Why is there such dislike for Marxist- Leninists

[Red Future]

Seriously I have been noticing some members of the online community have a real hatred of the ML tradition and even its members ....why exactly ??

Note ..if this turns into a massive tendency trolling and someone is banned again I will request a suspension from the Admins.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Because we're right

[RedSunRising]

Seriously I have been noticing some members of the online community have a real hatred of the ML tradition and even its members ....why exactly ??

Note ..if this turns into a massive tendency trolling and someone is banned again I will request a suspension from the Admins.

Largely to do with class dynamics.

[Тачанка]

Traitors

[Тачанка]

Stalinists are probably like "lulz, but he trots are traitors!!111"


Never forget 1923, KomIntern under Sinowjew, back then part of the Stalin fraction, betraying the german workers by failing to call for a general strike which could have paralyzed the whole country and possibly taken over state power.
Never forget 1927, Kuomintang support of the SU, later mass slaughter of communists by the Kuomintang.
Never forget 1934, rise of fascism due to failure to unite communist workers with social democratic workers because of "social fascism".
Never forget GPU terror aimed at communists.
Never forget Gulags housing old worker bolsheviks.
Never forget Stalin declaring socialism to have been reached, simultanously revising Marx' and Lenin's understanding of socialism.
Never forget Stalin justificating cases of rape done by the Red Army.
Never forget criminalization of homosexuality, abolition.
Never forget closure of mosques, effectively revising the "freedom of religion" of Lenin.
Never forget reinstalling the old bourgeois military ranks.

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/1411/stalinlenin.jpg

Stalin. What a nice smile you have. But there's someone looking down from above, an old man you've probably already forgotten, since you've spit on his grave back then and many more times through you being the leading figure of the bureaocracy, the symbol of what has become of the worker's state.

Does he smile?

[RedSunRising]

Never forget 1923, KomIntern under Sinowjew, back then part of the Stalin fraction, betraying the german workers by failing to call for a general strike which could have paralyzed the whole country and possibly taken over state power.
Never forget 1927, Kuomintang support of the SU, later mass slaughter of communists by the Kuomintang.


Wasnt Lenin still alive in 1923? Did Trotsky protest this?

Do you feel as strongly about Lenin and Trotsky telling Turkish Communists to disarm and ally with the Kemalists who later butchered them?

Who exactly was Sinowjew?

[RedSunRising]

Never forget 1934, rise of fascism due to failure to unite communist workers with social democratic workers because of "social fascism".


Only the Red Front did attempt a united front of all class concious workers from below, and of course you are leaving out on purpose the fact that the SDP called the Communists worse than Nazies and was involved not only in the murder of the Spartacusists but Communist workers later on which would not endear them to Communists, no?

[Devrim]

Do you feel as strongly about Lenin and Trotsky telling Turkish Communists to disarm and ally with the Kemalists who later butchered them?

I do, I think it was a betrayal of class politics in the national interests of the Russian state.

Devrim

[JustMovement]

I can give you a couple reasons why I personally dislike Marxist-Leninists (ideology, not people):
1) Historical feteshism: A tend to see history as an end in itself, and not as a means to better understand the present. History is so complex that it should be a miracle if two people came to an agreement about what happened 100 years ago, instead MLs insist that the inerpretation of a particular historical event is crucial to the ideology, and any deviation is outside the pale.
2) Personality cult: Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, etc. etc.
3) Democratic Centralism: The working class (which is not a hive-mind) is the only revolutionary class, not any party. We aim for social revolution not a political one.

Having said this MLs are still comrades of mine.

[Dunk]

I think the idea that any particular tendency is "correct" and the others "incorrect" is stupid. They're all probably going to become even more irrelevant when the working class makes it's move.

[RedSunRising]

I do, I think it was a betrayal of class politics in the national interests of the Russian state.

Devrim

And I would say that the survival of the Soviet state as well as the weakening of western Imperialism was in the international interests of the working class. However on this occasion the Comintern did make a tragic mistake, the point though is that its hypocritical of Trotskyites to attack the Comintern under Stalin when similar charges could be laid at the feet of their dear leader.

[Per Levy]

Trotskyites

well thats a good start, really this is annoying and makes the users here who uses words like this also annoying.

+ some "marxist-leninist-maoists" who pretty much say" you dont support this or that group you're reactionary, bourgois, imperialist and what not" its also annoying.

i could go on but this is just what annoyed me about some marxist leninists latley.

[RedSunRising]

well thats a good start, really this is annoying and makes the users here who uses words like this also annoying.


People use the meaningless term "Stalinist" here quite freely so I cant see what the big deal is.

[Per Levy]

People use the meaningless term "Stalinist" here quite freely so I cant see what the big deal is.

the difference would be "ist" and "ite" here. if the term "stalinist" is meaningless is debatable at least, the term "trotzkyite" is just an insult and nothing else. wich awnsers part of the op question for me at least.

[Rusty Shackleford]

i think Sinowjew is Zinoviev.

[Per Levy]

i think Sinowjew is Zinoviev.

could be, i know its written sinowjew in my country instead of zinoviev, but then again here its trotzki and not trosky.

[Imposter Marxist]

i think Sinowjew is Zinoviev.

Is that a misspelling or some type of prejudice? O.o

[Jose Gracchus]

Because MLs tend to be exceptionally poorly educated in basic history, and insist on making quasi-theological arguments in the form of endless recitations. Note the inability to accept any source not published before 1956 or not within their cults. I think most probably suffer from personal psychological or social pathologies.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Is that a misspelling or some type of prejudice? O.o


im actually not going to count that as a possibility. it was a trotskyite that posted it. and anyone who is a trot or a leninist is not anti-semetic.

if a trot attacks the soviet union on jewish party leadership or membership, then why are they a trot? trotsky was himself jewish.

so, no, i dont think it is some kind of prejudicial attack on the soviet union. '


remember, the "J" in basically germany eastwards represents a "y" like sound. "Majakovskij" for example is "Mayakovsky"

also, W commonly represents a "v" like sound.

[Тачанка]

Sorry for using the german form of the russian names, LOL, laughed at myself about "sinowJEW"

[CommieTroll]

Because we're right

I thought we were left :L

[JustMovement]

I think most probably suffer from personal psychological or social pathologies.

How the hell is this a useful contribution. Are you aware that the communist movement numerically is still dominated by MLs, and has been historically?

[caramelpence]

How the hell is this a useful contribution. Are you aware that the communist movement numerically is still dominated by MLs, and has been historically?

I think The Inform Candidate actually got it right on the mark. "Marxism-Leninism" has historically been characterized by a total aversion to theory (an attitude of anti-intellectualism, in other words) and those who identify as Marxist-Leninists on this site tend to exhibit gross ignorance of history and the Marxist tradition. One historical manifestation of this that was by no means limited to the Maoist tradition but still reflects hostility towards theory and intellectuals was the decision of many Maoist groups in the First World to send their student and middle-class members into factory occupations in the belief that this would allow them to intervene at the point of production and cast off their allegedly bourgeois prejudices. I also find it incredible that so many Maoists on this site and in actual real-world organizations can argue that Mao made a real contribution to revolutionary theory by emphasizing the dangers of capitalist restoration and the continuation of class struggle under socialism - not only because this alleged contribution dispenses with the issue of whether China was socialist in the 1960s and 70s but also because Mao never actually provided a theoretically developed or empirically supported account of what causes "capitalist roaders" to emerge under socialism and whether these roaders are conscious or unconscious in their support for the restoration of capitalism. To this day, I have never seen an account of how capitalism was supposedly restored in the Soviet Union and China in 1956 and 1978 that does not rely on absurd assertions of conspiracy or a Great Man version of history in which socialism is essentially dependent on a single leader staying alive.

[RedSunRising]

To this day, I have never seen an account of how capitalism was supposedly restored in the Soviet Union and China in 1956 and 1978 that does not rely on absurd assertions of conspiracy or a Great Man version of history in which socialism is essentially dependent on a single leader staying alive.

Than you havent been looking very hard.

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

http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html

[Spawn of Stalin]

I also find it incredible that so many Maoists on this site and in actual real-world organizations can argue that Mao made a real contribution to revolutionary theory by emphasizing the dangers of capitalist restoration and the continuation of class struggle under socialismIf you look at how ANY Maoist party operates in comparison to traditional Leninist, Trotskyist, or even Marxist-Leninist groups, you will understand that Mao quite clearly did make a theoretical contribution much larger than you would have it appear

[Spawn of Stalin]

To this day, I have never seen an account of how capitalism was supposedly restored in the Soviet Union and China in 1956 and 1978 that does not rely on absurd assertions of conspiracy or a Great Man version of history in which socialism is essentially dependent on a single leader staying alive.
Conspiracy is a dirty word, I have no idea why, there quite clearly WAS a conspiracy to restore capitalism in both of these countries. You can not possibly ask for an explanation of something, then dismiss it solely on the grounds that it relies on the existence of a conspiracy or just because you do not like it

[Blake's Baby]

The hostility to Marxist-Leninism comes from those of us who use the so-called 'meaningless' term Stalinism to refer to the theory of Socialism in One Country, which many of the rest of us consider to have been probably the biggest single betrayal of the workers' movement since the Social-Patriots joined their own bourgeoisies in 1914.

while I'm quite aware that there are a great many things that were wrong with the Bolsheviks and the revolution before this point, the adoption of Socialism in One Country marks the death of the Comintern.

For some of us at least there's no way back across that Rubicon. If you support the theory of 'Socialism One Country' you have sided with those who betrayed the working class whether you consider yourself a Marxist-Leninist, a Maoist, a Hoxhaist, a Castroist or whatever. Marxist-Leninism is a poisonous ideology that destroys proletarian internationalism and leads to massacres of the working class.

[RedSunRising]

One historical manifestation of this that was by no means limited to the Maoist tradition but still reflects hostility towards theory and intellectuals was the decision of many Maoist groups in the First World to send their student and middle-class members into factory occupations in the belief that this would allow them to intervene at the point of production and cast off their allegedly bourgeois prejudices.

Just wow!

The idea that ordinary working people might have something to teach students is now anti-intellectual? Its pretty easy to read books and memorize things out of them, but the stuff that actually stays comes from experience, books are indeed useful for deepening and fully understanding that knowledge but on their own that mean much.

[caramelpence]

Than you havent been looking very hard.

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

http://www.marx2mao.com/Other/RCSU75.html

These articles do not include an account of how the changes they specify were able to take place, in terms of class forces, they merely point to economic reforms in Soviet society after Stalin's death.


If you look at how ANY Maoist party operates in comparison to traditional Leninist, Trotskyist, or even Marxist-Leninist groups, you will understand that Mao quite clearly did make a theoretical contribution much larger than you would have it appear

Specifics? In what ways did Maoist organizations prove innovative in their tactics and strategy? What commonalities did they exhibit?


Conspiracy is a dirty word, I have no idea why, there quite clearly WAS a conspiracy to restore capitalism in both of these countries

Okay, let's get into this issue, looking especially at China. The notion of a conspiracy generally means that participants in the conspiracy are aware of their objectives and exhibit considerable cunning, and this is important because it differs from the conceivable (and perhaps more plausible) argument that capitalist roaders are actually subjectively in favor of socialism but that they act in ways that ultimately aid capitalism and are supported by spontaneous tendencies that arise from the structure and basic relations of society itself - so just to be clear, you are alleging that there was a conspiracy in the full sense of the word, that there were individuals in the Chinese leadership who pretended to be socialists but actually consciously wanted to restore capitalism, rather than capitalist restoration being spontaneous in origin. In this case, who do you think the main capitalist roaders were in Chinese society in the 1970s, where is your evidence that they were consciously in favor of restoring capitalism, why was the Cultural Revolution unable to identify and remove them from power, and how were they able to carry out the restoration of capitalism without being faced with the mass resistance of the Chinese working class? If it is so clear, you should be able to answer these questions with relative ease.


The idea that ordinary working people might have something to teach students is now anti-intellectual?

Strawman, I didn't argue that, I argued that the policy of "colonization" was indicative of an underlying anti-intellectual impulse that disparaged theoretical analysis and reified a particular image of the working class based around physical labor.

[Тачанка]

As the sun was in deep red already; only little light came down on earth. The stalinists seemed safe, for night was their time to hunt for prey.

But then, a beacon of light, shining high from above: caramelpence.

As he crushed down, with thundering hooves, lighting hailing his appearence from the sky, he poured tiny, shiny stars into all dark corners of the planet, illumating every single place where a stalinist could hide.

And he saw that it was good, and he saw that the stalinists could no longer hide. They were exposed, their logical fallacies broken into tiny little pieces, failing to back any false account of history anymore.

As these dark creatures were exposed to the light, shining brighter than the sun, they turned into trotskyites and anarchists alike.

But there were some who could hide.

Hidden from the light, deep down underground, in the basement of their parents, there can be found, the type of stalinist known as RevLeft dwellers. From there, they continue to wage a holy war against revolutionary socialism up until this day. That was what my mother told me, anyways, she was always a senile type, since it was that in West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is where she spent most of her days, chillin out, maxin, relaxin all cool and all shootin sum b-ball outside of the school. If only we knew earlier, maybe we could have stopped her.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Specifics? In what ways did Maoist organizations prove innovative in their tactics and strategy? What commonalities did they exhibit?
New democracy, bloc of four classes, people's war, mass line, cultural revolution, these are unique to Maoism, do I really need to be telling you this or are you taking the piss?

Okay, let's get into this issue, looking especially at China. The notion of a conspiracy generally means that participants in the conspiracy are aware of their objectives and exhibit considerable cunning, and this is important because it differs from the conceivable (and perhaps more plausible) argument that capitalist roaders are actually subjectively in favor of socialism but that they act in ways that ultimately aid capitalism and are supported by spontaneous tendencies that arise from the structure and basic relations of society itself - so just to be clear, you are alleging that there was a conspiracy in the full sense of the word, that there were individuals in the Chinese leadership who pretended to be socialists but actually consciously wanted to restore capitalism, rather than capitalist restoration being spontaneous in origin. In this case, who do you think the main capitalist roaders were in Chinese society in the 1970s, where is your evidence that they were consciously in favor of restoring capitalism, why was the Cultural Revolution unable to identify and remove them from power, and how were they able to carry out the restoration of capitalism without being faced with the mass resistance of the Chinese working class? If it is so clear, you should be able to answer these questions with relative ease.
Nope, I'm not going to answer them because they are pointless and detract from the issue. My point was that dismissing an argument because it is based on what some people choose to view as a conspiracy theory is wrong. If you want to deny that there were people who set out to restore capitalism after Stalin died, after Mao died, then be my guest, it's ok. The reason I choose not to indulge Trotskyites (or many other people around here) anymore is because I have learned that most are not going to have their minds changed by even the most logical arguments.

[RedSunRising]

New democracy, bloc of four classes, people's war, mass line, cultural revolution, these are unique to Maoism, do I really need to be telling you this or are you taking the piss?


Just to add I think the focus on the capture of state by means of protracted armed struggle is also an important difference between Maoists and most other tendencies, however this is shared by Marxist-Leninists in Turkey as well as the FARC in Columbia I admit. Also seeing subjective factors as important as objective ones and understanding the dialectial unity between the two.

New Democracy and the Block of Four classes are seen as measures of real politic though its true that we have more trust in the revolutionary of the poor peasantry and tribals than most Marxists.

[caramelpence]

New democracy, bloc of four classes, people's war, mass line, cultural revolution, these are unique to Maoism, do I really need to be telling you this or are you taking the piss?

I call into question whether these supposedly unique theoretical contributions are valuable or unique to Maoism. I've already pointed out that "cultural revolution" (or as I put it the continuation of class struggle under socialism) can hardly be regarded as a meaningful theoretical contribution because Mao never provided an account of where capitalist roaders come from and I've never seen a Maoist account of why these capitalist roaders triumphed despite the Cultural Revolution and what could have been done differently to ensure the victory of socialism in China - I would also argue that Mao's actual role in the Cultural Revolution involved restraining the scope of political and social conflict and ultimately calling on the PLA to restore order, which suggests that, if cultural revolution can be seen as a genuine theoretical insight, there was a break between his theoretical advocacy of mass mobilization and his concrete behavior as a leading figure within the state bureaucracy. As for the other points you mentioned, it is in the first place hard to see how concepts like New Democracy and people's war can be extended beyond the Third World, or indeed the immediate context of China in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, where, on Mao's own account, there were particular factors that favored the success of the CPC, and I also question whether these concepts can be seen as useful additions to the Marxist tradition, even if they do have broader applicability. New Democracy, for example, is based on the false premise that China was still a semi-feudal society and that this is an appropriate description for certain countries today, and it also includes the assumption that it is possible and useful to distinguish between the national and comprador sections of the bourgeoisie, and that there can ever be a set of common interests between the working class and any section of the bourgeoisie. In analytical and strategic terms, I find permanent revolution to be a much more effective approach to the societies of the Third World.


Nope, I'm not going to answer them because they are pointless and detract from the issue.

If you're not willing to even name the main capitalist roaders in China in the 1970s, let alone provide evidence that they were consciously seeking to restore capitalism, then you shouldn't have asserted that there was "clearly" a conspiracy against Mao and socialism. In any case, if you can't deal with the issues at hand, then I have no choice but to assume that you can't defend your political positions.


Just to add I think the focus on the capture of state by means of protracted armed struggle is also an important difference between Maoists and most other tendencies,

Why, then, did the CPC support the PKI subordinating itself to the Indonesian state, and why did the PRC under Mao so often support bourgeois governments in the Third World, including Pinochet? Moreover, what exactly would "protracted armed struggle" look like in heavily urbanized societies?

[Spawn of Stalin]

I call into question whether these supposedly unique theoretical contributions are valuable or unique to Maoism. I've already pointed out that "cultural revolution" (or as I put it the continuation of class struggle under socialism) can hardly be regarded as a meaningful theoretical contribution because Mao never provided an account of where capitalist roaders come from and I've never seen a Maoist account of why these capitalist roaders triumphed despite the Cultural Revolution and what could have been done differently to ensure the victory of socialism in China - I would also argue that Mao's actual role in the Cultural Revolution involved restraining the scope of political and social conflict and ultimately calling on the PLA to restore order, which suggests that, if cultural revolution can be seen as a genuine theoretical insight, there was a break between his theoretical advocacy of mass mobilization and his concrete behavior as a leading figure within the state bureaucracy. As for the other points you mentioned, it is in the first place hard to see how concepts like New Democracy and people's war can be extended beyond the Third World, or indeed the immediate context of China in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, where, on Mao's own account, there were particular factors that favored the success of the CPC, and I also question whether these concepts can be seen as useful additions to the Marxist tradition, even if they do have broader applicability. New Democracy, for example, is based on the false premise that China was still a semi-feudal society and that this is an appropriate description for certain countries today, and it also includes the assumption that it is possible and useful to distinguish between the national and comprador sections of the bourgeoisie, and that there can ever be a set of common interests between the working class and any section of the bourgeoisie. In analytical and strategic terms, I find permanent revolution to be a much more effective approach to the societies of the Third World.

Whether or not they are useful has nothing to do with the question, it doesn't matter that you say they are of no use outside of the third world, you are straying way of topic. You claim these qualities are not unique, that's up to YOU to prove. So get up off your intellectual posturing and just back up your original point, which was.....


I also find it incredible that so many Maoists on this site and in actual real-world organizations can argue that Mao made a real contribution to revolutionary theory

You were saying?


If you're not willing to even name the main capitalist roaders in China in the 1970s, let alone provide evidence that they were consciously seeking to restore capitalism, then you shouldn't have asserted that there was "clearly" a conspiracy against Mao and socialism. In any case, if you can't deal with the issues at hand, then I have no choice but to assume that you can't defend your political positions.:crying::crying::crying::crying::crying: :crying::crying::crying::crying::crying:

I'm hurt

The issue at hand is what people have against Marxist-Leninists....nothing to do with Chinese history. If I feel like having a debate with you on this subject, I will do it in the appropriate thread. But think what you like, that's ok.

[Mettalian]

I identify as an anarcho-communist, however i'm not opposed to using the state as a catalyst for communist movement. It's just the mistakes made and the human rights violations committed, not by the Soviet Union as a whole, but in certain instances that make me hesitant to embrace the ideology. But I'm, admittedly, not that knowledgable about how the Soviet Union REALLY was, since I only grew up with the anti-soviet western media, so if anyone wants to give me a brief education, be my guest.

[caramelpence]

Whether or not they are useful has nothing to do with the question, it doesn't matter that you say they are of no use outside of the third world, you are straying way of topic. You claim these qualities are not unique, that's up to YOU to prove. So get up off your intellectual posturing and just back up your original point, which was.....

The usefulness or complexity of the points you mentioned is bound up with whether they are original theoretical contributions because if ideas like cultural revolution never attained the status of developed theories or arguments but were just sets of slogans or idioms then it's difficult to see why they should be viewed as theoretical contributions at all, even if Mao was original in his usage and repetition of those slogans and idioms. I mean, there were plenty of political leaders who were original in coming up with new slogans, but that doesn't mean they should be seen as theoreticians. As we've seen, even you, as someone who supports Mao and has the benefit of hindsight when it comes to the alleged restoration of capitalism in China, can't provide a developed account of why the cultural revolution was necessary or why capitalism was able to triumph in China despite the cultural revolution. In any case, I still hold that the points you mentioned are hardly original to Mao. To say that Mao was original in developing the concept of people's war, for example, ignores that military thinking and the use of military rhetoric was widespread in China during the late Qing and Republic, as exemplified by thinkers such as Zou Rong, and it also ignores that when the CPC found itself in the countryside Mao was only one of several military leaders and he was by no means the only leader to consider how the CPC might harness popular mobilization to aid its military efforts.

The concept of New Democracy has clear parallels in earlier Marxist thinking in both China and Russia. Li Dazhao was the first Chinese Marxist to argue that there were classes other than the working class in China that were exploited and which would be able to play a revolutionary role - he characterized China as a "proletarian nation" and also anticipated Mao in grasping the potential of the peasantry, at as a time when the main body of Marxist thought in China and Chen Duxiu in particular rejected any possibility that the peasantry would have more than a supporting role in a future revolution. It is also possible to draw a conceptual link between New Democracy and Lenin's concept of the Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry as in both cases there is an assumption that societies like China and Russia would need to have an extended period of non-socialist development and that they would experience this period under the political rule of a broad class coalition. Mao's own essay On New Democracy, written in 1940, indicates that the immediate stimulus for his elaboration of the concept was Sun Yat-sen and his Three People's Principles, as, on Mao's own account, these principles would form the basis of the economy and government during the New Democratic period.

Whilst I don't think that Mao was either original or valuable as a theorist, I am perfectly happy to recognize him as a brilliant analyst of Chinese rural society (I doubt that you or any of the other Stalinists on this board have read his 1930 Report from Xunwu, but you should) and military tactician. I'm quite partial to Bordiga's characterization of him as the last bourgeois romantic revolutionary.


The issue at hand is what people have against Marxist-Leninists....nothing to do with Chinese history.

The fact that you can't describe or explain how capitalism was restored in China is directly tied to what myself and others have identified as one of our main problems with "Marxist-Leninists", namely their anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual attitudes and overall lack of knowledge.

[RedSunRising]

The fact that you can't describe or explain how capitalism was restored in China is directly tied to what myself and others have identified as one of our main problems with "Marxist-Leninists", namely their anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual attitudes and overall lack of knowledge.

You have fundamental lack of understanding of why working class people like Spawn of Stalin, not to mention millions other proles and poor peasants globally turn to "Stalinism" and "Maoism", when you comprehend that than you might have a chance of actually understanding us.

[caramelpence]

You have fundamental lack of understanding of why working class people like Spawn of Stalin, not to mention millions other proles and poor peasants globally turn to "Stalinism" and "Maoism", when you comprehend that than you might have a chance of actually understanding us.

"Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

Hopefully one day I will have the faith :crying:

[JoeySteel]

lol "their anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual attitudes and overall lack of knowledge" damn too bad us proletarians dont have as much time to read as you do cause we working. I do try though :(

love to know how the correct pro-theoretical and pro-intellectual attitude and overall great amount of knowledge is doing with that whole revolution thing. if only you could have exposed _all_ the great revolutionaries of history with your superior knowledge. the masses would be greatful.

[Jose Gracchus]

How the hell is this a useful contribution. Are you aware that the communist movement numerically is still dominated by MLs, and has been historically?

To be fair, MLs outside the U.S. might just be the tired adherents of gerontocratic reenactment societies and labor bureaucracies, and the attendant mythologies that go along with it. In the U.S., and most of the Anglosphere, "official Communism" has never been anything but a small sect, and there's no intelligible motivations aside from ignorance and an attraction for radical chic and contrarianism to justify joining a ML group here.

All the MLs I've met are students who have a need to be perceived as "doing" something. Much effort is expended for what are essentially purposeless, unsuccessful acts of self-indulgent self-righteousness. The entire organized left in the U.S. tends to be middle class in content, with a few exceptions here and there. I don't remember the last time one made a meaningful or insightful contribution to theory and understanding, in fact, their commitment to a dead movement of apologia for crimes against the working class leads them to commit much of their time to merely apologizing for whatever group of substitutionist statists they look up to today. I mean of what value possibly could the ML fixation in the West with defending Zimbabwe and Mugabe in their papers actually have? There's this fixation with welfarism and moralism, connected to a self-righteousness for having "supported" the right "side" from a computer ten thousand miles away.

I find all of that hard to understand from the point of view of a balanced and rational person.

[Rusty Shackleford]

To be fair, MLs outside the U.S. might just be the tired adherents of gerontocratic reenactment societies and labor bureaucracies, and the attendant mythologies that go along with it. In the U.S., and most of the Anglosphere, "official Communism" has never been anything but a small sect, and there's no intelligible motivations aside from ignorance and an attraction for radical chic and contrarianism to justify joining a ML group here.

All the MLs I've met are students who have a need to be perceived as "doing" something. Much effort is expended for what are essentially purposeless, unsuccessful acts of self-indulgent self-righteousness. The entire organized left in the U.S. tends to be middle class in content, with a few exceptions here and there. I don't remember the last time one made a meaningful or insightful contribution to theory and understanding, in fact, their commitment to a dead movement of apologia for crimes against the working class leads them to commit much of their time to merely apologizing for whatever group of substitutionist statists they look up to today. I mean of what value possibly could the ML fixation in the West with defending Zimbabwe and Mugabe in their papers actually have? There's this fixation with welfarism and moralism, connected to a self-righteousness for having "supported" the right "side" from a computer ten thousand miles away.

I find all of that hard to understand from the point of view of a balanced and rational person.


almost every point in this post could be just as easily be made into an attack on Anarchists in the west. change a few words and names. bada bing bada boom you are now critiquing anarkiddies.

[Jose Gracchus]

That's actually true, I mean I did say the "entire organized left." I don't think activism and organizing is totally pointless but I kind of agree with the leftcoms that if this doesn't emerge organically out of class struggles you will always end up with dysfunction, whether its mostly middle class kids calling themselves "anarchists", "MLs", or "Trotskyists".

It may be just down to personal experience in activism locally, which left a very bad taste in my mouth.

[black magick hustla]

lol "their anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual attitudes and overall lack of knowledge" damn too bad us proletarians dont have as much time to read as you do cause we working. I do try though :(

love to know how the correct pro-theoretical and pro-intellectual attitude and overall great amount of knowledge is doing with that whole revolution thing. if only you could have exposed _all_ the great revolutionaries of history with your superior knowledge. the masses would be greatful.

you are such a pinhead. the most sophisticated communists ive met didnt go to college. there is a strong tradition in the revolutionary working class for self education, no need to do the stupid anti intellectual posturing, stalin jr.

[RedSunRising]

you are such a pinhead. the most sophisticated communists ive met didnt go to college. there is a strong tradition in the revolutionary working class for self education, no need to do the stupid anti intellectual posturing, stalin jr.

Where was the anti-intellectual posturing?

Self criticism....When I leave the neurosis of my boss often I let out aggression on the internet or read novels or plays or poetry rather than political theory because I feel I get enough political theory from the horrid reality confronting me. The fact is though that the fact that Maoists are not the most amazing well read tendency on this forum has to do with maybe the fact that most of us didnt go to university? Just maybe?

[black magick hustla]

You have fundamental lack of understanding of why working class people like Spawn of Stalin, not to mention millions other proles and poor peasants globally turn to "Stalinism" and "Maoism", when you comprehend that than you might have a chance of actually understanding us.

i think the reason why spawn of stalin became a stalinist bonehead is different than "the millions of proles and poor peasants" that tailed official communism. spawn of stalin is in canada, where official communism are sects. he had to do a conscious effort to like stalin and think that everything against stalin is a bourgeois lie. in countries where there is real official communism, official communism is just a faction of the boss class, and the dominant ideas are always the ones of the boss class. furthermore, western stalinists have absorbed more theory and abstractions in order to justify their dumb beliefs or whatever, while in the real world proles and peasants who are "stalinists" are more similar to average people who are democrats or republicans.

[black magick hustla]

Where was the anti-intellectual posturing?

Self criticism....When I leave the neurosis of my boss often I let out aggression on the internet or read novels or plays or poetry rather than political theory because I feel I get enough political theory from the horrid reality confronting me. The fact is though that the fact that Maoists are not the most amazing well read tendency on this forum has to do with maybe the fact that most of us didnt go to university? Just maybe?

i bet that there are more college maoists in the west than college trotskyists, this is entirely anecdotal, but at least the trotskyists had some sort of industrial prescence, maoists had nil

[black magick hustla]

Where was the anti-intellectual posturing?

Self criticism....When I leave the neurosis of my boss often I let out aggression on the internet or read novels or plays or poetry rather than political theory because I feel I get enough political theory from the horrid reality confronting me. The fact is though that the fact that Maoists are not the most amazing well read tendency on this forum has to do with maybe the fact that most of us didnt go to university? Just maybe?

i dont read any political theory either, i mostly read poetry and science shit. but to say that maoists are unsophisticated because they didnt go to "college" is just a lie, considering that some of the main maoist cadre and the nuclei of what became larger maoist parties were college educated. (the first generation of naxalites)

[RedSunRising]

i dont read any political theory either, i mostly read poetry and science shit. but to say that maoists are unsophisticated because they didnt go to "college" is just a lie, considering that some of the main maoist cadre and the nuclei of what became larger maoist parties were college educated. (the first generation of naxalites)

The first generation leadership of Naxalites, yes, but not the vast majority of Naxalites. And yes a lot of the leaderships by force of circumstance are college educated, but that is not the base of the movement. In the newly formed Maoist group I belong two only two people out of ten have been to university and both are immigrants with very crap jobs. Education offers people a lot, its not something that I dismiss, I wish I had more of it.

[RedSunRising]

i bet that there are more college maoists in the west than college trotskyists, this is entirely anecdotal, but at least the trotskyists had some sort of industrial prescence, maoists had nil

Are there though?

Most Maoists in the west are third world immigrants.

[Spawn of Stalin]

The fact that you can't describe or explain how capitalism was restored in China is directly tied to what myself and others have identified as one of our main problems with "Marxist-Leninists", namely their anti-theoretical and anti-intellectual attitudes and overall lack of knowledge.
Like I said, it has nothing to do with me not being able to do anything, and I will happily discuss this in another topic or in private.


i think the reason why spawn of stalin became a stalinist bonehead is different than "the millions of proles and poor peasants" that tailed official communism. spawn of stalin is in canada, where official communism are sects. he had to do a conscious effort to like stalin and think that everything against stalin is a bourgeois lie.
No I am not in Canada and yes I would appreciate it if you would try not to refer to me as a bonehead, especially not when talking about me to somebody. You can prove your point in any number of ways but I do not appreciate being called names. Thank you.

Yes I did make the conscious decision to like Stalin based on things I had read and learned about the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism, but I would not exactly call it an effort. However after years of thinking like an anarchist, I had to open my mind a little and, but I still wouldn't say I made any attempt to find reasons to like him. I also reject your assumption that I think everything against Stalin is a bourgeois lie, I accept some critiques of Stalin, he did some things wrong. But I have never and will never trust statistics from blatantly bourgeois sources.

[Geiseric]

Are there though?

Most Maoists in the west are third world immigrants.

I'm calling for a source on that, I'm around alot of immigrants due to my community in San Fransisco, and i've never once met any Maoist immigrants. Most immigrants are largely reactionary since they've seen what the shithole "Communist" regimes have done to their countries like China and Vietnam.

Most maoists are middle class white kids, the only ones i've ever met have been middle class white kids. The same kids with Che on their shirt.

I'm working class, moms an electrician and dad's a plumber. I take the bus to football practice at my public school every day.

I would argue that most third world immigrants who are leftist turn out to be Zapatist or Trotskyist, the majority of my small group is compromised of Mexican Americans.


Like I said, it has nothing to do with me not being able to do anything, and I will happily discuss this in another topic or in private.


No I am not in Canada and yes I would appreciate it if you would try not to refer to me as a bonehead, especially not when talking about me to somebody. You can prove your point in any number of ways but I do not appreciate being called names. Thank you.

Yes I did make the conscious decision to like Stalin based on things I had read and learned about the Soviet Union and Marxism-Leninism, but I would not exactly call it an effort. However after years of thinking like an anarchist, I had to open my mind a little and, but I still wouldn't say I made any attempt to find reasons to like him. I also reject your assumption that I think everything against Stalin is a bourgeois lie, I accept some critiques of Stalin, he did some things wrong. But I have never and will never trust statistics from blatantly bourgeois sources.

What's a critique of Stalin that you accept?

[RedSunRising]

I'm calling for a source on that, I'm around alot of immigrants due to my community in San Fransisco, and i've never once met any Maoist immigrants. Most immigrants are largely reactionary since they've seen what the shithole "Communist" regimes have done to their countries like China and Vietnam.

Most maoists are middle class white kids, the only ones i've ever met have been middle class white kids. The same kids with Che on their shirt.

I'm working class, moms an electrician and dad's a plumber. I take the bus to football practice at my public school every day.



I have experience and not a source. Most Maoists in the west as seen at May Day marches in London are from Turkey, Peru or otherwise third world nations, a lot keep their politics largely to themselves. Maoists are not that overly gone with Che so I dont know where you are coming from there...Also Maoist organization in the USA outside of the Black Nation barely exists so again what you say is weird.

[Geiseric]

Ok fair enough, you're talking about Europe and I'm talking about the U.S. different circumstances I suppose.

However, doesn't change the fact that most Marxist Leninists, Maoist third worldists, and che tee shirt communists, in my experience are middle class kids rebelling against authority who don't have the balls to be Blac Bloc anarchists.

[RED DAVE]

Just wow!

The idea that ordinary working people might have something to teach students is now anti-intellectual? Its pretty easy to read books and memorize things out of them, but the stuff that actually stays comes from experience, books are indeed useful for deepening and fully understanding that knowledge but on their own that mean much.That wasn't the point. Having been a witness in two different unions as to what the Maoists were doing, it was just the opposite. Maoists went into the working class not to learn but, instantly and arrogantly, to lead. I saw this in a white collar and a blue collar union, where Maoists (Progressive Labor at the time), were constantly wavering between "giving the line" to the workers and "rapping" with them.

In the meantime, they were completely unable to develop any kind of meaningful program or ongoing organizations. It was pathetic.

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

Most Maoists in the United States are Black Nation revolutionary seperatists and not trendy lefties.

[RedSunRising]

That wasn't the point. Having been a witness in two different unions as to what the Maoists were doing, it was just the opposite. Maoists went into the working class not to learn but, instantly and arrogantly, to lead. I saw this in a white collar and a blue collar union, where Maoists (Progressive Labor at the time), were constantly wavering between "giving the line" to the workers and "rapping" with them.

In the meantime, they were completely unable to develop any kind of meaningful program or ongoing organizations. It was pathetic.



LOL...How have Trots worked out the Trade Unions in the United States?

Do Trots having anything approaching the League of Revolutionary Black Workers that they can show us?

[Fawkes]

The mistrust/hatred of MLs among anarchists and other non-ML communists is rooted in a long history of betrayal of the working class by various ML parties so as to sustain their own power. From the Red Army's slaughter of workers seeking autonomy and self-determination at Kronstadt to the Soviet Union's total betrayal of the Spanish working class resulting in Franco's rise to power, ML parties have time and time again fought against legitimate revolutionary forces as a means to secure their own power. Anarchists see MLs as a threat to a workers revolution because we recognize the blatant falsehood that is the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and recognize the impossibility of creating a stateless society through gaining control of the state.

[RED DAVE]

LOL...How have Trots worked out the Trade Unions in the United States?The IS organized groups in Teamster and Auto that still exist today. I was part of that effort.


Do Trots having anything approaching the League of Revolutionary Black Workers that they can show us?The, LRB, which I worked with, unfortunately did not take root, partially because it was destroyed by the pigs.

Learn your history before you run your mouth.

RED DAVE

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

One day I hope there will be no more threads like this. They never lead to any constructive discussion. It's sectarian shitfest from page one.

[Geiseric]

LOL...How have Trots worked out the Trade Unions in the United States?

Do Trots having anything approaching the League of Revolutionary Black Workers that they can show us?

the trotskyist who's the de facto leader of my group is on the San Fransisco board of labor.

[L.A.P.]

Stalin. What a nice smile you have. But there's someone looking down from above, an old man you've probably already forgotten, since you've spit on his grave back then and many more times through you being the leading figure of the bureaocracy, the symbol of what has become of the worker's state.

Does he smile?

Even though Lenin and Trotsky also deserve responsibility for the establishment of bureaucracy ever since the banning of factions within the party and the suppression of the Kronsadt rebellion, which your beloved Trotsky led, consolidating this bureaucratic system. The blame should go to everyone and their several mistakes made during the revolution for the establishment of bureaucracy in the Bolsheviks instead of just simplifying it by saying "STALIN BETRAYED TEH REVOLUTION! RAAAGE!". Plus, many of the prominent bureaucrats that rose in power of the party such as the Marshal of the Soviet Union (Mikhail Tukhachevsky) were purged by Stalin. And although he definitely didn't disestablish the bureaucracy, the Great Purge gave them hell for the time being.

[RedSunRising]

the trotskyist who's the de facto leader of my group is on the San Fransisco board of labor.

Yeah a lot of people join Trot groups to claim up the ladder of TU parasites...sorry bureaucrats.

[Pretty Flaco]

I don't think I can think of a lot of examples of when Marxist-Leninists in power DIDN'T betray the working class. In fact, their seizure of power often meant a betrayal to real people's power.

[RedSunRising]

The, LRB, which I worked with, unfortunately did not take root, partially because it was destroyed by the pigs.

Learn your history before you run your mouth.

RED DAVE

What is underlined I find impossible to believe, but yes like the BPP the LRBW suffered serious repression. Seemed to happen to Maoists in the USA.

[JoeySteel]

love the western anticommunist narrative up in here. the experience of millions of revolutionaries in building socialism under siege across an expanse of the globe for decades perfectly synthesized: teh evil marxist leninists betrayed everything.

[pranabjyoti]

I don't think I can think of a lot of examples of when Marxist-Leninists in power DIDN'T betray the working class. In fact, their seizure of power often meant a betrayal to real people's power.
Because the anarchs are just unable to even seize power and set an example of "people's power". Actually, the word "peoples power" is sufficient to show their true class character. Every real revolutionary should say about "workers power" than "peoples power". Most of the "people" are basically petty-bourgeoisie by class and power to them means destruction and defeat ultimately.

[RED DAVE]

love the western anticommunist narrative up in here. the experience of millions of revolutionaries in building socialism under siege across an expanse of the globe for decades perfectly synthesized: teh evil marxist leninists betrayed everything.Well, then, how do you explain that this so-called socialism became capitalism without a mass rising of the workers to defend their interests, led by marxist-leninists?

Or did the capitalists just hire David Copperfield to make socialism disappear and capitalism appear in its place?

Considering that a one point "socialism," led by MLs, was established in the USSR, all of Eastern Europe, Mongolia, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, etc., that was a pretty good trick.

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

Well, then, how do you explain that this so-called socialism became capitalism without a mass rising of the workers to defend their interests, led by marxist-leninists?

Or did the capitalists just hire David Copperfield to make socialism disappear and capitalism appear in its place?

RED DAVE

There were revolts however you have to take into account the effects of the great patriotic war in which the USSR nearly perished.

Where were the revolts when Trotsky got pushed out outside of a nasty no warning bombing campaign carried with fascists?

[pranabjyoti]

Well, then, how do you explain that this so-called socialism became capitalism without a mass rising of the workers to defend their interests, led by marxist-leninists?

Or did the capitalists just hire David Copperfield to make socialism disappear and capitalism appear in its place?

RED DAVE
Repeatedly explained again and again. Don't want to repeat it that in most of those countries, the condition to establish "workers control" just don't exist. First, they have to overthrow the old feudal remains. Moreover, you just forgot imperialist attacks and bloodshed.

[DaringMehring]

Of course, anarchists (who don't accept Marx) and left-communists (who don't accept Lenin) would be against Marxism-Leninism, so the question is about pro-Bolshevik I suppose.

Historically, anti-Marxist-Leninist pro-Leninism traces from the 20s-30s, when the Stalin faction won control of the USSR CP, then expelled and ultimately physically destroyed the opposition. During this period all kinds of objectionable politics drove people into opposition, but at the same time, the politics were so scattered (eg supporting the right program against the Left Opposition, then expelling the rights and enacting the program of the just-expelled lefts) that it probably wasn't so much the politics, as the manner of politics that first built anti-ML pro-Leninism. The official line was jerking around a lot so you had to 1) be willing to follow the line despite big changes, ie put loyalty above political content, 2) accept slaughtering, harassing those who did not -- otherwise you'd end up expelled. Most of the first pro-Lenin oppositionists were expelled former CP members, eg Lovestone, Gitlow, and Cannon in the USA.

Having struck this blow against dissent, the M-L USSR then developed policies that worked with non-socialist countries in realpolitik. By that point workers democracy and in-Party democracy were a joke. The Sino-Soviet split happened and the Maoists broke away, calling the USSR state capitalist, revisionist, and Social Imperialist.

Still, M-Ls had to remain loyal and obedient. Even through the stagnation, degeneration, and eventual collapse of the USSR. This final collapse must have come as a horror for those who, thinking they were upholding the socialist USSR, actually shielded it from accountability and helped preserve the rotten anti-democracy that disempowered the proletariat and led to the fall. I've never seen an M-L group with any analysis of the fall of the USSR that didn't look like an attempt to cover up for their own mistakes. Nonetheless, I have sympathy for M-Ls in that, to their mind, they were standing up for the USSR even though it was imperfect, because it was superior to capitalism -- which was correct, but, they simply failed to see that being superior to capitalism does not mean you are functioning socialism or on the right path to socialism or anything like that.

When it comes to today, I think many people are hostile to M-Ls based on stereotypes (where off-the-top hostility usually comes from) because it is assumed:

1) M-Ls believed in the Soviet bureaucracy and don't really care about workers' democracy
2) M-Ls believe in realpolitik and supporting strongmen who make left-sounding or anti-US noises
3) M-Ls believe in murdering their opposition, and that anyone who holds different opinions is to be counted in that category

Of course none of these are necessarily true for a given M-L.

[RED DAVE]

What is underlined I find impossible to believe, but yes like the BPP the LRBW suffered serious repression. Seemed to happen to Maoists in the USA.From what I witnessed inside the utrade unions inside the United States, the Maoists didn't need the cops to defeat them. They did it to themselves by their shitty elitist politics.

In one jolly episode I was involved in, the Maoists were the leadership of an opposition caucus in a union. When they began to lose control of that caucus to another political faction, they destroyed the caucus by calling the entire membership and declaring it was dissolved! (PS, it was rapidly reconstituted without them.)

RED DAVE

[Property Is Robbery]

Seriously I have been noticing some members of the online community have a real hatred of the ML tradition and even its members ....why exactly ??

Note ..if this turns into a massive tendency trolling and someone is banned again I will request a suspension from the Admins.
Because historically Marxist-Leninism has been a dictatorship of bureaucracy instead of a DOTP

[Property Is Robbery]

Because the anarchs are just unable to even seize power and set an example of "people's power"
They've been able to seize power before but the Bolsheviks overthrew them because they were a threat (note I'm not an anarchist you're just wrong)

[Pretty Flaco]

Because the anarchs are just unable to even seize power and set an example of "people's power". Actually, the word "peoples power" is sufficient to show their true class character. Every real revolutionary should say about "workers power" than "peoples power". Most of the "people" are basically petty-bourgeoisie by class and power to them means destruction and defeat ultimately.

I'm not an anarchist. When I said people, I meant PEOPLE as in normal people. Not well to do or rich capitalists.
All marxist-leninist governments have worked for self preservation and not socialism. I don't have power just because some party nationalized everything and make small social reforms. People like us won't have power until the power is collective.

[JoeySteel]

red dave, your experience is great but i know enough maoists leading trade unions struggles today who are not elitist. just because you met some maoists who you thought were elitists doesn't change the fact that maoists have been involved in trade unions... since mao, and are not pathological elitists as a rule. and the fact that some maoists may have had bad methods in revolutionary organizing in their shops in the 1970s in the USA of all places doesn't mean that much.

[RED DAVE]

red dave, your experience is great but i know enough maoists leading trade unions struggles today who are not elitist.Thanx. The point I am trying to make is that there is no ongoing Maoist trade union presence in the US. If there is elsewhere, let us know about it, seriously. I'm not trying to score debating points here.


just because you met some maoists who you thought were elitists doesn't change the fact that maoists have been involved in trade unions... since mao, and are not pathological elitists as a rule.In the US, we have the examples of Progressive Labor, which morphed into something someone described as "stalinist anarchists" and the RCP, which is a cult of peersonality. Neither of them have any trade union presence. There have been some individuals from the RCP who worked in the UMW, but the group as a whole has never been able to gain any traction at all.

If you have any counter-examples, especially in the US, please let us know.

RED DAVE

[Broletariat]

Of course, anarchists (who don't accept Marx) and left-communists (who don't accept Lenin)

Left Communists basically love Lenin from what I gather. Outside of the national question.

[JoeySteel]

lol. I didn't claim there was significant maoist organizing in any workplaces or unions in the US. If I knew about it I certainly couldn't post such a thing online...

[Coach Trotsky]

Yeah a lot of people join Trot groups to claim up the ladder of TU parasites...sorry bureaucrats.

Have to agree with you on this one. Today's "Trots" can be just as much sorry sellout bureaucrats as their pseudo-Marxist cousins, the Social Dems and Stalinists.

Earlier, someone said that at least modern-day "Trots" had an "industrial presence" Okay, great...TO DO WHAT THERE? RedSunRising is right on this point...too many "Trots" gave up and sold out in order to get up the ladder in the union bureaucracy, in academic circles, and to "unite the Left" (and then conveniently forget all about the political struggle and revolutionary regeneration effort they were supposed to be making). Where are the revolutionary and class struggle caucuses inside the unions? Where are the "Trots" today organizing the unorganized workers (especially the worse off, more precariously employed and most oppressed layers of the working class)? Hell, I've met many "Trots" in my life, but very few who took the Transitional Program very seriously and actually tried to apply it in their interventions in real world struggles. Ironically enough, Trotsky himself explicitly describes and criticizes the actual politics and practices of the later-day "Trots" right there in the Transitional Program, when he is calling out the Social Dems, Stalinists, Anarchists, POUMists, etc. Anyone who reads that Transitional Program written by Trotsky will recognize that he is criticizing exactly the sort of positions and behaviors that have come to charactarize most of "Trotskyism" in the modern era. Every "Trot" should hold up the Transitional Program up to their face (like a mirror), read it (again), and recognize 'holy shit, we've degenerated and ditched Trotskyism (and Leninism, and Marxism)...no wonder the Left is so screwed up, no wonder the working class has been in retreat and getting its ass generally kicked by our foes for decades!"

If the "Trots" cleaned their act up and took up the revolutionary politics and method of the Transitional Program, then they would be capable of winning. Frankly, I think many (but not all) of the degenerated cadres and their orgs are gone forever for revolutionary purposes, and we'll need new cadres from and new orgs within the working class to carry revolutionary socialism to victory through proletarian revolutions in all the nations of the world in the 21st century. Sellouts and misleaders beware---the working class is coming to the end of its patience with your inability to provide real answers, real solutions and real leadership toward victory; we are sick and tired of losing on your watch. The choice is between socialism and barbarism. Don't be THAT GUY who makes the wrong choice, because the workers won't be in the mood to listen to excuses and won't be merciful to those who turned on us.

[The Man]

And this, my friends, is why the left is going nowhere.. Look at us! We have been yelling at each other about this nonsense for the past 80 years!

[Geiseric]

We wouldnt be if the Stalinists and Maoists didnt purge so many of our ranks! And also after your guys states turned into capitalist ones!

[The Man]

We wouldnt be if the Stalinists and Maoists didnt purge so many of our ranks! And also after your guys states turned into capitalist ones!

This has nothing to do with the Great Purge. We are simply discussing the sectarian bias in multiple groups that critique the theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism. A thread could be literally about anything, from the history of Albania to thoughts on Pornography, and you always bring it down to Stalin.

Also, I am not saying that there is a problem with critiquing any sort of theory or system. The problem is how it comes down to physical violence at some points, and how sectarianism is ruining our multiple chances at creating a free world.

[CleverTitle]

Ugh. This is the worst.

[HEAD ICE]

the trotskyist who's the de facto leader of my group is on the San Fransisco board of labor.

bad example

[Coach Trotsky]

bad example

It was a bad example to argue from (left at what was provided), but it reveals the mentality of many latter day "Trots" (and much of the rest of the Left actually). Occupying a certain position in society's institutions or labor bureaucracies, getting elected or trying to get elected in bourgeois state elections(often by trying to act just like any other politician does), establishing some sort of Left-labor collaboration "unity"...this is treated as an achievement in itself. These are treated as if they were the aims themselves, instead of some tactical means for advancing struggle to
achieve our revolutionary socialist aims(anybody remember those?)

So you get a position, so you get elected, so you get some Left-labor unity of some sort...what then are you going to do?
Here's where too many Leftists of all sorts drop the ball.

[Manic Impressive]

urgh Trotskyists Leninists same shit different smell and just to make sure I'm not being sectarian fuck the anarchists and impossiblists as well

[RED DAVE]

lol.What's funny. It's practically a tragedy.


I didn't claim there was significant maoist organizing in any workplaces or unions in the US.You said:


i know enough maoists leading trade unions struggles today who are not elitist.And I was pointing out that even if this were true, it isn't true in the USA. (By the way, the Maoist-led union in Nepal has just split three ways according to the three factions in the Maoist party there, which is engaged in parliamentary maneuvering that would make a social democrat proud.)


If I knew about it I certainly couldn't post such a thing online...Please! As if you would be privy to information that the cops don't know.

RED DAVE

[caramelpence]

Like I said, it has nothing to do with me not being able to do anything, and I will happily discuss this in another topic or in private.

Fine, you can PM me, or better yet post in this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/glorious-anti-imperialist-t155172/index2.html) thread, where your mate pranabjyoti has gotten scared. In any case, you still haven't responded to the other points I raised concerning Mao's alleged unique theoretical contributions.


And this, my friends, is why the left is going nowhere.. Look at us! We have been yelling at each other about this nonsense for the past 80 years!

No, it's not, I know you and others may find aesthetically appealing to shout "unity!" over and over again as if all of the differences between Stalinists and revolutionaries are simply historical or consist of different views about the Russian Revolution, but these are real differences, concerning the very meaning of socialism, that deserve to be articulated and exposed through debate, and they are differences that have manifested themselves in the activity of Stalinist organizations throughout the world and long after the deaths of Stalin and Mao, e.g., the contemporary traitorous role of the Maoists in Nepal. I for one don't want "unity" with Stalinists, I want to see them isolated and exposed as the scum they are.

[manic expression]

I for one don't want "unity" with Stalinists, I want to see them isolated and exposed as the scum they are.
Then it is most clear that you are interested not in class struggle against the capitalists but in sectarian squabbles. If you really don't want to work with revolutionaries just because they disagree with you on historical questions, fine, but don't expect anyone to call it principled...because it is anything but.

[caramelpence]

Then it is most clear that you are interested not in class struggle against the capitalists but in sectarian squabbles. If you really don't want to work with revolutionaries just because they disagree with you on historical questions

Did you not read my post? I expressly rejected the claim that the only issues are stake concern historical questions. I said that the differences between Stalinists and revolutionaries are contemporary and involve differences over the very meaning of socialism. As for that being sectarian, I think this is an example of someone not knowing the meaning of the word. Sectarianism means putting the interests of a sect above the interests of the class as a whole and positioning oneself away from and above the class. From that standpoint, critiquing Stalinism is not sectarianism, instead, it's a matter of obligation for anyone who supports working-class self-emancipation, in light of the repeated acts of betrayal and repression that have been carried out by Stalinists over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st against working people.

[manic expression]

Did you not read my post? I expressly rejected the claim that the only issues are stake concern historical questions. I said that the differences between Stalinists and revolutionaries are contemporary and involve differences over the very meaning of socialism.
It's a false dichotomy drawn from historical questions. "Stalinist" has to do with supporting the USSR during a given period. So yes, it is about historical outlook, in spite of whatever rationalization you'd like to give.

And furthermore, let's say that there are different meanings of socialism here...you'd let that get in the way of working with revolutionaries seeking to oppose and overturn capitalism? That's sectarianism, pure and simple, and it brings us to your next attempted rationalization...


As for that being sectarian, I think this is an example of someone not knowing the meaning of the word. Sectarianism means putting the interests of a sect above the interests of the class as a whole and positioning oneself away from and above the class. From that standpoint, critiquing Stalinism is not sectarianism, instead, it's a matter of obligation for anyone who supports working-class self-emancipation, in light of the repeated acts of betrayal and repression that have been carried out by Stalinists over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st against working people.
You're doing nothing BUT "positioning yourself away from and above the class". While working-class fighters are making progress, you sit there and scream "Stalinism!" at them instead of doing what any principled revolutionary would do: involve oneself in the struggles facing the workers today.

But it's so very telling that when you go into any sort of depth, the first thing off your keyboard is "the course of the 20th century and into the 21st". You're putting historical disagreements as your litmus test for whether or not you condemn working-class revolutionaries...which is exactly what you said you weren't doing.

[RedSunRising]

"Stalinists" have been the only serious revolutionary force for most of the 20 th century.

[RED DAVE]

"Stalinists" have been the only serious revolutionary force for most of the 20 th century.In the USA, they've been a bunch of sell-outs since about 1936 when they supported Roosevelt.

Everywhere else, Stalinism opens the door to capitalism: Russia, China, Vietnam, Nepal, Eastern Rurope

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

Red Dave leaves out the Weathermen and the Black Panther Party of course!

[caramelpence]

It's a false dichotomy drawn from historical questions. "Stalinist" has to do with supporting the USSR during a given period. So yes, it is about historical outlook, in spite of whatever rationalization you'd like to give.

You know as well as I do that when the terms "Stalinism" and "Stalinist" are used in discourse on the left they do not refer only to historical positions relating to the USSR during a certain time period but have a much broader meaning, and refer to all those who, from the viewpoint of Trotskyists and other groupings on the left, advocate a bureaucratic form of socialism that makes concessions to nationalism and cannot enable the working class to emancipate itself from capitalism. They are terms that are used to refer to various sub-groupings that might sometimes come into conflict with one another or might have superficial ideological differences, such as Maoists and pro-Soviet Stalinists. I'm not interested in uniting with these groups because their/your conception of socialism is something that conflicts with my most fundamental political and moral commitments and I'm therefore skeptical that working together or ignoring ideological differences would ever have productive consequences. When I say that the issue is not only one of historical disagreements I mean that the differences between Stalinists and revolutionaries do not only amount to disagreements over the rights and wrongs of Soviet foreign policy during the Second World War, in that Maoist organizations, for example, still exhibit the nationalism, opportunism, and rejection of democracy that we associate with the USSR in the 1930s and the entire history of Stalinism in China, Vietnam, and elsewhere. The historical record is relevant because this record tells us a great deal about the role of Stalinists in relation to the working class, but calling on the historical record as a source of evidence is different from saying that the issues and disagreements at stake are only of a historical nature. They are acutely contemporary because Stalinism is still alive and well.


Red Dave leaves out the Weathermen and the Black Panther Party of course!

Do you think the Weathermen - comprised as they were largely of university students, who you apparently despise, and emerging out of a student organization, SDS - are an instructive model for revolutionaries in the United States today? What do you make of the harsh critique of the WUO offered by the BPP? What do you make of the BPP's willingness to participate in the electoral process, something you have repeatedly condemned when it comes to Trotskyist organizations?


"Stalinists" have been the only serious revolutionary force for most of the 20 th century.

Yet you cannot offer an account of how or why capitalism was restored in China - which, as a Maoist, you presumably think was the only socialist state left in the 1970s - or why capitalism was restored in the USSR back in the 1950s.

[Blake's Baby]

So; we can see why there such a dislike for Stalinists, they applaud the massacre of the working class and call revolutionaries sectarians.

And no, wasn't reading your post, because he doesn't I'm afraid.

[The Man]

So; we can see why there such a dislike for Stalinists, they applaud the massacre of the working class and call revolutionaries sectarians.

And no, wasn't reading your post, because he doesn't I'm afraid.

I disagree to the utmost extent. The only reason that the Great Purge was initiated, was to dismantle various treasonous government officials, and treasonous military officers. Marxist-Leninists (And Maoists I might add) have been the only tendency that has been fighting for the majority of the 20th century, and all of the 21st century.

"Stalinists" have been the only group in the past 70 years that have been actively revolutionary, since '36 Spain. We have not applauded the massacre of the Working Class, but we have strengthened it in multiple countries.

[Blake's Baby]

Thank you for at least disagreeing politely to the utmost extent.

Stalinism has massacred the working class numerous times, and 'the Great Purge' is merely one small incident in the process. There is a mass of evidence and accounts of these events. If you do not chose to see, that is your business, if you think the revolution is built on the bodies of dead workers, that is your choice. But, don't expect the rest of us to think that your tendency has any place in the revolutionary movement.

There are other tendencies in the socialist movement older than yours who have been fighting longer. The SPGB for instance was founded in 1904, long before Stalinism (1927). The Left Communists we expelled from the parties of the Comintern from 1920, and they are still fighting. So not only is it untrue to say that only Stalinists fought (they did, but not for the revolution) it's also untrue to say that no-one else did.

[Jose Gracchus]

Most Maoists in the United States are Black Nation revolutionary seperatists and not trendy lefties.

Which is, full stop, political stupidity in the United States. Does trendy leftism that has no grounding in the real world become legitimate when its practiced by blacks?


Red Dave leaves out the Weathermen and the Black Panther Party of course!

Are you trying to be hilarious?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

First off, I think that we should stop using Marxist-Leninist as a synonym for Stalinist. Those who have actually understood the ideas of Marx and Lenin would not recognize Stalin as a genuine communist.

Tell us, Stalinists, who is the revisionist when Stalin's theory of socialism in one country goes so blatantly against the teachings of the founders of communism?


Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.
Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.
It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.
It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.


Tell us Stalinists, do genuine socialists issue decrees of banishment to entire nations?



http://cvgs.cu-portland.edu/history/AutonomousRepublic.cfm[/URL]"]The German invasion of the Soviet Union (known in the former U.S.S.R. as the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945) marked the end of the Volga German A.S.S.R. The Soviet government declared all Germans to be enemies of the state, which increased the persecution and fear of the Volga Germans among the general Russian populace. On August 28, 1941, Joseph Stalin issued a formal Decree of Banishment, which abolished the Volga German A.S.S.R. and exiled all Volga Germans to the Kazakh S.S.R. and Siberia.



Most Maoists in the west are third world immigrants.


The immigrant activists I have met from Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and Ethiopia are Trotskyists.

[Iraultzaile Ezkerreko]

Where was the anti-intellectual posturing?

Self criticism....When I leave the neurosis of my boss often I let out aggression on the internet or read novels or plays or poetry rather than political theory because I feel I get enough political theory from the horrid reality confronting me. The fact is though that the fact that Maoists are not the most amazing well read tendency on this forum has to do with maybe the fact that most of us didnt go to university? Just maybe?

This is such utter trash I can't believe it's coming out of the mouth of a "Marxist". Here's some history for you. In the US, the IWW set up several libraries from which workers could check out and read things such as "Capital" and other Marxist works. These libraries were always full of workers either leaving their shifts or heading to their shifts, engaging in intellectual exercise and self-education despite the fact that the oppression they suffered at the hands of the state and their employers merely for speaking, reading, and organizing was probably more than you'll ever experience. Self-education is one of the MOST IMPORTANT parts of being a Marxist, and this goes twice over for those of us who go to college and daily must battle with the misconceptions and false-interpretations of Marx which are taught in university. You don't go to university to become a Marxist and learn revolutionary theory, on the contrary, university exists for the purpose of giving bourgeois liberalism a radical chic cover and to completely and totally alter the meaning of Marxism. I have to battle with so-called-Marxist teachers every day, if you want to learn about Marxism you do it through self-education. The fact that some members on here have taken the time to invest in understanding and expanding their knowledge of revolutionary theory and history is not something to be derided with tropes about "college leftists", but is something to be examined logically, appreciated for the amount of work it takes to accumulate that knowledge, and then responded to in kind with well-reasoned arguments and research. If hobo's at the turn of the twentieth century could do it, I don't see why a supposedly class-conscious person with access to the internet and enough free-time to waste on RevLeft shouldn't be able to.

[Rooster]

various treasonous government officials

Such as all the surviving old Bolsheviks? :confused:

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Such as all the surviving old Bolsheviks? :confused:

This ain't much of an argument, like people who played a role in the original revolution couldn't possibly have become corrupted after over a decade? Deng Xiaoping was an "old Bolshevik" so to speak wasn't he but look how he turned out.

Plus the same thing happened in the French Revolution and there's also the fact that there were plenty of old Bolsheviks who weren't killed

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Tell us, Stalinists, who is the revisionist when Stalin's theory of socialism in one country goes so blatantly against the teachings of the founders of communism?

Marx and Engels theorised in the 19th century how things might go. Reality in the 20th century said otherwise. You think Stalin should've gone on some massive military conquest around the world or something? Stalin always made clear that the "final victory of socialism" was only possible on a worldwide scale anyway.



Tell us Stalinists, do genuine socialists issue decrees of banishment to entire nations?



On the deportations - http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=5042





The immigrant activists I have met from Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and Ethiopia are Trotskyists.

Whatever your personal experience is it's a fact that us "Stalinists" are the main communist force in the world.

[caramelpence]

This ain't much of an argument, like people who played a role in the original revolution couldn't possibly have become corrupted after over a decade? Deng Xiaoping was an "old Bolshevik" so to speak wasn't he but look how he turned out.

It's also pretty impressive that when Deng Xiaoping allegedly restored capitalism in China, or when, two years prior, the Gang of Four were arrested under Hua Guofeng, there wasn't mass resistance from the Chinese working class. Why do you think that was? In fact, there wasn't any kind of violent upheaval whatsoever, which suggests that a counter-revolution can take place simply through the arrest and imprisonment of a bunch of people at the top of a bureaucratic state - and that's a judgement that some would consider pretty problematic from a Marxist perspective, to say the least.


You think Stalin should've gone on some massive military conquest around the world or something?

No, Stalin should have supported a revolutionary strategy within the Comintern, which wouldn't have involved the CPC being subordinated to the KMT, for example. Of course, to say that Stalin could or should have done this rather than that carries the assumption that Stalin didn't adopt a revolutionary strategy in the Comintern because he was a bad guy or because of intellectual deficiencies - but as Trotsky correctly recognized, the deterioration of the Comintern along with the rest of the Soviet state had a material basis, and Stalin played the role that he did because he was the representative of an emerging bureaucratic class whose class interests were entirely distinct from those of the Soviet working class, rather than because of some more subjective factor. I don't think it would ever have been possible for Stalin to play a revolutionary role because that would have conflicted directly with the interests of the class of which he was a key member, and so the issue isn't that Trotskyists and other revolutionaries think that Stalin should have acted differently, or that people should have lobbied him, it's that we're conscious of why Stalin acted in the ways that he did and how any other individual would have been forced to act similarly if they had been placed in the same position and faced with the same material constraints and pressures.

[RED DAVE]

Red Dave leaves out the Weathermen and the Black Panther Party of course!Are you implying that either of these groups was Stalinist?

You could make a case that they were Maoists. I also would not recommend either one of them as a model revolutionary organization. The Panthers tried to base their revolutionary action on the lumpen proletariat. Them Weathermen tried, basically, rhetoric aside, to base it on themselves.

RED DAVE

[Marxach-Léinínach]

It's also pretty impressive that when Deng Xiaoping allegedly restored capitalism in China, or when, two years prior, the Gang of Four were arrested under Hua Guofeng, there wasn't mass resistance from the Chinese working class. Why do you think that was? In fact, there wasn't any kind of violent upheaval whatsoever, which suggests that a counter-revolution can take place simply through the arrest and imprisonment of a bunch of people at the top of a bureaucratic state - and that's a judgement that some would consider pretty problematic from a Marxist perspective, to say the least.

Political education in all the socialist states obviously left something to be desired. Leaders can push all kinds of things by promising "better living standards" and such if the people aren't too class conscious.

[RED DAVE]

I disagree to the utmost extent. The only reason that the Great Purge was initiated, was to dismantle various treasonous government officials, and treasonous military officers.That is a historical lie. Get over it. It's been discussed over and over again. If you want to start a thread on it, prepare to get your nose rubbed in it.


Marxist-Leninists (And Maoists I might add) have been the only tendency that has been fighting for the majority of the 20th century, and all of the 21st century.Yeah, the CPUSA was a real revolutionary group when it advocated the no-strike pledge during WWII. And if they've been such great revolutionaries, why is it that Russia and China are about the most virulent capitalist countries in the world right now? Who did that happen?


"Stalinists" have been the only group in the past 70 years that have been actively revolutionary, since '36 Spain. We have not applauded the massacre of the Working Class, but we have strengthened it in multiple countries.Dream on. For some people, denial is more than a river in Egypt.

RED DAVE

[The Man]

That is a historical lie. Get over it. It's been discussed over and over again. If you want to start a thread on it, prepare to get your nose rubbed in it.

Yeah, the CPUSA was a real revolutionary group when it advocated the no-strike pledge during WWII. And if they've been such great revolutionaries, why is it that Russia and China are about the most virulent capitalist countries in the world right now? Who did that happen?

Dream on. For some people, denial is more than a river in Egypt.

RED DAVE


So please, tell me what you think the Great Purge was about.

Russia and China are capitalist today because of revisionist reforms that occurred after Stalin and Mao died. For example, Khrushchev created the plan of 'De-Stalinization'.. and look how that went?

Stalin strengthened the USSR's economy and spread the revolution to China.

I don't understand what you mean by 'Dreaming On', or telling me that I am in 'denial'.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

No, Stalin should have supported a revolutionary strategy within the Comintern, which wouldn't have involved the CPC being subordinated to the KMT, for example. Of course, to say that Stalin could or should have done this rather than that carries the assumption that Stalin didn't adopt a revolutionary strategy in the Comintern because he was a bad guy or because of intellectual deficiencies - but as Trotsky correctly recognized, the deterioration of the Comintern along with the rest of the Soviet state had a material basis, and Stalin played the role that he did because he was the representative of an emerging bureaucratic class whose class interests were entirely distinct from those of the Soviet working class, rather than because of some more subjective factor. I don't think it would ever have been possible for Stalin to play a revolutionary role because that would have conflicted directly with the interests of the class of which he was a key member, and so the issue isn't that Trotskyists and other revolutionaries think that Stalin should have acted differently, or that people should have lobbied him, it's that we're conscious of why Stalin acted in the ways that he did and how any other individual would have been forced to act similarly if they had been placed in the same position and faced with the same material constraints and pressures.

That "emerging bureaucratic class" proved itself to be incredibly hostile to Stalin after his death did it not though? That's kinda strange if he was its representative and all. :rolleyes: As for his determination for only having socialism in one country he clearly wasn't very good at putting it into practice. Whatever mistakes he and the comintern made, by the end of his life as well as the USSR now Mongolia, North Korea, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, (arguably) Yugoslavia, Albania and East Germany were all taking the socialist road as well.

[The Man]

First off, I think that we should stop using Marxist-Leninist as a synonym for Stalinist. Those who have actually understood the ideas of Marx and Lenin would not recognize Stalin as a genuine communist.

Tell us, Stalinists, who is the revisionist when Stalin's theory of socialism in one country goes so blatantly against the teachings of the founders of communism?




Tell us Stalinists, do genuine socialists issue decrees of banishment to entire nations?








The immigrant activists I have met from Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, and Ethiopia are Trotskyists.


I want to refer back to the quote from Frederich Engels. He blatantly says that a 'Communist Revolution cannot take place in single country', and as a Marxist-Leninist I will tell you that is 100% absolutely true. You cannot have Communism in one country, the bonds between and the national proletariat and the international bourgeoisie will conflict. But he never says anything about Socialism (As Lenin thought it was) in one country being a problem.

Now, I want revolution to occur all over the world, I just want a strong Socialist Nation to act as a vanguard.

[caramelpence]

Political education in all the socialist states obviously left something to be desired. Leaders can push all kinds of things by promising "better living standards" and such if the people aren't too class conscious.

Patronizing nonsense. Accepting what you say for a moment, however, given that the a major part of the Cultural Revolution was allegedly about raising revolutionary consciousness, the restoration of capitalism with such extreme ease presumably means that the Cultural Revolution was a complete failure, in which case what do you think what went wrong, what do you think should have been done differently, and what was Mao's role in the failure of the whole exercise?


That "emerging bureaucratic class" proved itself to be incredibly hostile to Stalin after his death did it not though? That's kinda strange if he was its representative and all.

I don't think the Secret Speech and the 20th Party Congress (which are presumably what you're referring to) are really sufficient evidence that Stalin wasn't the representative of a bureaucratic class precisely because these events took place only after his death and embodied a combination of criticism and praise, rather than an outright rejection of all of the crimes that had been committed under Stalin. The reforms that were carried out under post-Stalin leaders signified shifts within the overall model of state capitalism rather than a wholesale transformation of the Soviet Union and they also had a material basis in that they reflected the inefficiency of continuing to use coerced labour once the Soviet Union had reached a given level of development and social complexity. You should also be aware that even when the Secret Speech was made, the reaction of the CPC was not, despite their subsequent rhetoric during the Sino-Soviet Split, to condemn Khrushchev's arguments, in that they critiqued the speech merely on the basis that they had not been informed of the criticisms beforehand and that the speech did not include more precise criticisms of Stalin's conduct in China.


Whatever mistakes he and the comintern made, by the end of his life as well as the USSR now Mongolia, North Korea, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and East Germany were all taking the socialist road as well.

I don't accept that there was anything socialist about these countries. However, I would also argue that, in cases where Stalinist governments did come to power and carry out a measure of progressive social and political change, they generally did not have the Soviet Union to thank - in China in particular the Soviet Union joined the USA and Britain in calling on the CPC to enter into negotiations with the KMT (which they did, resulting in a ceasefire in January 1946, which broke down within a short period of time) and to eventually become part of a national government that would involve the CPC having to give up its base areas and armies, and it was only because the CPC did not do this and drew on their previous experiences in the Jiangxi and Yenan base areas in carrying out land reform that they were eventually able to win the Civil War.


But he never says anything about Socialism (As Lenin thought it was) in one country being a problem.

Which is because Marx and Engels did not see socialism and communism as being distinct historical changes and generally used the words interchangeably.

[manic expression]

You know as well as I do that when the terms "Stalinism" and "Stalinist" are used in discourse on the left they do not refer only to historical positions relating to the USSR during a certain time period but have a much broader meaning, and refer to all those who, from the viewpoint of Trotskyists and other groupings on the left, advocate a bureaucratic form of socialism that makes concessions to nationalism and cannot enable the working class to emancipate itself from capitalism. They are terms that are used to refer to various sub-groupings that might sometimes come into conflict with one another or might have superficial ideological differences, such as Maoists and pro-Soviet Stalinists. I'm not interested in uniting with these groups because their/your conception of socialism is something that conflicts with my most fundamental political and moral commitments and I'm therefore skeptical that working together or ignoring ideological differences would ever have productive consequences. When I say that the issue is not only one of historical disagreements I mean that the differences between Stalinists and revolutionaries do not only amount to disagreements over the rights and wrongs of Soviet foreign policy during the Second World War, in that Maoist organizations, for example, still exhibit the nationalism, opportunism, and rejection of democracy that we associate with the USSR in the 1930s and the entire history of Stalinism in China, Vietnam, and elsewhere. The historical record is relevant because this record tells us a great deal about the role of Stalinists in relation to the working class, but calling on the historical record as a source of evidence is different from saying that the issues and disagreements at stake are only of a historical nature. They are acutely contemporary because Stalinism is still alive and well.
"Stalinism" might be alive and well, but that doesn't mean you understand what it is or even what it was. "Stalinism" primarily has to do with one's position to the Soviet Union during the leadership of (wait for it) Stalin. So-called "Stalinists" agree a great deal with "non-Stalinist" communists who uphold the contributions of Lenin...it's an historical difference, not one that need be perpetuated. But this is lost on you because you'd rather put historical disagreements before working-class struggle.

It's funny that you say Maoism is a "superficial" difference, and yet you then try to say that "Stalinism" is so very fundamentally different from every other form of communism known to man. Well, Maoism has unique theoretical contributions to make to Marxism...so it's not superficial, only someone who willfully tries not to understand the issues would say such a thing. That's why you hold the truly superficial positions that you do.


Yet you cannot offer an account of how or why capitalism was restored in China - which, as a Maoist, you presumably think was the only socialist state left in the 1970s - or why capitalism was restored in the USSR back in the 1950s.
Capitalism hasn't been fully restored in the PRC...and even if it was (aka if we were to ignore the material reality like ultra-lefts as yourself are so keen to do), the Chinese Revolution created a socialist society and defended it far, far longer than any of your preferred ultra-left sects ever have.

History must suck when it disagrees with you so consistently...especially when you base all of your sectarianism on it. :lol:

[Spawn of Stalin]

I'm calling for a source on that, I'm around alot of immigrants due to my community in San Fransisco, and i've never once met any Maoist immigrants. Most immigrants are largely reactionary since they've seen what the shithole "Communist" regimes have done to their countries like China and Vietnam.
I'd argue against this from personal experience. I sleep in the same bed a Chinese immigrant every night and she's easily more sympathetic to Maoism than I am, as are her family, and none of her Chinese friends seem to have anything against our political leanings either. And that's not to mention all the foreign people I work with every day who are pretty blatantly left wing, my workplace is probably 75% immigrants, and I'd say a lot of them are progressive. And actually many of them are from Poland, most British socialists think that the Poles are reactionary, I'd argue the opposite, they've been forced to leave their friends and families to come work in the UK because of capitalism and they know it.

Spend some time with immigrants who you think might be reactionary and you may change your mind, but then, I don't know since I don't live where you live.

Most maoists are middle class white kids, the only ones i've ever met have been middle class white kids. The same kids with Che on their shirt.
That would make sense, since you have evidently never bothered to seek out any Maoist organisations. Actually your typical Maoist is not a middle class white kid and I think you know it's not. I'd echo RedSunRising's comments, if you want an insight into the class makeup of Maoists - in the UK at least - come to May Day in London next year, in fact I challange anybody to come to May Day and tell me most Maoists are middle class, white, or kids, because they are none of these things...but hey, most Trotskyites are white too!

But then I don't blame you for having such a twisted view, isn't the Bay Area supposed to be one of the most liberal places the world? Of course you are going to encounter people who are interested in progressive politics just so they can be a rebel.

I'm working class, moms an electrician and dad's a plumber. I take the bus to football practice at my public school every day.
I'm working class, my mum works in a pub and my dad was an alcoholic who left when I was very young. I ride my bike to my warehouse job every day. So what? What does this mean to anyone? I could speak about the class makeup of Marxist-Leninist parties in the UK but I don't think I'll bother.

I would argue that most third world immigrants who are leftist turn out to be Zapatist or Trotskyist, the majority of my small group is compromised of Mexican Americans.
I do not live in the United States but being from the UK my view is quite the opposite. Where I live Trot groups are dominated by students, yes it's a cliche, but guess what, it's also true.

What's a critique of Stalin that you accept?
What kind of a question is that? Proof that nobody here knows anything about me or what I think. Yes, I am a Marxist-Leninist to the core, no, that does not mean I have to be unrealistic. Stalin was by no means perfect. To a degree I accept that there was too much suppression in the Soviet Union. I also don't think he should have interfered with the Chinese Revolution. There's two for you.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

Patronizing nonsense. Accepting what you say for a moment, however, given that the a major part of the Cultural Revolution was allegedly about raising revolutionary consciousness, the restoration of capitalism with such extreme ease presumably means that the Cultural Revolution was a complete failure, in which case what do you think what went wrong, what do you think should have been done differently, and what was Mao's role in the failure of the whole exercise?

The main problem was that it wasn't just a "cultural revolution" but also a "great purge" at the same time. It goes back to Mao's ideas on how there shouldn't be excessive purging, only so many people should be arrested, "Stalin cuts off too many heads that don't grow back like chives" etc. The result of that was the revisionists in the party making up a majority (or at least a large minority) in the party and being able to maneuver Mao out of the leadership and start implementing all these capitalist policies during the 60s. So Mao thought of the GPCR as a way of revolutionising the people's mindsets while at the same time getting rid of the revisionists in the party. Problem was it ended up all chaotic and anarchic because there was no guidance from the party. Then Mao started going all right-wing in his old age so to address the genuine need for the restoration of order he unfortunately just restored the old order instead of a new order that was needed.


I don't think the Secret Speech and the 20th Party Congress (which are presumably what you're referring to) are really sufficient evidence that Stalin wasn't the representative of a bureaucratic class precisely because these events took place only after his death and embodied a combination of criticism and praise, rather than an outright rejection of all of the crimes that had been committed under Stalin. The reforms that were carried out under post-Stalin leaders signified shifts within the overall model of state capitalism rather than a wholesale transformation of the Soviet Union and they also had a material basis in that they reflected the inefficiency of continuing to use coerced labour once the Soviet Union had reached a given level of development and social complexity. You should also be aware that even when the Secret Speech was made, the reaction of the CPC was not, despite their subsequent rhetoric during the Sino-Soviet Split, to condemn Khrushchev's arguments, in that they critiqued the speech merely on the basis that they had not been informed of the criticisms beforehand and that the speech did not include more precise criticisms of Stalin's conduct in China.

The Secret Speech iss hardly a "historical review that combines criticism and praise" and whatever. The whole speech is a fabrication from beginning to end, a whole bunch of which the audience will have been perfectly aware of. The speech was a nudge-nudge-wink-wink to the bureaucracy telling them "you don't gotta worry about anything no more". And the reforms that came after "signified shifts within the overall model of state capitalism" because socialism is itself a form of state capitalism - "For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." - V.I. Lenin

So what if the Chinese didn't immediately condemn the Secret Speech. Neither did the Albanians at first either.


I don't accept that there was anything socialist about these countries. However, I would also argue that, in cases where Stalinist governments did come to power and carry out a measure of progressive social and political change, they generally did not have the Soviet Union to thank - in China in particular the Soviet Union joined the USA and Britain in calling on the CPC to enter into negotiations with the KMT (which they did, resulting in a ceasefire in January 1946, which broke down within a short period of time) and to eventually become part of a national government that would involve the CPC having to give up its base areas and armies, and it was only because the CPC did not do this and drew on their previous experiences in the Jiangxi and Yenan base areas in carrying out land reform that they were eventually able to win the Civil War.

That was part of Stalin's overly-cautious foreign policy after WW2. I think it's understandable though seeing how the USSR lost 28 million people.

[caramelpence]

The main problem was that it wasn't just a "cultural revolution" but also a "great purge" at the same time.

This seems to be a very muddled critique. On the one hand you say that the Cultural Revolution was a "great purge" and that it descended into chaos but on the other you say that it resulted in too many "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders" being left inside the party and that Mao was too willing to participate in the restoration of the old order - but surely this would suggest, if anything, that the Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough in its efforts to pull the "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders" from power and that it was necessary for a more far-reaching transformation of China's political and economic institutions? How can you simultaneously say that the Cultural Revolution did not solve the problem of revisionism inside the party but that it should have been carried out through party direction rather than through more spontaneous forms of mobilization, given that this would, presumably, have allowed alleged revisionist elements to control the process and bend it towards their own interests? Surely the entire point of the 16 Points in August of 1966 was to recognize that the dispatch of work teams to the universities by Liu Shaoqi and his supporters had merely resulted in an intensification of oppression against the disenfranchised segments of the student population, i.e. students who were not from cadre backgrounds, and that it was necessary to open the way to rebellion?


The Secret Speech iss hardly a "historical review that combines criticism and praise" and whatever. The whole speech is a fabrication from beginning to end, a whole bunch of which the audience will have been perfectly aware of

This doesn't strike me as a particularly relevant issue. You pointed to the Secret Speech in response to me arguing that Stalin was a leading representative of the bureaucracy - but I don't see how it's inconsistent to say that Stalin was part of that class whilst also accepting that leaders after his death rejected many of his decisions and many of the processes that had taken place under his leadership. There are many instances of leaders doing something similar in bourgeois democracy, where a leader from a bourgeois calls into question the decisions and excesses of previous leaders without ever rejecting the basic assumptions values that underpin their political party and without ever calling for fundamental changes in the way society is organized and run. As for socialism being state monopoly capitalism, I actually think that was one of the areas where Lenin's thinking was quite muddled, but if you look carefully at that quote you will see that what he is arguing is that socialism bears certain similarities to state monopoly capitalism in the form of state ownership of property but it has ceased to be capitalism because society's wealth is orientated towards the interests of society as a whole - so Lenin is not saying that socialism is the same as state monopoly capitalism, or that capitalism ceases to be capitalism the moment it embodies state ownership across the economy, he is arguing that capitalism creates the basis for socialist society through the development of the productive forces, and that socialism supersedes capitalism by prioritizing social interests rather than exploitation, such that there is a dynamic of simultaneous extension and abolition, something like a Hegelian Aufhebung. I specified that Khrushchev's reforms represented a shift within the framework of state capitalism because I view the Soviet Union under Stalin as a capitalist society and don't believe that Khrushchev coming to power represented the restoration of capitalism, whereas this is a common Maoist claim - is it one that you accept? It's really not clear from your post.


So what if the Chinese didn't immediately condemn the Secret Speech

It calls into question the subsequent Maoist narrative that the Secret Speech represented the culmination of revisionism and that the PRC led the charge against the restoration of capitalism.


That was part of Stalin's overly-cautious foreign policy after WW2. I think it's understandable though seeing how the USSR lost 28 million people.

Except, this "overly-cautious" (i.e. opportunist) foreign policy wasn't unique to the post-WW2 period, the entirety of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin was orientated towards the national interests of the Soviet state and more particularly the interests of the bureaucracy, as exemplified by the Comintern's imposition of the first united front on the CPC all the way back in the 1920s and the Comintern's subsequent attempts to impose Wang Ming on the CPC.

[Red_Struggle]

It's mostly over stuff like Socialism in One Country, a distorted understanding of comintern policies, the 1937 purge, the military purge, etc.. Of course, they forget that the SPD denied a united front offer from the KPD and as RedSonRising pointed out, they considered the KPD to be more of a threat than nazism, and that Stalin offered the CPI and the CPF weapons in the 50s. Combine this with the treachery of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Yezhov, Vlasov, and Tukhachevsky (whose entire existence was Stalin's fault as well) and you pretty much end up with a guy who was everything bad in the universe wrapped up into one.

I really don't get the massive hate campaigns enacted towards Leninists. It's either butthurt over the past or whining about socialism in one country or some shit.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

This seems to be a very muddled critique. On the one hand you say that the Cultural Revolution was a "great purge" and that it descended into chaos but on the other you say that it resulted in too many "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders" being left inside the party and that Mao was too willing to participate in the restoration of the old order - but surely this would suggest, if anything, that the Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough in its efforts to pull the "revisionists" and "capitalist roaders" from power and that it was necessary for a more far-reaching transformation of China's political and economic institutions? How can you simultaneously say that the Cultural Revolution did not solve the problem of revisionism inside the party but that it should have been carried out through party direction rather than through more spontaneous forms of mobilization, given that this would, presumably, have allowed alleged revisionist elements to control the process and bend it towards their own interests? Surely the entire point of the 16 Points in August of 1966 was to recognize that the dispatch of work teams to the universities by Liu Shaoqi and his supporters had merely resulted in an intensification of oppression against the disenfranchised segments of the student population, i.e. students who were not from cadre backgrounds, and that it was necessary to open the way to rebellion

I'm saying the revisionists should've already been purged by the party in the 50s when Marxist-Leninists were in a majority.


This doesn't strike me as a particularly relevant issue. You pointed to the Secret Speech in response to me arguing that Stalin was a leading representative of the bureaucracy - but I don't see how it's inconsistent to say that Stalin was part of that class whilst also accepting that leaders after his death rejected many of his decisions and many of the processes that had taken place under his leadership. There are many instances of leaders doing something similar in bourgeois democracy, where a leader from a bourgeois calls into question the decisions and excesses of previous leaders without ever rejecting the basic assumptions values that underpin their political party and without ever calling for fundamental changes in the way society is organized and run. As for socialism being state monopoly capitalism, I actually think that was one of the areas where Lenin's thinking was quite muddled, but if you look carefully at that quote you will see that what he is arguing is that socialism bears certain similarities to state monopoly capitalism in the form of state ownership of property but it has ceased to be capitalism because society's wealth is orientated towards the interests of society as a whole - so Lenin is not saying that socialism is the same as state monopoly capitalism, or that capitalism ceases to be capitalism the moment it embodies state ownership across the economy, he is arguing that capitalism creates the basis for socialist society through the development of the productive forces, and that socialism supersedes capitalism by prioritizing social interests rather than exploitation, such that there is a dynamic of simultaneous extension and abolition, something like a Hegelian Aufhebung. I specified that Khrushchev's reforms represented a shift within the framework of state capitalism because I view the Soviet Union under Stalin as a capitalist society and don't believe that Khrushchev coming to power represented the restoration of capitalism, whereas this is a common Maoist claim - is it one that you accept? It's really not clear from your post.

But Khrushchov wasn't just calling out excesses and mistakes and such in the Secret Speech. He literally made up the entire thing from beginning to end to demonise Stalin in every possible way. Grover Furr's proved this in his "Khrushchev Lied" book.

There are no Maoist or Hoxhaists or any anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists whatsoever who claim that Khrushchov coming to power was the restoration of capitalism. His coming to power was just the triumph of revisionism. We see the Kosygin reforms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Soviet_economic_reform) of the late 60s as the actual restoration of capitalism. Prior to those reforms the USSR was operating under state capitalism made to benefit the people ie. socialism according to Lenin but after those reforms the economy was based around profit, part of which went directly into the pockets of the new bourgeoisie.


It calls into question the subsequent Maoist narrative that the Secret Speech represented the culmination of revisionism and that the PRC led the charge against the restoration of capitalism.

Well at first the CPC and the PLA figured the situation might be salvageable so didn't immediately denounce the CPSU.


Except, this "overly-cautious" (i.e. opportunist) foreign policy wasn't unique to the post-WW2 period, the entirety of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin was orientated towards the national interests of the Soviet state and more particularly the interests of the bureaucracy, as exemplified by the Comintern's imposition of the first united front on the CPC all the way back in the 1920s and the Comintern's subsequent attempts to impose Wang Ming on the CPC.

Yeah, the comintern was way too over-centralised and made a whole bunch of fuck ups with China. That was why Stalin supported its dissolution.

[Threetune]

There isn’t a single tradition, section, faction or individual among the revolutionary opposition to capitalism that hasn’t been, and isn’t now, adversely affected by the enemy capitalist ideology one way or another. How could it be otherwise? Imperialism, is as you all know, more than an economic arrangement of the business class, it is the dominate controlling culture who’s tentacles reach into every aspect of every life. Like the Hydra of Greek mythology as soon as you think you’ve cut off one of its heads it grows anther again. Imperialism has now grown so many reformist and revisionist traditions and traits to attack the revolution with, that it’s become a Herculean task to distinguish the form and content of any tendency without resorting to inadequate shorthand stereotypes and sectarian descriptions. Good fun when we’re pissed off but it’s really always inadequate.
I reckon that any communist who can’t recognise both, the revolutionary and revisionist content of their own as well as other traditions, is falling for sectarianism. At the age of 60 and with a lifetime of revolutionary struggle in the unions and ‘left’ parties in Britain, the best people I’ve met always acknowledge the revolutionary aspect of even their most implacable revolutionary opponents. Opportunism, sectarianism, cynicism, careerism and the plain stupidity, on the other hand will always want to focus only on the surface appetence of class struggle conflict among us. It’s a difficult thing to temper audacity with humility in our criticisms, and unending criticism of others and ourselves is the essence of Marxism-Leninism which is one reason why reactionary idealist bourgeois culture hates it so much.

[RED DAVE]

I really don't get the massive hate campaigns enacted towards Leninists. It's either butthurt over the past or whining about socialism in one country or some shit.I agree with you. You really don't get it.

So since history seems to baffle you, perhaps you would like to take a crack at some contemporary antics of the Maoist flavor of ML:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/looks-like-bhattarai-t155812/index.html

The UCPN(M), just a year ago hailed as the great revolutionary saviors, are now engaged in sordid parliamentary maneuvers, with its leaders falling all over each other to sell out.

RED DAVE

[Red_Struggle]

The UCPN(M), just a year ago...blah blah blah

Yeah, I know your position on Maoism and Nepal, along with most others on this site. I don't need to read it again. I am not a Maoist so why you posted this response in the first place is beyond me.

[Jose Gracchus]

That "emerging bureaucratic class" proved itself to be incredibly hostile to Stalin after his death did it not though? That's kinda strange if he was its representative and all. :rolleyes: As for his determination for only having socialism in one country he clearly wasn't very good at putting it into practice. Whatever mistakes he and the comintern made, by the end of his life as well as the USSR now Mongolia, North Korea, China, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania and East Germany were all taking the socialist road as well.

What fucking moron's argument. I have a question, do you think because Peter the Great required the boyars to shave their beards and dress and conduct themselves in the Western (French) style, that means the Russian Empire under Peter the Great was not a class society based on the dictatorship of a feudal class? What about the indignities forced on the nobility by the absolute monarchy at Versailles? Is that not a society based on the feudal aristocracy? Get real. You, like all Stalinists, cling to these mechanistic and legalistic distortions of history and Marxism, and it is pathetic.

Capitalist states sometimes punish, discipline, or coerce particular capitalists, or even coercively organize the entire class quite thoroughly, does that mean they cease to be capitalist states?

Stalin was the representative of the bureaucratic capitalist class which controlled the Soviet state, and the task of that class was to complete a forced industrialization and expel the peasantry from the land--tasks completed gradually by the first and second generation of emerging capitalist powers in the 17th-18th and 19th centuries, respectively. In doing so, Stalin and the state had to very intensely discipline and organize the ruling class along its class program, or risk their total annihilation in war with imperialist Germany.

After Stalin's death, the nomenklatura wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and rest on their laurels; that meant dismantling the Stalinist political framework and coercive economy in favor of a more sustainable peacetime alternative. That meant much-needed economic reform and dismantling the terror apparatus which had been applied Stalinist managers and bureaucrats individually, now that crunch time was over. Khrushchevism was a logical postscript to Stalinism.

[Comrade B]

I have never met a Stalinite off of this website... minus my x's crazy grandma... she lived through WWII in Uzbekistan though... and was quite crazy...

The main reason why Stalinists (I refuse to call Stalinism Marxist-Leninism as a supporter of Marx, Lenin, and god knows not Stalin) are so disagreed with here, more than Anarchists, left communists, some Trotskyists, traditional Marxists, fuckin vegan unicorn riders, and man eating pandas is because none of the other groups listed has done quite such a job at the combined tasks of depopularizing Marxism/radical left philosophy and killing leftists at the same time.

Perhaps had Stalin's cronies not been so prone to sticking sharp objects in peoples' heads we would not have as much of a problem with them... personally though, if I hear Joey S. has a history of cannabalism, and seen photos of Joey S. eating humans alive, I would be among those to vote Joey S. off of Revolution Island.

[Marxach-Léinínach]

What fucking moron's argument. I have a question, do you think because Peter the Great required the boyars to shave their beards and dress and conduct themselves in the Western (French) style, that means the Russian Empire under Peter the Great was not a class society based on the dictatorship of a feudal class? What about the indignities forced on the nobility by the absolute monarchy at Versailles? Is that not a society based on the feudal aristocracy? Get real. You, like all Stalinists, cling to these mechanistic and legalistic distortions of history and Marxism, and it is pathetic.

Capitalist states sometimes punish, discipline, or coerce particular capitalists, or even coercively organize the entire class quite thoroughly, does that mean they cease to be capitalist states?

Stalin was the representative of the bureaucratic capitalist class which controlled the Soviet state, and the task of that class was to complete a forced industrialization and expel the peasantry from the land--tasks completed gradually by the first and second generation of emerging capitalist powers in the 17th-18th and 19th centuries, respectively. In doing so, Stalin and the state had to very intensely discipline and organize the ruling class along its class program, or risk their total annihilation in war with imperialist Germany.

After Stalin's death, the nomenklatura wanted to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and rest on their laurels; that meant dismantling the Stalinist political framework and coercive economy in favor of a more sustainable peacetime alternative. That meant much-needed economic reform and dismantling the terror apparatus which had been applied Stalinist managers and bureaucrats individually, now that crunch time was over. Khrushchevism was a logical postscript to Stalinism.

"Indignities" and "disciplining" can't really be compared with firing squads. Also I can't believe I'm having to say this for a third time now :rolleyes:

Khrushchov wasn't just analysing the Stalin era and noting what mistakes and excesses there had been. From beginning to end his speech was a complete fabrication designed to turn Stalin into a 2D cardboard cut-out of Satan

As for the economic reforms just being about creating a more sustainable economy, that don't really hold up seeing how the economy then started stagnating, life expectancy went down 4 years, illnesses, accidents, general social decay and such all increased etc. Gorbachov and Yeltsin didn't just drop down from the sky, they came about specifically because of the revisionism and reforms.

[RED DAVE]

I really don't get the massive hate campaigns enacted towards Leninists. It's either butthurt over the past or whining about socialism in one country or some shit.
I agree with you. You really don't get it.

So since history seems to baffle you, perhaps you would like to take a crack at some contemporary antics of the Maoist flavor of ML:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/looks-like-bhattarai-t155812/index.html

The UCPN(M), just a year ago hailed as the great revolutionary saviors, are now engaged in sordid parliamentary maneuvers, with its leaders falling all over each other to sell out.
Yeah, I know your position on Maoism and Nepal, along with most others on this site. I don't need to read it again. I am not a Maoist so why you posted this response in the first place is beyond me.(1) Because this is a thread on why people around here do not care for so-called Marxist-Leninists.

(2) Right now, the most prominent tendency of Marxism-Leninism is Maoism.

(3) And the poster-country for Maoism is Nepal.

(4) It is reasonable to believe that one of the causes of the "dislike" for Marxist-Leninists is the fact that their politics are exemplified by the current sell-out in Nepal and the fact that Maoists around here tend to support these actions.

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

(4) It is reasonable to believe that one of the causes of the "dislike" for Marxist-Leninists is the fact that their politics are exemplified by the current sell-out in Nepal and the fact that Maoists around here tend to support these actions.


Adopting a wait and see position is not the same as supporting 100 per cent "Pracanda path". The UCPN-M has accomplished a lot in Nepal so far, what has Trotskyism ever accomplished for the worlds oppressed and exploited?

[RED DAVE]

Adopting a wait and see position is not the same as supporting 100 per cent "Pracanda path".What we are seeing is the UCPN(M) engaging in straightforward pariliamentay maneuvering. What do you want to "wait and see"? The are liquidating their fighting force. There is no trace of a revolutionary working class stance in their behavior.


The UCPN-M has accomplished a lot in Nepal so farThat's right: they have been key in the establishment of modern capitalism in Nepal. Is that what Marxists are supposed to do?


[W]hat has Trotskyism ever accomplished for the worlds oppressed and exploited?Nothing at all. We all just sit home and spend money from our daddy's trust funds. We also tell Maoists to go fuck themselves in Macy's window when they fail to respond to political points. The window is on 34th Street and Broadway in New York. I'll bring a video camera to record your performance for Youtube.

RED DAVE

[Reznov]

Could I ask for two current summaries of the situation in Nepal right now?

Preferably from a Trotskyist and Maoist perspective?

[RED DAVE]

Could I ask for two current summaries of the situation in Nepal right now?

Preferably from a Trotskyist and Maoist perspective?Here is a good place to start: with some background on the currrent political crisis in the UCPN(M):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/news-nepal-continued-t141446/index11.html

There is already a thread on this:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nepali-maoism-self-t155044/index.html

But right now it' stalled as the Maoists basically maintain that they have the right to restrict discussion to themselves:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2139853&postcount=102

To get back to the original topic, it's shit like this that gives the Maoists a bad rep around here.

RED DAVE

[RedSunRising]

To get back to the original topic, it's shit like this that gives the Maoists a bad rep around here.


Maoists dont have a bad rep where it counts though Red Dave.

[cogar66]

Maoists dont have a bad rep where it counts though Red Dave.

The jungle?

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

love the western anticommunist narrative up in here. the experience of millions of revolutionaries in building socialism under siege across an expanse of the globe for decades perfectly synthesized: teh evil marxist leninists betrayed everything.

No, not the 'western anti-communist narrative' - the communist, anti-fake communist narrative that aims to actually reclaim the name stolen by bourgeois bureaucrats in the name of gulags, further oppression and state capitalism.

I dislike MLs because of their fucking irritating tendency to defend the gains of the Soviet Union, on the basis that they were done under some kind of socio-economic system that put the means of production into the hands of the proletariat and not Russia's new ruling class of bureaucrats.

Trots are a bit better in terms of the actual work they do, but theoretically they're pissing in the wind, trying to defend Leninism on the basis that all of its failures can be attributed to Stalinism.

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

In short, us left of Lenin are actually concerned with the proletariat and its realization of power over its own affairs - we look at Leninism and see a long list of failures, and a long list of spurious defences, to the point of defending Mugabe or Kim Jong-il, and we conclude that these ideas have nothing to do with the working class.

The Leninist line is always 'show me a successful anarchist movement, or left com movement' and in turn I would say 'show me a successful Leninist movement'. As in, show me the Leninist 'led' revolution that didn't become the bureaucratic dictatorship of one class over a class of labourers and that didn't ultimately end up as a capitalistic restoration. We anarchists and left-coms don't have this bastardization to our name, and our ideas are almost exclusively dealt with limiting the chance of this happening and certainly with the empowerment of the working class. A break with Leninism wouldn't be a bad thing for the rev left, Marx certainly wouldn't bothered his ass with it

[RED DAVE]

Maoists dont have a bad rep where it counts though Red Dave.Well, I guess we won't find out where that is:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2140405&postcount=148

RED DAVE

[Red_Struggle]

(1) Because this is a thread on why people around here do not care for so-called Marxist-Leninists.

Because this is revleft, the only leftist site in the world where we have people defending tea partiers wearing SS and Luftwaffe uniforms.


(2) Right now, the most prominent tendency of Marxism-Leninism is Maoism.

Problem: Maoism is not Marxism-Leninism.


And the poster-country for Maoism is Nepal.

That much may be true, and I really don't care what Maoists think of Nepal. Some support the UCPN (M), others don't.

[S.Artesian]

Seriously I have been noticing some members of the online community have a real hatred of the ML tradition and even its members ....why exactly ??

Note ..if this turns into a massive tendency trolling and someone is banned again I will request a suspension from the Admins.


Hmmh... what's that phrase the comes to mind. Wait, it's on the tip of my tongue... yeah, there it is "Gravediggers of the proletarian revolution"-- yeah that's it, in Spain, Germany, Vietnam, France, Spain again after Franco, Chile, etc. etc.

Yeah, that might explain it: gravediggers of the proletariat's revolution.

[S.Artesian]

Wasnt Lenin still alive in 1923? Did Trotsky protest this?

Do you feel as strongly about Lenin and Trotsky telling Turkish Communists to disarm and ally with the Kemalists who later butchered them?

Who exactly was Sinowjew?

I'm glad to say another one of these clown is banned and I seemed to have played some small part in this as my explanation of why Red Cat was in trouble provoked RSR to offer his/her own apology for rape.

Maybe one of the reasons M-Ls are so despised is their constant apologizing for rape?

However, in answer to the question: "Do you fell as strongly about Lenin and Trotsky telling the Turkish Communists to disarm and ally with the Kemalists...."


Abso-fucking-lutely. In spades. And double.

[Cyberwave]

Supposing we're right about everything, that would be a huge blow to everything our opponents thought they knew. I remember I myself faced a bit of a shock when I realized that Stalin wasn't nearly as bad as everyone else had described to me, personally. So, some may deny Marxism-Leninism altogether in an effort to stick to what they know, and others may become more open-minded.

But even supposing we're wrong about some things of course, we're still perhaps one of the most vocal groups of Marxists. Our positions are never as disagreeable as those of people such as Pol Pot obviously, but they're still greatly opposite of say, Trotskyists, and this is enough to stir a reaction in them in some way.

I think we Marxist-Leninists can indeed get a little bit too harsh in our arguments, but you must realize that it was because we know precisely the faults of opposing ideologies because we generally started off as those ideologies. I was once a Trotskyist, and I think a lot of us were too. And for us to see other people not attempt to evolve, it frustrates us; not meant to offend with that statement, and it should be interpreted regardless of your own personal viewpoints of course.

At any rate, I find Marxism-Leninism to be a difficult philosophy as well. There is a lot of strictness in it, and we openly denounce revisionism and other harmful trends, so we always have to live up to our standards, which can definitely be a challenge and rather aggravating. Because it's difficult to find pro-Soviet information for example, we may lose our cool on occasions, you know?

I just wish more people would be more open about these things, but I suppose that works both ways, and I suppose moreover I'll still be branded as sectarian for my views, but I'm okay with it so long as it doesn't lead to massive flame wars. I remember I was actually banned after someone impersonated me in the chatroom, and I'm pretty sure he was an angry Trotskyist; not saying all Trots wish to ban people like that, but it was just at the time too coincidental not to think that.

[RED DAVE]

Supposing we're right about everything, that would be a huge blow to everything our opponents thought they knew.But you're not, so the rest of us don't have to worry about it.


I remember I myself faced a bit of a shock when I realized that Stalin wasn't nearly as bad as everyone else had described to me, personally. So, some may deny Marxism-Leninism altogether in an effort to stick to what they know, and others may become more open-minded.I find it difficult being open-minded in this way. I keep thinking about things like gulags, no-strike pledges, support for nuclear weapons, etc.


But even supposing we're wrong about some things of course, we're still perhaps one of the most vocal groups of Marxists.Vocal about what? Your tendency can't even explain why the societies it built, e.g. Russian, China, managed to morph into some of the most disgusting capitalist states on earth.


Our positions are never as disagreeable as those of people such as Pol Pot obviouslyOh, that's really big of you. I find it interesting that you put yourself in the same category as a mass muderer, but you're not as "disagreeable."


but they're still greatly opposite of say, Trotskyists, and this is enough to stir a reaction in them in some way.You got that right.


I think we Marxist-Leninists can indeed get a little bit too harsh in our argumentsYeah. An ice pick is a piss-poor debating tool.


but you must realize that it was because we know precisely the faults of opposing ideologies because we generally started off as those ideologies.Uhh, generally, stalinists start out as stalinists. It's a chlldhood disease that most people on the Left recover from.


I was once a Trotskyist, and I think a lot of us were too.So you went from workers democracy to state capitalist bureaucracy. You sleep okay these days?


And for us to see other people not attempt to evolve, it frustrates us;For most of us, to you support a non-socialist society and call it socialism is, to say the least, frustrating.


not meant to offend with that statement, and it should be interpreted regardless of your own personal viewpoints of course.You could be, personally, a rescuer of orphan kittens. Your politics is what's offensive.


At any rate, I find Marxism-Leninism to be a difficult philosophy as well.You want to be the Marxist equivalent of a Roman Catholic, that's your problem.


There is a lot of strictness in itThat's true. To engage in massive denial of reality takes a lot of self-discipline.


and we openly denounce revisionismConsidering that you have never understood, as a tendency, that revisionism is thou, that's pretty funny.


and other harmful trendsIs that an ice pick that I see before me?


so we always have to live up to our standardsSo do Jesuits. I don't sympathize.


which can definitely be a challenge and rather aggravating.To say nothing of being politically brutal, full of ignorance and an abandonment of the Marxist critical tradition.


Because it's difficult to find pro-Soviet information for example, we may lose our cool on occasions, you know?Just go back and read old copies of Pravda. You'll find all you want.


I just wish more people would be more open about these thingsI find it difficult to be open with a tendency that wherever I have encountered it politically, it seems always to be full of shit.


but I suppose that works both ways, and I suppose moreover I'll still be branded as sectarian for my viewsNo, just stalinist in your views.


but I'm okay with itSuch stoicism!


so long as it doesn't lead to massive flame wars.This is not a flame war, but the kid gloves are off.


I remember I was actually banned after someone impersonated me in the chatroom, and I'm pretty sure he was an angry Trotskyist;Ohh, poor widdle guy ... .


not saying all Trots wish to ban people like that, but it was just at the time too coincidental not to think that.Fuck you.

And as a parting word, two of your ilk just got banned for justifying massive rape of German women by the Red Army.

RED DAVE

[Cyberwave]

But you're not, so the rest of us don't have to worry about it.

I find it difficult being open-minded in this way. I keep thinking about things like gulags, no-strike pledges, support for nuclear weapons, etc.

Vocal about what? Your tendency can't even explain why the societies it built, e.g. Russian, China, managed to morph into some of the most disgusting capitalist states on earth.

Oh, that's really big of you. I find it interesting that you put yourself in the same category as a mass muderer, but you're not as "disagreeable."

You got that right.

Yeah. An ice pick is a piss-poor debating tool.

Uhh, generally, stalinists start out as stalinists. It's a chlldhood disease that most people on the Left recover from.

So you went from workers democracy to state capitalist bureaucracy. You sleep okay these days?

For most of us, to you support a non-socialist society and call it socialism is, to say the least, frustrating.

You could be, personally, a rescuer of orphan kittens. Your politics is what's offensive.

You want to be the Marxist equivalent of a Roman Catholic, that's your problem.

That's true. To engage in massive denial of reality takes a lot of self-discipline.

Considering that you have never understood, as a tendency, that revisionism is thou, that's pretty funny.

Is that an ice pick that I see before me?

So do Jesuits. I don't sympathize.

To say nothing of being politically brutal, full of ignorance and an abandonment of the Marxist critical tradition.

Just go back and read old copies of Pravda. You'll find all you want.

I find it difficult to be open with a tendency that wherever I have encountered it politically, it seems always to be full of shit.

No, just stalinist in your views.

Such stoicism!

This is not a flame war, but the kid gloves are off.

Ohh, poor widdle guy ... .

Fuck you.

And as a parting word, two of your ilk just got banned for justifying massive rape of German women by the Red Army.

RED DAVE

Wow. All I did was give my opinion, never even going really deep into it and the last thing you can say is "fuck you?"

And I'm sure you're a wonderful representative of the pro-Trotsky movement, right?

How immature and rude.

[BuekerC1]

Why is there such dislike for Marxist-Leninist?

Authoritarianism is good for nothing. Does not matter if it is on the right or the left; authoritarianism is not compatible with justice, equality, and liberty.

[The Teacher]

My understanding of the ML line is that it is far too concerned with the "party" and a particular idealogical hegemony, while not concerned with making meaningful changes in the lives of the citizens.

Honestly, I have a problem with all these -isms and -ists to begin with. Not at all helpful.

[RED DAVE]

Wow. All I did was give my opinion, never even going really deep into it and the last thing you can say is "fuck you?"All you did was express your politics in a naive way.


And I'm sure you're a wonderful representative of the pro-Trotsky movement, right?Actually, I belong to a tendency that most Trots don't recognize: international socialism.


How immature and rude.Here's some ice for your bloody nose. Grow up.

RED DAVE

[Cyberwave]

All you did was express your politics in a naive way.

Actually, I belong to a tendency that most Trots don't recognize: international socialism.

Here's some ice for your bloody nose. Grow up.

RED DAVE

You seem rather short tempered. You're especially naive if you believe that "Stalinists were born Stalinists," which is what you basically said. There are Trotskyists, and then there are Trotskyists like you, who I can not tolerate with such behavior. I am not going to waste my time arguing. Feel free to post as much nonsense as you wish, I'm out.

[pranabjyoti]

Why is there such dislike for Marxist-Leninist?

Authoritarianism is good for nothing. Does not matter if it is on the right or the left; authoritarianism is not compatible with justice, equality, and liberty.
Those exist in the imagination of a pure a**hole liberal, NOT IN A REAL CLASS BASED SOCIETY.

[pranabjyoti]

You seem rather short tempered. You're especially naive if you believe that "Stalinists were born Stalinists," which is what you basically said. There are Trotskyists, and then there are Trotskyists like you, who I can not tolerate with such behavior. I am not going to waste my time arguing. Feel free to post as much nonsense as you wish, I'm out.
Don't worry about DAVE, actually he is a representative of the western liberal trots. I have a SriLankan trotskyite friend whose view is very much similar to mine. Basically, they are hiding their liberal ideology behind some kind of fuzzy ideologies.

[Threetune]

My understanding of the ML line is that it is far too concerned with the "party" and a particular idealogical hegemony, while not concerned with making meaningful changes in the lives of the citizens.

Honestly, I have a problem with all these -isms and -ists to begin with. Not at all helpful.

How do you want us to make "meaningful changes in the lives of the citizens" without a revolutionary overthrough of capiyalism lead by someboddy.

And what's your 'solution' or alternativ to the political langage that has evolved hitoricly out of nessessity like all other branches of all languages?

[RED DAVE]

You seem rather short tempered.At times.


You're especially naiveThere's very little about me that's naive. You'll see that if you stick around. It's stalinists who are naive about ... stalinism.


Yif you believe that "Stalinists were born Stalinists," which is what you basically said.I have found very few stalisnists who find their way to stalinism from other tendencies.


which is what you basically said.There are Trotskyists, and then there are Trotskyists like you, who I can not tolerate with such behavior.Tsk-tsk. If you can't tolerate me, there are many alternatives for you.


I am not going to waste my time arguing. Feel free to post as much nonsense as you wish, I'm out.Don't let the door hit you on your ass as you leave.

RED DAVE

[Lucretia]

I can think of nothing more antithetical to the classical marxist tradition than supporting an undemocratic, bureaucratic regime on the basis that their control over productive property does not take the standard western form of private ownership, but instead is managed through a political institution over which workers have virtually no control.

It's ludicrous to think that I should join forces with them because the enemy of my my enemy is my friend. Not all organizational divisions or political disagreements are sectarian.

[Rooster]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this but.... weren't a bunch of Marx's writings not available until at least the 1930s? If Stalin never added anything to Leninism, and Lenin never had those texts available to him, then how can marxism-leninism be considered the definitive reading of Marx and of communist revolutionary theory? :confused:

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Not exactly. See, I'm in a revolutionary working class party and I'm actually an active member. Meanwhile you live on the internet and espouse your chauvinism all over this forum.

You're as much as an armchair reject as most of the users on this forum.
I wonder if this guy even bothers trying to recruit people into his party, or if his elitist attitude has stopped him every time.

[Red Future]

At times.

There's very little about me that's naive. You'll see that if you stick around. It's stalinists who are naive about ... stalinism.

I have found very few stalisnists who find their way to stalinism from other tendencies.

Tsk-tsk. If you can't tolerate me, there are many alternatives for you.

Don't let the door hit you on your ass as you leave.

RED DAVE

I used to be a trot

[RED DAVE]

I used to be a trotWould you care, then, to explain why you now espouse a set of political beliefs that includes:

(a) The Stalinists were right over the Trotskyists in the debates in the 1920s.

(b) The Stalinists were right in pushing the Chinese Communist Party into its disastrous alliance with the KMT.

(c) The Stalinists were right in espousing the theory of social fascism.

(d) The Stalinists were right in Spain.

(e) The Stalinists were right in killing Trotsky.

(f) The Stalinists were right in making a pact with hitler and trading with Germany.

(g) The Stalinists were right in supporting the no-strike pledge during WWII.

(h) The Stalinists were right in calling for the Vietnamese to negotiate with the US, rather calling for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Vietnam.

(i) The Stalinists were right in building bureaucratic control of the economy of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, etc., instead of workers control, which led to virulent capitalism.

If this is what you morphed into from Trotskyism, rots of ruck in your next transformation.

RED DAVE

[manic expression]

Was there even such a thing as a "Stalinist" in the 1920's (aside from retroactive projection)?

[Red Future]

I Will answer you ASAP Dave on these questions , just remember that I am a moderate ML and not some "hardcore stalinist" as well.I will answer now why I changed though, I never could accept the theory of state capitalism even as a trot and as I am of a working class background I was eventually drawn to looking at the concrete achievements of the so called "State capitalist" regiemes that were done for working people.This among other things drew me away from SWP inspired Trotskyism to Marxist -Leninism

[Rooster]

Was there even such a thing as a "Stalinist" in the 1920's (aside from retroactive projection)?

Many of the Left Opposition's (ie, Trotskyist) ideas such as collectivisation, super-industrialisation and the need of the first five year plan were expressed at the 1926 conference but were planned before then (I think around 1923). The Stalin faction in the party at first didn't want to do any of this, then they wavered, came up with some pessimistic projections and then went on a course of adventurism saying that they'll complete the first five year plan in four years. I think this is what red dave is getting at.

[S.Artesian]

I Will answer you ASAP Dave on these questions , just remember that I am a moderate ML and not some "hardcore stalinist" as well.I will answer now why I changed though, I never could accept the theory of state capitalism even as a trot and as I am of a working class background I was eventually drawn to looking at the concrete achievements of the so called "State capitalist" regiemes that were done for working people.This among other things drew me away from SWP inspired Trotskyism to Marxist -Leninism

You don't have to accept the theory of state-capitalism, just as Marxists don't have to be Trotskyists to oppose the policies of the official CPs.

What you do have to answer is why the official CPs acted as they did regarding revolutionary outbreaks in Germany, Spain, Vietnam etc.

Like why the official CP in Vietnam hunted down militant workers in 1937 during the popular front period in France. And why again, at the close of WW2 did the official CPs dispossess the organization of workers' power, proclaiming that "our revolution is a bourgeois democratic revolution" and pave the way for the return of French colonialism.

[Blackscare]

... as I am of a working class background I was eventually drawn to looking at the concrete achievements of the so called "State capitalist" regiemes that were done for working people.This among other things drew me away from SWP inspired Trotskyism to Marxist -Leninism


So you're basically attracted to nostalgia about the good elements of past regimes? What on earth is productive about that? I've said this before; Marxism-Leninism is basically an historical position, not a firm theoretical foundation. It's conclusions don't really establish much in the way of a vision for future action, it's just a set positions on issues that no longer matter. Why M-L is considered a tendency, rather than a grouping of 20th century red bloc enthusiasts, is beyond me. The only relevant current-day theoretical position of this crowd is "anti-imperialism", which amongst such people basically degenerates into abject opportunism in consistently siding with the "lesser of two evils". We've seen this during the ongoing "Arab spring" debate.

It's a dead fucking end, even if you do support past socialist states. Don't construct your political outlook around the minutia of the political happenings of the 20th century. M-Ls are even worse than Trots in this regard, if only by a small stretch.

There's a reason that Stalin et al played so much realpolitik; they were leading a nation-state and were trying to preserve their national interests. This was a product of necessity (even if done absolutely wrong), and in no way should be interpreted as a blueprint for socialist action. Any materialist at all will tell you that it's absolutely silly to construct a world view around the decisions made in a scenario that is vastly different from today's. I understand you may have sympathies for this or that in this or that country, fine. But what I can't understand is how people seem so incapable of separating their sympathies (I am sympathetic to Leninism in countries where material reality makes it a necessity) from their own concrete positions on how to proceed politically in the time and place in which they live.

As an aside, I am also working class and I don't see how that is supposed to play into your support for M-L politics. Users saying that those who oppose M-L are of a different class/whatever are beyond idiotic (I am referring to someone else here, not you).

[Tim Finnegan]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this but.... weren't a bunch of Marx's writings not available until at least the 1930s? If Stalin never added anything to Leninism, and Lenin never had those texts available to him, then how can marxism-leninism be considered the definitive reading of Marx and of communist revolutionary theory? :confused:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3114/stalinchrist.jpg

If we get right down to it.

[Crux]

I Will answer you ASAP Dave on these questions , just remember that I am a moderate ML and not some "hardcore stalinist" as well.I will answer now why I changed though, I never could accept the theory of state capitalism even as a trot and as I am of a working class background I was eventually drawn to looking at the concrete achievements of the so called "State capitalist" regiemes that were done for working people.This among other things drew me away from SWP inspired Trotskyism to Marxist -Leninism
I used to believe in the state capitalism theory, then I became a trotskyist. ;)
SWP isn't the only show in town, just saying.

[The Man]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong about this but.... weren't a bunch of Marx's writings not available until at least the 1930s? If Stalin never added anything to Leninism, and Lenin never had those texts available to him, then how can marxism-leninism be considered the definitive reading of Marx and of communist revolutionary theory? :confused:

All three versions of Capital, the Communist Manifesto, and most importantly, the 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' were all available before the 1930s.

[Rooster]

All three versions of Capital, the Communist Manifesto, and most importantly, the 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' were all available before the 1930s.

But what was missing?

[Tim Finnegan]

But what was missing?
I think that The Germany Ideology, the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and the Grundrisse were the most important documents not to be published until this period, although, of course, it's debatable how important each was, especially given that Marx himself went off The German Ideology towards the end.

[Cyberwave]

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/3114/stalinchrist.jpg

If we get right down to it.

http://llco.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/passionmaotitle.jpg

THE ONLY TRUE COMMUNISTS ARE LEADING LIGHT COMMUNISTS!

[Ilyich]

I have read What Is to Be Done? I know what Leninism was intended to be. I will admit it. Lenin and Trotsky were great revolutionaries and geniuses. The idea of a vanguard party under democratic centralism will always fall prey to authoritarian bureaucrats like Stalin.

[Born in the USSR]

(a) The Stalinists were right over the Trotskyists in the debates in the 1920s.

(b) The Stalinists were right in pushing the Chinese Communist Party into its disastrous alliance with the KMT.

(c) The Stalinists were right in espousing the theory of social fascism.

(d) The Stalinists were right in Spain.

(e) The Stalinists were right in killing Trotsky.

(f) The Stalinists were right in making a pact with hitler and trading with Germany.

(g) The Stalinists were right in supporting the no-strike pledge during WWII.

(h) The Stalinists were right in calling for the Vietnamese to negotiate with the US, rather calling for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Vietnam.

(i) The Stalinists were right in building bureaucratic control of the economy of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, etc., instead of workers control, which led to virulent capitalism.


a)Trotskyists were defeated in the debates in 1920s;

b)Trotskyists tried to conduct an underground fight in the USSR but lost it;

c)Trotskyists tried to kill Soviet leaders, but instead of it Trotsky was killed;

d)Trot's POUMists tried to help fascists with the rebellion in Barcelona but were shot as mad dogs;

e)Trotskyists speak a lot about the united world revolution, but they are themselves divided into dozens of cuarelling with each others sects.They say that the Trotskyists as amoebas reproduce by dividing!:laugh:

Trots failed always and everywhere.

Why?Because their hands grow from their asses!:laugh:

What claas needs such vanguard?:laugh:

[Geiseric]

Technically weren't the Trotskyists right in the debates, I mean ultimately (I mean they were basically saying that the Bureaucratic style wasn't sustainable if Socialism was to be achieved, and they were ultimately correct since the foundations the first revolution failed to provide made way for the collapse)? Also can you pull out an example of how Trotskyists tried to kill Soviet leaders? Or can you show any proof of the alleged claims?

The splits are totally unrelated to the current topic, this thread is about Marxist Leninism, not Trotskyist splits. You guys always change the topic.

Anyways! I want to see a single speck of evidence backing your claims that Trotskyists were trying to sabotage the country they started to build. There's plenty of evidence that the Stalinists were, not through bombings and assassinations, but from statist policies and governmental actions though.

In summary I'm doubting a single thing you said in that post, I would argue that the P.S.U.C. was more counter revolutionary because it was actively attacking other groups who were pushing for the revolution, instead of keeping their troops on the front lines attacking the Fascists. You Stalinists are fine with popular fronts as long as there are no other leftist parties in it it seems.

[Tim Finnegan]

{{Trot's} POUMists} tried to {help {fascists}} with the rebellion in Barcelona but were shot as mad dogs
This is my attempt to highlight the factual errors within this sentence. As you can see, you did very poorly.

[Rooster]

Born in the USSR is a fine example of Stalinism. I expect as soon as the revolution happens, he'll one of the first to pick up an ice pick.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Two/three main reasons for me:

1) the great purges, and also the vapid defence of them. Mind boggling.
2) The general defensiveness re: Stalin. If you guys accepted that Molotov-Ribentropp was wrong, that 1937-38 was wrong and that, in general, the Stalinist line the Bukharinist-right and the Trot-left was wrong, then you'd have a lot more credibility amongst more than a few of your fellow comrades.
3) The sectarian nature (probably tied into point two) of many in your movement. Not all, admittedly. Some Marxist-Leninists are good comrades, as you find in any tendency. But I find a quite sad undercurrent of sectarianism, anti-Trotskyism and this hatred of anything non-ML in your movement. So many times i've been called a liberal, Trotskyite or similar, simply for stating non-ML opinions.

[Born in the USSR]

The splits are totally unrelated to the current topic, this thread is about Marxist Leninism, not Trotskyist splits. You guys always change the topic.


My post is not worse than Red Dave's post.


Technically weren't the Trotskyists right in the debates, I mean ultimately (I mean they were basically saying that the Bureaucratic style wasn't sustainable if Socialism was to be achieved, and they were ultimately correct since the foundations the first revolution failed to provide made way for the collapse)?They weren't right.Socialism was achieved and proved its viability in WW2.Not stalinism but anti-stalinism destroyed the Soviet Union,why you don't want to understand this?


Also can you pull out an example of how Trotskyists tried to kill Soviet leaders? Or can you show any proof of the alleged claims?Mikhail Frunze,the man of Stalin, replaced Trotsky on the post of Minister of Defence in January25,1925,but already in October,31 he died during a medical operation.He was only 40.Another hero of the civil war Grigory Kotovsky,first deputy of Frunze,was killed in August,6,1925.An almost simultaneous deathes of two anti-trot military leaders.In 1934 trotskyist Nikolayev killed Kirov.Аt the Moscow trials Trotskyists were also charged in the death of Kuibyshev and Gorky.


I want to see a single speck of evidence backing your claims that Trotskyists were trying to sabotage the country they started to buildThey tried to sabotage the regime they hated.They considered themselves a true revolutionaries and Stalin's regime counterrevolutionary.And what must do the true revolutionaries under the counterrevolutionary regime?To fight against it,of course.So they did it.No wonder.

"We must restore the tactics of Clemenceau, who opposed the French government at a time when the Germans were in the eighty miles from Paris. " (Trotsky in 1926).So they have restored this tactic in Spain in 1937.The result:thousands of killed and wounded Republicans,an important offensive on the Aragon front was ruined.Can you imagine what would happened if they to do the same in October 1941,when the Germans were in the eighty miles from Moscow?

[Born in the USSR]

Born in the USSR is a fine example of Stalinism. I expect as soon as the revolution happens, he'll one of the first to pick up an ice pick.

Rooster is a fine example of antistalinist.He already crapped his pants.

[Revolutionair]

To be honest. Stalinism is a huge reason why I would oppose a revolution. The idea of an authoritarian government that blocks any form of worker control scares me.

[human strike]

How the hell is this a useful contribution. Are you aware that the communist movement numerically is still dominated by MLs, and has been historically?

You spelled Communist wrong

[Per Levy]

Rooster is a fine example of antistalinist.He already crapped his pants.


d)Trot's POUMists tried to help fascists with the rebellion in Barcelona but were shot as mad dogs

tell me oh "great" stalinist would you purge trotskyists and other leftists just as your idol did? you seem very eager of doing so.

besides the poum was not trotskyist at all, you're lieing about that. and you lie about other things as well.

[pranabjyoti]

tell me oh "great" stalinist would you purge trotskyists and other leftists just as your idol did? you seem very eager of doing so.
If after revolution, they stand in the way of dictatorship of proletariat in the name of "anti-authoritarianism", they certainly deserve the feat.

besides the poum was not trotskyist at all, you're lieing about that. and you lie about other things as well.
Not as the level as the pseudo "liberal" lefts had done yet so far.

[Rooster]

Born in the USSR and pranabjyoti make a great comedy act. Just like any hard core stalinist, present them with historical facts and they wilfully ignore them. You two make it seem like you have no idea what you're talking about with your rants and mental gymnastics (or in some cases, I can only assume, consciously trying to blind yourselves to things). Just keep shoving words into the mouths of dead men.

[The Man]

I think that The Germany Ideology, the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 and the Grundrisse were the most important documents not to be published until this period, although, of course, it's debatable how important each was, especially given that Marx himself went off The German Ideology towards the end.


Remember that they were released by SOVIET Marxologists.. So Lenin as well as Stalin probably had read them.

[Born in the USSR]

besides the poum was not trotskyist at all, you're lieing about that. and you lie about other things as well.

Is it a lies or an ignorance?

POUM was formed by the fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Left of Spain and the Workers and Peasants bloc (Spanish Bukharinists),if you want to know.


tell me oh "great" stalinist would you purge trotskyists and other leftists just as your idol did? you seem very eager of doing so.

And tell me you ,brilliant r-r-revolutionary,would you and other antistalinists always play dirty tricks on victorious revolutions?

[Blake's Baby]

The POUM was composed of ex-Trotskyists and Bukharinists. They broke with Trotsky.

'Anti-Stalinists' don't have to 'play tricks on successful revolutions', we just have to stop the Stalinists murdering them.

[S.Artesian]

Born in the USSR and pranabjyoti make a great comedy act. Just like any hard core stalinist, present them with historical facts and they wilfully ignore them. You two make it seem like you have no idea what you're talking about with your rants and mental gymnastics (or in some cases, I can only assume, consciously trying to blind yourselves to things). Just keep shoving words into the mouths of dead men.


Which is why they should be on every Marxists "ignore" list.

[Geiseric]

My post is not worse than Red Dave's post.

They weren't right.Socialism was achieved and proved its viability in WW2.Not stalinism but anti-stalinism destroyed the Soviet Union,why you don't want to understand this?

Mikhail Frunze,the man of Stalin, replaced Trotsky on the post of Minister of Defence in January25,1925,but already in October,31 he died during a medical operation.He was only 40.Another hero of the civil war Grigory Kotovsky,first deputy of Frunze,was killed in August,6,1925.An almost simultaneous deathes of two anti-trot military leaders.In 1934 trotskyist Nikolayev killed Kirov.Аt the Moscow trials Trotskyists were also charged in the death of Kuibyshev and Gorky.

They tried to sabotage the regime they hated.They considered themselves a true revolutionaries and Stalin's regime counterrevolutionary.And what must do the true revolutionaries under the counterrevolutionary regime?To fight against it,of course.So they did it.No wonder.

"We must restore the tactics of Clemenceau, who opposed the French government at a time when the Germans were in the eighty miles from Paris. " (Trotsky in 1926).So they have restored this tactic in Spain in 1937.The result:thousands of killed and wounded Republicans,an important offensive on the Aragon front was ruined.Can you imagine what would happened if they to do the same in October 1941,when the Germans were in the eighty miles from Moscow?

So if you had a chance to go back in time and just make 1927-1946 happen over again, would you do anything differently? Like maybe telling the SPD to united front with the GCP? Make WW2 ultimately not happen, since the fascists are defeated in their embryonic state? If Stalin simply did that, or if he made the Chinese Communists break with KMT earlier on, Stalinist repression might also of been avoided since the need for such drastic super industrialization wouldn't have been necessary.

So Marxist Leninists, would you have done anything differently had you been in Stalin's shoes?

[Robocommie]

So Marxist Leninists, would you have done anything differently had you been in Stalin's shoes?

What's the point of asking that? We have the benefit of hindsight, we have the benefit of knowledge of what was going on in other parts of the world. It's like asking, after you got a test back and graded from the teacher, if you would have written down the same answers.

[Crux]

a)Trotskyists were defeated in the debates in 1920s;
Unlike earlier debates inside the bolshevik party, "defeated" in this case meant violently supressed, not defeated as in they lost the arguments, indeed the Left Oppositions positions genreally played out, whereas the Stalnist clique was forced to make political zig-zags. The chinese debate in particular is illuminating in how utterly wrong the stalnist line was. Admitting the butcher Chang Kai Chek as an honourable member into the ComIntern for one thing. It is no coincidence that many of the early emembers, including the founder of the Chinese Communist Party joined the Left Opposition.


b)Trotskyists tried to conduct an underground fight in the USSR but lost it;
Yes, the active trotskyist groups inside of the USSR were physically annhilated over a number of years, AFAIK. The "fight" was however not the "terrorist campaign" invented by the stalinist bureaucracy.


c)Trotskyists tried to kill Soviet leaders, but instead of it Trotsky was killed
Stalin sucessfully killed soviet leaders and politically liquidated bolshevism. Your point contains no argument.


d)Trot's POUMists tried to help fascists with the rebellion in Barcelona but were shot as mad dogs;
Not at all. Also, as has already been pointed out POUM was not a trotskyist group, although they did represent the politically most advanced layers of the working class. The lies and betrayals of the Partido Communista de España are crimes not easily forget. Moving in to annhilate those to the left being one (CNT-activist, left PSOE activists and POUMists), actively allying with the bourgeois remanants that did not go to fascism being the other.


e)Trotskyists speak a lot about the united world revolution, but they are themselves divided into dozens of cuarelling with each others sects.They say that the Trotskyists as amoebas reproduce by dividing!:laugh:
Pot meet kettle.

Trots failed always and everywhere.

Why?Because their hands grow from their asses!:laugh:

What claas needs such vanguard?:laugh:
Oh sorry I didn't realize they let 12 year olds into your organization.
Come back when you are able to debate.

[S.Artesian]

What's the point of asking that? We have the benefit of hindsight, we have the benefit of knowledge of what was going on in other parts of the world. It's like asking, after you got a test back and graded from the teacher, if you would have written down the same answers.


Oh I think there's a great value in that, because the "Ms-Ls" for the most part don't think there were any mistakes made, that anything was done incorrectly. On the contrary, as you can tell from the posts of these people, what a normal human being, much less a Marxist, might consider an error--like liquidating almost the entire old guard of the Bolsheviks, decimating the officer corps of the Red Army prior to 1940, hunting down and assassinating revolutionists outside the fSU, slandering the POUM etc as "fascists" all the better to justify executing them-- these things our resident "Ms-Ls" point to with pride.

All errors, of course come after the Great Gravedigger's own death.

[Thirsty Crow]

It's just hilalrious to read that the Left Opposition was defeated in debate when it turned out that the argument, and indeed the practice of the elimination of kulaks as a class (that is, collectivization of agriculture), was first put forward by the very same Opposition, while Stalin and his clique were busy cozying up to Bukharin and Rykov.

Stand up comedy, indeed.

[Tim Finnegan]

Remember that they were released by SOVIET Marxologists.. So Lenin as well as Stalin probably had read them.
This indicates a >0.5 possibility, yes? On what basis is so explicit a claim made?


...liquidating almost the entire old guard of the Bolsheviks...
Fun fact: Of the fifteen original members of the Council of People's Commissars apart from Lenin, only Stalin lived past 1940. Three died of natural causes before 1933, but the rest all died in prison, were executed, or, in Trotsky's case, were assassinated. Perhaps some of our Marxist-Leninist chums can tell us which of these three early deaths were those of good Marxist-Leninists who tragically perished before their time, and which would have ended up going the same way as the "capialist roaders" and "social fascists" who were so very unwisely selected to fill the majority of council seats in 1917?

[agnixie]

If after revolution, they stand in the way of dictatorship of proletariat in the name of "anti-authoritarianism", they certainly deserve the feat.


You mean dictatorship of the politburotariat, I think.

[Das war einmal]

The mistrust/hatred of MLs among anarchists and other non-ML communists is rooted in a long history of betrayal of the working class by various ML parties so as to sustain their own power. From the Red Army's slaughter of workers seeking autonomy and self-determination at Kronstadt to the Soviet Union's total betrayal of the Spanish working class resulting in Franco's rise to power, ML parties have time and time again fought against legitimate revolutionary forces as a means to secure their own power. Anarchists see MLs as a threat to a workers revolution because we recognize the blatant falsehood that is the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and recognize the impossibility of creating a stateless society through gaining control of the state.



Yeah some people are still seriously butthurt about events that happened almost a century ago.

[Tim Finnegan]

Yeah some people are still seriously butthurt about events that happened almost a century ago.
http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/imperialism/images/africa.gif

[Das war einmal]

http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/imperialism/images/africa.gif


Yes?

[Geiseric]

http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/imperialism/images/africa.gif hahahahaha i seriously laughed pretty hard when i saw this.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Not as the level as the pseudo "liberal" lefts had done yet so far.


Yeah, I mean, what would those bastard pseudo "liberal" lefts have any complaint about? It's not like Stalinist Russia brutally repressed segments of society and went after those who spoke up against the repression or anything.


In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union, that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor in prison. The precise reason for the new law is still in some dispute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia#Stalin

One of many examples of authoritarian excesses from an unquestionable leadership. Perhaps being able to protest against the policies of authoritarian governments is a good idea? No one group of people, no matter how red their flag is, should ever be given unquestionable authority to determine what the path of society is, and "liberals", "anarchists" and other groups who disagree with you are more than in the right when they point to the totalitarian excesses of 30s-40s era USSR.

[Das war einmal]

hahahahaha i seriously laughed pretty hard when i saw this.


Really? You lack getting your dose of daily humor so you find a picture of European-occupied Africa funny? What a weird sense of humor mate.

[Tim Finnegan]

Yes?
I just thought it was rather ironic that a so-called "Marxist" was so cheerfully lending his implicit support for imperial apologism, among other such typically reactionary pursuits.

[Das war einmal]

I just thought it was rather ironic that a so-called "Marxist" was so cheerfully lending his implicit support for imperial apologism, among other such typically reactionary pursuits.



Who? You're not making any sense.

[Blake's Baby]

You.

'Ooh boo hoo, crying about mass murder that happened a century ago... just get over it'

That's you that is.

[Tim Finnegan]

Who? You're not making any sense.
:rolleyes:

I'm calling you an apologist for European imperialism, because dismissing the former sins of the Stalinist tendency on the basis that they were a long time ago implicitly offers much the same apology for 18th-20th century European imperialism. This strikes me as an inappropriate position for somebody who thinks to call themselves a "Marxist" to take.

[S.Artesian]

Yeah some people are still seriously butthurt about events that happened almost a century ago.


Yeah, and imagine that gall of those African-Americans [North, Central, and South], African-Caribbeans, African-Europeans who are still upset about things that happened two centuries ago, like the slave trade.

Yeah, you go out there, Redklok, and tell em to man up and quit their whimpering over spilled blood.

[Jose Gracchus]

"Indignities" and "disciplining" can't really be compared with firing squads. Also I can't believe I'm having to say this for a third time now :rolleyes:

Rich. A Stalinist defends Stalinism by noting that their favorite malignancy mislabeled "socialism" more equitably distributes appalling repression and mass executions than other case examples of class societies, thus shoring up it's credibility! You can't make this shit up.

You are, of course, an imbecile. South Korea imposed the death penalty for capital export (and I suppose you think this law would plausibly target workers, not capital?), in order to realize similar social-economic goals to Stalinism. Is it socialism? You're an imbecile.

The only reason this argument appeared plausible to you is because you don't even know how clueless you are.


Khrushchov wasn't just analysing the Stalin era and noting what mistakes and excesses there had been. From beginning to end his speech was a complete fabrication designed to turn Stalin into a 2D cardboard cut-out of Satan

I'm talking about substantive policy changes (which actually began under Stalin in the early 50s, but could not be completed without more thoroughly dismantling the nature of Stalinist rule, i.e., disposing of Beria, dismantling the secret police's power and control over the GULag economy, etc.), not Grover Furr's tear-and-other-bodily-fluid-soaked rag about what a meanie Khrushchev was to his Uncle Joe in the Secret Speech. Get with the program.


As for the economic reforms just being about creating a more sustainable economy, that don't really hold up seeing how the economy then started stagnating, life expectancy went down 4 years, illnesses, accidents, general social decay and such all increased etc. Gorbachov and Yeltsin didn't just drop down from the sky, they came about specifically because of the revisionism and reforms.

Prove it. What would a magical immortal Stalin have done to sustain the economic growth? The 1928-1950 model was spent. The peasants were off their private bourgeois farms, and heavy industry had been consolidated. I guess you belong to the school of thought that if only they were forced marched into building more heavy steel plants into infinity by the prospect of execution or labor battalions forever, the USSR would've survived.

Stalinists are idealists. They provide no model for how these tendencies arise out of the material conditions of the Soviet state and Soviet real economy. Khrushchevism was the reaping the fruits of what Stalinism sowed; you created a gigantic and privileged bureaucracy, you think they will want to be threatened with death forever? Of course not, they were going to get out of that as soon as Stalin died, and any replacement for Stalin would have to count on a deciding fraction of the bureaucracy as political support in order to successfully claim leadership, and thus would have yielded to similar policies in their interest, just as Khrushchev did.

See what I just did? Its called utilizing a material conception of history.

[~Spectre]

Marxist-Leninists should be restricted to OI.

[Das war einmal]

You.

'Ooh boo hoo, crying about mass murder that happened a century ago... just get over it'

That's you that is.




:rolleyes:

I'm calling you an apologist for European imperialism, because dismissing the former sins of the Stalinist tendency on the basis that they were a long time ago implicitly offers much the same apology for 18th-20th century European imperialism. This strikes me as an inappropriate position for somebody who thinks to call themselves a "Marxist" to take.

I'm not apologizing anything, I'm just concluding that you are still bringing that subject up in regard to your dislike against Marxist-Leninists today. The people responsible are long gone, so I don't see why you keep others accountable.

I often have the feeling other radical leftists blame M-L'ists today for the condition of the communist cause. It's not really a strong point you know.

[Das war einmal]

Yeah, and imagine that gall of those African-Americans [North, Central, and South], African-Caribbeans, African-Europeans who are still upset about things that happened two centuries ago, like the slave trade.

Yeah, you go out there, Redklok, and tell em to man up and quit their whimpering over spilled blood.


Really. Laying words in my mouth. What a strong discussing tactic.

So you are comparing yourself with the offspring of those people who suffered hunderds of years and lost hundreds of millions to colonialism and slave trade? You think you stand on equal foot with them? Yeah their grand-grand parents where raped and slaughtered and humiliated but you feel them, because you have some vague political connection with Spanish volunteers who were betrayed. <----- You see, I can do that aswell. Not so cool eh? Piss off.

[manic expression]

I love the contradictions here. Trotskyists complain about "Stalinism" changing Soviet policy so, and then they complain that "Stalinism" did what Trotsky and his faction were proposing in the 20's anyway. Of course, that's only if you buy into the myth that "Stalinism" existed at all during that time. Hilarious. Basically, this thread is full of empty, self-defeating arguments that are based on the superficial vilification of an individual rather than a materialist perspective.

[S.Artesian]

Really. Laying words in my mouth. What a strong discussing tactic.

So you are comparing yourself with the offspring of those people who suffered hunderds of years and lost hundreds of millions to colonialism and slave trade? You think you stand on equal foot with them? Yeah their grand-grand parents where raped and slaughtered and humiliated but you feel them, because you have some vague political connection with Spanish volunteers who were betrayed. <----- You see, I can do that aswell. Not so cool eh? Piss off.


You're a clod. No, I don't consider myself the equivalent of the African people, but I do consider the hundreds of thousands who perished in revolutionary struggles because of the actions of "Marxists-Leninists" as deserving of more than the glib dismissal of "oh that's so 20th century," when in fact other clods, just like you, think it was just wonderful what happened in the 20th century.

You're the one who said that it happened so long ago that it doesn't matter. Well first off, not THAT long ago-- Chile, in which the CP did what it does best-- finger militants for the police, suppress the workers own organizations and actions against capitalism occurred 38 years ago... and secondly, there's only too many too willing to put on their little Marx-Lenin buttons and do it all over again.

So fuck off.

[RED DAVE]

I'm not apologizing anythingYou sure as shit ain't.


I'm just concluding that you are still bringing that subject up in regard to your dislike against Marxist-Leninists today. The people responsible are long gone, so I don't see why you keep others accountable.His point is that if we don't hold stalinists responsible for the crimes of stalinism, why should be hold imperialists responsible for the crimes of imperialism?


I often have the feeling other radical leftists blame M-L'ists today for the condition of the communist cause. It's not really a strong point you know.No, most leftists don't blame the stalinists for the current condition of the Left. But it would help if every time socialism is discussed, we have to explain that the USSR, Red China, Eastern Europe, etc., were not socialism. And it would help if we didn't have to deal with leftists who still think they were.

RED DAVE

[Das war einmal]

You're a clod. No, I don't consider myself the equivalent of the African people, but I do consider the hundreds of thousands who perished in revolutionary struggles because of the actions of "Marxists-Leninists" as deserving of more than the glib dismissal of "oh that's so 20th century," when in fact other clods, just like you, think it was just wonderful what happened in the 20th century.

You're the one who said that it happened so long ago that it doesn't matter. Well first off, not THAT long ago-- Chile, in which the CP did what it does best-- finger militants for the police, suppress the workers own organizations and actions against capitalism occurred 38 years ago... and secondly, there's only too many too willing to put on their little Marx-Lenin buttons and do it all over again.

So fuck off.

So you do think that remark about the slave trade was totally out of place? Good.

That other people think that what happened in spain was wonderfull does not make them my equals. Cause I do think that was terrible. I just don't think it holds any relevance in the position people take against eachother. Lucky for me I have no quarrels with most of the far-leftists I know. They don't hold me responsible or something. Atleast they dont say it to my face. Maybe they think worse of me being a leninist but if so then thats their problem really.

[The Man]

Marxist-Leninists should be restricted to OI.

April's Fools day was more than two months ago.

[Das war einmal]

You sure as shit ain't.

His point is that if we don't hold stalinists responsible for the crimes of stalinism, why should be hold imperialists responsible for the crimes of imperialism?

Thats only if you consider every Leninist to be a supporter of Stalin. Which is one major problem for some of you obviously.



No, most leftists don't blame the stalinists for the current condition of the Left. But it would help if every time socialism is discussed, we have to explain that the USSR, Red China, Eastern Europe, etc., were not socialism. And it would help if we didn't have to deal with leftists who still think they were.

RED DAVE

That should not be a real problem if your story is convincing. For the record: socialism means something different for Europeans. I don't claim that those states where communist aswell.

[Tim Finnegan]

Basically, this thread is full of empty, self-defeating arguments that are based on the superficial vilification of an individual rather than a materialist perspective.
So I take that you no longer adhere to the theory of "revisionism"?

[Geiseric]

I love the contradictions here. Trotskyists complain about "Stalinism" changing Soviet policy so, and then they complain that "Stalinism" did what Trotsky and his faction were proposing in the 20's anyway. Of course, that's only if you buy into the myth that "Stalinism" existed at all during that time. Hilarious. Basically, this thread is full of empty, self-defeating arguments that are based on the superficial vilification of an individual rather than a materialist perspective.

It changed policy to the point that the temporary concessions Lenin's era made to statism and government authority were kept instead of discarded, and instead of being a Workers State it just went back to a regular old authoritarian, nationalist, bureaucratic ruled state.

Also the industrialisation wouldn't have been necessary had the revolutions in Germany and China had been handled correctly. I stumbled on this the other day, if Stalin told the CCP to break with the KMT (Who he stated was the only group CAPIBLE of winning the revolution) and if he told the Spartacus League to side with the SPD in a united front, to get rid of the fascists, the German revolution would have been won! If there's any problems please state them, this is something i put togather hastily in my head.

And just a side note, I remember distinctly the verbage Stalinists use while defending stalin was that "He won WW2, and he Industrialised the U.S.S.R." and I thought that was anti-material in itself because, as we know, the Russian people won WW2 and Industrialised the U.S.S.R. not Stalin. He just reaped the benefits.

[Das war einmal]

It changed policy to the point that the temporary concessions Lenin's era made to statism and government authority were kept instead of discarded, and instead of being a Workers State it just went back to a regular old authoritarian, nationalist, bureaucratic ruled state.

Also the industrialisation wouldn't have been necessary had the revolutions in Germany and China had been handled correctly. I stumbled on this the other day, if Stalin told the CCP to break with the KMT (Who he stated was the only group CAPIBLE of winning the revolution) and if he told the Spartacus League to side with the SPD in a united front, to get rid of the fascists, the German revolution would have been won! If there's any problems please state them, this is something i put togather hastily in my head.


Yes nevermind the fact that the SPD had no intention whatsoever to cooperate with the communists. And forget the freikorps.

[Geiseric]

I'm sure if it came down to cooperating with the Communists over being assaulted by the Fascists, they would have chosen the former.

[Das war einmal]

I'm sure if it came down to cooperating with the Communists over being assaulted by the Fascists, they would have chosen the former.

...........

And I've read here that someone claimed that Marxist-leninist dont know their basic history well. Read up instead of assuming things.


Gustav Noske (July 9, 1868 - November 30, 1946) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He served as the first Minister of Defence of Germany between 1919 and 1920. He is noted for quelling the leftist uprisings in parts of Germany after World War I and for giving the order to assassinate Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

[S.Artesian]

So you do think that remark about the slave trade was totally out of place? Good.

That other people think that what happened in spain was wonderfull does not make them my equals. Cause I do think that was terrible. I just don't think it holds any relevance in the position people take against eachother. Lucky for me I have no quarrels with most of the far-leftists I know. They don't hold me responsible or something. Atleast they dont say it to my face. Maybe they think worse of me being a leninist but if so then thats their problem really.


Hey, jerk, I know it's tough to grasp, and it may be a blow to your infantile narcissism, but it's not always about you.

So when the clowns who call themselves "Marxists-Leninists" start their woofing about ice picks, and the POUM being fascists, and thank God the mighty Stalin was able to execute the fascist agents Bukharin, Radek, Zinoviev, Tukhachevsky... etc., Marxists take that seriously because we know those clowns are only too willing to dress themselves up in their little Halloween Stalin mustaches, and their little Vyshinsky spectacles and go trick or treating all over again.

[Broletariat]

Marxist-Leninists should be restricted to OI.


If you're interested in this idea, PM me.

[RED DAVE]

For the record: socialism means something different for Europeans. I don't claim that those states where communist aswell.Huh?

(1) Are you saying that Europeans and Asians have different concepts of socialism?

(2) Are you saying that the Eastern European states were not socialist?

RED DAVE

[Aurora]

Marxist-Leninists should be restricted to OI.
Why?
There's no grounds for restricting stalinists again, there wasn't the first time either.

[Red_Struggle]

Marxist-Leninists should be restricted to OI.

"Anti-authoritarians" at their best.

[Koba1917]

The simple answer in my opinion is two things:
1. People look at Stalin and think "OH EM GEE GENOCIDAL MANIAC!!11one" or they are anti-authoritarian.
2. Many people have claimed to follow Marxism-Leninism
i.e. Revisionists after Stalin, North Korea (Before they removed it from their constitution) and that many "Communist" nations which still have ruling parties
which are horribly revisionist and/or Capitalist.


Pretty much the reasons as I see it. :closedeyes:

[Uncle Rob]

To answer the OP's question: Choose your poison. a large percentage of the entire thread has been dedicated to it denouncement. The roots of their hatred is a culmination of historical development, ideological differences, and disagreements in tactics.

What I've observed fromthe majority of the Trotskyists here: They dislike us for our support of the ousting of the Left-bloc within the CPSU which to me is justified considering the Left of the party, time after time brought up these questions that were again and again defeated. Further, they broke party discipline by creating factions within the party which is something Lenin was vehemently against.


"danger of factionalism from the point of view of Party unity and of effecting the unity of will of the vanguard of the proletariat as the fundamental condition for the success of the dictatorship of the proletariat,"(On Party Unity)


"Whoever weakens in the least the iron discipline of the Party of the proletariat (especially during the time of its dictatorship), actually aids the bourgeoisie against the proletariat" (selected works Vol. XXV, p. 190).

I find this interesting when most of them claim to be adherents of Lenin yet when faced with the fact of their undisciplined actions excuse it with a flick of the wrist. Not to mention as was previously established that when ousted the Left continued it's struggle in the form of anti-soviet work that is to say Trotsky and his supporters actively tried to undo soviet power in the USSR. Marxist-Leninists of course support -unapologetically- the principle of the centralized vanguard as the tool that historically led to the emancipation of the working class (not just speaking of bourgeois epoch, all revolutions which led to the overthrow of the social order were led by bodies that can be very well called a vanguard).

Further; Trotskyists hate us because they have this nonsensical, preconceived notion that we do not want the spread of revolutions in other countries. They will say "you support socialism in one country" But as a Marxist who treats the revolutionary process as a process and not statically I will say this: The Soviet Union did what it did precisely because the revolution could not be outsourced. It's what the situation called for. It is the work of the national proletariat to deal with it's own bourgeoisie as Marx once explicitly stated. If however they fail to succeed in their historical mission what is the working class to do when faced with isolation? Give up and go home? No. It must defend it's gains while at the same time doing all it can from afar to aid those revolutions which are budding (which the Comitern did- the success and failures of the tactics employed are of a historical nature and for now do not concern us for it is an entirely different discussion). We Marxist-Leninst oppose the inherently idealist notions of the Trotskyists which assumes the workers revolution will look exactly what Marx and Engles had envisioned. Another point Marx was explicit about in the first lines of the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte " Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past" Looking at the class character of the 1917 revolution in Russia we can say for sure it was of proletarian character and what stemmed from it was the form the Dictatorship of the Proletariat will take. For recognizing that reality does not conform to the ideal; they hate us.

There are a multitude of other reasons for why they hate us but if you've been following the thread at all I'm sure you've seen the jist of it.

As for the Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians: They hate us because we recognize that the state cannot be abolished overnight. We know (both in theory and in practice) that the proletariat (or any class) must defend it's gains with force. They substitute the class analysis for their moral subjectivity of what a revolution "should" look like rather than what it is. They cannot seem to grasp that their very conceptions of "justice", "moral", "Humane" are nothing but the products of the society that has shaped their consciousness. Because they refuse to look at the historical and material aspects of class struggle it leads them to most fruitful array of political, philosophical and economic delusions. We stand in stark contrast to all of them for we are not afraid to exercise the full might of the proletariats power to crush all it's enemies both at home and abroad (assuming of course those abroad encroach our borders) we are willing to kill any capitalist, pay any price for victory without compromising for a second our principles; and for this they hate us.

They hate us because we recognize that socialist consciousness comes from without as the history of the working class movement has taught us. If it were possible for the masses to learn and emancipate themselves (given the capitalist system exploits them to no end) we should have achieved communism long ago, don't you think? They hate the idea of the vanguard party which is something we stand for.



It changed policy to the point that the temporary concessions Lenin's era made to statism and government authority were kept instead of discarded, and instead of being a Workers State it just went back to a regular old authoritarian, nationalist, bureaucratic ruled state.

Also the industrialisation wouldn't have been necessary had the revolutions in Germany and China had been handled correctly. I stumbled on this the other day, if Stalin told the CCP to break with the KMT (Who he stated was the only group CAPIBLE of winning the revolution) and if he told the Spartacus League to side with the SPD in a united front, to get rid of the fascists, the German revolution would have been won! If there's any problems please state them, this is something i put togather hastily in my head.

And just a side note, I remember distinctly the verbage Stalinists use while defending stalin was that "He won WW2, and he Industrialised the U.S.S.R." and I thought that was anti-material in itself because, as we know, the Russian people won WW2 and Industrialised the U.S.S.R. not Stalin. He just reaped the benefits.

Please provide us with some sort of source which shows us exactly when Soviet power was compromised prior to Khrushchev, just so we know your colon still expels feces instead of baseless claims. Further; show me a country ripe for revolution during the time of industrialization. Why do you detest the initiative of the masses to build an industrial base for it's county in spite of the failure of the revolutions in Germany in 1918 and Hungary?


Further still; Why on Earth would you bring up a personal experience of yours to define the behavior of "Stalinists" when it is in fact a logical fallacy to do so? It is further a fallacy to assume one particular case accounts for the whole. I don't know what the hell you're trying to prove by giving us your little "side note". If it's your own ignorance, by all means continue, you're doing a wonderful job. If it's some point relevant to the conversation, it's riddled with logical fallacy coupled with a baseless claim about these "benefits" Stalin supposedly reaped.

[reformnow88]

I often agree with Marxist leninist and I have been studying history for 15 years so this idea that mls don't understand history is somewhat jaded...

[Born in the USSR]

Also the industrialisation wouldn't have been necessary had the revolutions in Germany and China had been handled correctly. I stumbled on this the other day, if Stalin told the CCP to break with the KMT (Who he stated was the only group CAPIBLE of winning the revolution) and if he told the Spartacus League to side with the SPD in a united front, to get rid of the fascists, the German revolution would have been won! If there's any problems please state them, this is something i put togather hastily in my head..

What a childish talk!The WW2 was inevitable in any case because the capitalist encirclement preserved.And therefore the forced industrialization was inevitable,too.BTW, this famoust frase "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under" Stalin said in 1931,two years before Nazi regime was established in Germany.

The Nazi regime won a victory in Germany not because of Communist misstakes,but because the bourgeoisie was stronger than the proletariat.Hell,I'm sure you'd not proclaim,that the USA have capitalism because American leftists are stupid,it's clear for everyone that there is capitalism because the bourgeoisie is strong!


Russian people won WW2 and Industrialised the U.S.S.R. not Stalin. He just reaped the benefits.

It's like saying that German people invaded in the USSR,not Hitler.He just reaped the benefits (that is paid with his life for crimes of the Germans).

[Devrim]

To go back to the OP's question, I think that one of the prime reasons it that it seems as if most of the ML posters are here come across as totally vicarious. For obvious reasons this forum attracts people from English speaking countries and amongst those a lot of young people. Even the people who it attracts from the countries where there a large Maoist organisations aren't, again for obvious reasons, out in the field fighting the 'people's war'.

What it results in is the impression that the Maoist posters are young kids cheering on other people's struggles in far away lands with no practical experience of what they are talking about at all.

Now I know that there are no posters on here who have been through a revolution, but when anarchists, Trotskyists or left communists talk about workers' struggles, you do know that some of them on here at least have been through big strikes themselves, so it doesn't give quite the same impression. Even if they haven't many of them are workers and have at least some experience of what they are talking about.

When you add to this plain rudeness and arrogance that comes across from many of the Maoist posters, I think that it adds up to one of the main reasons that people dislike them.

Devrim

[pranabjyoti]

To go back to the OP's question, I think that one of the prime reasons it that it seems as if most of the ML posters are here come across as totally vicarious. For obvious reasons this forum attracts people from English speaking countries and amongst those a lot of young people. Even the people who it attracts from the countries where there a large Maoist organisations aren't, again for obvious reasons, out in the field fighting the 'people's war'.

What it results in is the impression that the Maoist posters are young kids cheering on other people's struggles in far away lands with no practical experience of what they are talking about at all.

Now I know that there are no posters on here who have been through a revolution, but when anarchists, Trotskyists or left communists talk about workers' struggles, you do know that some of them on here at least have been through big strikes themselves, so it doesn't give quite the same impression. Even if they haven't many of them are workers and have at least some experience of what they are talking about.

When you add to this plain rudeness and arrogance that comes across from many of the Maoist posters, I think that it adds up to one of the main reasons that people dislike them.

Devrim
How do you know that those who are pro-Maoist here haven't gone through any struggle at all? Even trotskayites from third world countries share very much similar views like the Maoists.

[Devrim]

How do you know that those who are pro-Maoist here haven't gone through any struggle at all? Even trotskayites from third world countries share very much similar views like the Maoists.

I don't but I suspect it to be the case. Certainly they qre not out in he fild at the moment.

Most of the Maoist posters on here don't come from the 'third world' though, but from the US.

Devrim

[Tim Cornelis]

Every time Marxism-Leninism was the dominant ideology (or variant thereof) it has lead to a tyrannical government, not communism. Normally, when one is confronted with a 100% failure rate people look for other answers, Marxist-Leninists have failed to do so.

Basically it goes back to the mantra 'the liberation of the working class can only be the work of the working class' (paraphrasing Marx I think), not a vanguard party or elite which inevitably alienates itself from the masses (see public choice theory).

The Marxist-Leninists I know often support a transitional society rather than a transitional phase. The only way to liberate the working class is through the immediate seizing of the economy by the workers without a state involved--pure communism.

[RED DAVE]

Just for fun, M-Ls, why don't we review ML politics in the USA? Here's some openers.

(1) You supported Roosevelt, the Democrat, in 1936.

(2) You were supportive of the anti-fascist movement until the Stalin-Hitler Pact, then you torpedoed it.

(3) You supported the no-strike pledge during WWII.

(4) You supported the jailing of Trotskyists under the Smith Act.

(5) You did not support A. Philip Randolph's call for a March on Washington during WWII to integrate the Army and war contract manufacturing.

RED DAVE

[The Man]

Just for fun, M-Ls, why don't we review ML politics in the USA? Here's some openers.

(1) You supported Roosevelt, the Democrat, in 1936.

(2) You were supportive of the anti-fascist movement until the Stalin-Hitler Pact, then you torpedoed it.

(3) You supported the no-strike pledge during WWII.

(4) You supported the jailing of Trotskyists under the Smith Act.

(5) You did not support A. Philip Randolph's call for a March on Washington during WWII to integrate the Army and war contract manufacturing.

RED DAVE


I supported that Roosevelt in the 30's? I didn't know that.. I was born in the 90s? :confused:.. I'm also pretty sure I am part of the Anti-Fascist movement.

[Magón]

Every time Marxism-Leninism was the dominant ideology (or variant thereof) it has lead to a tyrannical government, not communism. Normally, when one is confronted with a 100% failure rate people look for other answers, Marxist-Leninists have failed to do so.

Speaking of Insanity. Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?

[The Man]

Every time Marxism-Leninism was the dominant ideology (or variant thereof) it has lead to a tyrannical government, not communism. Normally, when one is confronted with a 100% failure rate people look for other answers, Marxist-Leninists have failed to do so.


Lol.. This guy thinks you can have Communism in a single country..

[RED DAVE]

I supported that Roosevelt in the 30's? I didn't know that.. I was born in the 90s? :confused:.. I'm also pretty sure I am part of the Anti-Fascist movement.The above is what your tendency did in the 1930s and 1940s under the banner of Marxism-Leninism. If you don't support these actions, please tell us why did they happen in the first place.

If you do support some of them, please tell us why.

RED DAVE

[Rooster]

You guys know that marxim-leninism refers to stalinism and kinda just uses quote from marx and lenin to prop itself up? :confused:

[The Man]

You guys know that marxim-leninism refers to stalinism and kinda just uses quote from marx and lenin to prop itself up? :confused:


What are you talking about? Our entire ideology circles around Marx & Lenin's ideas. I am sick of people calling us "Stalinists", sure Stalin created the name 'Marxist-Leninist', but Stalin added no theories to Marxism-Leninism.

[Tim Finnegan]

What are you talking about? Our entire ideology circles around Marx & Lenin's ideas. I am sick of people calling us "Stalinists", sure Stalin created the name 'Marxist-Leninist', but Stalin added no ideological theory to Marxism-Leninism.
Regardless of the veracity of this claim, the fact that you think it is a necessary claim to make is damning in itself. It betrays a mindset far closer to a religious obsession with divine insights and Apostolic successions than it does any rational or scientific approach to theory.

[Tim Cornelis]

Lol.. This guy thinks you can have Communism in a single country..

The Spanish (especially Rural) collectives implemented a form of libertarian communism and collectivist-anarchism without a transitional phase in which a vanguard party holds power over the working class.

I'm also curious to know why you think this time Marxism-Leninism will not "degenerate" into a tyrannical society?

And if a successful revolution establishes communism in, say, Western Europe you can bet the rest of Europe will follows soon, etc. etc.

I'll attempt to establish a temporary "communism in one country" over a "temporary" vanguardist dictatorship any day.

[human strike]

Tankies; can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

[S.Artesian]

Tankies; can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.


They sure as hell don't have any compunctions about shooting you.

[Coggeh]

Lol.. This guy thinks you can have Communism in a single country..
Lol.. This guy thinks you can have Socialism in a single country.....

[The_Outernationalist]

Who cares what our detractors (mostly anarchists and trots) think, they're basically opposed to us because they want to see their own ideological paradise(s) spring forth from the ground using magical theory that will make everyone automatically obedient to their way of thinking without so much as lifting a finger because they call it...science.

Nevermind that ML is on very solid ground, alot more than other forms of thought, philosophically and economically speaking.

[The_Outernationalist]

You guys know that marxim-leninism refers to stalinism and kinda just uses quote from marx and lenin to prop itself up? :confused:

It refers to "Stalinism" in so much that Stalin propagated the philosophy of Lenin and Marx...otherwise, Stalinism is mostly a term I see used by overclass westerners who seem to forget that Stalin (and Marx, and Lenin) is a very positive figure in most of the underprivileged and impoverished world.

[Born in the USSR]

Lol.. This guy thinks you can have Socialism in a single country.....

Lol....This guy don't know that we had Socialism in a single country....

[WeAreReborn]

Lol....This guy don't know that we had Socialism in a single country....
Except there wasn't. You can argue that the overall goal was and that never changed, but you cannot argue, accurately, that it was socialism. The means of production simply weren't held in common. That is a fact.

[Born in the USSR]

Except there wasn't. You can argue that the overall goal was and that never changed, but you cannot argue, accurately, that it was socialism. The means of production simply weren't held in common. That is a fact.

The fact is that the means of production were in common.The private production didn't exist in the USSR.

[The_Outernationalist]

Except there wasn't. You can argue that the overall goal was and that never changed, but you cannot argue, accurately, that it was socialism. The means of production simply weren't held in common. That is a fact.

It was the path to socialism, I believe. The USSR was also the closest to a socialist state we have ever embarked on globally. The USSR created many mistakes, but when you look at what they were up against...any other group would've failed miserably. The anarchists, trots, syndicalists, etc. would NOT have done better. In fact, I'm positive they would've faired much worse.

[Rooster]

What are you talking about? Our entire ideology circles around Marx & Lenin's ideas. I am sick of people calling us "Stalinists", sure Stalin created the name 'Marxist-Leninist', but Stalin added no theories to Marxism-Leninism.

Heh, yeah circles around, never takes them as a whole. The fact that people can pull quotes out of Lenin and Marx and argue a different point from m-ls kinda shows this. Stalin added no theories, his clique only removed and changed certain theories. If you can't see that as revisionism, even as just historic revisionism, then I have to give up.

[Rooster]

It was the path to socialism, I believe. The USSR was also the closest to a socialist state we have ever embarked on globally. The USSR created many mistakes, but when you look at what they were up against...any other group would've failed miserably. The anarchists, trots, syndicalists, etc. would NOT have done better. In fact, I'm positive they would've faired much worse.

That's funny because everything that the Left Opposition called for were at first dismissed by Stalin and then once the opposition was removed, were implemented by Stalin and his cronies! Would not have done better, huh? Would have probably done better at lot sooner and at a more optimum tempo.

How can it be the path to socialism (and this is ignoring the fact that Stalin declared that socialism had been reached!) if it ended up restoring capitalism?


The fact is that the means of production were in common.The private production didn't exist in the USSR.

Legalistic mumbo jumbo. Using this line of reasoning, you could argue that the NHS is in the hands of the workers, that the public transport systems of bourgeois countries are in the hands of the workers.


Lol....This guy don't know that we had Socialism in a single country....

You can walk around the streets of Moscow naked if you ignore the police and the weather. How can socialism give way to capitalism so easily? Not even after the bloody put down of the French Revolution, did feudalism ever rear it's head again.

[The_Outernationalist]

That's funny because everything that the Left Opposition called for were at first dismissed by Stalin and then once the opposition was removed, were implemented by Stalin and his cronies! Would not have done better, huh? Would have probably done better at lot sooner and at a more optimum tempo.

Oh really? and what "everything" that the "Left Opposition" called for did Stalin and "his cronies" implement? I'd like to hear this one. from you of course. *waits for frantic wikiying*



You can walk around the streets of Moscow naked if you ignore the police and the weather. How can socialism give way to capitalism so easily? Not even after the bloody put down of the French Revolution, did feudalism ever rear it's head again.

Well...it's quite obvious someone has never really been to Moscow.

[Rooster]

Who cares what our detractors (mostly anarchists and trots) think, they're basically opposed to us because they want to see their own ideological paradise(s) spring forth from the ground using magical theory that will make everyone automatically obedient to their way of thinking without so much as lifting a finger because they call it...science.

Nevermind that ML is on very solid ground, alot more than other forms of thought, philosophically and economically speaking.

Oh? Trotskyists just want to see their own ideological ends get tied up into neat little knots? Gimme a break. I'm sure most Trotskyists want to see the emmancipation of humanity from capitalism. Please, your paranoia and ignorance is showing. Using magical theory? Could you tell me, comrade, what Trotsky did during the revolution?

[The_Outernationalist]

Oh? Trotskyists just want to see their own ideological ends get tied up into neat little knots? Gimme a break. I'm sure most Trotskyists want to see the emmancipation of humanity from capitalism.

I question their motives, but to each their own.


Please, your paranoia and ignorance is showing. Using magical theory? Could you tell me, comrade, what Trotsky did during the revolution?

He was a decent military leader, and a pathetic philosopher/theorist.