceausescu's "independent" foreign policy. Independent of whom? Of the Soviet revisionists, who are not reconciled to this situation? The Chinese have become very enthusiastic about the Romanians. For the Chinese, Kim Il Sung has now become "a great leader". They are easily enthused. All, these things force us to be very vigilant.Apprehensions about China in the 1960's turned into the realizations that China was itself a revisionist state in the 1970's.

[Saorsa]

They can't rely on Maoists because Maoists are ultra-left and expect everyone to bow to the Great Chairman Mao and his Glorious Thought

How can we simultaneously be ultra-left and pro-capitalist? :confused:

[Ismail]

How can we simultaneously be ultra-left and pro-capitalist? :confused:Ultra-left in your praises of the GPCR and other things, pro-capitalist in your support of Dengist Nepal.

[manic expression]

It was an "excuse"? The invasion and occupation of a country occurred, one which was allegedly to be "protected" by the Warsaw Pact treaty. It wasn't "protected" at all, it was invaded, and the Warsaw Pact treaty thus became an absolutely obvious farce to anyone not a Brezhnevite.
So I take it you deny socialist states the right to defend themselves from internal counterrevolutionaries, then? Was it illegitimate for the Bolsheviks to suppress anti-Soviet forces after October? Please try to be consistent if you don't think socialists should defend themselves from their enemies.

On another note, it's interesting how socialism was set up in that very country due to an "invasion and occupation", but defending it through an "invasion and occupation" (which it wasn't, per the treaty) is suddenly a crime. There is not a shred of consistency in your position here.


Albania went out of its way to condemn the Soviet invasion, liken it to Nazi Germany, call for the Czechoslovak people to resist, etc.
Then Hoxha went out of his way to be foolish. Comparing the defeat of pro-capitalist demonstrations in Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany is not only counter-factual, not only politically numb, but the worst sort of opportunism.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Apparently building a lot of bunkers discredits everything else Albania and/or Hoxha did or advocated.
Might have been a better idea to build some infrastructure and improve the lives of the people. 750,000 concrete bunkers was pretty much a vast waste of resources



Apprehensions about China in the 1960's turned into the realizations that China was itself a revisionist state in the 1970's.
You can have all the apprehensions in the world during the 1960's - still doesn't excuse the brown-nosing of Mao in 1969.

[Ismail]

So I take it you deny socialist states the right to defend themselves from internal counterrevolutionaries, then? Was it illegitimate for the Bolsheviks to suppress anti-Soviet forces after October? Please try to be consistent if you don't think socialists should defend themselves from their enemies.The Bolsheviks defended their country, and aided other Soviet Republics which sprung up in other areas of the former Russian Empire.


On another note, it's interesting how socialism was set up in that very country due to an "invasion and occupation", but defending it through an "invasion and occupation" (which it wasn't, per the treaty) is suddenly a crime. There is not a shred of consistency in your position here.The liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 cannot be compared to the brutal invasion of it in 1968. The Red Army came as liberators in 1944, they did not occupy the country as they did in 1968.


Might have been a better idea to build some infrastructure and improve the lives of the people. 750,000 concrete bunkers was pretty much a vast waste of resourcesYeah, because Albania never had a drastic transformation of its society from 1944-1985.

[manic expression]

The Bolsheviks defended their country, and aided other Soviet Republics which sprung up in other areas of the former Russian Empire.
So the Bolsheviks defended socialism with military force from counterrevolutionaries...just as the Warsaw Pact defeated internal threats to socialism in Czechoslovakia. Exactly my point.


The liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 cannot be compared to the brutal invasion of it in 1968. The Red Army came as liberators in 1944, they did not occupy the country as they did in 1968.
Under what logic is this argument made? The Red Army liberated Czechoslovakia in 1944, and Soviet arms directly led to the establishment of socialism is that country. In 1968, that socialism was defended by the arms of the Warsaw Pact.

So what, then, is the difference? You're allowed to go into a country to create socialism, but not to defend it? There is no consistency in your proposition.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Yeah, because Albania never had a drastic transformation of its society from 1944-1985.
Of course advances were made - in spite of the Hoxhaists, not because of them. Albania, after 40 years of Hoxha's rule was a poverty stricken, repressive police state, run by a paranoid bureaucracy (the excuse for the bumping off of Mehmet Shehu is a prime example of the paranoia). Albania was consistantly on the verge of famine, driven by a disasterous bureaucratic collectivisation of agriculture in the 1960's.

[Kléber]

So the Bolsheviks defended socialism with military force from counterrevolutionaries...just as the Warsaw Pact defeated internal threats to socialism in Czechoslovakia. Exactly my point.
Erm, a better analogy would be Stalin's military repression in Georgia, but Lenin considered that a chauvinist deviation and called Stalin a "Great-Russian bully" for it. So no.

[manic expression]

Erm, a better analogy would be Stalin's actions in Georgia, but Lenin considered that a chauvinist deviation and called Stalin a "Great-Russian bully" for it. So no.
My point was more that since the Warsaw Pact called for mutual defense of the signatories, then whatever counterrevolution there was in Czechoslovakia (if we agree there was one) was within the legitimate scope of the states that eventually sent troops to quell the demonstrations. That, in my view, makes it a matter of suppressing internal enemies of socialism and not one of unjustified invasion.

[Ismail]

So the Bolsheviks defended socialism with military force from counterrevolutionaries...just as the Warsaw Pact defeated internal threats to socialism in Czechoslovakia. Exactly my point.The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia and occupied it to expand its sphere of influence and to keep it as a neo-colony.


Under what logic is this argument made? The Red Army liberated Czechoslovakia in 1944, and Soviet arms directly led to the establishment of socialism is that country. In 1968, that socialism was defended by the arms of the Warsaw Pact.Liberating a country and restoring its sovereignty in 1944 is quite different from moving in in 1968 and replacing the party leadership.


So what, then, is the difference? You're allowed to go into a country to create socialism, but not to defend it? There is no consistency in your proposition.The USSR in 1968 was state-capitalist. As Hoxha noted, there could be no "defense of socialism" in Czechoslovakia, since it neither existed in Czechoslovakia nor were the Soviets defending it because they themselves were anti-communist.


Of course advances were made - in spite of the Hoxhaists, not because of them.Actually no, it was because of them. You could always read books by anti-communists like James S. O'Donnell's A Coming of Age: Albania Under Enver Hoxha which make it clear that, with the exception of the post-1978 isolation, the government improved Albania by relative leaps and bounds. It was already by far the poorest country in Europe in 1945, with a life expectancy of 38.


Albania was consistantly on the verge of famine, driven by a disasterous bureaucratic collectivisation of agriculture in the 1960's.Actually, as O'Donnell notes, the Albanians were pretty much self-sufficient in agriculture by the 1980's, meaning they didn't really have to import food. Collectivization was very extensive in Albania, even cars and remote mountain villages were collectivized. I'm sure you'd prefer "market socialism" guiding agriculture, though, as what occurred in revisionist Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. It was shit like Khrushchev withdrawing important aid in 1960 as a "economic protest" of Hoxha exposing his revisionism which made famines a real possibility.

[Kléber]

My point was more that since the Warsaw Pact called for mutual defense of the signatories, then whatever counterrevolution there was in Czechoslovakia (if we agree there was one) was within the legitimate scope of the states that eventually sent troops to quell the demonstrations. That, in my view, makes it a matter of suppressing internal enemies of socialism and not one of unjustified invasion.
What internal enemies? Socialism as Marx used the term meant the first stage of communism, a society without antagonistic classes. The Czech bourgeoisie had been expropriated by '68.. so who were these enemies. Not names of Great Men, I mean social forces. Were these enemies the "socialist" bureaucracy whose greed led them to betray Moscow? Were smugglers in alleys selling so many watches that they threatened to restore capitalism by the force of their black-market activity, and there needed to be a tank brigade at every street corner to shut down bourgeois lemonade stands?


Liberating a country and restoring its sovereignty in 1944 is quite different from moving in in 1968 and replacing the party leadership.
The Soviets did plenty of interfering in Czech party-state affairs before 1968, and before 1956 for that matter

[manic expression]

The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia and occupied it to expand its sphere of influence and to keep it as a neo-colony.
Because you said so. I see. As we will see below, your attempts to distinguish the two liberations of Czechoslovakia have no support.


Liberating a country and restoring its sovereignty in 1944 is quite different from moving in in 1968 and replacing the party leadership.
So you don't think there was a change in the rulers of Czechoslovakia after it was liberated by the Red Army in 1944? They just kept the previous government intact and kept marching onto Germany? Again, you lack consistency.


The USSR in 1968 was state-capitalist. As Hoxha noted, there could be no "defense of socialism" in Czechoslovakia, since it neither existed in Czechoslovakia nor were the Soviets defending it because they themselves were anti-communist.
Justify that.


What internal enemies? Socialism as Marx used the term meant the first stage of communism, a society without antagonistic classes. The Czech bourgeoisie had been expropriated by '68.. so who were these enemies.
So you don't think the Paris Commune had any enemies within its confines, then? Everyone was single-minded in their support for the Commune, no questions asked, right?

[Bad Grrrl Agro]

Hoxha apparently also was a fervent Albanian nationalist:


Link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha)

They have no problem with Abainian Nationalism, yet they've accused me of Mexican Nationalism after I woke up to reality and split from them.

Oh the irony!

Eh, they're just a cult.

[Jolly Red Giant]

It was already by far the poorest country in Europe in 1945, with a life expectancy of 38.
And it remained by far the poorest country in Europe. Advances were made in Albania because of the existance of the planned economy (despite the massive and crude mismanagement by the Hoxhaists) not because the government make any real economic advances. Credit must be given to Hoxha for ensuring advances in women's rights - but to be honest, while there was a political dimension, many of those changes were forced on the government in order to be able to impose their collectivisation policies.


Collectivization was very extensive in Albania, even cars and remote mountain villages were collectivized. I'm sure you'd prefer "market socialism" guiding agriculture, though, as what occurred in revisionist Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.
Initially the Hoxhaists implemented 'market socialism' only later forcing the collectivisation of agriculture (it took over 20 years). 15 years later the entire economy was mired in stagnation and decline. The planned economy can only develop the economy so far before bureaucratic control stifles progress and paranoia then kills it completely.

[Zanthorus]

So you don't think the Paris Commune had any enemies within its confines, then? Everyone was single-minded in their support for the Commune, no questions asked, right?

The Paris Commune was not a socialist state though.

[Lenin II]

To Jolly Red Giant:


And it remained by far the poorest country in Europe. Historical context is important for dialectical materialism.
The sacrifices of our people were very great. Out of a population of one million, 28,000 were killed, 12,600 wounded, 10,000 were made political prisoners in Italy and Germany, and 35,000 made to do forced labour, of ground; all the communications, all the ports, mines and electric power installations were destroyed, our agriculture and livestock were plundered, and our entire national economy was wrecked.
Enver Hoxha, Selected Works, 1941–1948, vol. I (Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House, 1974, 599-600.

Look up the bourgeois figures and they are almost exactly the same.
From Communism, Health, and Lifestyle: The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950-1990.

p. 9 – “Figures for 1927…show that 92.4% of the population was illiterate. Among the literate population only 446 had a university degree, and 1,773 had secondary schooling.”

“a figure on life expectancy at birth [was] given for 1938 as 38 years” Although this number is heavily disputed due to lack of tracking deaths, the fact remains that life expectancy was very low. The author also admits that the “majority of villagers died without any medical intervention.”

p. 9-10 – “Until 1922, when the first public health service was established, there was no health institution in the country.”

p. 15-16 - “in 1949 there were 238,266 malaria cases reported, which means that 20.1% of the population was infected.”
“”tuberculosis was widespread and in 1950 accounted for more than 15% of all deaths.”


(despite the massive and crude mismanagement by the Hoxhaists) No.
From a bourgeois book: A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha by O’Donnell

p. 186. "Enver Hoxha's plan to mobilize all of Albania's resources under the regimentation of a central plan was effective and quite successful […] Albania was a tribal society, not necessarily primitive but certainly less developed than most. It had no industrial or working class tradition and no experience using modern production techniques. Thus, the results achieved, especially during the phases of initial planning and construction of the economic base were both impressive and positive."

From Communism, Health, and Lifestyle: The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950-1990.

p. 20 – The growth of the net material product from one five-year-plan to the next was, on average, nearly 44%, with industry recording the fastest growth rates during this period [the Marxist period of 1945-1975].”

“The average growth of industry from 1951 to 1975 was 82.5%”

“The country’s highway system was greatly expanded and by 1985 consisted of 6,900 kilometres”

“Because of the large number of rivers and their mountainous nature, Albania developed its hydroelectric potential (HEP), estimated at 2,500 MW, second to Norway within Europe.”



not because the government make any real economic advances. No.
From Stalinist Economic Strategy in Practice: The Case of Albania – Adi Schnytzer

Growth indices for the Albanian economy (1938=1)

Gross domestic material product
1950 – 1.7
1960 – 4.0
1970 – 8.3
1973 – 10.7

Global agricultural production
1950 – 1.2
1960 – 1.7
1970 – 3.1
1973 – 3.5

Global industrial production
1950 – 4
1960 – 25
1970 – 64
1973 – 86

Retail trade turnover
1950 – 1.4
1960 – 6
1970 – 10
1973 – 13

Population (millions)
1950 – 1.20
1960 – 1.60
1970 – 2.14
1973 – 2.30

“From the table [presented above] it is clear that the Albanian economy has sustained rapid economic growth since 1950.” The author adds it is surprising that the successes of the Albanian economy have not been more thoroughly catalogued by Western scholars.


Credit must be given to Hoxha for ensuring advances in women's rights - but to be honest, while there was a political dimension, many of those changes were forced on the government in order to be able to impose their collectivisation policies. All decisions are “imposed” by a government.


Initially the Hoxhaists implemented 'market socialism' only later forcing the collectivisation of agriculture (it took over 20 years). No.

In 1945 alone, one year after the socialist revolution, half of the arable land in Albania was already redistributed.

US government sources speak of it right here:
http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-165.html

From Communism, Health, and Lifestyle: The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania, 1950-1990 one more time:

p. 17 – “the Agrarian Land Reform, which was sanctioned by law in August 1945, based on the principle that ‘the land belong to the tiller.’ So, based on this law, the Albanian government confiscated the large landed estates without making any compensation to the owners. The land was then redistributed to the peasants, with the condition that it could not be sold, bought or rented.”


15 years later the entire economy was mired in stagnation and decline. No.

Official -statistics (the objectivity of which has been attested to by eminent British economists) show that between 1951 and 1985

Agricultural production increased by 4.5 times;
Retail sales per head of population: 5.5 times;
Industrial production increased by 16.2 times;
Chrome production increased by 30.9 times;
Electric power prduction increased by 217.1 times;
Chemical production increased by 585.8 times;
('Statistical Yearbook of the PSR of Albania1988'; Tirana; 1988; p.: 81, 87, 122).



The planned economy can only develop the economy so far before bureaucratic control stifles progress and paranoia then kills it completely. Did you get this from the CIA?

Capitalism is an international genocide and “socialists” like this guy see no contradiction between the market and socialism.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Of course advances were made - in spite of the Hoxhaists, not because of them. Albania, after 40 years of Hoxha's rule was a poverty stricken, repressive police state, run by a paranoid bureaucracy (the excuse for the bumping off of Mehmet Shehu is a prime example of the paranoia). Albania was consistantly on the verge of famine, driven by a disasterous bureaucratic collectivisation of agriculture in the 1960's.

Whereas today Albania, after decades of non-Hoxhaist rule is a poverty stricken, repressive police state, run by a paranoid bureaucracy. Albanians are consistently on the verge of malnutrition, driven by a disastrous bureaucratic de-collectivization of agriculture in the 1990's.


the paris commune was not a socialist state though.

WTF?

[Jolly Red Giant]

Whereas today Albania, after decades of non-Hoxhaist rule is a poverty stricken, repressive police state, run by a paranoid bureaucracy.
No difference then :rolleyes:

[Nolan]

No difference then :rolleyes:

cool story bro

[Zanthorus]

WTF?

What do you mean "WTF?"? They didn't even nationalise the assets of the bank for fucks sake. The Commune stands out as one of the first instances where the working class had real power and it did pass some notable measures but as Marx himself admitted "the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be."

[Jolly Red Giant]

Isn't it amazing to see a little criticism of that bastion of Stalinism draws all the internet Hixhaists out of the woodwork


Look up the bourgeois figures

I did - and I will remind you what I wrote -


Initially the Hoxhaists implemented 'market socialism' only later forcing the collectivisation of agriculture (it took over 20 years). 15 years later (edit: 1980) the entire economy was mired in stagnation and decline. The planned economy can only develop the economy so far before bureaucratic control stifles progress and paranoia then kills it completely.

In other words - the economy advanced until 1980 and then has stagnation and decline -

A few of my own stats to prove a point -

1986 per capita GNP = US$930

GDP was the same in 1990 as it was in 1982

1980 - 60.4% of students finished primary school
1990 - 60.5% of students finished primary school

1970 - 45.3% of women in workforce
1990 - 45.1% of women in workforce

1980 - 1.68 doctors per 1,000 population
1990 - 1.71 doctors per 1,000 population

1980 - 6.5 hospital beds per 1,000 population
1990 - 5.9 hospital beds per 1,000 population

I could go on - but I think the point I was making is clear. The planned economy resulted in significant strides in economic development until the bureaucratic mismanagement by Hoxha and his sidekicks stifled the economy.


Did you get this from the CIA?
I was going to say I got the stuff from Mehmet Shehu :laugh:

[28350]

What do you mean "WTF?"? They didn't even nationalise the assets of the bank for fucks sake. The Commune stands out as one of the first instances where the working class had real power and it did pass some notable measures but as Marx himself admitted "the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be."

How would you characterize the Commune, and were the communards actions good or not?

[Kléber]

So you don't think the Paris Commune had any enemies within its confines, then? Everyone was single-minded in their support for the Commune, no questions asked, right?

WTF?

How would you characterize the Commune, and were the communards actions good or not?
Just because the workers take power does not mean that socialist production relations have been established.


We know that we cannot establish a socialist order at the present time. It will be well if our children and perhaps our grandchildren will be able to establish it.

The first merchant republics (Venice, Novgorod, etc.) still had a landed aristocracy, the USA even preserved slavery for half a century, they were bourgeois states that had not yet constructed capitalism.

[Ismail]

Because you said so. I see.Nice strawman, but no. It is generally the position of all anti-revisionists that in 1968 Czechoslovakia was state-capitalist, that the USSR was state-capitalist, and that the Soviets entered Czechoslovakia as a social-imperialist force. Just because you prefer to take a crypto-Trotskyist line, defending revisionists under the aegis of the so-called "degenerated workers state," does not change this fact.



So you don't think there was a change in the rulers of Czechoslovakia after it was liberated by the Red Army in 1944? They just kept the previous government intact and kept marching onto Germany? Again, you lack consistency.They restored Beneš under a people's democratic government. The difference is that the Red Army was actually welcomed as a liberating force, and restored the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak state. To compare 1968 with 1944 is asinine, because to my knowledge no other country was occupying Czechoslovakia in 1968, nor were the Soviets sent in to liberate it from anything. A party putsch does not equal "saving socialism," which existed in neither the USSR or Czechoslovakia.


Justify that.Justify being a Brezhnevite tankie who defends any flag-waving revisionist state because of a delusion that their bureaucracies have hearts of gold.


And it remained by far the poorest country in Europe. Advances were made in Albania because of the existance of the planned economy (despite the massive and crude mismanagement by the Hoxhaists) not because the government make any real economic advances...

Initially the Hoxhaists implemented 'market socialism' only later forcing the collectivisation of agriculture (it took over 20 years). 15 years later the entire economy was mired in stagnation and decline. The planned economy can only develop the economy so far before bureaucratic control stifles progress and paranoia then kills it completely.But what caused this? Lemme guess, the Albanians were "sectarians" who turned away from the mighty "degenerated" USSR, and thus doomed themselves because they couldn't become a neo-colony with a purposely under-industrialized economy focused on food exports to Moscow.

Why yes, collectivization did take over 20 years. It wasn't until the 1960's that material conditions were favorable towards it. Albania wasn't just feudal, in the northern areas it was tribal. When the Communists in the USSR tried to collectivize agriculture in the Turkmen SSR, for example, they couldn't do it, and basically unofficially continued NEP throughout the 1930's. (Source: Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan) Limited "market socialism" in these areas which actually was to be curtailed completely (which it obviously was by the 70's) is not a crime.

I just don't see what Albania should have done to "avoid stagnation." Become a neo-colony of the West? Of the East? Continue to side with China's blatantly revisionist and pro-US line for aid? In effect, give up the fight against revisionism? Also to say that "Yet Albania was still the poorest..." is idiotic. It was in the 18th and 19th centuries in 1945. Hoxhaist rule brought it into the 20th.


In other words - the economy advanced until 1980 and then has stagnation and decline -The 1976 constitution banned foreign investment into the economy, and 1978 saw a total suspension of Chinese aid. The only trade that occurred from 1980-1985 was basically on a barter basis.


I was going to say I got the stuff from Mehmet ShehuIronically Mehmet Shehu generally favored the "hardline" policies (e.g. collectivization) which you condemn so much, whereas Hoxha in the 1950's argued for gradual collectivization. (Source: Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 441.)

[Ocean Seal]

I simply see Hoxha as a ML. As to why he has his own tendency, I don't know, but it seems to me that every communist who ever achieved fame needed to have a tendency named after him/her. So yeah, sectarianism, cool stuff huh.

[the last donut of the night]

No wonder we haven't reached socialism -- learner threads become sectarian shit-fests by the first page

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I simply see Hoxha as a ML. As to why he has his own tendency, I don't know, but it seems to me that every communist who ever achieved fame needed to have a tendency named after him/her. So yeah, sectarianism, cool stuff huh.

It's also to separate from other self-proclaimed ML-revisionists.

[Jolly Red Giant]

But what caused this? Lemme guess, the Albanians were "sectarians" who turned away from the mighty "degenerated" USSR, and thus doomed themselves because they couldn't become a neo-colony with a purposely under-industrialized economy focused on food exports to Moscow.
Listen - you can rant on about the Russian-Albanian split all you want. From my perspective Hoxha was no different that all the other Stalinist (revisionist or not) - he was just a bit more bureaucratic, a bit more paranoid and a bit more brutal.


Why yes, collectivization did take over 20 years.
Not the argument I was making. One of your Hoxhaist buddies was decrying 'market socialism'. I was pointing out that Albania took 20 years to collectivise agriculture, i.e. it had what could be called 'market socialism' for nearly 20 years.


I just don't see what Albania should have done to "avoid stagnation."
A democratic planned economy would have helped. The stagnation that occurred post 1980 was directly as a result of 1. bureaucratic msmanagement post 1945, and 2. the bureaucracy becoming a completely stifling block on the ecomony. Any socialist economy that wastes 25% of GDP on military spending and builds 750,000 one man concrete bunkers deserves to have its ass handed to it on a plate.

You build a socialist society by having a democratic planned economy spending money on socially useful projects - you defend a socialist society by proving that a democratic planned economy is superior to capitalism (not by building a concrete bunker for every fourth person in the country).


The 1976 constitution banned foreign investment into the economy, and 1978 saw a total suspension of Chinese aid. The only trade that occurred from 1980-1985 was basically on a barter basis.
The paranoia of Hoxha - the Stalinists in Albania had a regime that had no confidence in its ability to sustain a planned economy and as soon as the charity from Russia and China dried up the regime turned inward on itself. The Albanian regime would have collapsed by the 1960's if it wasn't from the money it received from Russia and China.


Ironically Mehmet Shehu generally favored the "hardline" policies (e.g. collectivization) which you condemn so much, whereas Hoxha in the 1950's argued for gradual collectivization. (Source: Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy, p. 441.)
I was being sarcastic - Shehu was as big a dictator as Hoxha (and thats why Hoxha had him shot). The point I was making was that after he had his former side-kick bumped off, Hoxha claimed he was a member of the CIA, the KGB and the Yugoslav secret service all at the one time.

[Ismail]

Listen - you can rant on about the Russian-Albanian split all you want. From my perspective Hoxha was no different that all the other Stalinist (revisionist or not) - he was just a bit more bureaucratic, a bit more paranoid and a bit more brutal."A bit more bureaucratic"? This was the same leader whose government saw to it that white-collar workers were forced to work in the fields for weeks time in order to "become acquainted with the masses," and had the Cultural & Ideological Revolution which dramatically lowered wage differentials, etc.

To say he was a "bit more bureaucratic" than, say, Khrushchev or such is absurd. Unless by "bureaucratic" you mean "not a market socialist."

You also said that Hoxha's "paranoia" was taken to "unseen heights" in another post.


Not the argument I was making. One of your Hoxhaist buddies was decrying 'market socialism'. I was pointing out that Albania took 20 years to collectivise agriculture, i.e. it had what could be called 'market socialism' for nearly 20 years.In the backwards rural areas? Makes sense. Lenin had his NEP. When that outlived its purpose, it ceased to exist and that was the end of that. Then Khrushchev came and talked all about the NEP, forgetting the NEP was meant to be a temporary thing that didn't need to "come back" when the material basis had been laid for the construction of socialism (or, in Khrushchev's phony case, "communism")

Khrushchev ended socialist construction and established a state-capitalist economy. The Hoxha Government utilized "market socialist" measures to some extent in the backwards countryside for around 20 years, but then proceeded towards collectivization. That's the difference.


A democratic planned economy would have helped. The stagnation that occurred post 1980 was directly as a result of 1. bureaucratic msmanagement post 1945, and 2. the bureaucracy becoming a completely stifling block on the ecomony.You know how to use phraseology. Unfortunately you are seemingly unable to transform that phraseological vagueness into substance. "Albania made amazing gains under the planned economic system, but it also had mismanagement because STALINISM! And it could rectify this by.... becoming a Soviet neo-colony, or something."


Any socialist economy that wastes 25% of GDP on military spending and builds 750,000 one man concrete bunkers deserves to have its ass handed to it on a plate.Albania was encircled. It did utilize cost-cutting measures such as, y'know, People's War.


You build a socialist society by having a democratic planned economy spending money on socially useful projectsWhich the PLA did. Unless you feel defending a socialist society is not "socially useful."


you defend a socialist society by proving that a democratic planned economy is superior to capitalism (not by building a concrete bunker for every fourth person in the country).Sounds like Khrushchev. "Comrades, we don't need to have all that outdated 'class struggle' stuff, we'll just show them that socialism is so naturally awesome that people will naturally become socialist and utilize bourgeois democracy to transform countries towards socialism!"

Only that was the leader of the Soviet Union, with a massive army, saying that.

That wasn't small Albania surrounded by enemies.


The paranoia of Hoxha - the Stalinists in Albania had a regime that had no confidence in its ability to sustain a planned economy and as soon as the charity from Russia and China dried up the regime turned inward on itself.It had no confidence... yet it "turned inward on itself"? That it relied upon self-sufficiency? Sounds contradictory. Otherwise it would have just said "Fuck it" and become an outhouse for neo-colonial powers.


The Albanian regime would have collapsed by the 1960's if it wasn't from the money it received from Russia and China.What's your point? Foreign aid allowed it to build up industry due to supplies. Khrushchev wanted to turn it into a neo-colony that would cease developing its industry and make it dependent upon the USSR.

You seem to be making vague apologia for Albania remaining in the Soviet orbit.


The point I was making was that after he had his former side-kick bumped off, Hoxha claimed he was a member of the CIA, the KGB and the Yugoslav secret service all at the one time.While we don't have the evidence to further verify that, Hoxha does make it clear that Shehu wanted to turn the country towards a pro-Western orientation in the early 1980's. There were also plenty of times throughout the 1940's-70's where Shehu and Hoxha had disagreements over various matters, where Shehu acted in inappropriate ways, etc.

[manic expression]

Nice strawman, but no. It is generally the position of all anti-revisionists that in 1968 Czechoslovakia was state-capitalist, that the USSR was state-capitalist, and that the Soviets entered Czechoslovakia as a social-imperialist force. Just because you prefer to take a crypto-Trotskyist line, defending revisionists under the aegis of the so-called "degenerated workers state," does not change this fact.
It's not a strawman when you can't justify your positions in the slightest. So like I said, the Soviet Union was "social-imperialist"...'cause you said so...just like the ultra-leftists who think the Soviet Union was capitalist (a la ICC). So in addition to being entirely unable to make a valid argument, you're a hypocrite.


They restored Beneš under a people's democratic government. The difference is that the Red Army was actually welcomed as a liberating force, and restored the sovereignty of the Czechoslovak state. To compare 1968 with 1944 is asinine, because to my knowledge no other country was occupying Czechoslovakia in 1968, nor were the Soviets sent in to liberate it from anything. A party putsch does not equal "saving socialism," which existed in neither the USSR or Czechoslovakia.
Obviously you're lost. First, Benes was pushed out with the backing of the Soviet Union in 1948, a step forward for the workers of Czechoslovakia; so no, the USSR didn't just put the same government back in before marching off. Second, of course the Red Army was not welcomed as a liberating force by the counterrevolutionary forces they were sent to liberate Czechoslovakia from. Why would they be? They were destroying anti-socialist forces that had become quite widespread and dangerous, so a warm welcome was essentially out of the question.

And you cannot justify your line that the Soviet Union was imperialist, which is fundamentally anti-materialist, counter-factual and entirely ultra-leftist (you and the ICC should go bowling sometime).


Justify being a Brezhnevite tankie who defends any flag-waving revisionist state because of a delusion that their bureaucracies have hearts of gold.
The same way I justify being a Stalinist tankie who defends any flag-waving Soviet state because of a delusion that their bureaucrats have hearts of gold. It was OK in 1944-1948, but not in 1968...'cause you said so.

Bureaucracy, invasion and occupation with military force, tanks...it's OK when Stalin does it, but as soon as you change the name of the leader, it's imperialism!!!! Some Marxism you have there. Does your lack of consistency know no boundaries? Let me know when you can apply an ounce of intellectual integrity...but I'm not holding my breath. :lol:

[Palingenisis]

"A bit more bureaucratic"? This was the same leader whose government saw to it that white-collar workers were forced to work in the fields for weeks time in order to "become acquainted with the masses," and had the Cultural & Ideological Revolution which dramatically lowered wage differentials, etc.

To say he was a "bit more bureaucratic" than, say, Khrushchev or such is absurd. Unless by "bureaucratic" you mean "not a market socialist."

You also said that Hoxha's "paranoia" was taken to "unseen heights" in another post.

.

Didnt workers' councils play a huge role both economically and politically in socialist Albania?

Also I would point out to you comrade that "bureaucratic" in Trot speak actuallys means "Communist with image problemns" and Enver Hoxha had much greater image problemns in the west than Khrushchev.

[Jolly Red Giant]

"A bit more bureaucratic"? This was the same leader whose government saw to it that white-collar workers were forced to work in the fields for weeks time in order to "become acquainted with the masses," and had the Cultural & Ideological Revolution which dramatically lowered wage differentials, etc.
This is abject nonsense - 'forcing' white-collar workers into the fields demonstrates precisely the idiotic bureaucratism I am talking about. And Hoxha lowered wage differentials by reducing wages, not increasing them.


In the backwards rural areas?
Again you are arguing against a fellow Hoxhaist - not me.


You know how to use phraseology. Unfortunately you are seemingly unable to transform that phraseological vagueness into substance. "Albania made amazing gains under the planned economic system, but it also had mismanagement because STALINISM! And it could rectify this by.... becoming a Soviet neo-colony, or something."
Your hatred of post-Stalin Soviet Union significantly clouds your ability to have any understanding of anything outside of Stalinist bureaucratic planning.



Which the PLA did. Unless you feel defending a socialist society is not "socially useful."
Maybe you can explain how building 750,000 one man bunkers in a country with a population of 3 million (including kids) was going to defend anything.


Sounds like Khrushchev. "Comrades, we don't need to have all that outdated 'class struggle' stuff, we'll just show them that socialism is so naturally awesome that people will naturally become socialist and utilize bourgeois democracy to transform countries towards socialism!"
Again - Stalin and post-Stalin - you really need to broaden your horizons.



You seem to be making vague apologia for Albania remaining in the Soviet orbit.
And again - Hoxha took 'socialism in one country' to the extreme. The Stalinists in Albania were so paranoid about opening up to anyone (in particular their own working class) that they shut up shop, surrounded their country with concrete bunkers and drove the economy into the ground.


While we don't have the evidence to further verify that, Hoxha does make it clear that Shehu wanted to turn the country towards a pro-Western orientation in the early 1980's. There were also plenty of times throughout the 1940's-70's where Shehu and Hoxha had disagreements over various matters, where Shehu acted in inappropriate ways, etc.
Actually the Hoxhaists I knew at the time were adament that Shehu was a member of the CIA, the KGB and the Yugoslav secret service and claimed that he committed suicide, Hoxha made a speech claiming this. In reality it was just another example of the paranoia of the Hoxhaists. The real story was that Hoxha had promised to retire and let Shehu take over, but then changed his mind. After that either Shehu attempted to kill Hoxha and was killed in retaliation, or Hoxha simply had him bumped off (the story changed by the week at the time as Hoxha tried to come up with his 'plausible' spying excuse).

[Jolly Red Giant]

Trot speak
Says the clown who cheerleads for the bunch of Hoxhaists who praised the Ulster Workers Council strike in 1974.

[manic expression]

Which the PLA did. Unless you feel defending a socialist society is not "socially useful."
:lol: This is rich with irony.

Building concrete bunkers = defending socialism

Defeating counterrevolutionary forces = imperialism

It's just like this:

Soviet-backed change in government (1948) = good

Soviet-backed change in government (1968) = imperialist

:lol:

[Kléber]

Soviet-backed change in government (1948) = good

Soviet-backed change in government (1968) = imperialist
So the Hoxhaists have got it half right. Unquestioningly supporting everything the Soviet government did before 1953 beats supporting everything it did ever. You still didn't answer my question. Since the bourgeoisie was expropriated in 1948, what was the social base of these enemies of Moscow that had to be regime-changed in 1968?

I like the Lenin quote in your signature btw. If Marxism is omnipotent, then new batch of counter-revolutionaries shouldn't crop up and have to be gunned down every 20 years.

[Ismail]

It's not a strawman when you can't justify your positions in the slightest. So like I said, the Soviet Union was "social-imperialist"...'cause you said so...just like the ultra-leftists who think the Soviet Union was capitalist (a la ICC). So in addition to being entirely unable to make a valid argument, you're a hypocrite.I don't feel the need to turn this into a "Why was the USSR social-imperialist/state-capitalist" thread, because it isn't one.

For those interested, there is "Open letter to the 'New Communist Party'" by Bill Bland in my signature. Otherwise, there's also this: http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html


Obviously you're lost. First, Benes was pushed out with the backing of the Soviet Union in 1948, a step forward for the workers of Czechoslovakia; so no, the USSR didn't just put the same government back in before marching off.We're talking about 1944. 1948 is still not comparable to 1968. I'd rather this remain a thread about Hoxhaism and not "THE GLORIOUS DEFENSE OF SOCIALISM IN 1968 VIA MIGHTY SOVIET RUSSIAN TANK BRIGADE," though.


Second, of course the Red Army was not welcomed as a liberating force by the counterrevolutionary forces they were sent to liberate Czechoslovakia from.The people who didn't welcome the Red Army were a minority of the population. When the USSR invaded sovereign Czechoslovakia in 1968, the people resisted. 1944 saw the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazism, 1968 saw the USSR go in to reinforce Soviet domination via a party putsch assisted by tanks. Again, though, I'd prefer if you had this debate somewhere else.


Bureaucracy, invasion and occupation with military force, tanks...it's OK when Stalin does it, but as soon as you change the name of the leader, it's imperialism!!!!You can't compare Stalin's actions with those of Khrushchev or Brezhnev. I know you'd like to do that, though, because like Barry Lyndon or other Trotskyist-Brezhnevite-Maoist trifectas pretty much make it their goal in historical narratives to crap on Stalin either as a "traitor to the revolution," a man who "violated socialist legality," or a man who was "dogmatic."


And Hoxha lowered wage differentials by reducing wages, not increasing them.Reducing them for white-collar workers and government members.


Your hatred of post-Stalin Soviet Union significantly clouds your ability to have any understanding of anything outside of Stalinist bureaucratic planning.Once again Trotskyism and Khrushchevism/Brezhnevism unite. The sabotage (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/SovietBB.htm) of actual central planning under the latter two is praised as an accomplishment as contrasted with the allegedly "rigid" and "dogmatic" "Stalinist" planning of Stalin and Hoxha.


Maybe you can explain how building 750,000 one man bunkers in a country with a population of 3 million (including kids) was going to defend anything.Why wouldn't they? The point of the People's War doctrine was for citizens to take weapons from home and enter the bunkers in the event of a bombing campaign, which would pretty much be inevitable on account of a lack of a serviceable Albanian air force and rather unreliable anti-air.

In any case the bunkers program was not that much of the defense budget, and in the 1980's the defense budget actually went down. (Source is O'Donnell)


And again - Hoxha took 'socialism in one country' to the extreme. The Stalinists in Albania were so paranoid about opening up to anyone (in particular their own working class) that they shut up shop, surrounded their country with concrete bunkers and drove the economy into the ground.The bunker period was during 1968-70, when Hoxha was allegedly "brown-nosing" Mao.

As I've said before, the choice was for Albania to become a neo-colony or to remain independent whilst promoting proletarian internationalism. It opted for the latter.


The real story was that Hoxha had promised to retire and let Shehu take over, but then changed his mind. After that either Shehu attempted to kill Hoxha and was killed in retaliation, or Hoxha simply had him bumped off (the story changed by the week at the time as Hoxha tried to come up with his 'plausible' spying excuse).And what do you base this on?

[manic expression]

So the Hoxhaists have got it half right. Unquestioningly supporting everything the Soviet government did before 1953 beats supporting everything it did ever. You still didn't answer my question. Since the bourgeoisie was expropriated in 1948, what was the social base of these enemies of Moscow that had to be regime-changed in 1968?
Being inconsistent doesn't make you half-right, it makes you selective.

I didn't answer your question because there wasn't much of a need to. You don't need private ownership to advocate for private ownership, do you, so your ideas on "social base" is entirely meaningless.

Let me ask you this, since the monarchy was destroyed in 1793, what was the social base of these enemies of Paris that had to be regime-changed in 1830 and 1848?


I like the Lenin quote in your signature btw. If Marxism is omnipotent, then new batch of counter-revolutionaries shouldn't crop up and have to be gunned down every 20 years.:lol: "Marxism is omnipotent" doesn't mean "everyone is going to go along with the Revolution without a fight". Your conception of revolution is a revolution by consensus, needless to say it is wrong.


I don't feel the need to turn this into a "Why was the USSR social-imperialist/state-capitalist" thread, because it isn't one.
Or perhaps because you can't back up your basic assumptions, upon which your entire argument rests. It's quite simple, why was the Soviet Union imperialist? I asked you that, did I not?


We're talking about 1944. 1948 is still not comparable to 1968. I'd rather this remain a thread about Hoxhaism and not "THE GLORIOUS DEFENSE OF SOCIALISM IN 1968 VIA MIGHTY SOVIET RUSSIAN TANK BRIGADE," though.Yes, we're talking about the first Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia, which started in 1944 and continued in 1948 when the Soviet Union helped push out anti-socialist forces in the government there. According to you, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were wrong for putting troops into Czechoslovakia in support of socialism, even though you hypocritically support that when that was done exactly by the Soviet Union in the 40's.


The people who didn't welcome the Red Army were a minority of the population. When the USSR invaded sovereign Czechoslovakia in 1968, the people resisted. 1944 saw the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazism, 1968 saw the USSR go in to reinforce Soviet domination via a party putsch assisted by tanks. Again, though, I'd prefer if you had this debate somewhere else.Ah yes, "the people resisted". "The people", of course, being a student who set himself on fire and 8 people with banners. On cue, you fall in line to co-sign NATO's bourgeois version of the events there.


You can't compare Stalin's actions with those of Khrushchev or Brezhnev....'Cause you said so. Right. In the end, that's all you can come up with.

[Kléber]

I didn't answer your question because there wasn't much of a need to. You don't need private ownership to advocate for private ownership, do you, so your ideas on "social base" is entirely meaningless.
Class struggle is meaningless? You are off the deep end when it comes to worshiping the USSR, you have resurrected Hegelian idealism and thrown Marxist historical materialism out the window, claiming that armed conflicts happen because of the clash of subjective ideas and not objective economic interests. This is similar to the Maoist/Hoxhaist lunacy that capitalism was restored out of thin air by the bad decisions of capricious employees who succeeded Stalin.

So you are saying that workers in a socialist society will advocate going back to capitalism, a less productive form of economic relations in which they get paid less and have fewer rights, and to stop the people from choosing evil capitalism, the government will have to restrict democracy and flood the streets with tanks every time there is a strike or popular protest? And here I was, thinking that socialism will be a more progressive and democratic system than capitalism, which having utterly destroyed the social base of feudalism can peacefully tolerate monarchist crazies to form their own parties and backyard micronations.

Marxist analysis identifies class struggle and not the policies of great leaders as the motive force in history. The only logical conclusions from the capitulation of the USSR are that either socialism is a less productive system, an aberration in the history of capitalism by which it was outproduced, or that real socialism never existed in the first place.


Let me ask you this, since the monarchy was destroyed in 1793, what was the social base of these enemies of Paris that had to be regime-changed in 1830 and 1848?The Bourbon dynasty was restored after the fall of Napoleon, under whom the aristocracy had already been legally restored and continued to exist into the 19th Century. Capitalist production relations were hardly established under Robespierre whereas you believe Czechoslovakia was socialist after 1948.


"Marxism is omnipotent" doesn't mean "everyone is going to go along with the Revolution without a fight". Your conception of revolution is a revolution by consensus, needless to say it is wrong.Marxism clearly contradicts the ridiculous Stalinist position that class struggle intensifies after the end of antagonistic classes. That doesn't equate to believing every decision should be settled by consensus, but I can see you still have to make up straw men positions to debate anybody.

[manic expression]

Class struggle is meaningless?
No, I said your ideas on social base of counterrevolutionaries was meaningless, something shown by history.


So you are saying that workers in a socialist society will advocate going back to capitalism,
No, I'm saying that some workers, under certain circumstances, may be manipulated by anti-socialist forces. That's what happened in Poland and other countries.


Marxist analysis identifies class struggle and not the policies of great leaders as the motive force in history.
And Marxists do not follow mechanicalist, economist conceptions of class struggle. To think that workers cannot feasibly oppose a worker state is as ludicrous as thinking a worker cannot feasibly support a bourgeois state. Your mechanicalist conception of class was long ago debunked and cast aside by Marxism itself.


The Bourbon dynasty was restored after the fall of Napoleon, under whom the aristocracy had already been legally restored
And from what social base was this done? Aristocratic hold on production was smashed by the First Republic with the first land reform (transferring noble-held land and common land to private holdings...basically the French version of enclosure), and nobles had been driven out of public life by 1794. Ignoring history only gets you so far, Kleber.


Marxism clearly contradicts the ridiculous Stalinist position that class struggle intensifies after the end of antagonistic classes. That doesn't equate to believing every decision should be settled by consensus,
But, evidently, that is your conception of revolution. If someone opposes it, it cannot be legitimate. Have fun trying to run away from your own words.

[Kléber]

No, I said your ideas on social base of counterrevolutionaries was meaningless, something shown by history.
History is what people write. You have not shown yourself to be correct in writing. Nothing has been more blatantly "shown by history" than that the gains of the 1917 revolution were rolled back due to the internal social contradictions of the USSR.


No, I'm saying that some workers, under certain circumstances, may be manipulated by anti-socialist forces. That's what happened in Poland and other countries.Back to my original question: what anti-socialist forces? On what date did the bureaucrats of "socialist" Czechoslovakia become CIA agents?


And Marxists do not follow mechanicalist, economist conceptions of class struggle.So the first sentence of The Communist Manifesto is mechanicalist and economist.


To think that workers cannot feasibly oppose a worker state is as ludicrous as thinking a worker cannot feasibly support a bourgeois state.Obviously elements of the revolutionary class can oppose the revolution, there were anti-Jacobin Conventions during the French revolutionary wars and anti-Bolshevik soviets during the Russian civil war.

We are not talking about violence during a revolution, but stuff that happened 20 years after a democratic socialist society was established according to you. Your conception of socialism seems to be a military dictatorship, oh wait that's right, your tendency supported the Chinese bourgeoisie during the Tiananmen Square Incident.


And from what social base was this done? Aristocratic hold on production was smashed by the First RepublicI hate to break it to you but the First Republic didn't last long. Conservative elements of the bourgeoisie purged its most radical vanguard, and then the military caste took power under Bonaparte; it was this social caste, not simply the subjective ideas of Napoleon saying "Hey guys, let's do an Empire instead!" that ended the revolution, restored aristocratic titles and privileges.


But, evidently, that is your conception of revolution. If someone opposes it, it cannot be legitimate. Have fun trying to run away from your own words.I wondered how long it would be before you gave yourself a pat on the back and said "have fun with that" or "keep dancing."

[mykittyhasaboner]

Back to my original question: what anti-socialist forces? On what date did the bureaucrats of "socialist" Czechoslovakia become CIA agents?

I doubt they were all CIA agents, however the chance of CIA involvement isn't improbable.

The intervention in Czechoslovakia was warranted by the reforms made by the government. The reform package was in essence economic, and in service to the petit bourgeois intelligentsia that came to dominate the Czech government against the interests of the working class. This is what the intervention was all about. Defeating counter revolutionaries who were within the very government of Czechoslovakia (a similar counterrevolution which eventually took place all over eastern Europe in the 90's)

[Palingenisis]

What is the attitude of Hoxhaites to organizations such as "Ray O' Light" in the USA and the MLPD in Germany?

[Gustav HK]

What is the attitude of Hoxhaites to organizations such as "Ray O' Light" in the USA and the MLPD in Germany?

Aren´t they both maoists? Hoxhaists view maoism as revisionist.

What their concrete mistakes are, I don´t know.

[manic expression]

History is what people write. You have not shown yourself to be correct in writing. Nothing has been more blatantly "shown by history" than that the gains of the 1917 revolution were rolled back due to the internal social contradictions of the USSR.
Marxists learn about history to pinpoint lessons from past struggles to better prepare for those of the present and future. But if you're saying that history shows the Soviet Union had many problems to it, I don't disagree.


Back to my original question: what anti-socialist forces? On what date did the bureaucrats of "socialist" Czechoslovakia become CIA agents?
I never claimed them to be CIA agents, I claimed they were moving against socialism, and these things do not have fixed dates to them. However, Dubcek's anti-socialist stance became clear when he initiated the reforms that led to the Prague Spring in April and May of 1968. This became a direct threat to the socialist system of Czechoslovakia.


So the first sentence of The Communist Manifesto is mechanicalist and economist.
No, for there is a specter haunting Europe. As for the Manifesto itself, it's not mechanicalist because it clearly disagrees with you: non-bourgeois can become allies of the capitalist state while bourgeois can become allies of the working-class revolution. Marx states this without much room for doubt.


Obviously elements of the revolutionary class can oppose the revolution, there were anti-Jacobin Conventions during the French revolutionary wars and anti-Bolshevik soviets during the Russian civil war.
Right, so elements of the working class can oppose working-class revolution as well. You did not account for this earlier. Further, how do you explain the Comte d'Artois organizing counterrevolutionary invasions of France (with cooperation from elements within the Republic's borders) while in exile? He had no more "social base", so obviously, according to you, no opposition to the Revolution was possible.


We are not talking about violence during a revolution, but stuff that happened 20 years after a democratic socialist society was established according to you. Your conception of socialism seems to be a military dictatorship, oh wait that's right, your tendency supported the Chinese bourgeoisie during the Tiananmen Square Incident.
OK, so after a period of 20 years, force against counterrevolutionaries is against the rules. What sense does that make?


I hate to break it to you but the First Republic didn't last long. Conservative elements of the bourgeoisie purged its most radical vanguard, and then the military caste took power under Bonaparte; it was this social caste, not simply the subjective ideas of Napoleon saying "Hey guys, let's do an Empire instead!" that ended the revolution, restored aristocratic titles and privileges.
You're backtracking again. First you said that as soon as a class is expropriated and deprived its "social base", it cannot advocate for its restoration. However, in 1793, the aristocracy was smashed; later, as you note, it was back. Your second explanation contradicts your first proposition: either an expropriated class cannot effectively fight for its restoration or it can. By the way, Bonaparte himself came from a family of noble descent.


I wondered how long it would be before you gave yourself a pat on the back and said "have fun with that" or "keep dancing."
I was wondering, too, but luckily your posts provided me with the answer.

[Ismail]

What is the attitude of Hoxhaites to organizations such as "Ray O' Light" in the USA and the MLPD in Germany?They exist. Be a bit more specific.

[Kléber]

Well Ismail, I'm sorry to turn a Hoxhaism thread into a Trot-tankie war but I can't let this madness go unanswered.


Marxists learn about history to pinpoint lessons from past struggles to better prepare for those of the present and future. But if you're saying that history shows the Soviet Union had many problems to it, I don't disagree.
Marxists look at history materialistically, not idealistically. The Soviet Union's ideological contradictions would not have led to its demise unless they were rooted in social contradictions between the bureaucracy and the working people.


I never claimed them to be CIA agents, I claimed they were moving against socialism, and these things do not have fixed dates to them. However, Dubcek's anti-socialist stance became clear when he initiated the reforms that led to the Prague Spring in April and May of 1968. This became a direct threat to the socialist system of Czechoslovakia.
Okay but what was the social basis for these reforms? You seem to be saying that Dubček woke up one day and said "I feel like restoring capitalism! Whooppee!" This doesn't make any sense. You are varying between "the Czechoslovak workers got real greedy and reactionary from listening to Radio Free Europe" and "this guy Dubček came along and ruined everything" neither of which suggests that the "socialism" of the Soviet bloc was very democratic or progressive.

If he was a democratically elected, recallable leader getting paid a worker's wage, how is it possible that his (or a small committee's) decisions changed the social system overnight without resistance from the workers who you claim had democratically ruled Czechoslovakia for 20 years prior?


As for the Manifesto itself, it's not mechanicalist because it clearly disagrees with you
I am the one defending Marx's assertion that hitherto human history is the history of class struggles which articulate their interests with ideology, not abstract ideological struggles that happen to play out in the material world..


Right, so elements of the working class can oppose working-class revolution as well. You did not account for this earlier.
According to you the revolution was completed by 1948 so I am asking how the workers spontaneously decide they want to go back to a reactionary system after 20 years of a more productive and democratic system.


Further, how do you explain the Comte d'Artois organizing counterrevolutionary invasions of France (with cooperation from elements within the Republic's borders) while in exile? He had no more "social base", so obviously, according to you, no opposition to the Revolution was possible.
The Comte d'Artois did not restore the aristocracy, Napoleon "revolution on horseback" Bonaparte did, under the tricolor and a government of "the people." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobles_of_the_First_French_Empire)


OK, so after a period of 20 years, force against counterrevolutionaries is against the rules. What sense does that make?
Democracy makes a lot more sense than the ludicrous suggestion that the workers, after being firmly in the saddle for 20 years as you assert, would suddenly turn into masochist-restorationists, opposing what's best for them, and state industry can only be preserved through a military dictatorship. It seems like you believe the bourgeois adage that "human nature" is capitalistic.


First you said that as soon as a class is expropriated and deprived its "social base", it cannot advocate for its restoration. However, in 1793, the aristocracy was smashed; later, as you note, it was back. Your second explanation contradicts your first proposition: either an expropriated class cannot effectively fight for its restoration or it can.
A coalition of foreign armies marched into France and put a Bourbon king back on the throne. Big difference there. The Soviet army was not fighting NATO in Czechoslovakia, it was fighting the Czechs themselves. I suppose you also support the Napoleonic invasion of Haiti, because Toussaint Louverture was secretly in league with British imperialism :rolleyes:


By the way, Bonaparte himself came from a family of noble descent.
Bonaparte started off as a left Jacobin who spent time in jail for his support of Robespierre. He did not act alone on the 18th Brumaire, history is not made by Great Men and their proclamations and decisions, Napoleon acted as the representative of the French officer caste. But if you want to reduce history to celebrity gossip, Stalin started out as a seminary student..


The intervention in Czechoslovakia was warranted by the reforms made by the government.
When did the government cease to be proletarian and become bourgeois? Or did it just "make mistakes" that needed to be corrected by Brezhnev's tank brigades?


The reform package was in essence economic, and in service to the petit bourgeois intelligentsia that came to dominate the Czech government against the interests of the working class.

How did the nonexistent bourgeoisie take over the Czech government if there had been a "socialist" society, democratic controlled by the workers and free of exploitation, peacefully developing for 20 years? Did RFE brainwash them and turn them into Zombi-Revisionists?

Note: class is determined by relation to the means of production, not personal/family background.

[manic expression]

Marxists look at history materialistically, not idealistically. The Soviet Union's ideological contradictions would not have led to its demise unless they were rooted in social contradictions between the bureaucracy and the working people.
This is mechanicalist once more. You want us to believe that socialism cannot possibly be opposed by anyone within society; that anti-socialism will be made against the laws of physics. This is the most idealistic of all arguments, for it denies the nature of a worker state: the suppression of the bourgeoisie. Perhaps you should read Lenin, he'd clear this up for you. Further, you can't justify your opinion on "social contradictions" because it's based on nothing material and everything imagined. The fact that you haven't done so yet is no coincidence.

As opposed to men making their own history, but not as they like it, you propose that "social contradictions" make all men's history, but only as you like it. This is yet another anti-Marxist gem of yours.


Okay but what was the social basis for these reforms? You seem to be saying that Dubček woke up one day and said "I feel like restoring capitalism! Whooppee!" This doesn't make any sense. You are varying between "the Czechoslovak workers got real greedy and reactionary from listening to Radio Free Europe" and "this guy Dubček came along and ruined everything" neither of which suggests that the "socialism" of the Soviet bloc was very democratic or progressive.
It's quite clear when we read the history: students were a main force in support of the reforms. Students are not workers, and in general their interests are not tied to that of the workers necessarily. The attempted counterrevolution at Tienanmen runs parallel to this. Further, there were many emotions that were manipulated by the anti-socialists in Europe, anti-Russian chauvinism being one of them. Are you saying it is impossible for a worker to fall prey to these lies?

Lastly, on the party, Lenin very consistently dealt with the problem of careerists, of un-communist elements within the vanguard. If it was an issue for the Bolsheviks, then why wouldn't it be an issue for the Czechoslovak communists? Again, let's not be mechanicalist, let's be historical.

And what was the social base for the Bourbon Restoration again? Oh, right, the decisions of the governments of the Coalition. How inconvenient for your worldview.


If he was a democratically elected, recallable leader getting paid a worker's wage, how is it possible that his (or a small committee's) decisions changed the social system overnight without resistance from the workers who you claim had democratically ruled Czechoslovakia for 20 years prior?
He was in a position to make those decisions, and he spurred anti-socialist sentiment within the populace, relying most notably on students to make his measures look popular. As to resistance from the workers, you keep forgetting that these anti-socialist measures were always veiled in the cloak of socialism. Dubcek constantly shielded his intentions with lip-service to socialism, which would explain the confusion about its true consequences.


I am the one defending Marx's assertion that hitherto human history is the history of class struggles which articulate their interests with ideology, not abstract ideological struggles that happen to play out in the material world..
You're the one who didn't know the first sentence of Marx, but we'll move on from that for now. Your error is in applying mechanicalist misunderstandings of class: you think that workers cannot possibly oppose a socialist society, which makes about as much sense as saying a worker cannot support a bourgeois society. One's class does not always determine what side they stand on; the fact that revolutionaries encounter anti-socialist workers is proof of this. Perhaps it is your political isolation from workers that leads you to this state of ignorance. In addition, Marx clearly stated that the bourgeoisie will take the side of the workers in revolutionary situations, thus your conception of class is anti-Marxist.


According to you the revolution was completed by 1948 so I am asking how the workers spontaneously decide they want to go back to a reactionary system after 20 years of a more productive and democratic system.
Not the workers, anti-socialist elements within the party, backed most strongly by students.

So why did the bourgeoisie of France spontaneously decide to go back to a reactionary system after years of a more democratic and progressive system?


The Comte d'Artois did not restore the aristocracy, Napoleon "revolution on horseback" Bonaparte did, under the tricolor and a government of "the people." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobles_of_the_First_French_Empire)
:lol: It's impressive how quickly you run away from an issue. You said that without a "social base", it is impossible for an individual to advocate for the restoration of an overthrown class' power. Well, here's the king's brother, working with agents inside France to destroy the First Republic. Therefore, your argument is anti-historical and wrong.


Democracy makes a lot more sense than the ludicrous suggestion that the workers, after being firmly in the saddle for 20 years as you assert, would suddenly turn into masochist-restorationists, opposing what's best for them, and state industry can only be preserved through a military dictatorship. It seems like you believe the bourgeois adage that "human nature" is capitalistic.
I'd like to hear you define "democracy". But beyond that, the party had anti-socialist elements in it. This is something Lenin identified and struggled with all the time. The only thing that was left was to manipulate the populace and find sections that would rally behind reforms, a role filled most notably by the students.


A coalition of foreign armies marched into France and put a Bourbon king back on the throne. Big difference there. The Soviet army was not fighting NATO in Czechoslovakia, it was fighting the Czechs themselves. I suppose you also support the Napoleonic invasion of Haiti, because Toussaint Louverture was secretly in league with British imperialism :rolleyes:
Ah, so it was the result of decisions made by military and political leaders, then. That's funny, just a few seconds ago you were railing against the suggestion that class doesn't mechanically determine everything in history. Interesting how you did that about-face without noticing.

The idea that NATO and its allies had absolutely no part in this is laughable. The threat of invasion was ever-present, and pro-capitalist propaganda was at work. Nevertheless, the restored crown sat on the throne for years after the armies of the Coalition left. What was their social base? I thought you said an expropriated class had no power to do anything...and the aristocracy was back in action before the Restoration.

And the British were working with the slave owners who wanted to be annexed into the British Empire to save their privileges, IIRC.


Bonaparte started off as a left Jacobin who spent time in jail for his support of Robespierre. He did not act alone on the 18th Brumaire, history is not made by Great Men and their proclamations and decisions, Napoleon acted as the representative of the French officer caste. But if you want to reduce history to celebrity gossip, Stalin started out as a seminary student..
Wrong. Bonaparte started off as a Corsican nationalist when he first went to France during the monarchy; he then became sympathetic to Robespierre on more of a personal basis than a political one. In early 1796 Bonaparte personally closed down the neo-Jacobin Pantheon Club. He was never really committed to the Jacobin cause, he just liked Robespierre.

History is made by wo/men, but not as they like it. You want to reduce history to what Marx singularly criticized.


When did the government cease to be proletarian and become bourgeois? Or did it just "make mistakes" that needed to be corrected by Brezhnev's tank brigades?
Careerists and non-communists can't exist in a vanguard, then? It's not physically possible for members of the vanguard to not be fully committed communists? That's what Lenin had to deal with in Russia, perhaps you can inform him of how frivolous his efforts were...according to you, no one can oppose a worker state, it's just out of the question.


How did the nonexistent bourgeoisie take over the Czech government if there had been a "socialist" society, democratic controlled by the workers and free of exploitation, peacefully developing for 20 years? Did RFE brainwash them and turn them into Zombi-Revisionists?
Once again, the bourgeoisie does not disappear after being expropriated. Neither do their allies, and neither does their propaganda. Once again, you think revolution is an exercise in consensus. If socialism has existed for 20 years, no one can oppose it! Again, it's this sort of political immaturity that marks you out as impotent.


Note: class is determined by relation to the means of production, not personal/family background.
So people's sympathies have nothing to do with personal/family background, then? If someone is a worker and their brother is a business owner, the former would murder the latter with no remorse at all, right? Right, the effects of personal/family background is something Marx never talked about...just as long as you don't read the Manifesto, you can believe that.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Reducing them for white-collar workers and government members.
So the solution to wage differentials is to drive down the wages of better paid workers to the level of the peasant in a collectivised farm - rather than raise the income of the rural workers. It's like saying that socialism in Europe would reduce wage differentials by driving down the wages of teachers or nurses to those of shop workers. Way to go :rolleyes:

The purpose of driving down the wages of white collar workers was not to reduce differentials but to compensate for a stagnating economy.


Once again Trotskyism and Khrushchevism/Brezhnevism unite. The sabotage (http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/SovietBB.htm) of actual central planning under the latter two is praised as an accomplishment as contrasted with the allegedly "rigid" and "dogmatic" "Stalinist" planning of Stalin and Hoxha.
You are at it again - post-Stalin Soviet Union was no different in pre-1953 Soviet Union in terms of the bureaucratic mismanagement. The only difference between this and Albania is that the Albanian Stalinists were more ham-fisted in their mismanagement.


The point of the People's War doctrine was for citizens to take weapons from home and enter the bunkers in the event of a bombing campaign, which would pretty much be inevitable on account of a lack of a serviceable Albanian air force and rather unreliable anti-air.
And had more to do with feeding paranoia to help maintain Hoxha's rule than any practical defence strategy.


In any case the bunkers program was not that much of the defense budget, and in the 1980's the defense budget actually went down. (Source is O'Donnell)
Again - hardly surprising in a stagnating economy.


The bunker period was during 1968-70, when Hoxha was allegedly "brown-nosing" Mao.
And what has that got to do with anything. It was also smack bang in the middle of Hoxha's 'Cultural Revolution' which could well explain where the daft idea came from.


As I've said before, the choice was for Albania to become a neo-colony or to remain independent whilst promoting proletarian internationalism. It opted for the latter.
Actually there was a third choice - abandon Stalinism and implement democratic workers control and management of society.


And what do you base this on? Having been around at the time and in contact with Hoxhaists in Ireland - the initial word out of Tirana was that Shehu attempted to assassinate Hoxha because he was 'jealous' and was shot by a bodyguard. It was a couple of weeks later that the story of Shehu being a spy and committing suicide appeared. Hoxha probably figured it was an easier story to sell to the masses in Albania and rasied fewer questions about his rule. You should have seen the somersaults the members of the CPI-ML did trying to explain the changed story - they sounded absolutely daft.

[Kléber]

Further, you can't justify your opinion on "social contradictions" because it's based on nothing material and everything imagined. The fact that you haven't done so yet is no coincidence.
The struggle in Czechoslovakia was essentially a feud between the Soviet bureaucracy and the Czechoslovak bureaucracy. The former wanted to preserve its economic, political and military domination of the satellite states, the latter to break free, even if that meant signing treaties with the capitalist West. The self-interest of both bureaucracies and how it led to a violent armed conflict proves that neither the USSR nor Czechoslovakia were "socialist."

You have yet to explain your analysis in Marxist terms, preferring idealistic explanations like "yes there were 'problems,' 'mistakes were made (http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5163/trollrj.jpg),' let's leave it at that" or "they felt like capitalism all of a sudden, fucking human nature, send tanks to correct them!"


As opposed to men making their own history, but not as they like it, you propose that "social contradictions" make all men's history, but only as you like it. This is yet another anti-Marxist gem of yours.LOL. Epic straw man distortion that proves how absolutely anti-materilaist you are.


It's quite clear when we read the history: students were a main force in support of the reforms. Students are not workers, and in general their interests are not tied to that of the workers necessarily.So you admit that social differentiation and caste privilege existed in Czechoslovakia? Therefore it wasn't yet socialist, the roots of the antagonistic classes had not been extirpated.


The attempted counterrevolution at Tienanmen runs parallel to this. ... Not the workers, anti-socialist elements within the party, backed most strongly by students.Attempted counter-revolution at Tiananmen? Jesus Christ, read something that isn't a Marcyite screed. There is a good documentary produced largely by William Hinton's daughter that might change your mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7ou2-Kv4UA


Further, there were many emotions that were manipulated by the anti-socialists in Europe, anti-Russian chauvinism being one of them. Are you saying it is impossible for a worker to fall prey to these lies?Is that your way of agreeing with my sarcastic proposition that Radio Free Europe brainwashed good socialist workers into becoming Zombie-Revisionists?


Lastly, on the party, Lenin very consistently dealt with the problem of careerists, of un-communist elements within the vanguard.There was still a bourgeoisie during the NEP period under Lenin.

According to you there was no bourgeoisie after 1948.

Therefore Lenin opposed revisionists who were based on an actual bourgeoisie, whereas you support an illogical proposition that a bourgeois counter-revolution occurred without a foreign invasion a la Waterloo or a local bourgeoisie a la NEP.


And what was the social base for the Bourbon Restoration again? Oh, right, the decisions of the governments of the Coalition. How inconvenient for your worldview.Yes, and where was the bourgeois coalition, NATO during 1968? Soviets were not fighting NATO they were fighting Czechs. Better analogy is Napoleon in Haiti.


He was in a position to make those decisions, and he spurred anti-socialist sentiment within the populace, relying most notably on students to make his measures look popular."He was in a position" to restore capitalism with the stroke of a pen? Therefore he was not accountable, therefore Czechoslovakia was not democratic, therefore it was not socialist.


As to resistance from the workers, you keep forgetting that these anti-socialist measures were always veiled in the cloak of socialism. Dubcek constantly shielded his intentions with lip-service to socialism, which would explain the confusion about its true consequences.A single guy restored capitalism by tricking the entire population? Oookay...


You're the one who didn't know the first sentence of Marx,I was referring to the actual book not the introduction.


Your error is in applying mechanicalist misunderstandings of class: you think that workers cannot possibly oppose a socialist society, which makes about as much sense as saying a worker cannot support a bourgeois society.Bourgeois society can tolerate dissent within the bourgeoisie and multiple parties. According to you, proletarian rule, which was supposed to be more mass and democratic, can't tolerate socialist pluralism!


One's class does not always determine what side they stand on; the fact that revolutionaries encounter anti-socialist workers is proof of this. Perhaps it is your political isolation from workers that leads you to this state of ignorance.You speak of political isolation from workers, really that's just hilarious, I have never encountered anyone as obsessed with the USSR as you, nor do I know many people who work for a living that would listen to your bullshit for 10 seconds. Either the PSL has really worked you over or you are a creature of the internet.


In addition, Marx clearly stated that the bourgeoisie will take the side of the workers in revolutionary situations, thus your conception of class is anti-Marxist.LOL.. I think you really need to read some more Marx... wow. He was referring to the disenfranchised petty bourgeoisie. And he supported a proletarian dictatorship not a one-party/military dictatorship.


So why did the bourgeoisie of France spontaneously decide to go back to a reactionary system after years of a more democratic and progressive system?Nothing happens spontaneously, read What is to be Done?, where Lenin specifically assaults that phony school of history that reduces human experience to the actions and speeches of kings and generals.

The military caste took over the French Republic and restored aristocratic privilege, and a foreign invasion restored Louis XVIII.

You do not admit the existence of a parasite caste in Czechoslovakia, nor did a foreign invasion restore outright bourgeois rule prior to the Soviet intervention in 1968.


You said that without a "social base", it is impossible for an individual to advocate for the restoration of an overthrown class' power. Well, here's the king's brother, working with agents inside France to destroy the First Republic.That was long before the completion of the French Revolution whereas you regard Czechoslovakia's socialist revolution to have been completed 20 years prior to the Soviet invasion.

It is impossible for an individual to make history alone, without a social base, because as you note, people don't make history as they like it.


I'd like to hear you define "democracy".I'll give you a hint, it doesn't look like this:http://www.sovlit.com/pics/prague.jpg

Democracy means freedom to oppose the ruling party and its official line, always has and always will, freedom to be a slave isn't freedom.


But beyond that, the party had anti-socialist elements in it. This is something Lenin identified and struggled with all the time. there was a bourgeoisie in Lenin's time and he didn't claim that socialism was established, he said that would be a task for his grandchildren's generation.


The only thing that was left was to manipulate the populace and find sections that would rally behind reforms, a role filled most notably by the students.Who was manipulating the populace? CIA agents or a nonexistent bourgeoisie?


Ah, so it was the result of decisions made by military and political leaders, then. That's funny, just a few seconds ago you were railing against the suggestion that class doesn't mechanically determine everything in history. Interesting how you did that about-face without noticing.Love the strawmen. I never said anything like that. Keep dancing.


The idea that NATO and its allies had absolutely no part in this is laughable. The threat of invasion was ever-present, and pro-capitalist propaganda was at work. Nevertheless, the restored crown sat on the throne for years after the armies of the Coalition left. What was their social base? I thought you said an expropriated class had no power to do anything...and the aristocracy was back in action before the Restoration.Yes, the military caste transitioned itself into a new aristocracy, similar to how the Soviet/Czechoslovak ruling caste transitioned itself into a new bourgeoisie. But you claim those were "socialist" societies free of social differentiation..


And the British were working with the slave owners who wanted to be annexed into the British Empire to save their privileges, IIRC."On June 13 [1799] Toussaint Louverture makes a secret treaty with Great Britain and the United States which states, in part, 'No expedition shall be sent out against any of the possessions of his Britannic Majesty and of the United States of America.'"
http://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=1799
Source: Korngold, Ralph (1944). Citizen Toussaint. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. LCCN 44007566.
Illustration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maitland_and_Louverture.jpg


Wrong. Bonaparte started off as a Corsican nationalist when he first went to France during the monarchy; he then became sympathetic to Robespierre on more of a personal basis than a political one. In early 1796 Bonaparte personally closed down the neo-Jacobin Pantheon Club. He was never really committed to the Jacobin cause, he just liked Robespierre.Way to skip over the most important part of the French Revolution. During the early period Bonaparte supported the revolutionary forces in his homeland. By 1796, he had been let out of jail by the Thermidoreans, come to be regarded as a "man of the right," and Robespierre's head was no longer attached.


Careerists and non-communists can't exist in a vanguard, then? It's not physically possible for members of the vanguard to not be fully committed communists? That's what Lenin had to deal with in Russia, There was bourgeoisie in Russia according to Lenin, no bourgeoisie in Czechoslovakia according to you.


Once again, the bourgeoisie does not disappear after being expropriated. Neither do their allies, and neither does their propaganda. Once again, you think revolution is an exercise in consensus. If socialism has existed for 20 years, no one can oppose it! Again, it's this sort of political immaturity that marks you out as impotent. Impotent? That's funny. So the existence of the long-gone USSR, preserved in military parades on YouTube to which you masturbate, makes you more sexually potent? Don't take it personal but I doubt you've ever gotten laid.

So who were the bourgeoisie after 1948? Are you seriously saying that socialism, a classless society, will have a bourgeoisie? Or will you agree that the revolution was not complete and socialism did not yet exist?


So people's sympathies have nothing to do with personal/family background, then? If someone is a worker and their brother is a business owner, the former would murder the latter with no remorse at all, right?I get it now, you think revolution is a matter of murdering the bad people and raising the good people to positions of power. You should look into Maoism, 19th-Century populism, or medieval proto-communist heresies, they'd be more up your alley than Marxism.


Right, the effects of personal/family background is something Marx never talked about...just as long as you don't read the Manifesto, you can believe that.There are other things you should read starting with Capital.

[manic expression]

The struggle in Czechoslovakia was essentially a feud between the Soviet bureaucracy and the Czechoslovak bureaucracy. The former wanted to preserve its economic, political and military domination of the satellite states, the latter to break free, even if that meant signing treaties with the capitalist West. The self-interest of both bureaucracies and how it led to a violent armed conflict proves that neither the USSR nor Czechoslovakia were "socialist."
Of course, you cannot justify this. As usual.


You have yet to explain your analysis in Marxist terms, preferring idealistic explanations like "yes there were 'problems,' 'mistakes were made (http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5163/trollrj.jpg),' let's leave it at that" or "they felt like capitalism all of a sudden, fucking human nature, send tanks to correct them!"No, the issue is your inability to comprehend Marxist arguments. Careerists and anti-socialists found their way into the vanguard, and their attempts to subvert and threaten socialism were defeated. How is this different than Lenin sending careerists to the firing squad?


LOL. Epic straw man distortion that proves how absolutely anti-materilaist you are.It's precisely what you argued, so it's your problem, not mine.


So you admit that social differentiation and caste privilege existed in Czechoslovakia? Therefore it wasn't yet socialist, the roots of the antagonistic classes had not been extirpated.:laugh: So if kids go to school...socialism cannot exist. Great logic. I'd like to hear more about your anti-educational socialism.


Attempted counter-revolution at Tiananmen? Jesus Christ, read something that isn't a Marcyite screed. There is a good documentary produced largely by William Hinton's daughter that might change your mind:And on cue, Kleber falls in line behind the bourgeois commentary of things.

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12341

Read something that isn't filled to the brim with capitalist rhetoric.


Is that your way of agreeing with my sarcastic proposition that Radio Free Europe brainwashed good socialist workers into becoming Zombie-Revisionists?It's my way of pointing out that NATO and their allies existed. Do you deny this?


There was still a bourgeoisie during the NEP period under Lenin.What was its "social base"?


According to you there was no bourgeoisie after 1948.Not an empowered bourgeoisie, no. Do you deny this?


Therefore Lenin opposed revisionists who were based on an actual bourgeoisie, whereas you support an illogical proposition that a bourgeois counter-revolution occurred without a foreign invasion a la Waterloo or a local bourgeoisie a la NEP.So according to you, the bourgeoisie can only enforce its will if it lives next door?


Yes, and where was the bourgeois coalition, NATO during 1968? Soviets were not fighting NATO they were fighting Czechs. Better analogy is Napoleon in Haiti.Your analogy in Haiti was that the Haitians were working with the British, when in reality the British were working with the slave owners instead, so you're lost on that one. Moving on, you are running away from the issue: the French nobility still existed after 1793 and was advocating for its restoration. It finally succeeded with the help of foreign allies. The Czechoslovak anti-socialists were making the first steps toward challenging socialism.

It's a real shame you're so blind to history: after the later restitution of capitalism, who became Speaker of the Federal Assembly? Dubcek. This is the traitor you're defending, appropriately enough.


"He was in a position" to restore capitalism with the stroke of a pen? Therefore he was not accountable, therefore Czechoslovakia was not democratic, therefore it was not socialist.So if someone has the power to introduce government measures, socialism does not exist. Apparently, one can have neither states nor schools in your "socialism". :lol:


A single guy restored capitalism by tricking the entire population? Oookay...I didn't say that. Stick to reality, not your imagination.


I was referring to the actual book not the introduction.The introduction containing its first sentence.


Bourgeois society can tolerate dissent within the bourgeoisie and multiple parties. According to you, proletarian rule, which was supposed to be more mass and democratic, can't tolerate socialist pluralism!Proletarian rule need to tolerate anti-socialism the likes we see from Dubcek. It is fitting for you to identify anti-socialism with socialism, though. A friend of a confirmed capitalist traitor, that's all you're proving to be.


You speak of political isolation from workers, really that's just hilarious, I have never encountered anyone as obsessed with the USSR as you, nor do I know many people who work for a living that would listen to your bullshit for 10 seconds. Either the PSL has really worked you over or you are a creature of the internet.So if someone knows about the USSR, they can't be involved in the struggle. I just got back from an event put on by my organization...what did you do today? What organization do you even work with? What has your tendency actually done to further the cause of the workers? Yeah, I thought so. Keep dreaming.


LOL.. I think you really need to read some more Marx... wow. He was referring to the disenfranchised petty bourgeoisie. And he supported a proletarian dictatorship not a one-party/military dictatorship.Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

Read it and weep.

Proletarian dictatorship is fulfilled if that party is a vanguard. It's Leninism 101, something you seem to oppose.


Nothing happens spontaneously, read What is to be Done?, where Lenin specifically assaults that phony school of history that reduces human experience to the actions and speeches of kings and generals.Sure, but I never claimed as much. Your capacity to cite thinkers you disagree with is only matched by your incapacity to recognize subtlety. I'll let you read my posts again, since you didn't the first time around.


The military caste took over the French Republic and restored aristocratic privilege, and a foreign invasion restored Louis XVIII.And what was the "social base" of the military caste? With no aristocrat in the whole of France able to lift a finger for his privileges, why did the caste gift the aristocracy new privileges?

Most importantly, how was the aristocracy even to take its place when the enclosure-style land reforms were never touched by anyone?

You see, history has a habit of throwing sand in the face of badly-thought arguments.


You do not admit the existence of a parasite caste in Czechoslovakia, nor did a foreign invasion restore outright bourgeois rule prior to the Soviet intervention in 1968.First, no. Second, outright bourgeois rule was not restored when anti-socialism was defeated. Try reading a timeline if you can't keep the chronology straight.


That was long before the completion of the French Revolution whereas you regard Czechoslovakia's socialist revolution to have been completed 20 years prior to the Soviet invasion.Wrong. The Comte d'Artois was working for counterrevolution as long as he drew breath. Further, the most serious threats to the Revolution happened after the execution of Citizen Capet: the Vendee being the most notable example. So once again, history shows you to be lost.


It is impossible for an individual to make history alone, without a social base, because as you note, people don't make history as they like it.Sure, and what was the social base of the Comte d'Artois? A disenfranchised former ruling class. Exactly.


I'll give you a hint, it doesn't look like this:Right, because suppression and use of force has no place in proletarian states. Lenin even said so! :lol:


Democracy means freedom to oppose the ruling party and its official line, always has and always will, freedom to be a slave isn't freedom.Great. Now show me why the undermining of socialism is inherent in socialism.


there was a bourgeoisie in Lenin's time and he didn't claim that socialism was established, he said that would be a task for his grandchildren's generation.There was a bourgeoisie in the 60's, too.


Who was manipulating the populace? CIA agents or a nonexistent bourgeoisie?Primarily, Dubcek and his clique, as well as anti-socialist elements in Czechoslovakia (including the students who protested in support of Dubcek's measures).


Love the strawmen. I never said anything like that. Keep dancing.:lol: You're not dancing your way away from this one. You said that the Restoration was due to the victory of the Coalition. So it was, indeed, a result of decisions made by individuals, stamping the desires of reaction upon the face of France. Either history has nothing to do with decisions made by leaders or it has something to do with decisions made by leaders. You've tried to play both sides of this, and now you have to choose. Have fun with that...if you can stop dancing long enough.


Yes, the military caste transitioned itself into a new aristocracy, similar to how the Soviet/Czechoslovak ruling caste transitioned itself into a new bourgeoisie. But you claim those were "socialist" societies free of social differentiation..Um, no. The aristocracy of the Bourbon Restoration was not just a transitioned group of artillery and cavalry officers. Stop trying to argue against history.

There was no empowered bourgeoisie in Czechoslovakia. Private property was illegal in law and in practice. Read Trotsky's analysis at least.


"On June 13 [1799] Toussaint Louverture makes a secret treaty with Great Britain and the United States which states, in part, 'No expedition shall be sent out against any of the possessions of his Britannic Majesty and of the United States of America.'"So L'ouverture stated he didn't want to invade the United States or the British Colonies. Yeah, what a collaborator.


Way to skip over the most important part of the French Revolution. During the early period Bonaparte supported the revolutionary forces in his homeland. By 1796, he had been let out of jail by the Thermidoreans, come to be regarded as a "man of the right," and Robespierre's head was no longer attached.Yes, because his affinity for the Jacobins was tied almost directly to Robespierre. No Robespierre (1796), no loyalty to the ideas of the Jacobins (closure of the Pantheon Club). Calling him a "left Jacobin" demonstrates a wholly superficial understanding of Bonaparte's motivations.


Impotent? That's funny. So the existence of the long-gone USSR, preserved in military parades on YouTube to which you masturbate, makes you more sexually potent? Don't take it personal but I doubt you've ever gotten laid.It seems I've touched a nerve. :lol:


So who were the bourgeoisie after 1948? Are you seriously saying that socialism, a classless society, will have a bourgeoisie? Or will you agree that the revolution was not complete and socialism did not yet exist?The bourgeoisie was empowered in much of the world. Look at a 60's-era map and maybe you'll learn something.


I get it now, you think revolution is a matter of murdering the bad people and raising the good people to positions of power. You should look into Maoism, 19th-Century populism, or medieval proto-communist heresies, they'd be more up your alley than Marxism.So you think Lenin should've rewarded careerists instead of punishing them. Again, you aim for a revolution by consensus (to set up a society without schools).


There are other things you should read starting with Capital.This coming from the person who can't find the first sentence of the Manifesto.

[Red Commissar]

Comrades, just a suggestion, but can't a discussion of that the case in Czechoslovakia be done elsewhere? I don't mean to backseat moderate but it's almost as if this isn't about Hoxhaism anymore.

[Ismail]

So the solution to wage differentials is to drive down the wages of better paid workers to the level of the peasant in a collectivised farm - rather than raise the income of the rural workers. It's like saying that socialism in Europe would reduce wage differentials by driving down the wages of teachers or nurses to those of shop workers.You seem awfully concerned about bureaucrats, who were the one affected, not so much doctors and teachers.


The purpose of driving down the wages of white collar workers was not to reduce differentials but to compensate for a stagnating economy."Driving down wages" occurred before the economy stagnated; in the early 1970's. In "An Outline of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania" in 1978, notes that:

There has not been a single instance of a price rise in any commodity. On the contrary, prices have been steadily reduced. There have been a number of general reductions in retail prices, benefitting the working masses to the extent of millions of leks. Of course, this is not the only way to increase the real wages of the workers. Along with the lowering of prices, the policy of raising the lower nominal wages of the workers is followed, too.

[....]

... on April 29, 1976, in the Declaration of the Central Committee of the Party and the Government it was stressed that the establishment of correct proportions between the wages of the workers and the employees and between the wages of categories of employees is a measure of principled importance which blocks the road to bourgeois degeneration, career seeking and many other evils. Following the Declaration, the differences between lower and higher wages in Albania reached the ratio of 1 to 2.5. Now following the latest decision, this ratio is narrowed even further. Today in Albania the ratio between the average wages of workers and the salary of the director of the same enterprise is 1:1.7; that between the average wages of the workers in general and the salary of the director in the Ministry is about 1:2; that between the lowest and highest wages of the workers within the same branch is about 1:1.5-1.65 etc. These ratios are set by law.Not to mention taxation was abolished in 1968.



You are at it again - post-Stalin Soviet Union was no different in pre-1953 Soviet Union in terms of the bureaucratic mismanagement.Bull. As Bland noted, the restoration of capitalism caused unique problems for the Soviet economy. See: http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrchap32-34.html


Again - hardly surprising in a stagnating economy.The funds went to social services.


And what has that got to do with anything.You were the one claiming that it was during the isolation period.


Actually there was a third choice - abandon Stalinism and implement democratic workers control and management of society.We aren't Trots, Titoists or Maoists, we don't use phraseology or demagogy, unlike you. "Democratic workers control" is vague and worthless. What would this "democratic workers control" change?

[Kléber]

OK, I'll take the initiative on ending the Czechoslovakia argument. Just let me clarify my points because manic expression can not argue logically, only troll, make up strawmen and ad hominem attacks.

1.) Socialism never existed in Czechoslovakia, the revolution was not complete, political affairs were monopolized by a bureaucratic caste of which Dubček was a representative, which enjoyed salaries 10-100 times those of ordinary workers (just how much pay inequality was a state secret)
2.) Czechoslovakia had not joined NATO prior to 1968 and the Soviet tanks were fighting masses of Czech people, not NATO forces
3.) There was not a bourgeoisie in Czechoslovakia, not in the form of students, "anti-socialist elements," CIA-brainwashed zombie revisionists, nor people whose great grand-daddy was a capitalist
4.) I do not support consensus-only decision-making nor am I against schools
5.) The first sentence of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto does indeed describe history as the history of class struggles. Individuals make history but not in thin air, there are social forces at work underneath the speeches, policies and proclamations of "Great Men"
6.) Carma Hinton's documentary, Gate of Heavenly Peace, represents the Maoist, not bourgeois perspective on the Tiananmen Square Incident
7.) I support the ICFI (www.wsws.org (http://www.wsws.org)) but providing personal details about your political activity on a website monitored by FBI is stupid and does not settle the question of whether Czechoslovakia was socialist, which it wasn't.
8.) Aristocratic titles and privileges were restored by Napoleon Bonaparte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobles_of_the_First_French_Empire) prior to the Bourbon Restoration
9.) Napoleon Bonaparte's power was based on the officer caste, not his own force of character
10.) Toussaint Louverture signed a secret treaty with Great Britain, was receiving military aid from US imperialists prior to Thomas Jefferson's election, foiled a Directory plot to spark an uprising in Jamaica, and effectively declared independence by writing a new constitution for Saint-Domingue and making himself Governor for life, but that doesn't justify the 1802 invasion by French forces
11.) Lenin never said the RSFSR had established socialism, he said that would be a task for his grandchildren's generation
12.) The repressive state apparatus is supposed to wither away after the revolution is complete, not send tank brigades to kill a new batch of counter-revolutionaries ever 20 years

[manic expression]

1.) Private property was abolished in law and in practice, the bourgeoisie was disenfranchised, capitalist relations had been smashed. Of course there was a revolution.

2.) The reforms were being pushed through by leaders who wanted to move toward the capitalist sphere. After capitalism was restored in 1989, Dubcek showed his true colors by helping head the capitalist state, and this is the leader Kleber wants to defend. Why, when history has shown the figurehead of the Prague Spring to be nothing more than a capitalist, would any supposed socialist take his side?

3.) The bourgeoisie has allies that are not bourgeois. We see this when non-bourgeois support capitalism in capitalist society. Further, no mention is again made of the French Revolution, when aristocratic privileges were outlawed; that did not mean that aristocrats vanished into thin air. The same goes here.

4.) Then why do you deny the vanguard party the right to suppress the enemies of socialism? And why did you point out the existence of students as proof of a lack of socialism? This was in response to my point about the fact that Czechoslovakia had students:

So you admit that social differentiation and caste privilege existed in Czechoslovakia? Therefore it wasn't yet socialist, the roots of the antagonistic classes had not been extirpated.

5.) The first sentence of the first chapter of the Manifesto describes history in terms of class struggle. Then, Marx goes on to expand on this, describing the dynamics of class struggle, and how individuals respond to the conditions put forth by class divisions and conflict. Kleber wants to stick to one sentence instead of properly understanding Marxism.

6.) So I take it you hold the Maoist line on China? No? Then stop trying to hind behind other people's arguments; I was addressing your reasoning first and foremost, and it is filled to the brim with bourgeois rhetoric. There was no massacre at Tienanmen (this is so well-documented that it is hardly disputed anymore by people who have reviewed the evidence) and the PLA was well within its rights in clearing out the demonstrators.

7.) And what has the ICFI done recently, other than publish internet articles dissing active revolutionaries? Figures, that seems to be all you do here. Oh, and if you were actually involved in political activity, then you'd know that the cops monitor a lot of what we do first-hand, so vaguely talking about a few actions on the internet doesn't give them more than they already know. But you'd only know that if you were active in real life and saw the police cameras pointed at you and your comrades...like I did just a few days ago.

8.) And what was Bonaparte's "social base"? Caste is not class, and you've been leading the battle cry for "only class struggle determines history!" Caste, most importantly, is not independent from class.

9.) You forget that Napoleon's political base was the Republican right-wing during the coup.

10.) First, the British were far more eager in working with the slave owners. Second, aside from all that, L'Ouverture was justified in defending the progress of the Haitian Revolution from its enemies. Consequently, the efforts of reactionaries were confronted and eventually defeated.

11.) Lenin defended the Revolution and its gains through suppression and force. The very same applies to the defeat of the anti-socialists in Czechoslovakia.

12.) And now you're pushing anarchism on us. The state will persist so long as class struggle exists, and to think that class struggle had disappeared from the face of the earth in 1968 is ludicrous. The state must protect socialism, further it and counter its enemies. It's interesting how you would supposedly defend Lenin for defending the Revolution with force after the Civil War, but when it's done later on and with modern military technology, your sensibilities get all offended. What is the vanguard supposed to defend a revolution with, sticks and stones? Witty arguments? Yet another committee for a fourth international? Like the anarchists, you have no conception of what it means to defend a revolution, and this underlines your detachment from precisely that.

[Kléber]

Trying to goad me into revealing personal details? No thanks, cop. You know as little about me as you do about the history of the workers' movement so fuck off. If being photographed at a meeting is the most revolutionary thing you have ever done, you're in no position to be thumping your chest online. Simply pathetic.

[manic expression]

Trying to goad me into revealing personal details? No thanks, cop. You know as little about me as you do about the history of the workers' movement so fuck off. If being photographed at a meeting is the most revolutionary thing you have ever done, you're in no position to be thumping your chest online. Simply pathetic.
So you can't even vaguely allude to any political work your party has done in the real world. Of course you can't, it's hard to allude to something that doesn't exist. "Irrelevant" doesn't even begin to describe your level of detachment from the working class.

And I get photographed at demonstrations and events...not really at meetings. If you were involved in politics in real life, you'd know this is par for the course. But you're not, so you don't. The truth hurts, so here's another wound for you to lick.

[Kléber]

So you can't even vaguely allude to any political work your party has done in the real world. Of course you can't, it's hard to allude to something that doesn't exist.If you looked at the website I posted you would have seen these links:
http://www.socialequality.com/caus
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/dart-j11.shtml

Or you could read this book if you think that theory is irrelevant and the measure of an organization's revolutionism is how many public events it puts on:
http://marxistsfr.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/index.htm


And I get photographed at demonstrations and events...ohh, I'm soo impressed! Aren't you just a regular petty-bourgeois radical celebrity. So you've never been followed home, shadowed in public, beaten up, or arrested? Never been in a scrap with fascists either I take it. You're a sniveling middle-class wannabe with paranoid delusions of grandeur who gets tingly when he thinks about USSR. I'd even call you the Shirley Temple of Stalinism.

[BeerShaman]

Won't say much. Don't know a lot about his mind, but his acts were hardly beneficial for the workers. Tyranny that is, and I know what I'm telling by living in Greece, next to Albania (Hoxha's country), where we have almost a million of albanian immigrants because of Albania's history and Hoxha's decisions. And I also have my best friend and a lot of comrades and friends from albanian, both young and old, enough to tell if they lived happily or couldn't live at all back there.

[Proletarian Ultra]

If you looked at the website I posted you would have seen these links:
http://www.socialequality.com/caus
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/dart-j11.shtml

Oh, you're SEP. Now it makes sense.


I'd even call you the Shirley Temple of Stalinism.

Dibs on that nickname if Pal. doesn't want it!

[4 Leaf Clover]

My impression (I'm not a Hoxhaist, obviously) is that they do consider themselves to be anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists. After Stalin's death, they considered Hoxha to be the last bastion of anti-revisionism, so that's why they're called Hoxhaists...I don't believe that they think Hoxha actually contributed any breakthroughs in theory, just upheld Marxist-Leninism, as they see it.

At least, that's how it has seemed to me over the years.

actually hoxa was quite revisionist in practice if you ask me

[manic expression]

If you looked at the website I posted you would have seen these links:
So you are irrelevant. Good to know.


ohh, I'm soo impressed! Aren't you just a regular petty-bourgeois radical celebrity. So you've never been followed home, shadowed in public, beaten up, or arrested? Never been in a scrap with fascists either I take it. You're a sniveling middle-class wannabe with paranoid delusions of grandeur who gets tingly when he thinks about USSR. I'd even call you the Shirley Temple of Stalinism.
Keep it coming, your bruised ego is entertaining.

[Kléber]

http://encoremag.com/images/2009/shirley_temples_the_little_princess_apr2009.jpg



Now Introducing..

The manic expression
Guide to TROLLING!


Step 1: Never actually answer your opponent's argument. Pretend that their position is a hyperbolic parody of itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) that isn't even worth responding to.

Step 2: Fill your post with rhetorical questions and half-assed attempts at mockery, as if you are a two-bit politician.

Step 3: When links are posted, just link to PSLweb in response. PSLweb is truth. Assume that others share your religious devotion to the USSR and that such faith is a valid substitute for a reasonable point of view.

Step 4: When your own sources are refuted, pretend not to have read that part of the post and assert that whatever is written on PSLweb remains undisputed. Because otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Step 5: When a historical topic is debated, casually skim Wikipedia for the first factoid that seems to back up your point. Nevermind consistency, your position can be adjusted as necessary provided you maintain absolute 100% loyalty to the Soviet government and all of its actions (except for its dissolution, but you should speak of USSR as if it still exists, for it could always return to existence next morning, and then your opponents would really look the fool!).

Step 6: Make sure you skim at worst and never actually read something not published by the PSL, lest it shake your faith in the socialist infallibility of Brezhnev and Deng.

Step 7: Convincing people that you are right is absolutely unnecessary. Fellow trolls will applaud you on a job well done and anyone who is against USSR is a fucking class enemy who ought to be shot.

Step 8: If you feel shaken, take a breather, watch some videos of Soviet military parades on YouTube, masturbate as necessary; when sufficiently recharged, it is safe to return to the thread in a euphoric rage and renew trolling.

Step 9: If you still seem to be losing the argument, go back to Step 1. Rest assured that the people you are arguing with are workers and activists without the time to debate you for the next 50 years. Remember, persistent trolling can triumph over logic and historical accuracy!

[manic expression]

Let's see here, trying to make the conversation personal instead of political, posting images instead of arguments, making irrelevant lists about one's opponent and running away from all the issues...if it walks like a troll and talks like a troll...

:laugh: Hurt feelings...it's all Kleber has to offer this discussion. Any and all arguments of potential substance are long gone from his words, and we're left with a personal grudge made from consistently being proven wrong on a variety of issues. Kleber, perhaps you could point out a point of yours which I haven't adequately addressed. Or perhaps you could show us what issues I haven't justified and explained my position on.

...Or, instead, you can act like a 5-year old when you get you get beaten in yet another argument. Like I said, your bruised ego entertains me. Richly. :lol:

And for those keeping score at home, Kleber is still on Dubcek's side, Dubcek being the one who held senior office in the capitalist state after capitalism was restored in Czechoslovakia. But don't worry, supporting capitalism and opposing socialism is all Kleber spends his time on. Hence the temper tantrum when things don't go his way.

[Sam_b]

A lot of nonsense about Czechoslovakia here. I'll pick up on a few points and then you can all go back to your tendency war.

First of all, as I think one user put it, it is incorrect to label the invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968 as being particularly 'brutal'. 'Brutal' is much more correct of Hungary in 1956, but remember that the Warsaw Pact invasion saw relatively little loss of life. This is down to two reasons - encouragement by Dubcek et al for Czechs and Slovaks to stay at home during the invasion and not to fight back, and memories by the Soviets of the last time they went into a country and occupied it - there was definitely a change of tactics here.


The struggle in Czechoslovakia was essentially a feud between the Soviet bureaucracy and the Czechoslovak bureaucracy. The former wanted to preserve its economic, political and military domination of the satellite states, the latter to break free, even if that meant signing treaties with the capitalist West. The self-interest of both bureaucracies and how it led to a violent armed conflict proves that neither the USSR nor Czechoslovakia were "socialist."

Not strictly true. As we can see from the differences in position and support for Novotny and Dubcek the crucial factor here was a split between two rivaling factions of the KSC. I would argue that this situation was never about 'breaking free' as much as it was an attempt for Dubcek to take a radical position and one which would win support amongst the populous in order to be placed into a position of power. These techniques were first put into place in the 'Bratislava Spring' of the mid-1960s in the KSS, beore Dubcek's moving to work with the KSC. As Heimann and perhaps to an extent Skilling point out, the liberalisations of the media and cinema gave Dubcek the ability to cement himself in power and this was the real intention of the reforms. It was a classic power struggle in the upper echelons of the party much more than a dispute between Czechoslovakia and the USSR. If anything the USSR helped Dubcek by the leadership not endorsing Novotny on diplomatic trips to Prague.


First, Benes was pushed out with the backing of the Soviet Union in 1948, a step forward for the workers of Czechoslovakia; so no, the USSR didn't just put the same government back in before marching off

Kind of. Compared with the methods of communists taking power in other countries such as Poland, Hungary etc the Czechoslovak method was reasonably democratic. The 1946 free elections saw over 30% support for the KSC and about five for the KSS (though initially seperate forces they would unite soon enough) and also about twenty percent for the socialists, so there was a clear level of support. This put the communists in great position for the coup of 1948, one which (despite supporting it) the Soviets did not have much of a hand in.

[Kléber]

Not strictly true. As we can see from the differences in position and support for Novotny and Dubcek the crucial factor here was a split between two rivaling factions of the KSC. I would argue that this situation was never about 'breaking free' as much as it was an attempt for Dubcek to take a radical position and one which would win support amongst the populous in order to be placed into a position of power. These techniques were first put into place in the 'Bratislava Spring' of the mid-1960s in the KSS, beore Dubcek's moving to work with the KSC. As Heimann and perhaps to an extent Skilling point out, the liberalisations of the media and cinema gave Dubcek the ability to cement himself in power and this was the real intention of the reforms. It was a classic power struggle in the upper echelons of the party much more than a dispute between Czechoslovakia and the USSR. If anything the USSR helped Dubcek by the leadership not endorsing Novotny on diplomatic trips to Prague.
Thanks for bringing your knowledge of Czechoslovakia to the discussion but an innocuous power struggle between great men based on a divergence in cinematic tastes doesn't satisfactorily explain why the Soviet leaders sent troops and eventually had their fellow bureaucrat removed from office.

[manic expression]

Points taken, Sam_b, but I have a few quick things to add. The reforms Dubcek was introducing in 1968 was, IMO, a challenge to the society that had been established in years prior. The liberalization of the economy and press was key here, for it empowered and enabled pro-capitalist elements. He was also taking steps to legalize pro-capitalist political organizations in the country, IIRC. All this must be seen as far, far more than just a struggle between bureaucratic factions. Cementing himself in power was Dubcek's immediate aim, but it wouldn't do to view this as his only goal.

[Sam_b]

Thanks for bringing your knowledge of Czechoslovakia to the discussion but an innocuous power struggle between great men based on a divergence in cinematic tastes doesn't satisfactorily explain why the Soviet leaders sent troops and eventually had their fellow bureaucrat removed from office.

It had nothing to do with 'cinematic tastes' - I'm pointing this out because it was one of the by-products of liberalisation. As by the end of the 1950s Novotny was one of the more 'hardline' leaders in Central and Eastern Europe Dubcek needed to repackage himself as an alternative to build support as he would never have been able to any other way. If you're somehow doubting this then you can even look to the congress of communist parties in Bucharest in (i think 1961?) which clearly demonstrates the ambition of Dubcek to rise to a leadership position in the KSC. Like it could almost be expected, with such a hefty riff within the KSC the Soviets took intervention to try and avoid another Hungary 1956 which would be disasterous for them, because like that time the situation was perpetuated by an internal rift in the MKP. Please don't gloss over this argument as being around cinematography as I mentioned it in one sentence.



Points taken, Sam_b, but I have a few quick things to add. The reforms Dubcek was introducing in 1968 was, IMO, a challenge to the society that had been established in years prior. The liberalization of the economy and press was key here, for it empowered and enabled pro-capitalist elements. He was also taking steps to legalize pro-capitalist political organizations in the country, IIRC. All this must be seen as far, far more than just a struggle between bureaucratic factions. Cementing himself in power was Dubcek's immediate aim, but it wouldn't do to view this as his only goal.


Sure. When I quoted you above I wasn't particularly disagreeing, but thought it was important to add a few points. For me, I don't think it summounts to a full-blown introduction of capitalist elements, but a profound change in direction of the communist state stucture itself. As the new constitution which was brought in by Novotny in the early sixties emphasised that the 'building of the socialist state' was completed (inferring that a classless society had been built) this became a point of opposition for the likes of Dubcek and his allies, namely Ota Sik for one. Members on here will notice I end up quoting Mary Heimann a lot in these debates, but again I think she is right - a re-introduction of capitalist elements would not have been in the interests of Dubcek to hold onto power. That is not to say that others within the KSC would have supported this, but it certainly wasn't a top priority.

You are right in saying that Dubcek's liberalisations went to the extent of legalising pro-capitalist political groups, but there was never as much emphasis on re-introducing capitalism as a viable system in Czechoslovakia - if we perhaps take his word on it ia the Action Program which still highlighted the importance of the party and state. Don't get me wrong your point is valid, but I think up for discussion - and is one still being discussed in the field of Czechoslovak studies.

Rather than to disrupt your thread, PM me if there's anything else. I wouldn't want to detract from the limelight of Comrade Enver :thumbup1:

[Kléber]

Like it could almost be expected, with such a hefty riff within the KSC the Soviets took intervention to try and avoid another Hungary 1956 which would be disasterous for them, because like that time the situation was perpetuated by an internal rift in the MKP.
So to rephrase what I said in a more nuanced way, the Soviet bureaucracy intervened to protect its "friends" and assert its own social interests over those of the dominant, liberalizing section of the Czechoslovak bureaucracy, whose program was supported by masses of Czechoslovak workers but threatened to destabilize the military and economic foundations of the Soviet bloc. You have hardly demonstrated that what I wrote was "nonsense."


Please don't gloss over this argument as being around cinematography as I mentioned it in one sentence.You do seem to be saying that the argument was a personal or subjective one over which guy got to be leader, and whether or not state controls on media would be relaxed, rather than a social struggle over economic interests. I made that remark in jest, in order to provoke a more thorough materialist explanation which has not been forthcoming. Your knowledge of internecine Czechoslovak bureaucratic struggles is impressive, but without an explanation of the objective social forces beneath the subjective policies, statements, and rivalries of politicians, there is no Marxist historical analysis.

[Sam_b]

So to rephrase what I said in a more nuanced way, the Soviet bureaucracy intervened to protect its "friends" and assert its own social interests over those of the dominant, liberalizing section of the Czechoslovak bureaucracy, whose program was supported by masses of Czechoslovak workers but threatened to destabilize the military and economic foundations of the Soviet bloc. You have hardly demonstrated that what I wrote was "nonsense."

It fits into your argument that you're attacking the big bad ol Soviet Union much more than is actually necessary, seeing that the situation in Czechoslovakia was perpetrated more by the rift, and arguably intervention by one side of a faction. Of course you haven't said anything about support and participation of the intervention by the other Pact countries.

It's interesting you now go on to talk about reforms being supported by the 'masses of Czechoslovak workers'. I'd like to hear more about this.


You do seem to be saying that the argument was a personal or subjective one over which guy got to be leader, and whether or not state controls on media would be relaxed, rather than a social struggle over economic interests. I made that remark in jest, in order to provoke a more thorough materialist explanation which has not been forthcoming. Your knowledge of internecine Czechoslovak bureaucratic struggles is impressive, but without an explanation of the objective social forces beneath the subjective policies, statements, and rivalries of politicians, there is no Marxist historical analysis.

Blaming everything on the Soviet intervention is not a particularly Marxist historical analysis.

[Kléber]

It fits into your argument that you're attacking the big bad ol Soviet Union much more than is actually necessary, seeing that the situation in Czechoslovakia was perpetrated more by the rift, and arguably intervention by one side of a faction. Of course you haven't said anything about support and participation of the intervention by the other Pact countries.
So they just liked this faction more than that faction, it had nothing to do with economic interests. I never said anything about good or evil, that's your misrepresentation of my position. Yesh, for all your showing off about knowledge of minor facts and details, you still can't explain the material basis for these faction fights. I don't pretend to know as much as you about this historical period, but I'm not impressed to say the least. And I suppose Trotsky and Stalin's disagreement was purely personal as well..

When the HRE sent armies to crush the Hussites, they also supported factions like Romanists and eventually Utraquists, but the ultimate reason for the intervention was to keep Bohemia under the Holy Roman thumb. It would be a painfully idealistic oversimplification to say they were fighting over superficial issues like infant baptism and drinking wine at communion. In 1420 and 1968, the metropole acted to support its friends because they were the guarantors of its continued political, economic, and military domination of the region. As for the other Pact countries their armies were as beholden to Gensec Brezhnev as were the hosts of various Germanic princes to Emperor Sigismund.


It's interesting you now go on to talk about reforms being supported by the 'masses of Czechoslovak workers'. I'd like to hear more about this.So Dubček's support came from the bourgeoisie then? :P I thought you said he wasn't trying to restore capitalism.


Blaming everything on the Soviet intervention is not a particularly Marxist historical analysis.My original statement, with which you took issue, was in reference to the Soviet intervention itself, not the disputes proceeding it, so to complain that I've returned to the original matter of discussion is ridiculous. I'm actually trying to explain the Soviet intervention in Marxist terms and you, Mr. Expert on Czechoslovak bureaucratic intrigures, aren't helping much.

[Sam_b]

Yesh, for all your showing off about knowledge of minor facts and details, you still can't explain the material basis for these faction fights. I don't pretend to know as much as you about this historical period, but I'm not impressed to say the least. And I suppose Trotsky and Stalin's disagreement was purely personal as well..

These are not 'minor facts', these are important to what happened with the divide in the KSC. You don't have any excuse - I have already pointed in the direction of Skilling and Heimann which can explain the situation in much more length than I can afford on this forum. The entire makeup of the KSC allowed certain factions to fight for power, and the situation in Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s was, for all intents and purposes, a power struggle for position within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with the seeds being sown during Dubcek's time in the Communist Party of Slovakia. I though this was perfectly clear.


When the HRE sent armies to crush the Hussites, they also supported factions like Romanists and eventually Utraquists, but the ultimate reason for the intervention was to keep Bohemia under the Holy Roman thumb. It would be a painfully idealistic oversimplification to say they were fighting over superficial issues like infant baptism and drinking wine at communion. In 1420 and 1968, the metropole acted to support its friends because they were the guarantors of its continued political, economic, and military domination of the region. As for the other Pact countries their armies were as beholden to Gensec Brezhnev as were the hosts of various Germanic princes to Emperor Sigismund.

Perhaps a simplistic analysis considering the Holy Roman Empire's split priorities during the Papal Schism.


My original statement, with which you took issue, was in reference to the Soviet intervention itself, not the disputes proceeding it, so to complain that I've returned to the original matter of discussion is ridiculous. I'm actually trying to explain the Soviet intervention in Marxist terms and you, Mr. Expert on Czechoslovak bureaucratic intrigures, aren't helping much.

So the events leading up to the invasion had nothing to do with it? Come on.


So Dubček's support came from the bourgeoisie then? :P I thought you said he wasn't trying to restore capitalism.

This is probably the worst part of the post. A large support for Dubcek did come from the bougeoisie, yes. However, this does not automatically infer that Dubcek was trying to restore capitalism - we can almost wholeheartedly reject this notion by what was written in the Action Programme where Dubcek entrenched the leading position of the Communist Party.

You can make snidey remarks about my area of research all you want.

[Kléber]

These are not 'minor facts', these are important to what happened with the divide in the KSC. You don't have any excuse - I have already pointed in the direction of Skilling and Heimann which can explain the situation in much more length than I can afford on this forum.
Of course it's important, but is it really impossible for you to just say what were the class or caste interests at work beneath these superficial personal/factional intrigues, instead of dropping names and telling me to read this or that book? I will add their work to my list of things to read, but in the meantime, can someone of your learning not do better? I at least tried to explain the objective, material reasons for the Soviet invasion based on my humble knowledge of this historical period, whereas your vapid response has been the definition of "snidey."


The entire makeup of the KSC allowed certain factions to fight for power, and the situation in Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s was, for all intents and purposes, a power struggle for position within the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with the seeds being sown during Dubcek's time in the Communist Party of Slovakia. I though this was perfectly clear.Once again, an empty or evasive analysis. The "entire makeup of the KSČ" had different factions. So? The entire makeup of UK politics allows different parties to exist and vie for power, so why doesn't the US invade Britain and ensure the dictatorship of one of them?

What is not clear at all is why a power struggle between two men, or factions without objectively opposed economic interests, was so important that the Soviet bureaucracy had to invade the place to settle the score? Your "explanation" about "seeds being sown" by an Onan standing above history rivals the ridiculousness of the theory of "Khrushchev revisionism" whereby history is made not through class struggle but the personal rivalries of political supermen.


Perhaps a simplistic analysis considering the Holy Roman Empire's split priorities during the Papal Schism. Ah yes, Marxist analysis is too simplistic, better to obfuscate the truth with hundreds of pages of academic jargon focusing on superficial details. Be careful parroting the words of bourgeois academics, soon you'll be saying that social classes don't actually exist because there are so many little gradations within them, capitalists do actual work and workers engage in petty capitalist activity.

So, since you are too smug and professorial to be so vulgar as to state your actual position once again, let me attempt to guess: the invasion of Bohemia had nothing to do with competing social-economic interests, only professors with a thorough understanding of the subjective theological debates of the time can understand what happened? Please. You can show off your knowledge of exceptions to the rule like a first-rate postmodernist academic obfuscator all day, but the proof is in the pudding. The HRE's military and economic domination of the region was threatened by Hus' ideas, that is why he was burned at the stake. Likewise, it was the threat Dubček's reforms posed to the geostrategic position of the USSR that obliged his removal.


So the events leading up to the invasion had nothing to do with it? Come on. Of course, but the remark of mine you initially quoted was in reference to the invasion itself. Thank you for filling in some details about intra-KSČ disputes prior to the incident but you have failed to explain the social basis for the political struggle let alone the objective reasons for the dispatch of troops. If there was no material basis for the factional infighting, the Soviet bureaucracy could have sit back and let Dubček and Novotný slug it out, like the US bourgeoisie could care less whether Brown or Cameron lords over Parliament so long as they remain committed to an alliance with US imperialism. If the matter was as innocuous as "for all intents and purposes, a power struggle for position" between a couple parliamentarian chums, then Moscow would not have taken such a keen interest in which side won.


This is probably the worst part of the post. A large support for Dubcek did come from the bougeoisie, yes. However, this does not automatically infer that Dubcek was trying to restore capitalism - we can almost wholeheartedly reject this notion by what was written in the Action Programme where Dubcek entrenched the leading position of the Communist Party.It was a sarcastic question. What bourgeoisie? The Stalinist regime had expropriated the bourgeoisie and established a Soviet-style economy prior to Dubček's rise to power. By bourgeoisie are you using the Maoist-Stalinist definition of class which holds that a worker whose paternal ancestors were bourgeois has inherited the bourgeois class label? Or are you claiming that working-class students are bourgeois? Perhaps you refer to the bourgeoisie of NATO countries?


You can make snidey remarks about my area of research all you want.Apparently you have more to research if you can only drop names, suggest books, and describe history in terms of the actions and statements of great policymakers.

[4 Leaf Clover]

hoxa was just sectarian and nationalist. he did nothing on industrialisation of his country , or developing working class. He just made splits and spent money on organizing parades , erecting monuments etc. Stalin turned Soviet Union into a land of industry , Hoxa turned Albania into land of bunkers

[scarletghoul]

Cool responses, thanks, Ive learned a lot reading this.

One more question, for Hoxhaists - Why did Albanian socialism collapse ?

[Sam_b]

I think i'm done with this thread. If all you can do is hurl petty churlish insults, and claim that your analysis is the genuine 'Marxist' one, I don't see why I should waste my time.

[Kléber]

Kudos - I don't think anyone has used the word "churlish" since medieval times. And in case you haven't noticed I am immune to your mysterious negreps ^_^.. So you aren't going to explain the dispute between persons and policies in terms of objective material interests, nor identify what you meant by "the bourgeoisie." Fine.

[Boboulas]

Excuse my ignorance for a second but how to you pronounce hoxhasim?

[Sam_b]

Kudos - I don't think anyone has used the word "churlish" since medieval times. And in case you haven't noticed I am immune to your mysterious negreps ^_^.. So you aren't going to explain the dispute between persons and policies in terms of objective material interests, nor identify what you meant by "the bourgeoisie." Fine.


I didn't particularly bring up the bougeoisie, you did. I think my position here is clear and also sourced, so if you want to keep arguing the toss so be it. I kinda sympathise with manic expression now that I see how you respond to counter-arguments.

[Kléber]

I didn't particularly bring up the bougeoisie, you did. I think my position here is clear and also sourced, so if you want to keep arguing the toss so be it. I kinda sympathise with manic expression now that I see how you respond to counter-arguments.
Once again: what bourgeoisie?! If you read the entire argument you would see I argued against the notion that a domestic bourgeoisie existed in 1968. I have been struggling to understand your position (political position, that is, not your faculty post) using my thick peasant head, with no success. I bow to your pseudo-intellectual elitism that deems it beneath your rank to explain things to a churlish commoner.

[Saorsa]

A churl on both your respective Trotskyist houses

[Ismail]

he did nothing on industrialisation of his country , or developing working class.This is so absurdly wrong and asinine.

From Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People (1974), p. 159: "During the two year plan [1949-1950] large projects were begun... Of the total investment in this period 47% was devoted to the development of industry with 20% going to the improvement and expansion of mining Albania's rich sub-soil resources. By 1950 general industrial output had been raised to over four times the output in 1958.

With the first five year plan (1952-1955) the development of industry gathered such momentum that by the end of the period Albania had been transformed from a backward agricultural into an agrarian industrial country."

p. 160: "In the third five year plan (1961-1965)... In spite of the fact that it was during this period that Khrushchev not only broke off unilaterally all economic agreements... industrial production rose to 35 times that of 1938 with 11 days sufficing to turn out the goods which had then required a whole year to produce. Industry represented 57% of total output as opposed to 8% in 1938. National income as a whole was 536% as compared with 1938 and per capital income 300%."

From A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, p. 186: "The prioritization of heavy industry [emphasis added] which enabled Albania to take advantage of the large number of natural resources it possessed was extremely logical."


One more question, for Hoxhaists - Why did Albanian socialism collapse?Although workers control was quite good in the late 1960's and early 1970's, it began to gradually slip as the Cultural & Ideological Revolution died down. By the 1980's the economy had stagnated due to a lack of foreign trade, and in Hoxha's works there's plenty of anticipation for an expected economic collapse of capitalism (and revisionism) in the 1980's which never came. At this same time, despite efforts by Hoxha (which mirrored Stalin in the early 1950's) to have young cadre enter the party, bureaucracy remained. By 1989 the post-Hoxha leadership had begun to move away from socialism, and adopted Khrushchev-esque reforms in 1990 which caused the economy to sag. Then a student movement started based upon an idealization of capitalism. Meanwhile, Ramiz Alia began praising East Germany as a "socialist" state and began opening up to the US and UK. He began "destalinization" measures (removing Stalin monuments, stressing "peace" over "dogmatic" class war, etc.), began purging "hardliners" from the party and Central Committee, and agreed to market capitalist reforms in 1991 and 1992 which caused the economy to tank.

At this same time the newly-formed Democratic Party under Sali Berisha was very anti-communist and began forming pro-capitalist trade unions. In the 1991 election the Party of Labour still won quite a significant victory, and remained quite popular in the countryside. However, "This was followed immediately by two months of widespread unrest, including street demonstrations and a general strike lasting three weeks, which finally led to the collapse of the new regime by June. The National Endowment for Democracy had been there also, providing $80,000 to the labor movement and $23,000 'to support training and civic education programs'." (Killing Hope, p. 320. The NED being often described as a CIA front)

The Democrats had demanded that the government resign simply because it was "Communist." "In December [1991], DPA Party Chairman Sali Berisha charged the SPA [Socialist Party of Albania – social-democratic name change of the PLA] with deliberately obstructing the reform process in the countryside... He called for DPA members to resign from the coalition government... This occurred whilst Gramoz Pashko [Democrat, economics minister] was having talks in London with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)... Pashko criticized Berisha for breaking up the government, saying that the move would lead the country into even further anarchy and chaos. The same week saw the arrest of 71-year-old Nexhmije Hoxha, who had been expelled from the party in June... And so began the series of witch-hunts, mixing corruption with politics, that would so preoccupy the country's leaders over the next few years... Albania's immediate future could not have appeared bleaker." (The Albanians: A Modern History, p. 230.)

After disrupting the economy due to the trade union strikes (which were similar to those of the CIA-backed anti-Allende strikes in Chile in the early 1970's), the DPA won the 1992 elections. On April 4, 1992, Alia resigned as President. "The rapid dismantling of the one-party state had brought about the almost total breakdown of state authority, resulting not only in the collapse of the economy, but also in an escalation of serious crime....

By the Democrats' own admission, the rebuilding of the country's devastated economy would be a long, slow process....

Gloom and despair now typified Albanian rural life, as most peasants had a little milk or cheese to sell but were otherwise jobless and without income. The young wanted to get out at any cost... At the beginning of July... around 6,000 Albanians tried to commander ships in Durres... The attempted exodus was triggered by the discontinuation of unemployment benefits for state workers, thus effectively cutting off the income of around 20 per cent of Albania's workforce. A general air of unrest soon prevailed throughout the country... Although Operation Pelican, the Italian-organized food aid programme, had successfully prevented mass starvation, it could hardly be seen as a permanent solution to the country's food shortages." (pp. 232-234.)

"On 12 September, former president Ramiz Alia was put under house arrest... The cause of his sudden arrest could be traced to his outspoken articles in the socialist newspaper, 24 Hours, in which he criticized the government for having lowered the standard of living... five former Communist Party and police officials were jailed up to 20 years... By then virtually the entire former Politburo was under arrest.. many saw the purges of former leaders as directing attention away from real and acute problems facing the country." (pp. 235-236.)

The situation degenerated from there. The country began one of the most corrupt in the world, Berisha attempted to centralize power in his own hands throughout the 1993-1996 period as political opponents were harassed, arrested, or assassinated, etc. Corruption and capitalism went together to cause the economy to spiral into a crisis, and the year 1997 saw a civil war erupt. "Berisha now became subject to serious public and international criticism of his actions, with western governments condemning violent attacks on the press... The Berisha government... attempted to regain control of the south by bombing the rebel-held Greek minority village of Delvina. This was a feeble and ineffective attempt to terrorise the local population, which led directly to the rebel takeover of the nearby town of Saranda. There followed the wholesale looting of army and navy depots by protestors... the important town of Gjirokaster [Hoxha's birthplace] fell to the rebels....

Berisha, arguing that he was facing a communist insurgency, had made a formal appeal for military assistance... the restoration of order was a priority for the West. Thus, in a damage limitation exercise, a multinational task force was duly assembled and landed at Durres on 15 April... Berisha's administration was forced to face political reality and cave in to opposition and international demands for an all-party government and new parliamentary elections." (pp. 246-247.)

With NATO assistance the revolt was quelled and Berisha was kicked out in elections that year, only to return some years later. Albania remains corrupt and Berisha remains a reactionary.

A short 2007 Christian Science Monitor article contrasting the Albania of Hoxha's time to modern-day Albania: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p10s01-woeu.html?page=1

[4 Leaf Clover]

This is so absurdly wrong and asinine.

From Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People (1974), p. 159: "During the two year plan [1949-1950] large projects were begun... Of the total investment in this period 47% was devoted to the development of industry with 20% going to the improvement and expansion of mining Albania's rich sub-soil resources. By 1950 general industrial output had been raised to over four times the output in 1958.

With the first five year plan (1952-1955) the development of industry gathered such momentum that by the end of the period Albania had been transformed from a backward agricultural into an agrarian industrial country."

p. 160: "In the third five year plan (1961-1965)... In spite of the fact that it was during this period that Khrushchev not only broke off unilaterally all economic agreements... industrial production rose to 35 times that of 1938 with 11 days sufficing to turn out the goods which had then required a whole year to produce. Industry represented 57% of total output as opposed to 8% in 1938. National income as a whole was 536% as compared with 1938 and per capital income 300%."

From A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha, p. 186: "The prioritization of heavy industry [emphasis added] which enabled Albania to take advantage of the large number of natural resources it possessed was extremely logical."
"compared to 1938" sigh

[Ismail]

"compared to 1938" sighIn 1938 Albania was extraordinarily backwards, including a life expectancy of 38. The 1939-1944 period, on account of the Italian and German occupations followed by subsequent brutality from the occupying powers, the national liberation war, etc. saw the destruction of the Albanian economy. I would say that "compared to 1938" is fine. Hoxha's Government came to power in 1944; by 1954 illiteracy was more than halved from the 80-95% of 1944, significant land reform was enacted, industry was being built, and the situation was overall better in every way. In 1957 Albania would gain its first University.

The point is that the Albanian Government was absolutely focused on the development of heavy industry. In fact, Khrushchev criticized Hoxha for being so "obsessed" with it. Khrushchev wanted the Albanian economy to develop along the lines of the "international socialist division of labor," which would have had Albania become a "garden" for the Warsaw Pact, producing foodstuffs for foreign consumption to the detriment of industrial development. (Pickaxe and Rifle, p. 195., among other sources)

[Jolly Red Giant]

One more question, for Hoxhaists - Why did Albanian socialism collapse ?
Let me summarise it in one sentence for you.

The bureaucracy in Albania stifled the ecomony, stagnating it and then did what every other bureaucracy did, move towards introducing market measures, eventually seeing the collapse of the planned economy.

By the way - there was never socialism in Albania.

[scarletghoul]

Let me summarise it in one sentence for you.

The bureaucracy in Albania stifled the ecomony, stagnating it and then did what every other bureaucracy did, move towards introducing market measures, eventually seeing the collapse of the planned economy.

By the way - there was never socialism in Albania.
Yeah I'm familiar with the Trotskyist narrative of every socialist state ever. Was just wondering how Hoxhaists would explain it..

[Jolly Red Giant]

Please reply Ismail or someone
He did - I just summarised it for you

[scarletghoul]

Oh right, silly me i completely missed his post. I guess I just skip over the walls of text instinctively now..:(

[scarletghoul]

Although workers control was quite good in the late 1960's and early 1970's, it began to gradually slip as the Cultural & Ideological Revolution died down. By the 1980's the economy had stagnated due to a lack of foreign trade, and in Hoxha's works there's plenty of anticipation for an expected economic collapse of capitalism (and revisionism) in the 1980's which never came. At this same time, despite efforts by Hoxha (which mirrored Stalin in the early 1950's) to have young cadre enter the party, bureaucracy remained. By 1989 the post-Hoxha leadership had begun to move away from socialism, and adopted Khrushchev-esque reforms in 1990 which caused the economy to sag. Then a student movement started based upon an idealization of capitalism. Meanwhile, Ramiz Alia began praising East Germany as a "socialist" state and began opening up to the US and UK. He began "destalinization" measures (removing Stalin monuments, stressing "peace" over "dogmatic" class war, etc.), began purging "hardliners" from the party and Central Committee, and agreed to market capitalist reforms in 1991 and 1992 which caused the economy to tank.

At this same time the newly-formed Democratic Party under Sali Berisha was very anti-communist and began forming pro-capitalist trade unions. In the 1991 election the Party of Labour still won quite a significant victory, and remained quite popular in the countryside. However, "This was followed immediately by two months of widespread unrest, including street demonstrations and a general strike lasting three weeks, which finally led to the collapse of the new regime by June. The National Endowment for Democracy had been there also, providing $80,000 to the labor movement and $23,000 'to support training and civic education programs'." (Killing Hope, p. 320. The NED being often described as a CIA front)

The Democrats had demanded that the government resign simply because it was "Communist." "In December [1991], DPA Party Chairman Sali Berisha charged the SPA [Socialist Party of Albania – social-democratic name change of the PLA] with deliberately obstructing the reform process in the countryside... He called for DPA members to resign from the coalition government... This occurred whilst Gramoz Pashko [Democrat, economics minister] was having talks in London with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)... Pashko criticized Berisha for breaking up the government, saying that the move would lead the country into even further anarchy and chaos. The same week saw the arrest of 71-year-old Nexhmije Hoxha, who had been expelled from the party in June... And so began the series of witch-hunts, mixing corruption with politics, that would so preoccupy the country's leaders over the next few years... Albania's immediate future could not have appeared bleaker." (The Albanians: A Modern History, p. 230.)

After disrupting the economy due to the trade union strikes (which were similar to those of the CIA-backed anti-Allende strikes in Chile in the early 1970's), the DPA won the 1992 elections. On April 4, 1992, Alia resigned as President. "The rapid dismantling of the one-party state had brought about the almost total breakdown of state authority, resulting not only in the collapse of the economy, but also in an escalation of serious crime....

By the Democrats' own admission, the rebuilding of the country's devastated economy would be a long, slow process....

Gloom and despair now typified Albanian rural life, as most peasants had a little milk or cheese to sell but were otherwise jobless and without income. The young wanted to get out at any cost... At the beginning of July... around 6,000 Albanians tried to commander ships in Durres... The attempted exodus was triggered by the discontinuation of unemployment benefits for state workers, thus effectively cutting off the income of around 20 per cent of Albania's workforce. A general air of unrest soon prevailed throughout the country... Although Operation Pelican, the Italian-organized food aid programme, had successfully prevented mass starvation, it could hardly be seen as a permanent solution to the country's food shortages." (pp. 232-234.)

"On 12 September, former president Ramiz Alia was put under house arrest... The cause of his sudden arrest could be traced to his outspoken articles in the socialist newspaper, 24 Hours, in which he criticized the government for having lowered the standard of living... five former Communist Party and police officials were jailed up to 20 years... By then virtually the entire former Politburo was under arrest.. many saw the purges of former leaders as directing attention away from real and acute problems facing the country." (pp. 235-236.)

The situation degenerated from there. The country began one of the most corrupt in the world, Berisha attempted to centralize power in his own hands throughout the 1993-1996 period as political opponents were harassed, arrested, or assassinated, etc. Corruption and capitalism went together to cause the economy to spiral into a crisis, and the year 1997 saw a civil war erupt. "Berisha now became subject to serious public and international criticism of his actions, with western governments condemning violent attacks on the press... The Berisha government... attempted to regain control of the south by bombing the rebel-held Greek minority village of Delvina. This was a feeble and ineffective attempt to terrorise the local population, which led directly to the rebel takeover of the nearby town of Saranda. There followed the wholesale looting of army and navy depots by protestors... the important town of Gjirokaster [Hoxha's birthplace] fell to the rebels....

Berisha, arguing that he was facing a communist insurgency, had made a formal appeal for military assistance... the restoration of order was a priority for the West. Thus, in a damage limitation exercise, a multinational task force was duly assembled and landed at Durres on 15 April... Berisha's administration was forced to face political reality and cave in to opposition and international demands for an all-party government and new parliamentary elections." (pp. 246-247.)

With NATO assistance the revolt was quelled and Berisha was kicked out in elections that year, only to return some years later. Albania remains corrupt and Berisha remains a reactionary.

A short 2007 Christian Science Monitor article contrasting the Albania of Hoxha's time to modern-day Albania: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0710/p10s01-woeu.html?page=1
Thanks. So what do you think Hoxha done wrong, how could he have prevented this ?
Also, do Hoxhaists view Hoxha as someone who developed and enhanced Marxism-Leninism (like Maoists do with Mao), or do you just see him as a good ML in a revisionist world ? Would you agree that Hoxha was too rigid, and that his uncritical Stalinism meant that after he died Albania went the same way as USSR after Stalin ?

[Ismail]

By the way - there was never socialism in Albania.Well as Hoxha said, there was technically never "socialism" (in the finished sense) in the USSR either, as socialist construction was still underway in the 1930's and was impaired in the 1940's due to World War II. Hoxha still talked about constructing socialism in Albania in the 1980's. Albanians recognized that worldwide communism would take many generations, whereas in the USSR the process of communism from Lenin and onwards was seen as not being far off, which produced a different mentality.

Of course there was most certainly never socialism in the Khrushchevite and Brezhnevite USSR which you seem to sympathize with in this case. In fact, these two figures ended the road of socialist construction and transformed the USSR into a state-capitalist and social-imperialist state with no redeeming features besides welfare.


So what do you think Hoxha done wrong, how could he have prevented this?The Albanian Government and economy, although unique in its own right (e.g. collectivized cars), still functioned heavily off of the 1930's Soviet model which had flaws. It's easy to ascribe "mistakes" to people, that's what Mao did, and it's easy to criticize someone in hindsight.


Also, do Hoxhaists view Hoxha as someone who developed and enhanced Marxism-Leninism (like Maoists do with Mao), or do you just see him as a good ML in a revisionist world?The latter.


Would you agree that Hoxha was too rigid, and that his uncritical Stalinism meant that after he died Albania went the same way as USSR after Stalin?No. "Rigidness" means nothing, just like Maoists and Trots who accuse others of being "dogmatic." Marxism is not a religion, it's a scientific doctrine; you cannot be "dogmatic" about it, only correctly utilizing it in a scientific and materialist way, or bastardizing it and therefore putting it on an idealistic and metaphysical road.

Albania remained the way it did under Hoxha because it defended Stalin against the so-called "creative development of Marxism-Leninism" in the USSR under Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and onwards, and because it exposed "Mao Zedong Thought," which was just a variation of the above revisionist views.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Well as Hoxha said, there was technically never "socialism" (in the finished sense) in the USSR either, as socialist construction was still underway in the 1930's and was impaired in the 1940's due to World War II. Hoxha still talked about constructing socialism in Albania in the 1980's. Albanians recognized that worldwide communism would take many generations, whereas in the USSR the process of communism from Lenin and onwards was seen as not being far off, which produced a different mentality.
I will rephrase - there was never workers democracy in Albania - there was a Stalinist bureaucracy which distorted the planned ecomony and abused the working class and the rural poor of Albania to preserve their own position. Albania was the most repressive of all Stalinist regimes.


Of course there was most certainly never socialism in the Khrushchevite and Brezhnevite USSR which you seem to sympathize with in this case. In fact, these two figures ended the road of socialist construction and transformed the USSR into a state-capitalist and social-imperialist state with no redeeming features besides welfare.
I am still amazed at how the anti-revisionists see the world in two-dimensions - the Stalin era and the post-Stalin era. I am a Trotskyist - I have no sympathy for any of the post-Stalin leaders of the Soviet Union. And by the way - the USSR was never 'state capitalist'.

[Ismail]

I am a Trotskyist - I have no sympathy for any of the post-Stalin leaders of the Soviet Union. And by the way - the USSR was never 'state capitalist'."Degenerated workers state" is apologism for the Soviet capitalists and their imperialist policies in the Warsaw Pact, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, and so on. Just as the Trots attempted to latch onto Tito when he opposed Stalin, there were quite a few Trots who gravitated more towards the USSR after Stalin died, especially when Cuba arose under the liberal leadership of Fidel Castro and became a Soviet neo-colony.

[4 Leaf Clover]

In 1938 Albania was extraordinarily backwards, including a life expectancy of 38. The 1939-1944 period, on account of the Italian and German occupations followed by subsequent brutality from the occupying powers, the national liberation war, etc. saw the destruction of the Albanian economy. I would say that "compared to 1938" is fine. Hoxha's Government came to power in 1944; by 1954 illiteracy was more than halved from the 80-95% of 1944, significant land reform was enacted, industry was being built, and the situation was overall better in every way. In 1957 Albania would gain its first University.

The point is that the Albanian Government was absolutely focused on the development of heavy industry. In fact, Khrushchev criticized Hoxha for being so "obsessed" with it. Khrushchev wanted the Albanian economy to develop along the lines of the "international socialist division of labor," which would have had Albania become a "garden" for the Warsaw Pact, producing foodstuffs for foreign consumption to the detriment of industrial development. (Pickaxe and Rifle, p. 195., among other sources)
yes but hoxa always felt threatened

they accused Yugoslavia of forcing them to export raw and industrial materials to them , in exchange for Yugoslavia supplying Albania with goods , even if Yugoslavia is because of being neighbouring socialist state , their first natural ally. Just so they would brake up with Yugoslavia , and continue in heavy industry on their own...

[4 Leaf Clover]

"Degenerated workers state" is apologism for the Soviet capitalists and their imperialist policies in the Warsaw Pact, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, and so on. Just as the Trots attempted to latch onto Tito when he opposed Stalin, there were quite a few Trots who gravitated more towards the USSR after Stalin died, especially when Cuba arose under the liberal leadership of Fidel Castro and became a Soviet neo-colony.

do you people actually understand Internationalism ? How can one socialist state be colony of other ? Soviet Union and Cuba were in fair relations , after all Cuba was receiving help from soviet union , in exchange for what ?

[28350]

A churl on both your respective Trotskyist houses

What's a churl?

[Ismail]

even if Yugoslavia is because of being neighbouring socialist state , their first natural ally. Just so they would brake up with Yugoslavia , and continue in heavy industry on their own..."Their first natural ally" tried to have Hoxha purged in favor of the pro-Yugoslav Koçi Xoxe and to turn Albania into a Yugoslav Republic.


do you people actually understand Internationalism ? How can one socialist state be colony of other ?Neither the USSR nor Cuba were socialist.


after all Cuba was receiving help from soviet union , in exchange for what ?From a thing I wrote in April of 2009:

After a popular revolution overthrew the discredited Fulgencio Batista (who was so hated that the Americans hoped to overthrow him and install Col. Ramon Barquin in his place), Fidel Castro came to power saying that "Capitalism sacrifices man, the Communist state sacrifices man. Our revolution is not red, but olive-green, the colour of the rebel army." ... The Soviets wanted sugar production to be the focus of Cuba (as per Khrushchev's specialization policy within the Warsaw Pact), and Castro agreed. In the book Castroism: Theory and Practice, it notes that "Castro announced... that his whole new economic policy was postulated on a spectacular increase in sugar production, aimed at reaching 10 million tons by 1970. Agricultural diversification went backward instead of forward. For example, rice production had advanced to a high point of 181,000 tons in 1957, two years before Castro, and plunged to 95,400 tons in 1962, after three years of Castro. Cuba had been forced to reorganise its entire economy." In other words, "Castro announced a reorientation of the Cuban economy towards agriculture, in particular the growing of sugar cane and cattle-raising."

This alienated Che Guevara, who, in Cuba - Exception or Vanguard?, stressed that "Under-development or distorted development, carries with it a dangerous specialisation in raw materials, containing a threat of hunger for all our people. We, 'the under-developed', are those of the single crop, the single product, and the single market. A single product whose uncertain sale depends upon a single market, which imposes and sets conditions. This is the great formula of imperial economic domination which is combined with the old and always useful Roman formula, 'divide and conquer.'" In the end, as Daniel James' Che Guevara notes of Che's comments to the Egyptian weekly Akher Saa, "Che roundly castigated the Russians as 'revisionists'" "Che's embrace of a kind of Maoism and his search for ideas that led him outside (Soviet) Marxism-Leninism could be, and were, construed in Moscow to be be anti-Soviet. Che had to go. His repeated public attacks upon the Soviet Union had finally become intolerable to the Kremlin, whose representatives had served notice of their displeasure on Premier Fidel Castro, leaving Castro with no real choice, since Moscow's economic aid kept his government and economy afloat." "Che himself was not seen anywhere in public after returning from Africa, excepting one appearance at a lecture he gave towards the end of March (1965). Che never turned up again at the Ministry of Industry following his March lecture there.. He... had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from public view." ....

Throughout the 1970's and 80's the Cubans continued to move ever closer to the Soviets... as Sebastian Balfour's 1990 book Castro notes, in 1976 "[a] new constitution largely modelled on that of the Soviet Union was approved in a referendum in 1976." Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union was so great that 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." In the Guardian in the same year, he said that "I can't say that Gorbachev played a conscious part in the destruction of the Soviet Union, because I have no doubt that Gorbachev's aim was to struggle to perfect socialism."Furthermore, in the pro-Castro book Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections, it notes (p. 203), "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."

[Zanthorus]

the USSR was never 'state capitalist'.

O rly?


Evolution in the direction of state capitalism, there you have the evil, the enemy, which we are invited to combat.

When I read these references to such enemies in the newspaper of the Left Communists, I ask: what has happened to these people that fragments of book-learning can make them forget reality? Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism in Russia, that would be a victory.

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


...the following discovery made by the “Left Communists” will provoke nothing short of Homeric laughter. According to them, under the “Bolshevik deviation to the right” the Soviet Republic is threatened with “evolution towards state capitalism”. They have really frightened us this time! And with what gusto these “Left Communists” repeat this threatening revelation in their theses and articles.

It has not occurred to them that state capitalism would be a step forward as compared with the present state of affairs in our Soviet Republic.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm


To the Menshevik shouters we shall simply point out that as early as the spring of 1918 the Communists proclaimed and advocated the idea of a bloc, an alliance with state capitalism against the petty-bourgeois element.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/aug/20.htm


...in 1918, I was of the opinion that with regard to the economic situation then obtaihing in the Soviet Republic, state capitalism would be a step forward... I then held the view that in relation to the economic situation then obtaining in the Soviet Republic state capitalism would be a step forward, and I explained my idea simply by enumerating the elements of the economic system of Russia. In my opinion these elements were the following: “(1) patriarchal, i.e., the most primitive form of agriculture; (2) small commodity production (this includes the majority of the peasants who trade in grain); (3) private capitalism; (4) state capitalism, and (5) socialism.”... I set myself the task of explaining the relationship of these elements to each other, and whether one of the non-socialist elements, namely, state capitalism, should not be rated higher than socialism...

I then asked myself which of these elements predominated? Clearly, in a petty-bourgeois environment the petty-bourgeois element predominates... The question I then put to myself was: what is our attitude towards state capitalism? And I replied: although it is not a socialist form, state capitalism would be for us, and for Russia, a more favourable form than the existing one... at that time we already realised to a certain extent that it would be better if we first arrived at state capitalism and only after that at socialism.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/04b.htm


How is it that although capitalism is the antithesis of communism, certain circumstances are assets from the two opposite viewpoints? It is because one possible way to proceed to communism is through state capitalism, provided the state is controlled by the working class. This is exactly the position in the “present case”.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm


The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/14b.htm

And yes I am well aware of the traditional argument that says that Lenin viewed state-capitalism as the market reforms of the new economic policy. But there are several problems.

First of all, Lenin's initial reference to state-capitalism was in a speech to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee given to clarify his report The Immediate tasks of the Soviet Government. In the original report he delineated two methods of utilising specialists - the "bourgeois method" of paying them inflated salaries to get them to work and the "proletarian method" of control from below and payment of the wages of skilled workmen. In the speech he also refers explicitly to the high payment of experts and engineers as a violation of the principles of the Paris Commune and an example of state-capitalism.

Secondly, Lenin occasionally uses state-capitalism interchangeably with what he had previously referred to as state-monopoly capitalism. He even cites Germany at the time as a prime example of state-capitalism.

And thirdly, he contrasts "state-capitalism" with both "small commodity production" and "private capitalism". Why would he feel the need to do that now if "state-capitalism" referred to simply market reforms in a state planned economy? Surely the latter would be an example of more "private capitalism"?

[4 Leaf Clover]

"Their first natural ally" tried to have Hoxha purged in favor of the pro-Yugoslav Koçi Xoxe and to turn Albania into a Yugoslav Republic.
so typical Hoxa paranoia. Even stalin wanted unification of Albania and Yugoslavia , along with other Balkan nation to form federation


Neither the USSR nor Cuba were socialist.
Cuba was , and is a Socialist state. Along with Soviet Union untill the break with China


From a thing I wrote in April of 2009:
Furthermore, in the pro-Castro book Democracy in Cuba and the 1997-98 Elections, it notes (p. 203), "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."
so Cuban failing economic plans indicate that Cuba was colony of Soviet Union ?

[Jolly Red Giant]

O rly?

I love the way some people (particularly Stalinists) pluck quotes out of thin air without putting it in context -

I could go through each item individually - but it will suffice to add two quotes that you excluded from your quotations above

After the first quote -

Originally Posted by April 29th 1918 Session of the All-Russian C.E.C
Evolution in the direction of state capitalism, there you have the evil, the enemy, which we are invited to combat.

When I read these references to such enemies in the newspaper of the Left Communists, I ask: what has happened to these people that fragments of book-learning can make them forget reality? Reality tells us that state capitalism would be a step forward. If in a small space of time we could achieve state capitalism in Russia, that would be a victory.

I said that state capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia

After the last quote -

Originally Posted by To the Russian Colony in North America
The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.

Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.

[Ismail]

I love the way some people (particularly Stalinists) pluck quotes out of thin air without putting it in context -Nice random swipe comparing left-communists with "Stalinists," there.


so typical Hoxa paranoia.Various works, from the anti-communist James S. O'Donnell's book A Coming of Age, to works like Jan Myrdal's Albania Defiant, make it pretty clear that Koçi Xoxe was a Yugoslav puppet and that the Yugoslavs wanted Hoxha overthrown. Xoxe had already orchestrated the suicide of Nako Spiru for opposing Yugoslavia in 1947, for example, and began presenting Hoxha as a "sectarian" within the party while the Yugoslavs demanded that Albania allow Yugoslav troops to enter the country for its "protection," etc.


Even stalin wanted unification of Albania and Yugoslavia , along with other Balkan nation to form federationStalin criticized Dimitrov for suggesting that the Balkan states all unite in a Federation.

[4 Leaf Clover]

Nice random swipe comparing left-communists with "Stalinists," there.

Various works, from the anti-communist James S. O'Donnell's book A Coming of Age, to works like Jan Myrdal's Albania Defiant, make it pretty clear that Koçi Xoxe was a Yugoslav puppet and that the Yugoslavs wanted Hoxha overthrown. Xoxe had already orchestrated the suicide of Nako Spiru for opposing Yugoslavia in 1947, for example, and began presenting Hoxha as a "sectarian" within the party while the Yugoslavs demanded that Albania allow Yugoslav troops to enter the country for its "protection," etc.

Stalin criticized Dimitrov for suggesting that the Balkan states all unite in a Federation.

commrade Jurko , posted a text in Zapadni Balkan section , i dont know how much info is true , but it says Stalin criticized Dimitrov for suggesting union with Romania , not the Balkan states , and instead encouraged him to form union with Yugoslavia instead

[Zanthorus]

(particularly Stalinists)

Of course, everyone who isn't a Trot is automatically a "Stalinist" :rolleyes:


I said that state capitalism would be our salvation; if we had it in Russia

I don't get exactly where you're going with this one. He says that in the past he advocated state-capitalism as a step forward (And from the evidence of the text he still does).


Unfortunately, the introduction of state capitalism with us is not proceeding as quickly as we would like it. For example, so far we have not had a single important concession, and without foreign capital to help develop our economy, the latter’s quick rehabilitation is inconceivable.

I'll concede this one to you.

The fact still remains that Lenin never thought that "socialism" had been achieved in the USSR during his lifetime. Surely as a Trotskyist you should know that although you can begin building socialism in one country you cannot achieve socialism in one country? If the USSR was not socialist and not capitalist then what could it have been?

[Jolly Red Giant]

I don't get exactly where you're going with this one. He says that in the past he advocated state-capitalism as a step forward (And from the evidence of the text he still does).
Do try to keep up - I suggested that the USSR was never state capitalist - you quoted Lenin to suggest it was - I quoted the next line from Lenin which stated it wasn't.



I'll concede this one to you.
So kind


The fact still remains that Lenin never thought that "socialism" had been achieved in the USSR during his lifetime.
That was not the issue at hand.


Surely as a Trotskyist you should know that although you can begin building socialism in one country you cannot achieve socialism in one country?
Yes - have you had an epiphany.


If the USSR was not socialist and not capitalist then what could it have been?
A degenerated workers state.

[thälmann]

degenerated workers state says nothing about it, because what kind of economy does it have.
the SU in Lenins time of course was capitalist( or statecapitalist), socialism was reached in the 30s.

[Zanthorus]

Do try to keep up - I suggested that the USSR was never state capitalist - you quoted Lenin to suggest it was - I quoted the next line from Lenin which stated it wasn't.

The next line stated that Lenin had in the past stated that state capitalism would be the way forward if they had it in Russia. It said nothing about wether state capitalism had been achieved at the time of writing.


A degenerated workers state.

As thalmann said this tells us nothing about the economy of the USSR. The only options from where I'm standing are:

1) Commodity production and the law of value continued within the Soviet Union, therefore it was capitalist.

2) Both these things were abolished, meaning it was some kind of "socialism" albeit in a highly distorted form.

[thälmann]

@zanthorus: ok, but i think it is not clear if you havent commodity in socialism, its a discussion economists have since 80 years.
if private ownership has ended and economy is planned according to the needs of whole society i think its socialism. and that wasnt the case in lenin SU, and he never said it...