Thatcher blocked Soviet aid to striking miners

[zubovskyblvd]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/margaret-thatcher-soviet-aid-miners

Not really a surprise, but interesting none-the-less.

[S.Artesian]

Socialism in one country at work.

[Adi Shankara]

I don't know why they're reporting that really; although it does much to dispel the idea that the USSR was against worker solidarity in the "west", as this should prove.

Margaret Thatcher is an evil, evil, woman and when she dies, a public holiday should be declared.

[chegitz guevara]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.

[RedStarOverChina]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.
How was Gorbachev "Stalinist"? :confused:

People should really stop using the term as a substitude for "scumbag".

[fa2991]

What a *****.

[Homo Songun]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.

If Gorbachev is a "typical Stalinist" then Paul Wolfowitz is a typical Trot and Mussolini is a typical socialist.

[KurtFF8]

Very interesting article indeed. It's too bad the aid didn't get through of course

[Raúl Duke]

It's bad that the money didn't get through, but it's not surprising that Thatcher stopped it. Imagine the PR nightmare (mostly for the English state, but perhaps all parties involved. It could be depicted as Thatcher, a British woman, cares less for British workers than the Soviet people or depicted as the strikers are "paid agents" of the USSR, etc) of the whole thing.

Interesting article though, especially the stuff about how the state confiscated union funds (wat? is that legal? Such actions would make the Thatcher administration seem extremely anti-worker and pro-rich).

[fa2991]

It could be depicted as Thatcher, a British woman, cares less for British workers than the Soviet people.

Yeah, Thatcher definitely wouldn't want that truth getting out. :lol:

[The Vegan Marxist]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.

I have a problem when people use words like "capitalist" & "stalinist" as nothing more than mere cuss words, rather than using them in their correct context. Stalin did much more for the Soviet Union than Gorbachev ever did. You can be a Trotskyist & still agree with this fact. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Stalin lead strikes during the early 1900's?

http://www.stel.ru/stalin/young_joseph_1879-1904.htm

[Raúl Duke]

Why is Stalin being brought up (and now being perhaps shifted into the new focus) in this thread in the first place?

The mere fact that the USSR actually wished to send aid to striking miners while the Thatcher government blocked it shows that this thread is suppose to be another thatcher bashing one with maybe some analysis thrown in.

[fa2991]

I have a problem when people use words like "capitalist" & "stalinist" as nothing more than mere cuss words, rather than using them in their correct context.

Good thing REAL Marxist-Leninists are above excessively using meaningless catchphrases and the names of ideologies as insults. :p

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/7520/hoxha.png

[Zeus the Moose]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.

I think he was joking, guys.

[Crux]

How was Gorbachev "Stalinist"? :confused:

People should really stop using the term as a substitude for "scumbag".

He was a continuation of the bureacratic caste that is the heart and soul of stalinism. As I said in another thread, stalinism is first and foremost a function, just like opportunism.

[The Vegan Marxist]

He was a continuation of the bureacratic caste that is the heart and soul of stalinism. As I said in another thread, stalinism is first and foremost a function, just like opportunism.

:confused:

I'd love for you to try & prove that after Stalin, his policies, let alone Marxist-Leninism, was even embraced or continued.

[Crux]

:confused:

I'd love for you to try & prove that after Stalin, his policies, let alone Marxist-Leninism, was even embraced or continued.

The bureacracy ruled on, worker's democracy and party democracy was still strangled. Oh and before you quote Stalin attacking bureacracy, I could find you similar quotes from any subsequent leader of the Soviet Union. You have to look at the material basis of Stalin's liquidation, both physcially and politically of the bolshevik party and the russian revolution. Compare Bernstein and the latter day social democracy, before the complete decay and loss of working class base. Sure, certainly not identical, but the common thread is indisputable.

[TwoSevensClash]

Another reason to hate Gorbachev. So what if Margret Thatcher turned up the pressure he abandoned workers in an important struggle. The defeat of the strikers badly damaged unions in the UK. The UK government also used criminal means to end the strike. Fuck Thatcher the Iron ****. Its to bad the IRA failed in killing this *****

[RedAnarchist]

Another reason to hate Gorbachev. So what if Margret Thatcher turned up the pressure he abandoned workers in an important struggle. The defeat of the strikers badly damaged unions in the UK. The UK government also used criminal means to end the strike. Fuck Thatcher the Iron ****. Its to bad the IRA failed in killing this *****

Could you refrain from using the word "****", please? It's banned on the forum.

[fa2991]

Could you refrain from using the word "****", please? It's banned on the forum.

:confused:

[RedAnarchist]

:confused:

Can you expand on your puzzlement?

[fa2991]

Can you expand on your puzzlement?

I just didn't know we had banned words. :lol: Makes sense, though. Racist/homophobic/sexist epithets are banned, too, I assume.

[freepalestine]

Can you expand on your puzzlement? why is it banned on the forum?

[S.Artesian]

Yeah, Thatcher definitely wouldn't want that truth getting out. :lol:

You think Thatcher cared if the truth got out? Not hardly. The NUM certainly knew why they didn't get the money. We have to ask why Scargill didn't make the truth known?

Let's not miss the point. Say what you want about Thatcher, she acted in th interests of her class.

Gorbachev did not, could not, act in the interests of the Soviet working class, a class that provided part of its own wages to support the British miners.

All Gorbachev could do was take the half-steps that would deprive the working class, internationally, of full support, thereby taking the full-steps to the devastation of the Russian working class.

In that, he represents the logical outcome of socialism in one country, which is and never was socialism anywhere.

[Crux]

why is it banned on the forum?

Because we're not all brittish. ;)

[DaringMehring]

People say Stalinism --- because under Stalin the pattern of putting "national interests" above the struggle of the international working class was established. If it were Lenin, Trotsky, etc. there is no way they would have let what the British right-wing bourgeois PM says affect their international working class solidarity.

[Homo Songun]

It's a shame how some people, happening to be of certain political persuasions, being otherwise of reasonable intelligence, immediately shutdown all of their critical facilities as soon as a trigger word like 'ussr' is mentioned and insensibly spout the most mechanical and dull axioms imaginable. It must be crippling to be like that :(

oh well, we are all basically still shaved apes after all. Continue the poo flinging!

[chegitz guevara]

How was Gorbachev "Stalinist"? :confused:

People should really stop using the term as a substitude for "scumbag".

Non-Stalinists typically understand Stalinism not to mean the ideology of Stalin, but rather, bureaucratic "socialism." In other words, Gorbie sold out the British miners in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. L8r, he sold out the workers of the USSR in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy in their desire to become capitalists.

[Queercommie Girl]

I just didn't know we had banned words. :lol: Makes sense, though. Racist/homophobic/sexist epithets are banned, too, I assume.

Shouldn't transphobic epithets be banned too?

I have to say, not to undermine LGBT unity or anything, transphobia and homophobia are linked but not essentially the same thing. One can't assume that the term "homophobia" naturally covers "transphobia" too.

[Aesop]

I have a problem when people use words like "capitalist" & "stalinist" as nothing more than mere cuss words, rather than using them in their correct context. Stalin did much more for the Soviet Union than Gorbachev ever did. You can be a Trotskyist & still agree with this fact. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Stalin lead strikes during the early 1900's?

http://www.stel.ru/stalin/young_joseph_1879-1904.htm

I think derailing revolutions in spain, china. Assassinating members of the Bolshevik party, and among other things negates him leading a strike.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I think derailing revolutions in spain, china. Assassinating members of the Bolshevik party, and among other things negates him leading a strike.

Stalin was seen as an historical leader in China & well supported. Khrushchev is who derailed anything within China, taking all of the Soviet aid out of China & industrial projects being put to an indefinite halt, leaving them to suffer through the coming storms.

[Dimentio]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/29/margaret-thatcher-soviet-aid-miners

Not really a surprise, but interesting none-the-less.

Stalin blocked the Marshall aid. So what?

[bricolage]

Interesting article though, especially the stuff about how the state confiscated union funds (wat? is that legal?
From what I can remember I think the strike was declared illegal so the NUM funds could be seized.

[Queercommie Girl]

Stalin was seen as an historical leader in China & well supported. Khrushchev is who derailed anything within China, taking all of the Soviet aid out of China & industrial projects being put to an indefinite halt, leaving them to suffer through the coming storms.

Left Maoists though are much more critical of Stalin. I read a mainland Chinese left Maoist article titled "without complete democracy, socialism is surely to be betrayed" in which Stalin was quite heavily criticised.

The left Maoists in the MCPC believe anyone who still have any illusions in the current CCP regime (such as yourself) aren't genuine socialists at all. I was once accused for being a "Han nationalist" because I said I don't support the ethnic movements in Xinjiang and Tibet because I still wish to keep the basic structure of the PRC intact.

The left Maoist contact in the MCPC I know also labels me as a "Trotskyite" and says "from me" he "has seen the weakness of the Trotskyists".

The MCPC has decisively broken with the CCP. Which is why MCPC activists are simply thrown into prisons in mainland China right now.

[Homo Songun]

When you say "Left Maoist", I'd understand that to mean Lin Baoists, at least in India where they are a significant current arising out of the old CPI ML. In the western hemisphere I'd guess the closest to Lin Baoism is of course the MIM & MTW people. Did Lin Bao ever write anything about Stalinism?

[Queercommie Girl]

When you say "Left Maoist", I'd understand that to mean Lin Baoists, at least in India where they are a significant current arising out of the old CPI ML. In the western hemisphere I'd guess the closest to Lin Baoism is of course the MIM & MTW people. Did Lin Bao ever write anything about Stalinism?

Left Maoists aren't Lin Biaoists in any formal sense, but it is true that left Maoists are generally strongly supportive of the Cultural Revolution, even creations like the Shanghai Commune which literally existed outside the framework of the Chinese Communist Party are supported.

No Maoists would ever completely reject Stalin like the Trotskyists do. But Left Maoists are more critical of Stalin than orthodox Maoists.

Monkey Riding Dragon on RevLeft here is a left Maoist. She thinks revisionism began during Stalin's time.

[El Rojo]

^ hey look. a stalin debate


Margaret Thatcher is an evil, evil, woman and when she dies, a public holiday should be declared.

mate, the govt will fall over itself to sing her praises when that harpy is finally swallowed up by hell, and there we be no declared public holiday. however, the will be one epic party. the plumbing has already been laid

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129192542984

[KurtFF8]

Non-Stalinists typically understand Stalinism not to mean the ideology of Stalin, but rather, bureaucratic "socialism." In other words, Gorbie sold out the British miners in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. L8r, he sold out the workers of the USSR in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy in their desire to become capitalists.

I would agree with this if the USSR were actually making progress with their aid to the British miners, but as the article explains: they weren't. Every step of the way, the British government was blocking the Soviet aid which never even got there. That plus the increasing internal problems that the USSR was facing made it not really that possible to pursue the goal of getting the aid to the workers. It didn't really seem like it was going anywhere it seems.

I wouldn't really call that "selling the British miners out." I'm not defending Gorbie here necessarily, his policies were obviously ridiculous and pretty unthoughtful. But it doesn't seem accurate to say that the miners were "sold out"

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Typical Stalinist bureaucrat throwing the international workers under the bus for the good of the bureaucracy. Imagine how different things might have been if the Soviets had helped out.

I'm sure thats not the first time thats been said.