Aniversary of the Prague Revolutionary Spring

[Imposter Marxist]

On this day in history the enslaved workers in State-Capitalist soviet union rose up to attempt to start a world revolution. This is known as prague spring. The state capitalist tanks from soviet russia rolled in to deflect World revolution, and thus, chekoslovkia would remain enslaved until its liberation in 1990.

[GoddessCleoLover]

At the time it seemed to be an attempt to reform socialism, to give it a "human face".

[Ostrinski]

here we go

[Blake's Baby]

I'm sorry, I Want My Name To Be Spaghetti, I don't mean to be rude, but you're posting a lot of things at the moment that seem to be only half-thought out, if that.

At least this post doesn't mention Tony Cliff, I suppose.

Do you really think 1990 was a 'liberation'? Liberated from Stalinism and handed over to Neo-Liberalism (and nationalism - Czechoslovakia broke up in 2 years)? Was it that good a deal?

I'm not defending Stalinism, but if you're drowning then the shark that eats you before you do isn't 'saving' you.

And it wasn't 'The Soviet Union', it was 'The Soviet Bloc' at most. Czechoslovakia was still Czechoslovakia.

[Imposter Marxist]

Yes, State Capitalism with a non-russian face

[Imposter Marxist]

I'm sorry, I Want My Name To Be Spaghetti, I don't mean to be rude, but you're posting a lot of things at the moment that seem to be only half-thought out, if that.

At least this post doesn't mention Tony Cliff, I suppose.

Do you really think 1990 was a 'liberation'? Liberated from Stalinism and handed over to Neo-Liberalism (and nationalism - Czechoslovakia broke up in 2 years)? Was it that good a deal?

I'm not defending Stalinism, but if you're drowning then the shark that eats you before you do isn't 'saving' you.

And it wasn't 'The Soviet Union', it was 'The Soviet Bloc' at most. Czechoslovakia was still Czechoslovakia.

Typical stalinist dribble

[Sam_b]

and nationalism - Czechoslovakia broke up in 2 years

And the creation of Czechoslovakia as engineered by Masaryk and Beneš didn't have anything to do with nationalism either? It was, in many ways, an entirely made up state.

Also, to OP - your post doesn't seem to deal with any fact in the slightest. Firstly, the Prague Spring was not a worker's uprising, but in fact a power struggle between two factions of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of Slovakia; mostly based around camps that supported the political direction of Novotný and those who wanted to see a liberal 'turn' nationwide as an extension of the less well-known 'Bratislava Spring' in the KSS. The events of 1960s Czechoslovakia were nowhere near the likes of Hungary in 1956 for instance.

[Imposter Marxist]

And the creation of Czechoslovakia as engineered by Masaryk and Beneš didn't have anything to do with nationalism either? It was, in many ways, an entirely made up state.

Also, to OP - your post doesn't seem to deal with any fact in the slightest. Firstly, the Prague Spring was not a worker's uprising, but in fact a power struggle between two factions of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Communist Party of Slovakia; mostly based around camps that supported the political direction of Novotný and those who wanted to see a liberal 'turn' nationwide as an extension of the less well-known 'Bratislava Spring' in the KSS. The events of 1960s Czechoslovakia were nowhere near the likes of Hungary in 1956 for instance.

What a bad analysis, maybe you should read what Tony Cliff had to say about the subject

[Blake's Baby]

Typical stalinist dribble

Excellent.

I'm putting this in my sig as soon as I work out how, and you should invite some of the Stalinists here to show them.

[Imposter Marxist]

Bring me an army of state capitalist drones, I will defeat them with the shining sword of marxism, wielded by the powerful lord Tony Cliff:D

[Ostrinski]

Are we just gonna have a diehard groupie for each leftist figure that ever existed on this board now or what

[Sam_b]

Firstly, stop trolling.


What a bad analysis, maybe you should read what Tony Cliff had to say about the subject
Seeing as I was part of the IST for most of my political life you should can this attitude. Also, you should know more than anyone that Cliff didn't write too much of the subject either. Why not, instead of you posting a series of one-liners (that, in fact, have very little to do with Cliff's analysis), you actually try and argue your political line here.

Tell me, how was the Prague Spring a 'workers uprising'?

[Omsk]

Blake's Baby is the worst kind of stalinist.

Damn stalinists.

[The Young Pioneer]

On this day in history the enslaved workers in State-Capitalist soviet union rose up to attempt to start a world revolution. This is known as prague spring. The state capitalist tanks from soviet russia rolled in to deflect World revolution, and thus, chekoslovkia would remain enslaved until its liberation in 1990.

Just a few nit-picks...

You're referring to the coup d'etat of 1948 (I assume), which communists traditionally celebrated by recognising the entire month as "Victorious February." Today just marks when President Beneš gave the government over to Gottwald's communists. I'd prefer personally to recognise 9 May, when the Czechoslovaks got their own Constitution.

This coup is also not called Prague Spring, which was something else that started in 1968 with Dubček.

Also the Velvet Revolution came in 1989.

[BonapartistSocialist]

Wow, sphagetti shows you idiots how great it was that the oppressive soviet russian union was finally destroyed by real freedom fighters, and half of you chew him out?

Have none of you learned anything?

[gorillafuck]

Wow, sphagetti shows you idiots how great it was that the oppressive soviet russian union was finally destroyed by real freedom fighters, and half of you chew him out?

Have none of you learned anything?blakes baby is a left-com. accusing him of stalinisn is ridiculous.

[Ostrinski]

I'm pretty sure I want my name to be spaghetti is an ML troll. It's almost as if s/he's trying to make non ML talking points look like shit.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Are we just gonna have a diehard groupie for each leftist figure that ever existed on this board now or what Emma Goldman is mai waifu

[BonapartistSocialist]

I'm pretty sure I want my name to be spaghetti is an ML troll. It's almost as if s/he's trying to make non ML talking points look like shit.

Uhm, actually I know him you idiot, we're bonapartists, we're trying to revive the movement and it's coming along pretty well.

we're gonna have a discussion group on skype regarding bonapartism if you'd like to come.

[Martin Blank]

Noth and Nuvem, knock it off!

[Ostrinski]

Uhm, actually I know him you idiot, we're bonapartists, we're trying to revive the movement and it's coming along pretty well.

we're gonna have a discussion group on skype regarding bonapartism if you'd like to come.Forgive me, your excellency.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

This whole thread is BS. Why is anyone even commenting? We can all tell that the OP is a troll becase nothing he wrote is even slightly factual. Worker's uprising? More like liberal reformation.

[Imposter Marxist]

i used to be a stalinist, then I read tony cliff

[Telenus]

Firstly, stop trolling.


Seeing as I was part of the IST for most of my political life you should can this attitude. Also, you should know more than anyone that Cliff didn't write too much of the subject either. Why not, instead of you posting a series of one-liners (that, in fact, have very little to do with Cliff's analysis), you actually try and argue your political line here.

Tell me, how was the Prague Spring a 'workers uprising'?

I used to be friends with this guy. I assure you that he isn't trolling, but has rather lost his mind through the use of drugs. Anyhow. I don't... quite understand how a Left Communist can be a Stalinist? Maybe I'm missing something but this makes no logical sense. Excuse my ignorance on the subject matter too, but who the heck is Tony Cliff? Can anyone explain who this is? Please?

[Blake's Baby]

Tony Cliff was the founder of the SWP (formerly the International Socialists) in Britain, a Trotskyist organisation that had a view (somewhat heterodox for Trotskyists) that the USSR was state capitalist rather than a 'deformed workers' state'.

A Left Communist can be a Stalinist when a Trotskyist who's shooting his mouth off detects a position that doesn't think neo-liberalism and bourgeois democracy is better than Stalinism. Ergo, I must be defending Stalinism. Welcome me comrades, the Trotskyist has decided we are one.

[roy]

Obvious trolls are obvious. Painfully so.

[Roach]

Michael Parenti wrote this about the Velvet Revolution's leader Vaclav Havel:


Must We Adore Vaclav Havel? by Michael Parenti

No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic. The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism.

Raised by governesses and chauffeurs in a wealthy and fervently anticommunist family, Havel denounced democracy's "cult of objectivity and statistical average" and the idea that rational, collective social efforts should be applied to solving the environmental crisis. He called for a new breed of political leader who would rely less on "rational, cognitive thinking," show "humility in the face of the mysterious order of the Being," and "trust in his own subjectivity as his principal link with the subjectivity of the world." Apparently, this new breed of leader would be a superior elitist cogitator, not unlike Plato's philosopher, endowed with a "sense of transcendental responsibility" and "archetypal wisdom." Havel never explained how this transcendent archetypal wisdom would translate into actual policy decisions, and for whose benefit at whose expense.

Havel called for efforts to preserve the Christian family in the Christian nation. Presenting himself as a man of peace and stating that he would never sell arms to oppressive regimes, he sold weapons to the Philippines and the fascist regime in Thailand. In June 1994, General Pinochet, the man who butchered Chilean democracy, was reported to be arms shopping in Czechoslovakia - with no audible objections from Havel.

Havel joined wholeheartedly in George Bush's Gulf War, an enterprise that killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. In 1991, along with other [e]astern European pro-capitalist leaders, Havel voted with the United States to condemn human rights violations in Cuba. But he has never uttered a word of condemnation of rights violations in El Salvador, Columbia, Indonesia, or any other U.S. client state.

In 1992, while president of Czechoslovakia, Havel, the great democrat, demanded that parliament be suspended and he be allowed to rule by edict, the better to ram through free-market "reforms." That same year, he signed a law that made the advocacy of communism a felony with a penalty of up to eight years imprisonment. He claimed the Czech constitution required him to sign it. In fact, as he knew, the law violated the Charter of Human Rights which is incorporated into the Czech constitution. In any case, it did not require his signature to become law. in 1995, he supported and signed another undemocratic law barring communists and former communists from employment in public agencies.

The propagation of anticommunism has remained a top priority for Havel. He led "a frantic international campaign" to keep in operation two U.S.-financed, cold war radio stations, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, so they could continue saturating Eastern Europe with their anticommunist propaganda.

Under Havel's government, a law was passed making it a crime to propagate national, religious, and CLASS hatred. In effect, criticisms of big moneyed interests were now illegal, being unjustifiably lumped with ethnic and religious bigotry. Havel's government warned labor unions not to involve themselves in politics. Some militant unions had their property taken from them and handed over to compliant company unions.

In 1995, Havel announced that the 'revolution' against communism would not be complete until everything was privatized. Havel's government liquidated the properties of the Socialist Union of Youth - which included camp sites, recreation halls, and cultural and scientific facilities for children - putting the properties under the management of five joint stock companies, at the expense of the youth who were left to roam the streets.

Under Czech privatization and "restitution" programs, factories, shops, estates, homes, and much of the public land was sold at bargain prices to foreign and domestic capitalists. In the Czech and Slovak republics, former aristocrats or their heirs were being given back all lands their families had held before 1918 under the Austro-Hungarian empire, dispossessing the previous occupants and sending many of them into destitution. Havel himself took personal ownership of public properties that had belonged to his family forty years before.

While presenting himself as a man dedicated to doing good for others, he did well for himself. For all these reasons some of us do not have warm fuzzy feelings toward Vaclav Havel.

-- Michael Parenti

[Nuvem]

Noth and Nuvem, knock it off!

Hold up. Why am I included here? I haven't done anything recently. Couple of DPRK posts in Chit-Chat, one about the Economic Calculation Problem. No trolling, haven't even been in this thread until I heard I was being blamed for something.

[A Marxist Historian]

I used to be friends with this guy. I assure you that he isn't trolling, but has rather lost his mind through the use of drugs. Anyhow. I don't... quite understand how a Left Communist can be a Stalinist? Maybe I'm missing something but this makes no logical sense. Excuse my ignorance on the subject matter too, but who the heck is Tony Cliff? Can anyone explain who this is? Please?

Ah. Thanks for pointing that out about spaghettiman.

I'll try to stop pestering the poor bastard in other threads. He makes it so tempting though...

As for Cliff, no doubt responses are descending on you from left and right, mostly right.

-M.H.-

[dodger]

I used to be friends with this guy. I assure you that he isn't trolling, but has rather lost his mind through the use of drugs. Anyhow. I don't... quite understand how a Left Communist can be a Stalinist? Maybe I'm missing something but this makes no logical sense. Excuse my ignorance on the subject matter too, but who the heck is Tony Cliff? Can anyone explain who this is? Please?

The blurb on the book he wrote:Trotskyism After Trotsky: The Origins of the International Socialists.:by Tony Cliff

It says,"socialists who looked to the ideas of Trotsky were forced either to abandon socialism or to reinterpret the reality they faced'. But Cliff did both:laugh::

"Stalinist dribble" can maybe explained by his collaboration with Reg Birch AUEW/TUC/Chairman CPB (ML) ON THIS: :D

http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=tony%20cliff%20reg%20birch&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Farchive%2Fclif f%2Fworks%2F1966%2Fincomespol%2F0-intro.htm&ei=ifdMT-vONMmSiAe85JxP&usg=AFQjCNH9uMlRy44KmM90Ao7qHO05LDFawA

[Blake's Baby]

...
"Stalinist dribble" can maybe explained by his collaboration with Reg Birch AUEW/TUC/Chairman CPB ...

I think it's me that's supposed to be the Stalinist dribbler, dodger.

Though I assume they meant 'drivel'.

Perhaps they didn't.

[dodger]

I think it's me that's supposed to be the Stalinist dribbler, dodger.

Though I assume they meant 'drivel'.

Perhaps they didn't.

Just attempting deflection, failed. Noticed there was a plague of pastacised one liners. Quiet for the moment........more of a clinical problem... rather than pointing to Cliff/Birch happy in bed together.

[Dire Helix]

blakes baby is a left-com. accusing him of stalinisn is ridiculous.

Left communists are all closet stalinists. This is an objective fact. Anyone in denial over this is a stalinist too.