Questions after nasty debate with liberals

[Questionable]

After getting into a very emotionally-charge "debate" with some liberals, I've come away with a few questions. Seeing that Marxism had a bad rep on this particular website, I started a discussion asking why. The majority of comments were in favor of it, but a few were quite insulting.

http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/snswn/why_is_marxism_so_misunderstood/

I obviously don't expect anyone to read the 300+ comments, so I'll outline the points that I had trouble countering:

1) When I tried to explain proletarian morality, someone accused me of saying that bourgeoisie were not people, and only proletarian lives mattered. Is this our stance, or a logical fallacy on the other person's part? If the former, how do I explain it without making us seem vicious?

2) Should non-Stalinists defend the Soviet Union? In the initial phase, I saw a ton of posts along the lines of, "Marx is fine, but Stalin is bad." The reason I began defending Stalin was because I wanted to fight against some of the obvious slandering going on, even if I didn't agree fully with is rule, I felt like the USSR at least gave us a glimpse to the productive powers of socialism. However, this was a pretty big mistake on my part, as it lead to a huge clusterfuck of people telling me I'm a psychopath, idiot, troll, or some combination of the three. It honestly quit being a debate and became more of an insult match, with me outnumbered badly, so I capitulated. If I hadn't mentioned Stalin, I feel like I would have garnered more support, but it also feels odd to completely dismiss the USSR as a totalitarian nightmare.

I'm LeonHotsky on that forum. Any more specific critiques of my debating style would be appreciated, but again, I obviously don't expect anyone to read through the enormous amounts of comments. I think the two questions above are the main points.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Well, my best advice would be to avoid reddit all together, I don't know why people go to that hell.

[Questionable]

Well, my best advice would be to avoid reddit all together, I don't know why people go to that hell.

I learned that lesson quite quickly. Someone literally said that Stalin's sociopathy is what lead to the Soviet Union's ruin, and all the famines and political repression was merely the result of him being a sadist. When I pointed out how amazingly absurd this way, I was told to stop wasting my life worshipping murderers and tyrants.

[NewLeft]

Defend the Soviet Union for its merit: its impressive industrialization, standard of living, advances in sciences..etc.

[Bronco]

I think you'd have more luck by distancing yourself from the Soviet Union, rather than defending it

[Railyon]

Well, my 2cents on this is that proletarian morality is quite an absurd concept. However, saying proletarian lives > bourgeois lives is a dead-end but not one that came out of materialist analysis of production relations. Total bull to my eyes.

On the USSR, I don't consider your stance on it as very important really, more as an interesting historical anecdote. I think the material conditions have dramatically changed so I think it's become an exercise in futility to argue over it.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

When you debate with someone with opposing ideology, have them first explain your ideology, in this case it would be Marx and the SU. If they lack the acumen of said topics, then debating with them is worthless.

To answer question 1 : The Bourgeoisie are people, but corrupt individuals who oppress. They're morally tantamount to slave holders, and the proletariat is subjected to exploitation. The objective of communism, socialism etc., is to remove the Bourgeoisie and liberate the workers' from economic oppression.

2 ) It depends on what you mean as "defend" in regards to the Soviet Union. I will defend it from slander. For instance, it industrialized quickly, everyone had a job who wanted one, had access to medical coverage, etc,.

[The Idler]

1. wtf is proletarian morality?
2. no
if you don't like liberals on reddit stick to socialist reddits, isn't there one called debateacommunist?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Reddit and social liberalism are two of my least favorite things. Unlike neo-liberals who at least attempt to have a coherent ideology, these wankers aren't worth arguing with most times. They will call you a terrorist, a pig, vermin, etc. from the safety of their computer screen. Don't bother.

[Questionable]

Reddit and social liberalism are two of my least favorite things. Unlike neo-liberals who at least attempt to have a coherent ideology, these wankers aren't worth arguing with most times. They will call you a terrorist, a pig, vermin, etc. from the safety of their computer screen. Don't bother.

I hate when the followers of an ideology are stereotyped, but I can't help but agree with this. These liberals just seem totally incapable of having a civil argument. They would rather insult any ideology aside from theirs as being too extreme and incompatible with human nature, while praising their imaginary 50/50 capitalist-socialist society as the wonder-cure for all of mankind's ailments. A few of them, at least. I've encountered many who espoused the belief that human nature would never allow any form of government to succeed. They effectively commit intellectual suicide by believing this.

I hope I'm not coming across as someone who came crying to Revleft after being chased off another website, but I can't help it. I mean, goddamn, they seriously believed Stalin made the Soviet Union a shithole just because he was a jerk.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I followed the link and read some of the comments. A lot of them were actually quite sympathetic with marxism and not many I read had any demonization of it going on. A lot of people also seemed to have a well- founded opinion. Of course I didn´t read everything.
I see no reason to defend the soviet union in the 21. century. It´s "positive aspects" are of little value today other than historical understanding.
I agree with what has been said before about "proletarian morality". The concept is meaningless bollocks. But about the implications the OP mentioned: It´s not about doing some physical harm out of spite against the members of the bourgeoisie, but about liberating the working class. It´s not about some peoples lives being "worth more" than others, but about one group being exploited and oppressed and the other profitiering and oppressing. It´s about ending those conditions. It´s kind of like with the fight against racial oppression, it doesn´t imply that the lives of people of the oppressed race are "worth more", but that the oppression and oppressive conditions should be put to an end.

[kashkin]

Ah reddit, full of mysogonists and racists anyway.
Regarding your second point, you could quickly outline the various criticisms of the USSR (degenrated workers state, state capitalist, etc) and then say which one you agree with (assuming you do in the first place). I would be careful with defending the Soviet Union. You could point out some of the innacuracies in Western propaganda, but then people tend to assume you support the SU.

[Misanthrope]

Don't debate on reditt or any other image boards; waste of time.


1) When I tried to explain proletarian morality, someone accused me of saying that bourgeoisie were not people, and only proletarian lives mattered. Is this our stance, or a logical fallacy on the other person's part? If the former, how do I explain it without making us seem vicious?

What exactly is proletarian morality? Communism is not moral nor immoral, it's amoral. It's also a straw man on their part. Bourgeois aren't necessarily "bad" people but they do maintain an exploitative system, a monopoly on "just force", class dictatorship. Is this bad? It doesn't matter, the fact is the bourgeois unjustly own the means of production, expropriate surplus value created by the worker and enforce their ownership through coercion and brute force. The bourgeois are free to join the revolution and join the working class to overthrow capitalism but of course if they try to suppress revolution (which they will) then they are enemies. Material conditions will lead to worker's revolution. It is the worker's obligation to overthrow their oppressors.

The bourgeois hold the proletariat at the barrel of a gun currently, who's the victim?





2) Should non-Stalinists defend the Soviet Union? In the initial phase, I saw a ton of posts along the lines of, "Marx is fine, but Stalin is bad." The reason I began defending Stalin was because I wanted to fight against some of the obvious slandering going on, even if I didn't agree fully with is rule, I felt like the USSR at least gave us a glimpse to the productive powers of socialism. However, this was a pretty big mistake on my part, as it lead to a huge clusterfuck of people telling me I'm a psychopath, idiot, troll, or some combination of the three. It honestly quit being a debate and became more of an insult match, with me outnumbered badly, so I capitulated. If I hadn't mentioned Stalin, I feel like I would have garnered more support, but it also feels odd to completely dismiss the USSR as a totalitarian nightmare.



Well it's always good to argue for the truth. Stalin is demonized by Western historians and the figures are no where near accurate. The whole portrayal of Stalin as a blood thirsty maniac the likes of Hitler is completely ill founded. This does not mean Stalin was an ally of the proletariat. The Russian Revolution was doomed from its inception and reactionary in many senses. The Soviet Union was not a hell hole, it industrialized extremely quickly from a peasant society and even Americans migrated there during the 30s.

[Rafiq]

Defend the Soviet Union for its merit: its impressive industrialization, standard of living, advances in sciences..etc.

Don't do this.

Play the devils advocate and do not give those bastards the upper hand. Say Stalin did not kill *enough*. You are a Marxist, no? You have nothing to apoligize for. Shock them.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Questionable]

Don't do this.

Play the devils advocate and do not give those bastards the upper hand. Say Stalin did not kill *enough*. You are a Marxist, no? You have nothing to apoligize for. Shock them.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

Oh my fucking god.

You just turned what I thought was a disaster into one of the greatest possibilities of entertainment of all time.

Thank you.

[Misanthrope]

I didn't know worshiping Stalin, trolling and being a prick was required of marxists.

[Questionable]

I didn't know worshiping Stalin, trolling and being a prick was required of marxists.

This is all my personal opinion, but after having been personally insulted to the point where I was seriously aggravated, having my arguments totally ignored, and then reading the comments left by the liberals patting each other on the back for a job well-done, saying, "Actually, Stalin didn't go nearly far enough," feels like a huge relief, simply because I know it will piss them off about as much as I was pissed.

Juvenile? Maybe. Satisfying? Hell yes.

[Tim Finnegan]

That's really quite sad.

[Questionable]

You don't have to participate.

[SpiritiualMarxist]

I actually think practicing on Reddit is a great thing to do because what was said could easily come up in real life on the ground during some kind of action. And its good to have these debates because regardless if you're going to convince the guy you're debating, its a good chance people are listening and its a chance to win those people.

Personally, I wouldn't even defend Stalinism because its been so demonized (I personally think justifiably) in the West as well it seems like current Russians hate Stalinism, so to an unradicalized individual, its just unacceptable to even praise it. This is evident in the fact that pro-Stalin and pro-maoist organizations simply aren't growing.
Just take a page from the Right, which pretty much abandoned praising Bush even though they spout the same nonsense. Its just a good tactic because the tea party exploded with popularity because of it.

On the part of the Bourgeoisie, don't attack the people, attack the system. Its too easy for folks to go "[insert philanthropist] isn't bad he donated this much to charity and started a school in Africa." Its not about any particular person anyways so just tell them that its about making it so that these individuals don't have so much of a wealth gap in the first place, thus eliminating the need for philanthropy. And if they're talking about small business owners, socialism is liberating to them also because they don't have to worry about struggling to keep a business afloat and instead have time to pursue their passion.

Thats just my opinion anyways. Its too easy to become an intellectual elitist which loses sight of the goal of trying to win over the proletariate who intentionally have been robbed of the body of knowledge in the first place by capitalist worker mills that call themselves "schools."

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I didn't know worshiping Stalin, trolling and being a prick was required of marxists.

1. He isn't worshipping Stalin. No one does that, not even Marxist-Leninists like myself. This guy is not even a Marxist-Leninist. Stop with your ultra-left fantasy.

2. It's all little hard to be a troll on a website full of trolling.

3. Your being a prick.

Go be a smartass somewhere else, please.

@OP: Stop arguing with people on reddit about communism. It is a waste of time. You might as well troll on for entertainment.

[tachosomoza]

Defend the Soviet Union for its merit: its impressive industrialization, standard of living, advances in sciences..etc.

The Soviet Union didn't necessarily have the best standard of living. A friend of a friend who worked at an upper level position at a major government agency in the 70s could tell when KGB agents were following him because they had the shittiest shoes and coats.

[WanderingCactus]

As far as reddit goes, you just have to make an effort to get something worthwhile out of it. /r/philosophy is often pretentious garbage, and most of the main subreddits are trash as well. I generally avoid getting into political discussions on 'mainstream' sites like reddit anyhow. I'm happy to go to them for discussing shared interests (e.g. /r/cigars), but I can't stand communicating with the constant ignorance of liberal-types out there.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The Soviet Union didn't necessarily have the best standard of living. A friend of a friend who worked at an upper level position at a major government agency in the 70s could tell when KGB agents were following him because they had the shittiest shoes and coats.

I'm fairly sure his point was that there was a "relative" improvement of living standards, and there was, after all, for better or worse; I don't think he meant that the living standards were the best ever, which they demonstrably weren't-- ponder the many homeless driven out of central Moscow for the Olympics in 1980 to improve the image, ugh.

[Jimmie Higgins]

1) When I tried to explain proletarian morality, someone accused me of saying that bourgeoisie were not people, and only proletarian lives mattered. Is this our stance, or a logical fallacy on the other person's part? If the former, how do I explain it without making us seem vicious?No, people are all people. Prolitarian morality as I'd conceive of it is just basing "good/bad" "useful/useless" on what can help workers to achieve and maintain the self-emancipation of the working class. This doesn't mean that ANYTHING goes since a coup might be the means to ending a pro-capitalist government, but it wouldn't end with "self-emancipation" so in that sense it is not "useful" for revolutionary worker means or ends.

This is not opposed to the capitalists AS PEOPLE, this is just to draw a distinction from capitalist-based morality which is presented in capitalist societies as "natural" or "universal" morality. But really their morality is no different in "bias" than proletarian morality. If you have a bad loan and sheriffs come to remove you from your home, then it's "immoral" to fight back with force, but the capitalists will use force to "steal" resources or a country or do whatever they want and it's "moral" if it helps them reach their aims. It is "moral" to shoot someone breaking into your house - unless you are in Afghanistan and the person is a US soldier.


2) Should non-Stalinists defend the Soviet Union? In the initial phase, I saw a ton of posts along the lines of, "Marx is fine, but Stalin is bad." The reason I began defending Stalin was because I wanted to fight against some of the obvious slandering going on, even if I didn't agree fully with is rule, I felt like the USSR at least gave us a glimpse to the productive powers of socialism. However, this was a pretty big mistake on my part, as it lead to a huge clusterfuck of people telling me I'm a psychopath, idiot, troll, or some combination of the three. It honestly quit being a debate and became more of an insult match, with me outnumbered badly, so I capitulated. If I hadn't mentioned Stalin, I feel like I would have garnered more support, but it also feels odd to completely dismiss the USSR as a totalitarian nightmare.

I'm LeonHotsky on that forum. Any more specific critiques of my debating style would be appreciated, but again, I obviously don't expect anyone to read through the enormous amounts of comments. I think the two questions above are the main points.I don't defend the USSR as socialism, I do think the Russian Revolution was a genuine workers revolution though. But putting that aside, I think generally when you are up against certain knee-jerk concepts or ideas about what communism and socialism supposedly mean, it's best not to get into a "yeah/nu-uh" type argument but try and go around that issue and get to the deeper issues. If someone says "Communism can't work 'cause look at Stalin" then rather than defend Stalin (even if you support him) and getting into this point-scoring back and forth, it'd be better to ask why and delve deeper. Do they think it's against human-nature, that people are "power-hungry" do they think we need "strongmen" to bring order, do they think that the revolution was all just a trick and a coup? If you get through that, then there might be more of a chance of clarifying the issue or at least exposing the irreconcilable difference in world-views.

[Bronco]

1. He isn't worshipping Stalin. No one does that, not even Marxist-Leninists like myself. This guy is not even a Marxist-Leninist. Stop with your ultra-left fantasy.

2. It's all little hard to be a troll on a website full of trolling.

3. Your being a prick.

Go be a smartass somewhere else, please.

@OP: Stop arguing with people on reddit about communism. It is a waste of time. You might as well troll on for entertainment.

What is your obsession with "ultra-left" "fantasies", "conspiracies" etc. you're becoming a pardoy of yourself the way you chuck catchphrases like that into every thread, he was clearly saying not to worship Stalin because of Rafiq's suggestion to say that "Stalin did not kill *enough*"

[Questionable]

What is your obsession with "ultra-left" "fantasies", "conspiracies" etc. you're becoming a pardoy of yourself the way you chuck catchphrases like that into every thread, he was clearly saying not to worship Stalin because of Rafiq's suggestion to say that "Stalin did not kill *enough*"

Although he comes off as a bit overzealous, I agree with his second point; it's hard to be a troll on a website full of trolls. I've already tried to engage in civil conversation with these people, but they did not want it, so fuck them. The people on here who wanted to call me childish obviously haven't seen the "arguments" my liberal opponents were putting up. It was a waste of them because they're already convinced Marxists are devil-worshippers, Stalin or no.

[Revolution starts with U]

Rightly so. We are devil worshippers. He is the bringer of truth and knowledge, and the prime insurrectionist :thumbup: after all...

... off topic, sorry :blushing: plz delete if necessary :lol:

EDIT: it's also completely a joke. Plz don't take anything I said in this post seriously, other than that I won't mind it being deleted :D

[Questionable]

Rightly so. We are devil worshippers. He is the bringer of truth and knowledge, and the prime insurrectionist :thumbup: after all...

... off topic, sorry :blushing: plz delete if necessary :lol:

EDIT: it's also completely a joke. Plz don't take anything I said in this post seriously, other than that I won't mind it being deleted :D

You know, I've always said that if the devil is responsible for sex, rock and roll, communism, and video games...then hail Satan.

[Zealot]

Everyone will jump on Stalin the first chance they get in an effort to discredit Communism without making an actual argument. We want to make members of the bourgeoisie into Proletarians and liquidate them as a class. However, we will liquidate their life if the circumstances require it, for example, a revolution.

[Tim Finnegan]

You're right, if they had any sense they'd jump on the vacuity of your sloganeering to discredit you.

[Railyon]

I dunno but I get the feeling the whole "stalin didn't go far enough" thing is something really Zizekian, didn't he also make points like that?

[Misanthrope]

1. He isn't worshipping Stalin. No one does that, not even Marxist-Leninists like myself. This guy is not even a Marxist-Leninist. Stop with your ultra-left fantasy.

2. It's all little hard to be a troll on a website full of trolling.

3. Your being a prick.

Go be a smartass somewhere else, please.

@OP: Stop arguing with people on reddit about communism. It is a waste of time. You might as well troll on for entertainment.

Excuse me.. I'm being the smart ass? How is mocking the deaths of anyone considered appropriate? What is my ultra-left fantasy?What the fuck are you talking about? You're contributing to the problem. This is posted in learning.

In any case, jingoism is reactionary.

[Franz Fanonipants]

wait hold on was this on reddit or revleft

[seventeethdecember2016]

I get the same treatment on Youtube often. If I get tired of arguing with someone, I'll start a quote war. If they refuse to recognize my quotes, I tell them they are lying just to back up their slander. I then ask them to counter, but they can rarely produce something of equal value. I then go on a rampage by claiming that they are just sharing speculatory opinions and just making up things as they go.

At the moment I'm arguing with someone who thinks I'm insane for being a Communist because Communism failed. I told him that I'm enlightened, while he continues to be disillusion, and that he can't use the failures of a few Revisionist Pseudo-Socialist countries as a basis for saying Communism failed. I asked him to produce a competent definition of Communism, and he has yet to give me a definition. When someone slanders Socialism/Communism, I tell them to share what they think is wrong with it so I can correct their misconceptions. This seems to get them worked up, which gives me a strategical point to begin a debate.

[Questionable]

To be honest, after I took Rafiq's advice and started calling for much more viscious authoritarian measures, I'm getting more upvotes than before. I can't tell if people just know I'm trolling, or if I've tapped into some hidden reserve of authoritarian socialists. Probably the former, I know.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Nah, I think you´re just making convincing arguments and winning them over.

[ckaihatsu]

Why not just put the ball in *their* court and ask them if we're living in a perfect world.... No? Then what seems to be the problem? And what might the *alternative* to this be...?

The clock's ticking for *them* since there's no more growth anymore (GDP), and the Euro crisis is like quicksand, etc....

[Os Cangaceiros]

Everyone will jump on Stalin the first chance they get in an effort to discredit Communism without making an actual argument. We want to make members of the bourgeoisie into Proletarians and liquidate them as a class. However, we will liquidate their life if the circumstances require it, for example, a revolution.

The proletariat also needs to be liquidated as a class.

"Liquidate their life" sounds funny. Sounds somewhat like the catchphrase for an orange juice commercial or something, "liquidate your life", complete with sunny days and kids playing and people drinking orange juice.

[black magick hustla]

don't debate. discuss. debating against people that you won't change has a few merits, either it is a stroke to your ego, or you are doing for the sake of informing the readers, or you are just pissed and want to troll/make fun of people who annoy the shit out of you. only really the second point is valid the rest are ok sometimes but only if you are not the one receiving all the abuse lol