Recent Confusion

[Comrade1]

I was recently ask a question... it was this, "Why do all states that consider themself Marxist-Leninist always turn into a single party, nationalized state" And I didnt know how to awnser this, any help?

[Tablo]

I was recently ask a question... it was this, "Why do all states that consider themself Marxist-Leninist always turn into a single party, nationalized state" And I didnt know how to awnser this, any help?
Because they feel a single party state with nationalized industries is the best path to communism. They feel with the rule of a party made up of dedicated revolutionaries they will be better able to crush the bourgeoisie.

[Comrade1]

Because they feel a single party state with nationalized industries is the best path to communism. They feel with the rule of a party made up of dedicated revolutionaries they will be better able to crush the bourgeoisie.
Yes, well that speaks for about 1% of the us (my opinion) In all honesty, how is that Marxism.

[Tablo]

Yes, well that speaks for about 1% of the us (my opinion) In all honesty, how is that Marxism.
I think it is debatable amongst Marxists whether it is actually Marxist. I personally don't think it is, but I'm not a Marxist to begin with. I feel Marxism itself is much more libertarian than its Marxist-Leninist variant. Some Marxist-Leninists would argue the party would be democratically run by the workers of the nation, but historically that doesn't seem to be the case.

I am biased though so you might want to wait for the opinion of some Marxists-Leninists and other Marxists.

[Comrade1]

I think it is debatable amongst Marxists whether it is actually Marxist. I personally don't think it is, but I'm not a Marxist to begin with. I feel Marxism itself is much more libertarian than its Marxist-Leninist variant. Some Marxist-Leninists would argue the party would be democratically run by the workers of the nation, but historically that doesn't seem to be the case.

I am biased though so you might want to wait for the opinion of some Marxists-Leninists and other Marxists.
For everyone else who sees this thread, Listen to this man! He gets the big picture that the 20th century has made Marxism seem authoritarian.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think it is debatable amongst Marxists whether it is actually Marxist. I personally don't think it is, but I'm not a Marxist to begin with. I feel Marxism itself is much more libertarian than its Marxist-Leninist variant. Some Marxist-Leninists would argue the party would be democratically run by the workers of the nation, but historically that doesn't seem to be the case.

I am biased though so you might want to wait for the opinion of some Marxists-Leninists and other Marxists.

In my view it is not Marxist at all and you can not have socialism (working class rule of society) without some kind of collective (democratic) decision making by working class people themselves. Single Party rule works much better for ruling classes that need to rapidly industrialize and so one-party or autocratic/authoritarian rule came about in Mexico and after various other nationalist revolutions.

Russia was different IMO because it wasn't a single-party after the Revolution and only became one - at first by default, but increasingly by design as the Revolution failed and the working class was being physically unmade because of civil war and so on. (If and why the revolution failed and if and why the Bolsheviks "became their opposites" are a whole bunch of other debates so I won't go into my views of this in order to try to keep the discussion on-track). At any rate, as the "Socialism in One State" idea that a revolutionary party could help develop a nation into one where socialism could happen became the official USSR view it had 2 effects: one all the CPs throughout the world defended this one-party state as an example of real living socialism (and since the CPs were dominant in most places and even dominated many trade-unions, this idea quickly became wide-spread); two, nationalist movements began to look at the USSR as a model for a way to get rid of UK or US influence and rapidly develop their own industry (of course it usually made them go from being under UK imperialism to USSR imperialism).

[scarletghoul]

One party state became dominant as revolutionary parties needed to consolidate their revolutionary gains. The model stuck partly because the revolutionary forces were always under siege, and partly because the Party/State leadership had grown used to it and saw no reason for allowing other parties.

Interestingly the Nepali Maoists have put about some ideas of as multi-party socialist republic, though there is no determined position yet.

[Prairie Fire]

I'm going to chime in on this thread, before it gets out of control and becomes 5+ pages like all of the previous shit fests that Comrade1 has started lately (which I'm still trying to reply on. Give me time.).

I will give props to Tsukae, who was diplomatic in her/his approach.

I will take off one of my shoes, and smack Comrade1 upside the head with it, in the unlikely situation that him and I are ever in the same room at the same time. Better hope that I'm wearing sneakers.



"Why do all states that consider themself Marxist-Leninist always turn into a single party, nationalized state"



Why would there be more than one party (in a socialist country)? Why should there be more than one party?

What is the basis of the existence of a party in multiparty systems? In a capitalist system, often parties are manifestations of different strata of the bourgeoisie, vying for their interests non-antagonistically within a parliamentary paradigm.

Why does the proletariat need more than one party?

Is the "Party in power, party in opposition" model a way of further empowering the people, or a way of marginalizing them further?

Is having more than one party a guarantee of democracy (most countries have 20+ parties, and still all of the bourgeois ones that hold power are in open collaboration with one another)?

The starting point for the discussion should resolve what the objective material foundation for more than one party in a socialist state would be.

Most capitalist countries have multi-party systems; would you argue that they are more democratic and empower the people more than a socialist state?

In Canada where I live especially, all of the pretexts about a multi-party parliamentary system have been disproven by practice within the last 5 years alone (ie. the idea that a minority government is more pliable and comprimising, etc).


As far as nationalization, what alternative do you suggest? Factory syndicalism and a broad loosely associated cooperative movement, Argentinean style?

In the practical application of putting the means of production within the hands of the people, especially in the context of central planning to meet the needs of all, the only viable solution is nationalization.

One could argue that nationalization in and of itself is not an explicitly socialist feature, as it has been employed in many capitalist and even fascist states.

On the other hand, what is a socialist feature is an exclusively nationalized economy, with all means of production placed into the hands of the working class (via their organs of class power, ie. the proletarian state), and the surplus value and social product of said means of production applied to the entire society at large.

Again, what is the alternative?

Argentinean style factory syndicalism and various workplace cooperative movements are still done within the paradigm of a market economy. For this reason, they are still subject to the crisis of over-production as outlined by Marx, are still subject to all of the mechanism and ultimate failings that capitalism itself ultimately sucumbs to.



Yes, well that speaks for about 1% of the us (my opinion)


I'm glad that you're opinion is as good as a survey. :rolleyes:

You've done no research, and yet you have expressed your ignorance as a percentage, in mathematical equation form.

'No investigation, no right to speak!'


In all honesty, how is that Marxism.

Comrade1, for someone like yourself who (for reasons unknown) has taken to calling themselves an alleged "Marxist", I have a lot of questions about which materials by Karl Marx that you have been reading, that the real life socialist states were in contradiction with?


"...The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class;..."

K. Marx, F.Engels, Manifesto of the Communist party (My emphasis added).

This is basic Marxism, taken from arguably the most abundant and novice text ever produced by Marx for mass political consumption.

Exactly which works by Marx have you been reading which are in contradiction to this?



For everyone else who sees this thread, Listen to this man! He gets the big picture that the 20th century has made Marxism seem authoritarian.


Marxism is authoritarian, in the same sense that all politics in a class society are, regardless of which class is on top.

Let's return to that Manifesto, which you most likely never read to begin with:

"Political power,properly so called,is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled , by the force of circumstances,to organize itself as a class,if, by means of revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such,sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished it's own supremacy as a class."

"...Of course, in the beginning, (the revolutionary transformation of bourgeois society) cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production."

Again, all of these quotations are from the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

If you don't have 10$ for a hard copy (found at most major book retailers),
here is a free online link:
http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm

I recommend that you read it for the first time.

If you have 'read' it allready, I recommend that you retain and comprehend it for the first time.

I also recommend that you stop focusing your energy on the tedious routine that most new 'Marxists' who politicize themselves as individuals go through at first (myself included,), which revolves around trying to bend Marxism to fit your individual/ bourgeois societal whims and denouncing all of the history of the international workers movement prior to yourself.

Instead of trashing all communist and proletarian political history prior to your recent politicization, and desperately searching for ways to conform Marxism to squeamish liberal definitions, why don't you instead focus your energies where they should be:

1. Start from the present,
2. analyze the objective material situation,
3.formulate a tactical plan of how to turn said situation around,

and

4.begin building subjective conditions for revolution and workers empowerment.

These measures should typify your work, assuming that your specific regional level of political development and class consciousness is at a similar level to my own.

[hatzel]

I have loved reading each and every one of Prairie Fire's posts in response to Comrade1. I deeply admire your patience!

My answer would actually probably be 'a single party, nationalised state is kind of the actual intention of Marxism-Leninism'. As Prairie Fire has touched upon above. The question isn't explaining why that happens, but explaining why it's supposed to be a good thing. I can't explain why it's a good thing. And that's why I'm not a Marxist, or, as some of us like to say, an 'authoritarian communist'. This isn't intended to insult any Marxists, of course, but all Marxists should be aware of where the claim of Marxism being authoritarianism comes from. PF understands, with quotes and citations and so on. Without understanding, and working on the assumption there's nothing in Marxism that could ever be considered remotely authoritarian by anybody (a viewpoint which seems to be the basis for the OP) isn't going to get anybody anywhere...

I would suggest reading any one of the plethora of sources PF has suggested over the course of your stay here. Just one. At the moment, it seems as though you've maybe briefly glanced over, at most, about a quarter of one source, namely, this one:

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

I mean, c'mon, even that one's pretty long, isn't it? Who could ever be expected to read so many words...

EDIT: I would suggest that Comrade1 sticks to the Learning forum, particularly with threads like this. It's quite clear to me, with the last 143 posts, that there is still much learning to be done, and when there is a specific forum dedicated to this very purpose, it seems best to stay there for the time being...

[blake 3:17]

The monopoly of power by one party may have been necessary in certain historical situations, but it's a mistake to make a virtue out of a necessity.

I think that history has shown that the single party state hasn't made huge advances towards socialism and that socialist democracy requires a multi-party system that incorporates national, regional and local referenda as collective decision making tools.


Interestingly the Nepali Maoists have put about some ideas of as multi-party socialist republic, though there is no determined position yet.

The Sandanistas also embraced a multi-party democracy.

Most (all?) of the revolutions in the 20th century have been against dictatorships. Why should people revolt to get the same thing with a new name?

This is maybe for the History section, but it'd be interesting to discuss the transitions from fascism to democracy (eg. Portugal, Spain, Chile).

[NecroCommie]

The misconseption is that m-l states would have been anyhow different than states in general. This, ofcourse is not as much of a defence for ML states as it is an argument against western states. One who reads history notices how ML states have always been alot more subtle and "democratic" (in the western sense of the word) than the western stereotype. There were individual corporations as there was state control over them. Much like in nordic social-democracy. There was monetary economy with all that came with it, although it was controlled in a different manner.

True, ideology was institutionalized, but the fact that western countries institutionalize their ideology in a more covert way does not make them any better.

Besides, why should we defend ML-states, even as marxist-leninists? I think our critizism of the old ML states only serves to prove our ideological superiority! Marxists can detect and correct mistakes done by ourselves, a virtue capitalists have shown themselves to be completely incapable of. They are the dogmatists and that is why they try to defend atrocities like Pinochet's Chile or the recent recession. Marxism is a method of politics that progresses and advances with history and experience. Capitalism is a dogma that does not even attempt to learn from atrocities, but instead tries to justify and defend them through un-empirical ideological dogma.

[Comrade1]

The misconseption is that m-l states would have been anyhow different than states in general. This, ofcourse is not as much of a defence for ML states as it is an argument against western states. One who reads history notices how ML states have always been alot more subtle and "democratic" (in the western sense of the word) than the western stereotype. There were individual corporations as there was state control over them. Much like in nordic social-democracy. There was monetary economy with all that came with it, although it was controlled in a different manner.

True, ideology was institutionalized, but the fact that western countries institutionalize their ideology in a more covert way does not make them any better.

Besides, why should we defend ML-states, even as marxist-leninists? I think our critizism of the old ML states only serves to prove our ideological superiority! Marxists can detect and correct mistakes done by ourselves, a virtue capitalists have shown themselves to be completely incapable of. They are the dogmatists and that is why they try to defend atrocities like Pinochet's Chile or the recent recession. Marxism is a method of politics that progresses and advances with history and experience. Capitalism is a dogma that does not even attempt to learn from atrocities, but instead tries to justify and defend them through un-empirical ideological dogma.
I just wanna say that I read your blog, misconceptions of Marxism and it was very good

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm going to chime in on this thread, before it gets out of control and becomes 5+ pages like all of the previous shit fests that Comrade1 has started lately (which I'm still trying to reply on. Give me time.).

I will give props to Tsukae, who was diplomatic in her/his approach.

I will take off one of my shoes, and smack Comrade1 upside the head with it, in the unlikely situation that him and I are ever in the same room at the same time. Better hope that I'm wearing sneakers.

I feel like I must critique the rhetoric and ideology in your response, as I feel many of your claims are justified by resort to theoretical argumentation or axiom, and ignore historical experience.


Why would there be more than one party (in a socialist country)? Why should there be more than one party?

What is the basis of the existence of a party in multiparty systems? In a capitalist system, often parties are manifestations of different strata of the bourgeoisie, vying for their interests non-antagonistically within a parliamentary paradigm.

Why does the proletariat need more than one party?

Is the "Party in power, party in opposition" model a way of further empowering the people, or a way of marginalizing them further?

Is having more than one party a guarantee of democracy (most countries have 20+ parties, and still all of the bourgeois ones that hold power are in open collaboration with one another)?

The starting point for the discussion should resolve what the objective material foundation for more than one party in a socialist state would be.

Most capitalist countries have multi-party systems; would you argue that they are more democratic and empower the people more than a socialist state?

In Canada where I live especially, all of the pretexts about a multi-party parliamentary system have been disproven by practice within the last 5 years alone (ie. the idea that a minority government is more pliable and comprimising, etc).

Let's be quite real here. Multi-partyism or some measure of pluralism is not an engineered instrument of bourgeois chicanery. It is simply the reality of social political life where political repression is insufficient to suppress all manner of independent political organization. True unipartyism has only been accomplished by discretionary use of state repression. It is simply a matter of the transitive property to establish that unipartyism is the policy of the extreme reactionary government in a class society. How is it that throughout the 19th century, the class elements supporting broader and broader suffrage and freedom from repression - which is empirically linked with expansions and advances in the worker movement and revolutionary agitation -, Marxists recognized these as the policies of the 'progressive' class strata. Am I expected to believe this policy - that's what it is, selective state repression of the non-government parties - suddenly reverses its ideological content when the government party calls itself a workers' party or a Marxist party?

This is a simple fact of history. Marxists have a political conception which cannot be separated from real, material world and historicized realities. It is abstractions outside such conceptions which was rightfully lambasted as liberal idealism. The historical fact is that the working classes and allies never ever have been organically united in a unitary political organization as the point of revolutionary rupture.

Now a honest man or woman can proceed from this point along two paths. One can abandon attempts at revolution historically as adequate models, arguing the material conditions, productive forces, etc. were not developed at those times, so they do not represent mature historical class struggle. Alright, in that case, I believe it behooves one to not second-guess the revolution-to-come and therefore speak of unipartyism as some organic reality of working class power. After all, that is essentially idealistic.

Alternatively, one can deal with historical case examples, including the Russian Revolution et al. In this case, one can either claim that the One True Workers' Party exists by axiom, and historical realities of working class and class ally support to parties the commentator in question prefers to disfavor are simply to be regarded as 'unconscious' and dismissed. This line of argument is obviously post hoc and self-serving in character. In practice, this means that the alignment of class struggle is something to be not verified empirically according to clear realities of class support, but something to be delivered in the form of Olympian declarations on personal fiat resting on Marxoid rhetoric. I think clearly in practice, either this will be hashed out between those with the 'proper knowledge' of Marxism, in which case we're discussing a theoretical dictatorship of the intelligentsia, not the proletariat (I am not stating this is what happened in Russia 1917, so please do not waste my time with PIPES OMG!!!! type responses).

Otherwise the support working people choose as they may, to give must be dealt with seriously. This means dealing with the fact that in practice, the working class has often disfavored the political outcomes that parties have offered. Broad elimination of workers' control at the point of production was, though inconsistently (at times the fabkomzy petitioned the government FOR compulsion, libertarian rhetoric notwithstanding), struggled against by strike and workers' organizing in Russia. The great mass of the revolutionary masses supported government based on majoritarian principles (conditionally on the execution of basic programmatic demands, such as an end to the war, land reform, workers' control, government involving soviets, and economic restoration). Leading Bolsheviks saw the essential contradiction between maintenance of an all-Bolshevik government and political freedom, "...four Bolshevik people's commissars, linking the debate [Nov 4 VTsIK debate against early censorship and repressive measures by the all-Bolshevik, still ostensibly "provisional" soviet government; the pro-government Bolshevik majority broadly defeated the Left SR and dissident Bolshevik dissent on the questions of repression] to the Vikzhel [militant railway workers' union; opposed to Bolshevik-only soviet government and agitated against it during this point] proposal on forming a broad socialist government, resigned their posts, declaring that ‘a purely Bolshevik government has no choice but to maintain itself by political terror’” (1). Therefore, it is pretty fatuous to talk about multiparty revolutionary socialism as identified with unipartyism. The unipartyism was instituted, in fits and starts, from October (November) 1917, greatly accelerating by mid 1918, and doubled-down on in 1921-1923 (the best work I can recommend on this Israel Getzler’s Kronstadt: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy and Simon Pirani’s The Russian Revolution in Retreat 1920-24: Soviet workers and the new communist elite).

So in what sense, if we are to talk about the proletariat, should a political system be fitted in the social revolution for its needs? As you pointed out, the “basis of the multiparty system” is “representing different factions of the capitalist class”. You then asked [rhetorically] what would be the basis of having more than one party to the proletariat. Now given that you supplied a class precedent for organizing political parties on a basis other than 1-to-1 correlation of class-to-party, I think this is an odd burden of proof to extend to your opponent. Rather, it is your place to demonstrate that the single party of the working class is inherently the only possible method. Furthermore, as I documented, the much-maligned “really existing” proletariat often, if not always, chooses more than one party or political ideology to align parts of itself with. Furthermore, the fundamental sectional divisions of the working class, though insignificant relative to the strong antagonism and polarization of the overall struggle against all exploiters of alienated labor, do exist, and are just as substantive and economically logical as those divisions among exploiters. Should relations between sections of the proletariat feature more solidarity and substance than the means by which, as Thomas Ferguson puts it, different coalitions of investors “coalesce to control the state”? Naturally. But workers in the extractive economies (mining, forestry, industrial farming, etc.) have different relations to the economy than workers in the production economies and still other than those in the service economies.

Rather than treat the question of political repression, single-partyism, and working class power seriously, you’ve instead elected to engage a strawman in the weak liberal illusions of democracy. Preferring instead of critically discussing the record, form, theory, and practice of single-party, party-state socialism, to move instantly without argumentation, from the futility of liberal multipartyism (which, living in the United States, clearly the more rigid the constitutional framework of the liberal democracy, the worse the outcomes, vis-à-vis our lack of even a major reformist labor-backed party, with predictable consequences for the integrity of basic reforms and social legislation versus Europe and the other electoral capitalist states), to a “what is the big deal about single-party ‘socialist’ states”.

(1). Rex A. Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 277.


As far as nationalization, what alternative do you suggest? Factory syndicalism and a broad loosely associated cooperative movement, Argentinean style?

In the practical application of putting the means of production within the hands of the people, especially in the context of central planning to meet the needs of all, the only viable solution is nationalization.

One could argue that nationalization in and of itself is not an explicitly socialist feature, as it has been employed in many capitalist and even fascist states.

On the other hand, what is a socialist feature is an exclusively nationalized economy, with all means of production placed into the hands of the working class (via their organs of class power, ie. the proletarian state), and the surplus value and social product of said means of production applied to the entire society at large.

Again, what is the alternative?

Well even the canonical One True Workers’ Party instituted state capitalism following the revolution, in desperation to co-opt peasant opposition while politically expropriating the working class in favor of the party hierarchy.

More bottom-up cooperative socialist planning has both been discussed (parecon, Economics of Workers’ Councils, etc.) and attempted (1917 Russia, 1936 on Catalonia and the Levante). Clearly commodity exchange and the market must be eliminated. But the means by which planning decisions are reached need not be Gosplan, 21st Century Edition. Especially considering the mass explosion of literacy, access to information technology, and the increasing unproductivity of professional management in the modern economy.


Argentinean style factory syndicalism and various workplace cooperative movements are still done within the paradigm of a market economy. For this reason, they are still subject to the crisis of over-production as outlined by Marx, are still subject to all of the mechanism and ultimate failings that capitalism itself ultimately sucumbs to.

Agreed.


I'm glad that you're opinion is as good as a survey. file:///C:/Users/Owner/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif

You've done no research, and yet you have expressed your ignorance as a percentage, in mathematical equation form.

'No investigation, no right to speak!'

Big words where you’ve failed to critically examine the historical actually existing proletariat, rather than the one featured as a mythological vestigial feature of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Actual proletarians do not have intrinsic affinities for party-states where all forms of political free organizing and agitation are formally suppressed in principle. Single-party states are produced only by this method. The Bolshevik party-state suppressed first the liberals, then their competition among the other socialist parties, and then refused to acknowledge both attempts at founding new parties, non-party militant workers’ movements (Pirani’s documentation of Moscow workers’ organizing in 1921-1924 is superb), and then, with only their party extant, suppressed the “parties-within-The-Party” that were the factions (inevitable where organization is permitted but only one party). Again, the most militant Bolshevik revolutionary leaders, Stalin’s and Lenin’s colleagues on the Sovnarkom, understood this intuitively immediately following their revolution. You’re choosing to play dumb. You will always in a society with political liberties have some measure of pluralism.


Comrade1, for someone like yourself who (for reasons unknown) has taken to calling themselves an alleged "Marxist", I have a lot of questions about which materials by Karl Marx that you have been reading, that the real life socialist states were in contradiction with?

"...The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class;..."

K. Marx, F.Engels, Manifesto of the Communist party (My emphasis added).

This is basic Marxism, taken from arguably the most abundant and novice text ever produced by Marx for mass political consumption.

Exactly which works by Marx have you been reading which are in contradiction to this?

Plenty of scholarship challenges the concept that the Bolshevik nascent state was really based on the advanced sections of the proletariat ipso facto, much less the proletariat as a whole, especially moving into the NEP era. This isn’t low-rent Trotskyism, Lars Lih has done some useful work on this topic.


Marxism is authoritarian, in the same sense that all politics in a class society are, regardless of which class is on top.

This is rhetoric which serves to obfuscate details of public policy, which have at their heart the basic conditions whereby self-organization, and thus self-emancipation, of the working class is not possible.


I also recommend that you stop focusing your energy on the tedious routine that most new 'Marxists' who politicize themselves as individuals go through at first (myself included,), which revolves around trying to bend Marxism to fit your individual/ bourgeois societal whims and denouncing all of the history of the international workers movement prior to yourself.

Instead of trashing all communist and proletarian political history prior to your recent politicization, and desperately searching for ways to conform Marxism to squeamish liberal definitions, why don't you instead focus your energies where they should be:

1. Start from the present,
2. analyze the objective material situation,
3.formulate a tactical plan of how to turn said situation around,

and

4.begin building subjective conditions for revolution and workers empowerment.

These measures should typify your work, assuming that your specific regional level of political development and class consciousness is at a similar level to my own.

Couldn’t agree more. I think maybe you should better respect the history of the actually existing proletariat, including working-class organization and militancy in opposition to The One True Workers’ Party And Its Workers’ State. Scholarship on this matter is pretty unambiguous. Now I’m not some blind fetishist for councils-without-parties, as if that’s a realistic historical alternative (again, more work needs to be done respecting the actual history of the really existing proletariat, rather than picking and choosing our favorite qualities of past struggle and leadership), but I am saying the problem of single-party states and political authoritarianism against the working class is a serious topic to be dealt with seriously. I’m sorry, but most people – including most workers – do not consider the USSR in 1923, 1928, 1939 or 1953 or 1985 (depending on whose lines one prefers parroting) the real goal of a developing, transformative social liberationist project like a workers’ revolution.

I don’t think “liberal squeamishness” where people would like to believe those who have kooky ideas may still go into a public square, unfurl an anti-government sign, and be free from state repression is a cheap concept to be dismissed via throwaway remarks.

[Jimmie Higgins]

which materials by Karl Marx that you have been reading, that the real life socialist states were in contradiction with?

"...The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class;..."

K. Marx, F.Engels, Manifesto of the Communist party (My emphasis added).

I'd say the part in bold, (my emphasis): "...The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e. of the proletariat organized as the ruling class;...

I appreciate your thoughtful post and I agree with a lot of what you say regarding how to approach the question of multi-party democracy in a socialist society*, but in your description of the USSR, you seem to gloss over this and take it for granted that the state was actually controlled and run by the proletariat - this is something that the Bolsheviks themselves would have said was not the case in the 1920s. Of course when "Socialism in one country" became the orthodoxy, nationalism, not worker's power became the goal and by WWII, even the textbooks were changed to remove the post-revolution class struggle based history in favor of more descriptions of Russian heroes (even Tsarist ones).

You ask what the alternative is but you conflate Stalinist party-rule with nationalized industry in the hands of the worker and suggest that the only alternatives to single-party rule are some kind of autonomism or anarcho-capitalist scheme. This skips over the question above of if the proletariat actually did control production and therefore society.

For an ideology and countless committed revolutionaries that fought for working class power and liberation but in Russia ended up with a system that recreated many of the horrors of capitalist primitive accumulation, smashed strikes, and so on without any direct working class decision-making... this is a huge contradiction that can not simply we waved away by saying that the person who wonders about these contradictions doesn't have a grasp on Marxism.


*On the question of what would be the basis of workers organizing themselves into different parties: IMO in a transition phase from capitalism, workers are going to have to make a lot of decisions and have to prioritize what they take on and how. There are going to naturally be differences within a working-class view of how to accomplish certain tasks: is building education facilities more important than using resources for new public transportation or housing and so on? I think workers will want and will naturally try and group into factions on certain questions to make their case. Just as two parties in capitalism can both represent different approaches among sectors of the capitalists, different political groups in a socialist society could still exist without somehow representing "another class interest".