Kim Jong Il named general secretary of DPRK ruling party at crucial conference

[The Vegan Marxist]

Kim Jong Il named general secretary of DPRK ruling party at crucial conference
September 28, 2010

Top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Il was named general secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) at a crucial conference on Tuesday.

Describing it a joyous occasion for the whole country, the official KCNA said the nomination shows an absolute support for and confidence in the top leader by the party and people.

The conference, the first in 44 years, was expected to elect the party’s highest leading body.

According to the charter of the ruling WPK, the delegates can discuss and decide the line, policies and personnel changes of the party during such a conference.

On Monday, Kim Jong Il issued an order promoting his son Kim Jong Un and several commanding officers to the rank of general. Kim Kyong Hui, Choe Ryong Hae and three others from the ruling party were promoted to general at the same time.

The order also gave the rank of colonel general to Ryu Kyong, lieutenant general to Ro Hung Se, Ri Tu Song and four others, and the rank of major general to Jo Kyong Jun, Jang To Yong and Mun Jong Chol and 24 others.

Also on Monday, Ri Yong Ho, chief of KPA General Staff, was awarded the military rank of Vice Marshal of the Korean People’s Army on Monday by a decision of the National Defence Commission.

The delayed conference, which was originally slated for early September, was widely expected to produce strong influence for the whole country’s future.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90851/7153016.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

The DPRK's state party named Kim Jong Il general secretary?

Shocker.

[Jayshin_JTTH]

They haven't had a general congress for the party in 44 years? I am for supporting the DPRK against all the machinations of imperialism, but that is degenerated. Without elections and continuous verifications of membership, how do they even know if entire organs of the party are still communists or not?

Falling back up on the patronage of the army and hiding behind a mass of weapons is exactly what the Soviet Union did after WWII.

[scarletghoul]

True, the political process is nowhere near as dynamic as it could be.

Anyway the title of this thread is misleading. Everyone knows the real news is the promotion of Kim Jong-un (and some others)

Not only has KJU been promoted to a four star general, but he's also been made vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party and part of the Central Committee. Clearly this is the beginning of an effort to help raise him through the state hierarchy with a possibility for him taking over after KJI. However this is not a monarchy-style certain succession thing; other people and organisations have the power in Korea. If KJU turns out to be inept or out of favour with the military and Party leaders they could block his rise. Other people who have been promoted include Kim Kyong-hui and Choe Ryong-hae, Kim Jong-il's sister and close friend respectively.

Of course, this is not a good way for a socialist state leadership to work. There should be much more mass participation and so on, rather than a closed leading circle. However, North Korea remains a socialist and anti-imperialist country; a liberated territory among the worldwide capitalist empire; and we should therefore still support it, even if we criticise it.

[bcbm]

man i want some of whatever scarletghoul is on

[scarletghoul]

the only thing im on is the dialedctial materialist parth to truht, comrade !!!

[bricolage]

However this is not a monarchy-style certain succession thing; other people and organisations have the power in Korea... include Kim Kyong-hui and Choe Ryong-hae, Kim Jong-il's sister and close friend respectively.
.

[bcbm]

the only thing im on is the dialedctial materialist parth to truht, comrade !!!

do you smoke that in a bong or a lightbulb?

[scarletghoul]

do you smoke that in a bong or a lightbulb?
i smoke it in the unity of theory and practive

[bcbm]

but seriously how can it be simultaneously not how a socialist leadership should work and socialist? i would imagine socialism would require mass participation and importing 17000 liters of cognac and nuclear missiles while "electing" your son to power seems to suggest a slightly different picture. </trollbait>

[Jayshin_JTTH]

do you smoke that in a bong or a lightbulb?
I don't see anything wrong with what he said.

The growing influence of the Central Military Commission, in my opinion, is directly linked to the increasingly tightening campaign of the international bourgeois and American imperialism to crush the DPRK. So even if we criticize it, as communists we need to find the material reason for it. In this case, the material reason is the growth of the bourgeois armies on the border.

But, unlike Cuba, which only has the State stopping the entire country from being smothered by American capitalism, the DPRK is in-between the Chinese, Russian, Japanese, comprador Korean and American bourgeois, which allows it a modicum of access to the outside world because of the converging inter-imperialist interests in the region clashing and canceling each other out. The DPRK only suffers when these international-bourgeois forces unite against it, and that is usually only rarely and on on some issues. This is in contrast with Cuba which always has the US breathing down it's neck with no respite.

Also, unlike Cuba, the DPRK had a campaign of rapid industrialization during the Cold War which produced a substantial means of production (at one stage the North was beating the South in industrial production), and that means of production remains today, which enables the DPRK to build a big army to guard against imperialism. Cuba has no industry really.

It just goes to show the difference is when you take the communist road: Building national industry, encouraging independence; or the puppy-dog road: relying on hand-outs and cheap products, but not bothering to develop the means of production in your own country.

Juche and Songun have real material factors pushing them.

[bcbm]

so a lightbulb, then?

[scarletghoul]

but seriously how can it be simultaneously not how a socialist leadership should work and socialist? i would imagine socialism would require mass participation and importing 17000 liters of cognac and nuclear missiles while "electing" your son to power seems to suggest a slightly different picture. </trollbait>
its oscialist becauese its colelctively owned and controled by thre workerds (officials are elected by the pwople, there is workplace meetings with rcritisicism etc). the top officials are not direclt elected by the people and that is a problem, one wihch could potentially lead to the death of socialism in the future, but for now the top leaderhsip do not act as a capitalist class and run the country with the collective interests in mind. therefore i say its soialist cuz its collectively owned and run with what seems to be a large extent of workers democracy. howe ver is is im,perfect and not a secure liberated area due to internal external problem . but still essentially socialist

edit; i will respond preperly when sober

[bcbm]

youre drunk too eh?

edit: i will only respond when drunk

[bricolage]

ha! how come you're drunk already?

[scarletghoul]

miserable strsat to trhe day im; dreinking to motiveate me as theres is a lot of foleage work to doi

edite: college not foliage lmao

[RED DAVE]

Of course, this is not a good way for a socialist state leadership to work. There should be much more mass participation and so on, rather than a closed leading circle. However, North Korea remains a socialist and anti-imperialist country; a liberated territory among the worldwide capitalist empire; and we should therefore still support it, even if we criticise it.(emph. added)

Welcome to fantasy fucking island. Let us know when the plane lands.

RED DAVE

[scarletghoul]

Ohh how clever comrade, posting in a thread about the dprk ridiculing those who consider it socialist without offering any explanation or contributing to the discussion in any way. what a fucking genius, if only i were as witty and original as you, RED DAVE.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No party congress for decades.
Nepotism in the leadership.
A leader who has presided over famine and an extended period of isolation miraculously being 'elected' general secretary by unanimous vote.

Now, I swear I heard somewhere that Socialism and Democracy are inseparable? Guess not, according to some on here.

[RED DAVE]

Ohh how clever comrade, posting in a thread about the dprk ridiculing those who consider it socialist without offering any explanation or contributing to the discussion in any way. what a fucking genius, if only i were as witty and original as you, RED DAVE.i give lessons.

Start here:


In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

RED DAVE

[Jayshin_JTTH]

I don't think anyone here would actually claim the DPRK is socialist, just anti-imperialist, it's kinda obvious if you read enough about the DPRK that the MoP are controlled by a national-bourgeois and bureaucrats.

[graymouser]

I don't think anyone here would actually claim the DPRK is socialist, just anti-imperialist, it's kinda obvious if you read enough about the DPRK that the MoP are controlled by a national-bourgeois and bureaucrats.
I would claim that the DPRK is a degenerated workers' state, degenerate from birth and never having had a modicum of workers' democracy. (As can be seen from their first conference since, what, 1966?) The state economy, central planning and monopoly on foreign trade are gains that could be turned, following a workers' political revolution to overthrow the bureaucratic-military caste that rules North Korea, into the basis of a democratic workers' state based on workers' councils. It is one of the most centralized industrial economies in the world, and a workers' political revolution there would lay the basis for regeneration of the world revolution on quite a scale.

[RED DAVE]

I would claimWith no evidence whatsoever.


that the DPRK is a degenerated workers' stateI thought it was deformed, not degenerated.


degenerate from birth and never having had a modicum of workers' democracy.That's like saying that a chimpanzee, lacking a human brain, is a degenerate human being.


(As can be seen from their first conference since, what, 1966?) The state economy, central planning and monopoly on foreign trade are gains that could be turned, following a workers' political revolution to overthrow the bureaucratic-military caste that rules North Korea, into the basis of a democratic workers' state based on workers' councils. It is one of the most centralized industrial economies in the world, and a workers' political revolution there would lay the basis for regeneration of the world revolution on quite a scale.You don't get it: a state capitalist state can no more be turned into a workers state than a bourgeois state can be turned into a workers state. That fact that the states in the USSR, China and Vietnam have morphed into private capitalism should show you what they are: institutions for the exploitation of the working class, not institutions that the working class can use for its own power.

Think about this: the logical conclusion of the degenerated/deformed workers state notion in the USSR or China would be an alliance with sections of the bureauacracy. Is that what you advocate for China, Vietnam and North Korea?

RED DAVE

[RebelDog]

We have a similar process where I live. We had Kim Il George, then his daughter Kim Il Elizabeth and we are waiting for Kim Il Charlie to take over when his mum kicks the bucket. I had as much of a say in this as the North Korean people did, so the BBC should look a bit closer to home when talking about states with heriditary rulers.

[RATM-Eubie]

No fucking way!!! Who would of guessed?

[M-26-7]

I would claim that the DPRK is a degenerated workers' state, degenerate from birth and never having had a modicum of workers' democracy.

I thought it was deformed, not degenerated.

I too am wondering how something can be "degenerate from birth". It is a contradiction in terms.

[Adi Shankara]

I would claim that the DPRK is a degenerated workers' state, degenerate from birth and never having had a modicum of workers' democracy. (As can be seen from their first conference since, what, 1966?) The state economy, central planning and monopoly on foreign trade are gains that could be turned, following a workers' political revolution to overthrow the bureaucratic-military caste that rules North Korea, into the basis of a democratic workers' state based on workers' councils. It is one of the most centralized industrial economies in the world, and a workers' political revolution there would lay the basis for regeneration of the world revolution on quite a scale.

I would claim that Trotsky was a degenerate from birth, and never having a modicum of real offerings to the people.

[GreenCommunism]

nobody can define state capitalism, anarchist describe it as having capitalist social relationship such as authority, left-communist describe it as having no workplace democracy, bolsheviks describe it as being capitalism directly enriching an upper class with the bureaucrats not caring about the people.

[L.A.P.]

True, the political process is nowhere near as dynamic as it could be.

Anyway the title of this thread is misleading. Everyone knows the real news is the promotion of Kim Jong-un (and some others)

Not only has KJU been promoted to a four star general, but he's also been made vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party and part of the Central Committee. Clearly this is the beginning of an effort to help raise him through the state hierarchy with a possibility for him taking over after KJI. However this is not a monarchy-style certain succession thing; other people and organisations have the power in Korea. If KJU turns out to be inept or out of favour with the military and Party leaders they could block his rise. Other people who have been promoted include Kim Kyong-hui and Choe Ryong-hae, Kim Jong-il's sister and close friend respectively.

Of course, this is not a good way for a socialist state leadership to work. There should be much more mass participation and so on, rather than a closed leading circle. However, North Korea remains a socialist and anti-imperialist country; a liberated territory among the worldwide capitalist empire; and we should therefore still support it, even if we criticise it.

I'm starting to get real fucking sick of this whole "support North Korea because they're fighting imperialism" thing. First of all, you don't fight imperialism with totalitarianism and that is what North Korea is doing and they are not fighting in the name of socialism, communism, or leftism in general, if anything they are the enemy of everything we believe in. Second of all, they're NOT SOCIALIST and NOT ANTI-IMPERIALIST, how is a country that has a leader with the title "Supreme Leader" and makes his birthday a national holiday with absolute power anti-imperialist? Fuck North Korea, I shouldn't be expected to support a government that claims to be "socialist" and fights the Western World, I'm sorry but I'm not that quick to just think "They're fighting NATO therefore they should be supported" that's moronic.

[Obs]

how is a country that has a leader with the title "Supreme Leader" and makes his birthday a national holiday with absolute power anti-imperialist?
And then xx1994xx had no idea what imperialism is.

[Jazzhands]

the only thing im on is the dialedctial materialist parth to truht, comrade !!!

Here comes ROSA!!!!

[Kiev Communard]

The issue of DPRK is really tricky one. On the one hand, it would be wrong to support the pro-Western goons (many of whom are from ruling bureaucracy itself, seeking to turn its corporate class property into their individual property) who claim to be "pro-democracy" and "anti-totalitarian". We know full well what these gentlemen really aim for (the sorry state of my own country is prime example to this).

On the other hand, the militarist Industropolitarist dictatorship of North Korea does not play even a slightest progressive role in the world, discredits the image of Communism by its association with it, and generally hinders any development of its people.

Therefore, in the current situation, it would be prudent for the leftists both to denounce the U.S. plans for bringing North Korea into its sphere of influence and to call for the overthrowal of bizarre "Kim family" regime and the establishment of demarchic council-based polity which would conduct the policies necessary for the transition to socialist economy and polity. Unfortunately, at the moment the opportunities of foreign leftists to influence the events in North Korea are limited and we can only try to dispel the dangerous myth of North Korea's "socialist character".

[graymouser]

With no evidence whatsoever.
Based on the forms of the property relations, which I detailed. Orthodox Trotskyists hold that no "new class," whether we call it a bureaucratic collectivist or state capitalist class, exists in degenerated workers' states. In North Korea, the bureaucratic excrescence - concentrated in the upper echelons of the military to a fairly unique degree - plays a classically Bonapartist role, lording over the workers despite the fundamentally proletarian forms of property.


I thought it was deformed, not degenerated.
The League for the Fifth International pointedly uses degenerate rather than deformed, because the "deformed" label was used by the post-war Fourth International to express its unfounded hope that the new workers' states would be qualitatively different from the USSR. We use the term "degenerate" to differentiate ourselves from that.


That's like saying that a chimpanzee, lacking a human brain, is a degenerate human being.
It was formed on more or less the same economic foundations as the USSR, and as such its social characteristics are more or less identical. Denying this is like saying that a human who has had syphilis from birth is not a human being at all, instead of being syphilitic from birth.


You don't get it: a state capitalist state can no more be turned into a workers state than a bourgeois state can be turned into a workers state. That fact that the states in the USSR, China and Vietnam have morphed into private capitalism should show you what they are: institutions for the exploitation of the working class, not institutions that the working class can use for its own power.
The fact that the change from degenerated workers' states to capitalist states has required an enormous social upheaval - more pronounced in the USSR and the eastern European states - should show you much more about the actual structural changes from the phantom of "state capitalism" to real capitalism. No state capitalist theory exists that can actually explain these upheavals, yet they happened - the life expectancy in Russia didn't just lower itself by almost 20 years.


Think about this: the logical conclusion of the degenerated/deformed workers state notion in the USSR or China would be an alliance with sections of the bureauacracy. Is that what you advocate for China, Vietnam and North Korea?
Actually, the League for the Fifth International has been pretty consistent in opposing exactly this idea - which the Fourth International embraced, to one degree or another, in the period after 1948. (It's why we aren't called the League for the Fourth International.) We consider China to be just plain capitalist, and if I had to say a regime was "state capitalist" it would be China today rather than China under Mao. We have always made it clear that a workers' political revolution, not a faction with a layer of the bureaucracy, is needed to overthrow the Stalinist bureaucracies (nowadays this means mostly Cuba and North Korea) but that we should defend them critically but unconditionally against imperialism (Trotsky "military defense").

It's not a logical conclusion to bloc with the bureaucracy - although that's what some Trotskyists have tried to do, first with Yugoslavia and later with Cuba. The bureaucracy needs to be overthrown, but it's the workers' job to do so.

[manic expression]

Based on the forms of the property relations, which I detailed. Orthodox Trotskyists hold that no "new class," whether we call it a bureaucratic collectivist or state capitalist class, exists in degenerated workers' states. In North Korea, the bureaucratic excrescence - concentrated in the upper echelons of the military to a fairly unique degree - plays a classically Bonapartist role, lording over the workers despite the fundamentally proletarian forms of property.
And what of the fundamentally proletarian form of political power, that is the vanguard party? The analysis of isolation of workers from the worker state is a useful one, but it is hardly a black-and-white issue. Shortcomings within a worker state do not equal full-on Bonapartism. In this case, the KWP has a central role in the DPRK, to ignore this would be to ignore what has made the DPRK the DPRK. Further, progress for the masses of Korea will come from within the vanguard party, not from without.


It's not a logical conclusion to bloc with the bureaucracy - although that's what some Trotskyists have tried to do, first with Yugoslavia and later with Cuba. The bureaucracy needs to be overthrown, but it's the workers' job to do so.
Trotsky's line could very well be called a "bloc with the bureaucracy", but regardless, the bureaucracy has no independent political power in Cuba. It's entirely under the control of the worker state, which is controlled by the workers. Shoehorning Trotsky's analysis of the USSR into the issue of Cuba is anti-materialist and bears no relevance to the specifics of the situation.

[RED DAVE]

The fact that the change from degenerated workers' states to capitalist states has required an enormous social upheaval - more pronounced in the USSR and the eastern European states - should show you much more about the actual structural changes from the phantom of "state capitalism" to real capitalism. No state capitalist theory exists that can actually explain these upheavals, yet they happened - the life expectancy in Russia didn't just lower itself by almost 20 years.You are misusing the term "social upheaval." You are referring to the economic disaster that befell the working class with the fall of stalinism as some kind of proof that the USSR was some kind of workers state. It you want to refer to the Russian brand of state capitalism as liberal state capitalism and North Korea as conservative state capitalism, cool. But the underlying relationship of production, the forced extraction of surplus value, is the same and the same with regard to the working class as in capitalism countries.

RED DAVE

[Delenda Carthago]

A small step for KJU,a huge step for communism!

[L.A.P.]

And then xx1994xx had no idea what imperialism is.

I do have an understanding of what imperialism is but sorry I don't think an authoritarian police state is exactly against imperialism, I doubt that if North Korea had the man power they wouldn't be going around trying to shove their missiles down other countries' throats. Dumbass.

[Obs]

I do have an understanding of what imperialism is but sorry I don't think an authoritarian police state is exactly against imperialism, I doubt that if North Korea had the man power they wouldn't be going around trying to shove their missiles down other countries' throats. Dumbass.
No, you don't have an understanding of what imperialism is. Imperialism has nothing to do with how authoritarian a country is. Please read this thread. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/imperialism-iti-t59302/index.html) North Korea is a lot of things, but it's not imperialist. Let's not make it worse than it actually is.

[graymouser]

You are misusing the term "social upheaval." You are referring to the economic disaster that befell the working class with the fall of stalinism as some kind of proof that the USSR was some kind of workers state. It you want to refer to the Russian brand of state capitalism as liberal state capitalism and North Korea as conservative state capitalism, cool. But the underlying relationship of production, the forced extraction of surplus value, is the same and the same with regard to the working class as in capitalism countries.

RED DAVE
The reality is, it was a catastrophe when the economic forms of the Russian state were changed to capitalism - a catastrophe that is not explained by theories of "state capitalism" as the only thing changing should be the faces of the ruling class. Unless state capitalism is a relatively progressive thing, this doesn't make sense. The nomenklatura should've been able to keep on extracting surplus value without a care in the world; only they were not doing precisely that, because the law of value in the Soviet Union was subordinate to central planning (that is, wages were subject to the plan rather than being determined on the open market). The bureaucracy were defined principally by their control not over the means of production but over distribution; it was literally an excrescence that grew upon the workers' state because of the backwardness and hardships in Russia. If every member of the bureaucracy were removed, production could have continued and indeed would have been more efficient. So it is in the DPRK.

We can see from what actually happened in Russia that this was not a capitalist class - the truth is, the bureaucrats who extorted an extra share of the social surplus (i.e., money) couldn't do anything legal with it because money wasn't capital. (Which says something about "state capitalism.") What developed in Russia was an extensive second or shadow economy, initially mainly consisting of theft, graft and so on, but encompassing also the black market and illegal construction, employment on odd jobs and the like, and even the illicit production of consumer goods. This is not explained by theories of state capitalism - the bureaucrats could not act in any way as capitalists. In reality, the bureaucracy contained not actual but aspirational capitalists, who needed to destroy the statified economy in order to actually use their own wealth. There are probably such elements in the DPRK today, but they do not have the freedom to exercise their wealth in the way that the Russian bureaucrats did.

[L.A.P.]

No, you don't have an understanding of what imperialism is. Imperialism has nothing to do with how authoritarian a country is. Please read this thread. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/imperialism-iti-t59302/index.html) North Korea is a lot of things, but it's not imperialist. Let's not make it worse than it actually is.

I realize that the two are different, of course. However, I couldn't exactly imagine imperialists strongly opposing authoritarians the two may disagree but overall side with each other. What North Korea is worse than imperialism we may have our criticisms of the West and it is safe to say that they are imperialist but at least there is some form of a republic in those nations, that is a lot better than a police state but hey at least they're fighting imperialism.

[graymouser]

And what of the fundamentally proletarian form of political power, that is the vanguard party? The analysis of isolation of workers from the worker state is a useful one, but it is hardly a black-and-white issue. Shortcomings within a worker state do not equal full-on Bonapartism. In this case, the KWP has a central role in the DPRK, to ignore this would be to ignore what has made the DPRK the DPRK. Further, progress for the masses of Korea will come from within the vanguard party, not from without.
The fundamentally proletarian form of political power is not a vanguard party but soviets. Workers are supposed to have councils based on their workplaces where they vote and decide things, and larger councils that plan things between the workplaces. That is workers' power. It existed in only a very imperfect form in the USSR and not at all in the DPRK.

As far as where "progress for the masses of Korea" will come from - the Workers Party is the tool of the bureaucracy/military, and is more concerned with continuing the privileges of those at the top than what happens to "the masses." FFS, this is the first congress in two generations - how can you say that's "shortcomings"?


Trotsky's line could very well be called a "bloc with the bureaucracy", but regardless, the bureaucracy has no independent political power in Cuba. It's entirely under the control of the worker state, which is controlled by the workers. Shoehorning Trotsky's analysis of the USSR into the issue of Cuba is anti-materialist and bears no relevance to the specifics of the situation.
There is no instrumentality of control by the workers - it's all in the hands of the bureaucracy which dominates the PCC. There was never an element of workers' democracy in Cuba at all, and seeing as how the Cuban economy was effectively an extension of the Russian one, it's impossible not to give it roughly the same analysis.

[Obs]

I realize that the two are different, of course. However, I couldn't exactly imagine imperialists strongly opposing authoritarians the two may disagree but overall side with each other. What North Korea is worse than imperialism we may have our criticisms of the West and it is safe to say that they are imperialist but at least there is some form of a republic in those nations, that is a lot better than a police state but hey at least they're fighting imperialism.
*cringe*

[Axle]

A small step for KJU,a huge step for communism!

Yeah, because I'm sure Boss Man making his son, who has no military experience at all, the equivalent of a four-star general is just fucking excellent for communism.

I am baffled by the amount of people on this forum who just completely disregard how leadership in North Korea is acting much the same as a hereditary monarchy.

But I'm sure in twenty years, when Kim Jong-Un is prepping his son for North Korea's top job things will be different, right?

[manic expression]

The fundamentally proletarian form of political power is not a vanguard party but soviets. Workers are supposed to have councils based on their workplaces where they vote and decide things, and larger councils that plan things between the workplaces. That is workers' power. It existed in only a very imperfect form in the USSR and not at all in the DPRK.
We're communists, we don't look for perfection, we look for what works. The USSR didn't have a perfect political system, because no such thing exists, and moreover because there were, as I said, shortcomings. But shortcomings are shortcomings, to condemn the worker state and the vanguard party of the proletariat for it is an overreaction at best.

More to the point, you are greatly underestimating working-class participation in the DPRK. For example, elected officials are subject to instant recall, as per the DPRK Constitution. And further, a similar situation exists in the DPRK as in the Soviet Union during and after the Civil War: the worker state and the vanguard party are essentially mirroring one another, and this owes greatly to the history of Korean resistance to imperialism.


As far as where "progress for the masses of Korea" will come from - the Workers Party is the tool of the bureaucracy/military, and is more concerned with continuing the privileges of those at the top than what happens to "the masses." FFS, this is the first congress in two generations - how can you say that's "shortcomings"?
Not so. The bureaucracy/military are the tools of the Workers Party.


There is no instrumentality of control by the workers - it's all in the hands of the bureaucracy which dominates the PCC. There was never an element of workers' democracy in Cuba at all, and seeing as how the Cuban economy was effectively an extension of the Russian one, it's impossible not to give it roughly the same analysis.
Trotsky's economic analysis was grounded in the realities of Soviet production at the time, to ignore this would be to take away from the contribution of those writings. At any rate, the Cuban workers are fully in control of the state:

http://www.cubasolidarity.com/aboutcuba/topics/government/0504elecsys.htm

[Crux]

I don't think anyone here would actually claim the DPRK is socialist, just anti-imperialist, it's kinda obvious if you read enough about the DPRK that the MoP are controlled by a national-bourgeois and bureaucrats.
Not a strong reader are you? I mean, it's in plain sight just on the page preceding the page you were on. Or rather you were already on that page.

North Korea remains a socialist and anti-imperialist country

[Crux]

I realize that the two are different, of course. However, I couldn't exactly imagine imperialists strongly opposing authoritarians the two may disagree but overall side with each other. What North Korea is worse than imperialism we may have our criticisms of the West and it is safe to say that they are imperialist but at least there is some form of a republic in those nations, that is a lot better than a police state but hey at least they're fighting imperialism.
There is a "form of republic" in North Kora as well. They them self call it a Democratic People's Republic, I think it is nothing of the sort, but North Kora is not "worse than imperialism", imperialism is what perpetuates countries with similarly oppressive regimes elsewhere in the world. In fact the argument could be made that the DPRK of today is mostly kept up by chinese imperialism. Remember, imperialism is not something exclusive to western countries.

[~Spectre]

People should be restricted for thinking North Korea is socialist.

[gorillafuck]

That's like saying that a chimpanzee, lacking a human brain, is a degenerate human being.Your analogy is pretty bad tbh. Was there a revolution to try to make a human but it got stuck as a chimpanzee? This doesn't make any sense.


You don't get it: a state capitalist state can no more be turned into a workers state than a bourgeois state can be turned into a workers state. That fact that the states in the USSR, China and Vietnam have morphed into private capitalism should show you what they are: institutions for the exploitation of the working class, not institutions that the working class can use for its own power.The economy in North Korea is not run for private profit. It has a corrupt bureaucracy but, if we're going to be talking about capitalism in the way Karl Marx talked about it (which I guess to some peoples surprise, he didn't define capitalism as the presence of simply any kind of management), it's not capitalist because the economic structure is not based off of private property, private profit, and capital accumulation. It's a bureaucratic socialism with a corrupt political elite, but the economy is nonetheless a type of socialism (they basically have a soviet style economy).

Just because I don't like the way North Korean politics are run doesn't mean I'm gonna call it capitalist because it's not.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Your analogy is pretty bad tbh. Was there a revolution to try to make a human but it got stuck as a chimpanzee? This doesn't make any sense.

The economy in North Korea is not run for private profit. It has a corrupt bureaucracy but, if we're going to be talking about capitalism in the way Karl Marx talked about it (which I guess to some peoples surprise, he didn't define capitalism as the presence of simply any kind of management), it's not capitalist because the economic structure is not based off of private property, private profit, and capital accumulation. It's a bureaucratic socialism with a corrupt political elite, but the economy is nonetheless a type of socialism (they basically have a soviet style economy).

Just because I don't like the way North Korean politics are run doesn't mean I'm gonna call it capitalist because it's not.

Zeekloid, I definitely appreciate your view on this. Not particularly the comparison with the Soviet Union, but whether we like how the country runs or not, to use capitalism as a mere cuss word, rather than how Marx specifically used it, is completely misleading when it comes to the DPRK.

[GreenCommunism]

But the underlying relationship of production, the forced extraction of surplus value, is the same and the same with regard to the working class as in capitalism countries.

there is surplus value even in a communist country, its made to invest into larger industries and could be considered taxes as it goes into reproduction and maintenance of the working force. healthcare education etc.

[∞]

Describing it a joyous occasion for the whole country, the official KCNA said the nomination shows an absolute support for and confidence in the top leader by the party and people.

The Koreans really know a good leader, I mean who's a better leader, philosopher, scientist,
engineer, cook, golfer, architect, mathematician, economist, sex-symbol, and dresser ?
ACCORDING TO THE THE NORTH KOREAN PEOPLE HE'S ALL THOSE THINGS AND MANY MANY MORE!!! LONG LIVE OUR GLORIOUS *ZAP ZAP* LEADER!

[AK]

So... what exactly was the purpose of this thread? Last I could recall, Kim Jong-il had already assumed this role in 1997.

[The Vegan Marxist]

The Koreans really know a good leader, I mean who's a better leader, philosopher, scientist,
engineer, cook, golfer, architect, mathematician, economist, sex-symbol, and dresser ?
ACCORDING TO THE THE NORTH KOREAN PEOPLE HE'S ALL THOSE THINGS AND MANY MANY MORE!!! LONG LIVE OUR GLORIOUS *ZAP ZAP* LEADER!

“In a communist society there are no painters, but at most people who engage in painting among other activities.” ~Karl Marx :D

[The Vegan Marxist]

So... what exactly was the purpose of this thread? Last I could recall, Kim Jong-il had already assumed this role in 1997.

I just posted it to let others know of what took place. It then turned into a battle of "socialist vs not-socialist" debate (obviously!).

[∞]

“In a communist society there are no painters, but at most people who engage in painting among other activities.” ~Karl Marx :D

golfing and screwing mistresses too, god bless Kim!

[AK]

I just posted it to let others know of what took place. It then turned into a battle of "socialist vs not-socialist" debate (obviously!).
So you decided to give us an update of what happened when nothing actually changed and you knew it was troll-bait from the start?

[The Vegan Marxist]

So you decided to give us an update of what happened when nothing actually changed and you knew it was troll-bait from the start?

Can you actually not be a dick on every post you make? I posted it for people to know. Whether they go on a never-ending debate or not is up to them, it's not my problem. Now, if anything's presented in the debate that's useful, then the debate itself allowed at least some kind of advance in learning.

[AK]

Can you actually not be a dick on every post you make?
You're not going to like the answer.


I posted it for people to know.
...that nothing has changed.


Whether they go on a never-ending debate or not is up to them, it's not my problem. Now, if anything's presented in the debate that's useful, then the debate itself allowed at least some kind of advance in learning.
This isn't a debate so much as it's a circle-jerk.

[Circus Peanuts]

I think many of us are perhaps missing the point of the news article. King Jong-Il had significant influence across the board as early as the 1970s. By the 1980s he was the top man in North Korea. Eventually, he managed to erode Kim Il-Sung's power to a point where the father could do very little without his son's approval. But Jong-Il has managed to keep a much tighter watch over his successor. But no one in the West knew this for years. Regardless of the news coming out of the country, it is very difficult to tell what is actually happening - what is the experience of the daily life of a North Korean?

The second thing is that I don't believe there is anything akin to socialism left in North Korea. Under heavy Soviet influence for the first ten years after the Korean Revolution, Kim Il-Sung took the country into full-blown Stalinism. However, after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's "secret speech," Kim Il-Sung largely abandoned Marxism-Leninism for Jouche, his own bastardized blend of Confucianism, feudalism and Stalinism. Jouche soon came to be synonymous with self-reliance. This caused the DPRK to cut food imports drastically and a disastrous re-organization of the economy took place. While central planning is certainly still a feature of the regime, that is probably where the similarities between the Soviet model and the DPRK end.

That being said, as to whether or not to support the DPRK? At this point, no one involved in the high organs of the party, state or military of that regime truly believes in socialism anymore. They no longer aspire to the type of society usually envisioned by Marxists. They are mostly cynical corrupt elites who will do whatever it takes to retain power. I think we can be critical of America's imperialist tendencies towards North (and South) Korea but in my opinion supporting a regime like the DPRK is simply unconscionable.

[The Vegan Marxist]

The second thing is that I don't believe there is anything akin to socialism left in North Korea. Under heavy Soviet influence for the first ten years after the Korean Revolution, Kim Il-Sung took the country into full-blown Stalinism. However, after Stalin's death and Khrushchev's "secret speech," Kim Il-Sung largely abandoned Marxism-Leninism for Jouche, his own bastardized blend of Confucianism, feudalism and Stalinism.

Yet, even Trotsky saw "Stalinist" Russia as a workers state. The very man who criticized every inch of Stalin, yet still saw the Soviet Union as socialist. Stalinism doesn't mean capitalism. I'd love for anybody to try & connect these two terms together - due to the fact they can't!


Jouche soon came to be synonymous with self-reliance. This caused the DPRK to cut food imports drastically and a disastrous re-organization of the economy took place. While central planning is certainly still a feature of the regime, that is probably where the similarities between the Soviet model and the DPRK end.

Yeah, you're right. It's the DPRK's fault. Forget about the massive increase (http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/07/20/amnesty-international-botches-blame-for-north-korea%E2%80%99s-crumbling-healthcare/) in sanctions against the DPRK by the US & allies (http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/the-real-story-on-north-korea-and-its-healthcare/). Who wants to know about all that commie propaganda. :rolleyes:

[KC]

More to the point, you are greatly underestimating working-class participation in the DPRK. For example, elected officials are subject to instant recall, as per the DPRK Constitution. And further, a similar situation exists in the DPRK as in the Soviet Union during and after the Civil War: the worker state and the vanguard party are essentially mirroring one another, and this owes greatly to the history of Korean resistance to imperialism.

Yes and it's a Democratic People's Republic as well because it's right in the name of the country!

[The Vegan Marxist]

Yes and it's a Democratic People's Republic as well because it's right in the name of the country!

Behold, the response one delivers when they can't refute a single thing they quoted. This goes to each of those who "thanked" that post too. :thumbup1:

[Devrim]

The League for the Fifth International pointedly uses degenerate rather than deformed, because the "deformed" label was used by the post-war Fourth International to express its unfounded hope that the new workers' states would be qualitatively different from the USSR. We use the term "degenerate" to differentiate ourselves from that.

So you use it to be different?

I don't buy into the whole deformed/degenerate workers state nonsense in the first place, but I can see the logic in thinking that the Soviet Union was a degenerate workers state whereas Czechoslovakia wasn't.

Degenerate meant that they believed it had once been controlled by the working class, but had then 'degenerated'. This term wasn't applied to the countries in the Eastern block because they had clearly never been controlled by the working class.

Devrim

[What Would Durruti Do?]

lets just make this the revelfft drunk thread

CAUSE YOU GOTTA BE DRUNK TO TALK ABOUT THE DPRK SERIOUSLY LOL

[graymouser]

So you use it to be different?

I don't buy into the whole deformed/degenerate workers state nonsense in the first place, but I can see the logic in thinking that the Soviet Union was a degenerate workers state whereas Czechoslovakia wasn't.

Degenerate meant that they believed it had once been controlled by the working class, but had then 'degenerated'. This term wasn't applied to the countries in the Eastern block because they had clearly never been controlled by the working class.
We use it because we believe that the Fourth International made an opportunist error in coining the term "deformed workers state," specifically that they were holding out hope that one or more of these states would have elements in its bureaucracy that they could relate with. The characterization as "deformed" relates historically not to Trotsky's 1937 characterization of the USSR in The Revolution Betrayed but to his prior understanding of the USSR as having bureaucratic deformations that could be resolved without a proletarian political revolution to remove the bureaucracy root and branch. Because the FI held out this possibility for Yugoslavia (as a whole), then China (in the Mandel/Pablo wing) and Cuba (in what became the USFI), we see the need to distance ourselves from these terms and analysis.

Anyway, this is pretty far afield from the DPRK questions, and if you want to discuss it further we can do so by PM.

[graymouser]

We're communists, we don't look for perfection, we look for what works. The USSR didn't have a perfect political system, because no such thing exists, and moreover because there were, as I said, shortcomings. But shortcomings are shortcomings, to condemn the worker state and the vanguard party of the proletariat for it is an overreaction at best.
I'm not looking for "perfection." I have told you what I would view as the organs of workers' democracy - soviets - and that these were never present in the DPRK, even in the attenuated form that they had in the USSR after Stalin consolidated his power.


More to the point, you are greatly underestimating working-class participation in the DPRK. For example, elected officials are subject to instant recall, as per the DPRK Constitution.
Two questions. One, does this instant recall ever get used, or is it like the rights guaranteed in the Soviet constitution that existed mostly on paper? And two, is the eternal president Kim Il Sung subject to such recall?


And further, a similar situation exists in the DPRK as in the Soviet Union during and after the Civil War: the worker state and the vanguard party are essentially mirroring one another, and this owes greatly to the history of Korean resistance to imperialism.[/URL]
This was a temporary situation and in fact constituted a setback for the USSR, although it was one of the things that the Stalinists used to consolidate their power. Trying to draw positive comparisons to that period of the Bolshevik Party seems a bit inapt.

[Tjis]

North Korea isn't socialist, communist, degenerated workers state or whatever. It's juche.
And the final authority on what juche is is Kim Jong-Il.

According to the current version of juche the 'revolutionary class' of North Korea aren't even the workers or the peasants. It's the military.

[Thirsty Crow]

No party congress for decades.
Nepotism in the leadership.
A leader who has presided over famine and an extended period of isolation miraculously being 'elected' general secretary by unanimous vote.

Now, I swear I heard somewhere that Socialism and Democracy are inseparable? Guess not, according to some on here.

Seriously, 44 years. Four and a half decades. Clear nepotism. And the workers factually own everything? Right.

[Red Commissar]

This image has been spammed around the web, shows what people've been claiming to be Kim Jung-Un and Kim Jong-Il, with a a military officer between them (AP says it is some guy named Vice Marshal Ri Yong Ho).

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20100930/capt.6a250d27c6b246dcb894ad35a4cd2af8-6a250d27c6b246dcb894ad35a4cd2af8-0.jpg?x=400&y=253&q=85&sig=ZulQvp_k0W71lLmhcaqUZw--

And another view of him during the Congress

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/rids/20100930/i/r4050024346.jpg?x=400&y=253&q=85&sig=6a9exdf_p4G_oNcP0YCV2g--

[graymouser]

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/rids/20100930/i/r4050024346.jpg?x=400&y=253&q=85&sig=6a9exdf_p4G_oNcP0YCV2g--
Wow. Overwhelmingly male, maybe 2 women in the picture, and Kim Jong Un* appears to be the youngest by about two decades. Is this an organ of workers' democracy?

* The Financial Times has been spelling this Kim Jong-eun. Anybody know what's up with the spelling?

[RED DAVE]

Wow. Overwhelmingly male, maybe 2 women in the picture ... .How wrong and fucked up can you trotskyite wreckers be?

North Korea is the most sexually liberated society on Earth. This is actually a scene from the annual convention of female cross dressing military fetishists. The chubby woman in the center is their new national secretary.

RED DAVE

[Red Commissar]

Wow. Overwhelmingly male, maybe 2 women in the picture, and Kim Jong Un* appears to be the youngest by about two decades. Is this an organ of workers' democracy?

* The Financial Times has been spelling this Kim Jong-eun. Anybody know what's up with the spelling?

It's differences from how they choose to romanize a Korean name. South Korean media has been romanizing it as Kim Jong-Eun, but it will come down to how NK press releases romanize his name, as they did with Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung.

[Devrim]

We use it because we believe that the Fourth International made an opportunist error in coining the term "deformed workers state," specifically that they were holding out hope that one or more of these states would have elements in its bureaucracy that they could relate with. The characterization as "deformed" relates historically not to Trotsky's 1937 characterization of the USSR in The Revolution Betrayed but to his prior understanding of the USSR as having bureaucratic deformations that could be resolved without a proletarian political revolution to remove the bureaucracy root and branch. Because the FI held out this possibility for Yugoslavia (as a whole), then China (in the Mandel/Pablo wing) and Cuba (in what became the USFI), we see the need to distance ourselves from these terms and analysis.


But I don't think that you have distanced yourself from it at all. In addition and more importantly, they are not degenerated at all, which implies that it was once 'not degenerated'. These sort of states never had any working class content in the first place.

Devrim

[graymouser]

But I don't think that you have distanced yourself from it at all. In addition and more importantly, they are not degenerated at all, which implies that it was once 'not degenerated'. These sort of states never had any working class content in the first place.
"Degenerated" is a polemical point - that the FI was holding out for a sort of "Reiss faction" in the bureaucracy (named for Ignace Reiss, who was an anti-Stalinist in the Soviet bureaucracy) and so used the term "deformed" to describe the new states. Like a lot of things the British L5I comrades come up with it may seem a bit awkward at first but it makes a correct point.

As for the working class content - honestly, I have to say, if these states were "state capitalist" then state capitalism is somewhat more progressive than regular capitalism in under-developed states, in terms of things like health care, education and so forth. The Trotskyist theory may require a bit of nuance but it makes sense of these states better than state capitalism does.

[RED DAVE]

As for the working class content - honestly, I have to say, if these states were "state capitalist" then state capitalism is somewhat more progressive than regular capitalism in under-developed states, in terms of things like health care, education and so forth. The Trotskyist theory may require a bit of nuance but it makes sense of these states better than state capitalism does.Which reveals that you do not understand what makes a state "progressive" in this day and age. And you are not making "sense" at all.

If a bourgeois state like, say, France provides better "health care, education and so forth," does that make France more "progressive" that the USA? Obviously not.

The essence of whether a state is "progressive" or not in the 20th-21st centuries is whether or not the working class is the ruling class, not whether or not a given state affords benefits to the working class. This is why you are constantly getting trapped in contradictions. You will end up, like the Maoists, supporting state capitalism in places like Nepal and abandoning the working class to a new set of masters.

RED DAVE

[graymouser]

Which reveals that you do not understand what makes a state "progressive" in this day and age. And you are not making "sense" at all.

If a bourgeois state like, say, France provides better "health care, education and so forth," does that make France more "progressive" that the USA? Obviously not.

The essence of whether a state is "progressive" or not in the 20th-21st centuries is whether or not the working class is the ruling class, not whether or not a given state affords benefits to the working class. This is why you are constantly getting trapped in contradictions. You will end up, like the Maoists, supporting state capitalism in places like Nepal and abandoning the working class to a new set of masters.
Dave, I believe you haven't gotten your head around the concept of "political revolution." In Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we call for such a political revolution - that is, a revolution that does not involve dismantling the tremendous gains of the workers' state. Any other form of overthrow of the Castro or Kim governments would result in a catastrophe, as the public industries, utilities and services - claimed in the name of the workers, and their rightful property - are sold off and the people of the respective countries get to experience capitalism's brand of poverty.

Saying these countries are "state capitalist" envisions that such a step would not be a catastrophe, which has been falsified by history. (Oh, and you never established that the bureaucracy is a class from our exchange upthread.)

[RED DAVE]

Dave, I believe you haven't gotten your head around the concept of "political revolution."GM, I have had my head around that bizarre concept for a long time. It is not new to me: I understand what you mean by it. I consider it to be bogus.


In Cuba and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, we call for such a political revolution - that is, a revolution that does not involve dismantling the tremendous gains of the workers' state. Any other form of overthrow of the Castro or Kim governments would result in a catastrophe, as the public industries, utilities and services - claimed in the name of the workers, and their rightful property - are sold off and the people of the respective countries get to experience capitalism's brand of poverty.All of the above it true, in terms of a disaster. The disaster that befell the workers of the former USSR is well known.

Except for one thing: how the fuck can you have a workers state when the workers are not the ruling class? Why can you get your head beyond the notion that "public industries, utilities and services" are perfectly compatible with the rule of another class besides the proletariat. In the USA, we have many "public industries, utilities and services," and for them to be sold off, as the capitalist class is often trying to do, does not indicate that the USA is a workers state. In capitalist Taiwan, until fairly recently, most industry was state owned. No one would claim that Taiwan is is a workers state.


Saying these countries are "state capitalist" envisions that such a step would not be a catastrophe, which has been falsified by history.Nonsense. Now you're just being obtuse. In the USA, would the loss of the social gains won during the 1930s, 40s and 50s, social security, etc., be a catastrophe? Of course they would? Would the sale of the national highway system to capitalist corporations be a catastrophe? Of course it would. Would the loss of the National Health Service in Great Britain of the health system in France be a catastrophe?

But none of these indicate that the US, GB or France are workers states?


(Oh, and you never established that the bureaucracy is a class from our exchange upthread.)Jesus, Comarde, what does it take? Does the bureaucracy stand in the same relationship to the means of production as the workers? You may say that in, say, the USSR, the lowest level of bureaucrats, ordinary clerks, teachers, etc., are workers, as in the capitalist countries. But in the state capitalist countries, the upper level of the bureaucracy actually runs the economy and does so for its benefit. In a relatively prosperous state cap country like the USSR, Czechsolovakia, etc., the workers do okay, just as they do in a relatively prosperous capitalist country. In a poor state cap country, like Romania or North Korea, the workers are screwed double or triple, like in a poor capitalist country like Columbia.

In neither case, private capitalism or state capitalism, does the worker control the state, surplus value, etc. Tht is the bottom line. Every institution that exists in so-called degenerated or deformed workers states can be shown to exist in full-blown capitalism.

RED DAVE

[L.A.P.]

*cringe*
Bottom line North Korea sucks and I do not support them just because they're fighting Western imperialism. You don't fight imperialism with authoritarianism.:thumbdown:

[graymouser]

Except for one thing: how the fuck can you have a workers state when the workers are not the ruling class? Why can you get your head beyond the notion that "public industries, utilities and services" are perfectly compatible with the rule of another class besides the proletariat. In the USA, we have many "public industries, utilities and services," and for them to be sold off, as the capitalist class is often trying to do, does not indicate that the USA is a workers state. In capitalist Taiwan, until fairly recently, most industry was state owned. No one would claim that Taiwan is is a workers state.
I imagine you've read The Eighteenth Brumaire at some point in your life, Dave; not to mention The Revolution Betrayed and In Defense of Marxism. The class character of a state is not determined primarily by the people who are administering the state. Bonapartism is possible in a capitalist state; a layer of the military detaches itself and rules as a populist group, masking beneath it a real ruling class. Trotsky built the theory of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state by reference to Bonapartism, in a workers' state where the proletariat is removed from actual state power but the underlying property forms remain proletarian. This takes a bit more nuance than the state capitalist understanding, I'll admit, but "state capitalism" just doesn't explain the actual relations of the Stalinist states to the economy.

[manic expression]

I'm not looking for "perfection." I have told you what I would view as the organs of workers' democracy - soviets - and that these were never present in the DPRK, even in the attenuated form that they had in the USSR after Stalin consolidated his power.
If you're not looking for perfection, then don't condemn a worker state because of "imperfections". Simple as that.

The form of working-class democracy differs from that of the Soviet Union because of history. Revolutions, as we all should know, aren't established like a McDonald's franchise, they bear differences based on local conditions.


Two questions. One, does this instant recall ever get used, or is it like the rights guaranteed in the Soviet constitution that existed mostly on paper? And two, is the eternal president Kim Il Sung subject to such recall?From everything I've seen, there is no evidence to suggest that the process for recall is not used. And Kim Il Sung's position is due to the decision of the KWP.


This was a temporary situation and in fact constituted a setback for the USSR, although it was one of the things that the Stalinists used to consolidate their power. Trying to draw positive comparisons to that period of the Bolshevik Party seems a bit inapt.They're fully apt, as the USSR went to such measures in order to survive the results of imperialist aggression. Our comrades in the DPRK are fighting an even more relentless siege by the imperialists on a daily basis than anything seen in the Soviet Union after 1922. So if anything, the Bolshevik policies adopted in 1921 should be seen as a lightweight version of what the DPRK has been forced to do.


Wow. Overwhelmingly male, maybe 2 women in the picture, and Kim Jong Un* appears to be the youngest by about two decades. Is this an organ of workers' democracy?
http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/e/e1/Bolshevik-meeting.jpg

How dare those sexist Bolsheviks claim to represent the interests of the workers! Harumph! Harumph!

[RED DAVE]

Except for one thing: how the fuck can you have a workers state when the workers are not the ruling class? Why can you get your head beyond the notion that "public industries, utilities and services" are perfectly compatible with the rule of another class besides the proletariat. In the USA, we have many "public industries, utilities and services," and for them to be sold off, as the capitalist class is often trying to do, does not indicate that the USA is a workers state. In capitalist Taiwan, until fairly recently, most industry was state owned. No one would claim that Taiwan is is a workers state.
I imagine you've read The Eighteenth Brumaire at some point in your life, Dave; not to mention The Revolution Betrayed and In Defense of Marxism.I probably read both of them before you were born.


The class character of a state is not determined primarily by the people who are administering the state. Bonapartism is possible in a capitalist state; a layer of the military detaches itself and rules as a populist group, masking beneath it a real ruling class.Correct. And the real ruling class is the class that controls production.


Trotsky built the theory of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state by reference to BonapartismAnd he was wrong.


in a workers' state where the proletariat is removed from actual state power but the underlying property forms remain proletarian.Now here's where you take a quick crap and run away!

We agree that the proletariat in the USSR (China, Vietnam, East Germany, etc.) "is removed from actual state power." Now, here's where you get sneaky. You say, "the underlying property forms remain proletarian."

Now, what makes the "the underlying property forms" in a bourgeois Bonapartist state still capitalist? The capitalists own the means of production, control the means of production and use the Bonapartist state to let them go about their business: extracting surplus value from the proletariat.

What you are saying is that so long as "the underlying property forms" include nationalized production, "the underlying property forms remain proletarian." But I have shown, above, that nationalized property controlled by a state bureaucracy, as in Taiwan, or in ordinary bourgeois states, in perfectly compatible with capitalism. You haven't answered that point.

My best estimate is that approximately 50% of all industry in China is now privatized: less in heavy and medium industry; more in light industry. Is China now in a condition of dual power? Or is China, like Taiwan, a capitalist country with a large state-owned component. Even in Russia, something of the order of 30% of all industry is still state owned.

Everything that you call proletarian property forms can and does exist under capitalism. Now if you want to say that they exist in a qualitatively greater amount in a country like the USSR, okay. But that brings up the next point: what makes these forms proletarian? The orthodox Trotskyism argument is that these forms are automatically proletarian!

This leads to the bizarre notion of the "deformed workers state," such as the Eastern European stalinist states, which had the identical property forms as the USSR, and you have to call them "proletarian" because according to your schema, they have to be. Because if they're not, then the USSR is no kind of workers state, degenerate, deformed or otherwise.

The fundamental issue is not form but control. Who controls the state and the property. We agree that in the USSR, etc., it wasn't the working class, so you have to cling to the ghost of the workers state, nationalized property, and say that the ghost is still, somehow, someway,somewhere, the real thing.


This takes a bit more nuance than the state capitalist understanding, I'll admit, but "state capitalism" just doesn't explain the actual relations of the Stalinist states to the economy.Don't confuse obfuscation with nuance. In brief, you are confusing form and content. So long as the form of the workers state, nationalized property, exists, you're calling it a workers state, in spite of the fact that that form is fully compatible with capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Nachie]

I can't believe there's another fucking thread about North Kor-fucking-ea.

[scarletghoul]

wow i get more rep in an hour of drunkness than a year of study and thoughtful posts

[The Vegan Marxist]

wow i get more rep in an hour of drunkness than a year of study and thoughtful posts

Just stay drunk, comrade. :thumbup1:

[KC]

Behold, the response one delivers when they can't refute a single thing they quoted. This goes to each of those who "thanked" that post too. :thumbup1:

There is nothing to refute. "Because it says so in their constitution" isn't an argument.

[The Vegan Marxist]

There is nothing to refute. "Because it says so in their constitution" isn't an argument.

So you're saying you can't refute the DPRK constitution, or just refuse to refute, mainly due to the fact you can't?

[KC]

So you're saying you can't refute the DPRK constitution, or just refuse to refute, mainly due to the fact you can't?

How the fuck do you "refute a constitution"? What does that even mean? I made my point very clear; I don't know why you're having so much trouble understanding it.

Once again: Making an argument solely on the basis of what it says in the constitution isn't an argument. You losers are just getting lazy with your arguments.

"It's true because it says it in the constitution!"
"That's not even an argument."
"Disprove it or it's true!"

:bored:

[The Vegan Marxist]

How the fuck do you "refute a constitution"? What does that even mean? I made my point very clear; I don't know why you're having so much trouble understanding it.

Once again: Making an argument solely on the basis of what it says in the constitution isn't an argument. You losers are just getting lazy with your arguments.

"It's true because it says it in the constitution!"
"That's not even an argument."
"Disprove it or it's true!"

:bored:

As in, you can't tell us why the constitution is bullshit, & rather something else is going on in the DPRK. We've got people like the Marxist-Leninist Party of Great Britain that visits the DPRK quite often, & states exactly what we're stating. Despite the internal problems within the DPRK, they are a worker's state, where the centralized workforce is managed by the workers. Fact of the matter is that you can't refute this, because clearly you're in complete opposition against the DPRK.

[KC]

As in, you can't tell us why the constitution is bullshit, & rather something else is going on in the DPRK.

I never claimed "the constitution is bullshit". I don't even know what that means.


We've got people like the Marxist-Leninist Party of Great Britain that visits the DPRK quite often, & states exactly what we're stating.This isn't an argument, either...


Despite the internal problems within the DPRK, they are a worker's state, where the centralized workforce is managed by the workers. Fact of the matter is that you can't refute thisThere's nothing to refute. You've made a claim and have attempted to back it up by saying "look at the constitution" and "yeah well MLPGB says it so it must be true!" Those aren't arguments. You haven't put forward anything to debate, just unsubstantiated claims. Then you say "yeah?! Well disprove it! If you can't it must be true!" which isn't an argument, either, and is just an excuse for you to not have to support your assertions. Then you try to seal the deal by saying that I'm "in complete opposition against the DPRK" (again, whatever that means).

Give me something to work with at least, Vegan! I want to know why you think the DPRK is socialist. Educate me.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I never claimed "the constitution is bullshit". I don't even know what that means.

This isn't an argument, either...

There's nothing to refute. You've made a claim and have attempted to back it up by saying "look at the constitution" and "yeah well MLPGB says it so it must be true!" Those aren't arguments. You haven't put forward anything to debate, just unsubstantiated claims. Then you say "yeah?! Well disprove it! If you can't it must be true!" which isn't an argument, either, and is just an excuse for you to not have to support your assertions. Then you try to seal the deal by saying that I'm "in complete opposition against the DPRK" (again, whatever that means).

Give me something to work with at least, Vegan! I want to know why you think the DPRK is socialist. Educate me.

Fact of the matter is that the DPRK stays to itself, & the only ones that really knows what happens there is the DPRK, China, the ML-GB, among a small amount of others as well. So it's there word we must follow by for now until greater relations can be brought forth in order to gain a great amount of knowledge on them.

[KC]

Fact of the matter is that the DPRK stays to itself, & the only ones that really knows what happens there is the DPRK, China, the ML-GB, among a small amount of others as well. So it's there word we must follow by for now until greater relations can be brought forth in order to gain a great amount of knowledge on them.

Okay, so you have absolutely zero substantiation for your claims besides "because they said so!"

Which is essentially saying "I believe xyz but I have absolutely no reason to."

Thank you for admitting you have absolutely no basis for your belief.

[manic expression]

Thank you for admitting you have absolutely no basis for your belief.
While you're rationalizing your nonexistent argument, let me ask you: So what do you think of the Korean Social Democratic Party?

[graymouser]

We agree that the proletariat in the USSR (China, Vietnam, East Germany, etc.) "is removed from actual state power." Now, here's where you get sneaky. You say, "the underlying property forms remain proletarian."

Now, what makes the "the underlying property forms" in a bourgeois Bonapartist state still capitalist? The capitalists own the means of production, control the means of production and use the Bonapartist state to let them go about their business: extracting surplus value from the proletariat.

What you are saying is that so long as "the underlying property forms" include nationalized production, "the underlying property forms remain proletarian." But I have shown, above, that nationalized property controlled by a state bureaucracy, as in Taiwan, or in ordinary bourgeois states, in perfectly compatible with capitalism. You haven't answered that point.

My best estimate is that approximately 50% of all industry in China is now privatized: less in heavy and medium industry; more in light industry. Is China now in a condition of dual power? Or is China, like Taiwan, a capitalist country with a large state-owned component. Even in Russia, something of the order of 30% of all industry is still state owned.

Everything that you call proletarian property forms can and does exist under capitalism. Now if you want to say that they exist in a qualitatively greater amount in a country like the USSR, okay. But that brings up the next point: what makes these forms proletarian? The orthodox Trotskyism argument is that these forms are automatically proletarian!

This leads to the bizarre notion of the "deformed workers state," such as the Eastern European stalinist states, which had the identical property forms as the USSR, and you have to call them "proletarian" because according to your schema, they have to be. Because if they're not, then the USSR is no kind of workers state, degenerate, deformed or otherwise.

The fundamental issue is not form but control. Who controls the state and the property. We agree that in the USSR, etc., it wasn't the working class, so you have to cling to the ghost of the workers state, nationalized property, and say that the ghost is still, somehow, someway,somewhere, the real thing.

Don't confuse obfuscation with nuance. In brief, you are confusing form and content. So long as the form of the workers state, nationalized property, exists, you're calling it a workers state, in spite of the fact that that form is fully compatible with capitalism.

RED DAVE
To start with I have to correct a few things in what Dave writes above.

First and foremost, it is incorrect to say that Trotsky's definition of proletarian property forms are exclusively related to "nationalized property." They also included central planning of the economy, and a state monopoly on foreign trade. These two factors, combined with the prevalence of nationalized property, subordinate the operation of the law of value to the planned economy - that is, wages are no longer based on the market but on the plan. There is still a social surplus but it is no longer based on the process of production as described in Marx's Capital since wages do not function according to the market, and capital cannot engage in its circulation process as such. These proletarian forms of property do matter, even when they are not combined with workers' democracy, because they represent the main tasks of development toward socialism.

Second, from this, we can see clearly that capitalist states that have a strong degree of nationalized properties do not become "degenerate workers' states." Ted Grant did in fact theorize this, but he was making the same error about the role of nationalized property. The League for the Fifth International holds that China today is not a degenerate workers' state at all, having long since ceased to have proletarian forms of property.

Third, as far as form versus content goes - "control" is not the heart of how economics works. In the USSR before the "perestroika" of the late 1980s, the members of the bureaucracy were unable to act as capitalists. In the DPRK today, the same is true. They are parasitic, yes, but their existence means they must further develop the nationalized means of production. This means that the political revolution is still a possibility, and the gains of the degenerate workers' state must be defended against imperialism.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

http://static.newworldencyclopedia.org/e/e1/Bolshevik-meeting.jpg

How dare those sexist Bolsheviks claim to represent the interests of the workers! Harumph! Harumph!

glad you're finally seeing the light

[RED DAVE]

To start with I have to correct a few things in what Dave writes above.:D


First and foremost, it is incorrect to say that Trotsky's definition of proletarian property forms are exclusively related to "nationalized property."I never said they were.


They also included central planning of the economy, and a state monopoly on foreign trade.In a state capitalist society like Taiwan, there was also central planning and since the majority of heavy industry was in the hands of the state, while there was no state monopoly, most significant foreign trade was handled by the state.


These two factors, combined with the prevalence of nationalized property, subordinate the operation of the law of value to the planned economy - that is, wages are no longer based on the market but on the plan.What you are saying here is not clear to me. Seriously, I could interpret, but I want to go on what you're saying.


There is still a social surplus but it is no longer based on the process of production as described in Marx's Capital since wages do not function according to the market, and capital cannot engage in its circulation process as such.If I understand you correctly, you are still begging the question: (1) is surplus value being extracted from the working class; (2) who controls the rate of extraction and its allocation. If the working class does not control this allocation, then this society cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a workers state.


These proletarian forms of property do matter, even when they are not combined with workers' democracy, because they represent the main tasks of development toward socialism.Stuff and nonsense. "[T]he main tasks of development toward socialism" are the achieving and securing and manifesting of workers power. You are taking a formalistic and bureaucratic approach to workers power, which essentially grants legitimacy to Stalinism.


Second, from this, we can see clearly that capitalist states that have a strong degree of nationalized properties do not become "degenerate workers' states."I assume you are talking about Taiwan.


Ted Grant did in fact theorize this, but he was making the same error about the role of nationalized property. The League for the Fifth International holds that China today is not a degenerate workers' state at all, having long since ceased to have proletarian forms of property.Approximately 50% of all heavy and medium industry and 30% of light industry in China is still state owned.

What is amazing and disgusting to me is that you can, on the basis of your formalistic and bureaucratic criteria call China some kind of workers state at some point in its past when you know full well that the workers never had any power in China over the economy from the top down or bottom up. And you know that the economic forms that you are pointing to (nationalized property, central planning, monopoly of foreign trade) were identical in China and the USSR, and both societies have ended up in the same place: private capitalism.

So let me recap: the economic forms, which you call proletarian and I call state capitalist, were identical in the USSR and China; in the USSR the workers did hold state power and lost it; hence the designation: degenerated workers state. In China, the workers never held state power; hence the classical Trotskyist designation: deformed workers state. So, (1) what was the actual, meaningful difference between these two societies; and (2) what is your justification for calling either one of them a workers state when most of the economic forms existed in a capitalist society: Taiwan?


Third, as far as form versus content goes - "control" is not the heart of how economics works.It sure as shit is the heart of a workers state. If the workers don't "control" the state, it ain't a workers state.


In the USSR before the "perestroika" of the late 1980s, the members of the bureaucracy were unable to act as capitalists.No, they operated as a ruling class, but not as individuals.


In the DPRK today, the same is true. They are parasitic, yes, but their existence means they must further develop the nationalized means of production.So the fuck what? They are not developing the nationalized means of production for the workers but for themselves in the same way that the ruling class in a capitalist country develops industry not for the working class but for itself.


This means that the political revolution is still a possibility, and the gains of the degenerate workers' state must be defended against imperialism.With this notion, you are going to end up in an alliance with sections of the bureaucracy against the workers.

The bureaucracy in state capitalist societies develops industry because the native bourgeoisie is too weak to do so. At the point at which it is possible, to one degree or another, for the native bourgeoisie to function, where they are able to acquire enough capital to function as a class, they begin to supplant the bureaucracy. This is happening in front of our eyes in China and the process is still underway in the USSR. In China, the largest industries are still state owned because he Chinese bourgeoisie hasn't got the capital to operate them. When it does, these industries will pass into their hands and private capitalism will have completely triumphed over state capitalism.

RED DAVE

[Schwarz]

To start with I have to correct a few things in what Dave writes above.

First and foremost, it is incorrect to say that Trotsky's definition of proletarian property forms are exclusively related to "nationalized property." They also included central planning of the economy, and a state monopoly on foreign trade. These two factors, combined with the prevalence of nationalized property, subordinate the operation of the law of value to the planned economy - that is, wages are no longer based on the market but on the plan. There is still a social surplus but it is no longer based on the process of production as described in Marx's Capital since wages do not function according to the market, and capital cannot engage in its circulation process as such. These proletarian forms of property do matter, even when they are not combined with workers' democracy, because they represent the main tasks of development toward socialism.
[...]
Third, as far as form versus content goes - "control" is not the heart of how economics works. In the USSR before the "perestroika" of the late 1980s, the members of the bureaucracy were unable to act as capitalists. In the DPRK today, the same is true. They are parasitic, yes, but their existence means they must further develop the nationalized means of production. This means that the political revolution is still a possibility, and the gains of the degenerate workers' state must be defended against imperialism.

Can you elaborate more on this point? In what sense was the value-form subordinated? If it is simply the exchange-value of labor-power that was affected, one could say the same thing about unions or state workers under capitalist production.

Also, how do you define capital here? If capital (a la Marx) is self-valorizing value, did it exist under the USSR and become merely "tamed" or are you arguing that because the state dictated the movement of exchange-value capital was abolished?

This is an interesting argument I've never heard before. Perhaps it needs its own thread?

[manic expression]

glad you're finally seeing the light
Right, and light has nothing to do with your black flag. Nothing is more pathetic than a supposed revolutionary who's afraid of revolution.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Right, and light has nothing to do with your black flag. Nothing is more pathetic than a supposed revolutionary who's afraid of revolution.

Heh, a Bolshevik calling someone else a "supposed revolutionary". Revleft always brings the lulz.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Heh, a Bolshevik calling someone else a "supposed revolutionary". Revleft always brings the lulz. Go away if you have nothing to contribute, it is a shame that they unbanned you. You just like to troll.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Go away if you have nothing to contribute, it is a shame that they unbanned you. You just like to troll.

But calling people "supposed revolutionaries" because they're anarchists isn't trolling at all, right?

More astounding revleft intellect.

[Red Commissar]

Boston.com has a collection of photos from the conference and the following anniversary parade:

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/10/a_north_korean_anniversary_and.html

Some interesting photos if you care for them. Is it just me or does it seem here he's going "Son I am disappoint (http://knowyourmeme.com/i/29950/original/disappoint201b.jpg?1260297906)"

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/nkorea_10_11/n34_25442467.jpg