View Full Version : Marxism-Leninism in the 21st century
Tim Cornelis
3rd May 2012, 15:06
I noticed that all of the discussions surrounding Marxism-Leninism concerns archaic historical squabbles, that is defending Stalin's policies against inclinations by anti-Leninist critics.
However, I am entirely clueless about what Marxism-Leninists want for the twenty-first century.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?
Do you want more democracy, do you want less? Do you want to abolish money immediately? Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management? What about freedom of speech and press?
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas).
(I hope that the answers to these questions will restore my hope, don't let me down!).
Grenzer
3rd May 2012, 15:28
I don't think Stalinists want to recreate Stalin's utopia.
I don't think they support the immediate abolition of money, since that would be impossible and disastrous.
They aren't going to be for fully autonomous councils, nor should most Marxists since the councils would have the power to contradict the class interests of the workers as a whole by allowing tiny segments of the working class to compete against themselves and try to put themselves ahead. No atomized body should be fully sovereign. This leads to a market environment and back to class society.
It's pretty much the same with self-management, which is a left-liberal concept. It depends on what you mean by self-management as well. If you're talking about the individual workers of a given having total control over production and where the product goes, then they'll be against that too, as will most Marxists. That leads to a market environment; and in addition, individual workers don't need to control the product of their factory since the working class as a whole is already directing production.
If you are talking about self-management in the sense that they be allowed to have a say in how their individual workplace is run in terms of conditions, then I don't think anyone is going to be against that.
I'd imagine that they'd be for temporary restrictions on speech and press.
I don't think there can be an accurate prediction of what society will look like, given that there are an infinite number of variables which can dramatically impact things
ColonelCossack
3rd May 2012, 15:40
It's a revolutionary strategy, not some reactionary bid to recreate 30's Russia.
We don't want to try and recreate the USSR in the 30's; firstly, because things weren't "all that", and also because that whiffs of nationalism.
We don't want to get rid of all money/state immediately; we follow the concept of the withering away of the state (as said by Lenin in The State and Revolution), and different M-Ls propose different ways of doing that.
However, our eventual aim is the complete abolition of money, the state etc, and as a result we are communists- because we advocate a communist society. What separates us (and other Leninists) from other tendencies is that we have a long term strategy of how to get there after the revolution. We don't think that you can have communism overnight after the revolution- other tendencies will agree with us on that point at least, I think.
As Enver Broxha said above, it'd be difficult to accurately predict how that strategy would look; I imagine that it would look different from the USSR in the 20s and 30s, though, because the world is quite different.
Other M-Ls would probably be able to inform you better than me, though.
Tim Cornelis
3rd May 2012, 15:59
It's a revolutionary strategy, not some reactionary bid to recreate 30's Russia.
We don't want to try and recreate the USSR in the 30's; firstly, because things weren't "all that", and also because that whiffs of nationalism.
We don't want to get rid of all money/state immediately; we follow the concept of the withering away of the state (as said by Lenin in The State and Revolution), and different M-Ls propose different ways of doing that.
However, our eventual aim is the complete abolition of money, the state etc, and as a result we are communists- because we advocate a communist society. What separates us (and other Leninists) from other tendencies is that we have a long term strategy of how to get there after the revolution. We don't think that you can have communism overnight after the revolution- other tendencies will agree with us on that point at least, I think.
As Enver Broxha said above, it'd be difficult to accurately predict how that strategy would look; I imagine that it would look different from the USSR in the 20s and 30s, though, because the world is quite different.
Other M-Ls would probably be able to inform you better than me, though.
I think I need to elaborate a little on what I mean by "money". Marx contended socialism would be moneyless in that labour vouchers would be used (today these would be labour credits in all likeliness). Lenin also called for the introducing of labour certificates. Asking whether MLs want to abolish money perhaps wrongly implied that I was asking whether you wanted to introduce the distributive principle of "to each according to his needs" 'immediately'.
we follow the concept of the withering away of the state (as said by Lenin in The State and Revolution),
Do you agree with Marx that the state will wither away as class antagonisms die out, or with Lenin that the state will wither away when distribution is organised on the basis of needs (i.e. as long as labour certificates/credits are used, there will be a state)?
----------------------------------------
I am especially curious and inquiring into the nature and content and the shape a 21st century Marxist-Leninist workers' state might take and what it will look like if it was up to you. (of course, whatever it is you want is not going to come true, but that's not the point here).
What will be the roles of the soviets/workers' councils; the role of communes; what degree of power is possessed by the workers, and what by the vanguard? Will it be organised from below, or will a central body decide most?
Rooster
3rd May 2012, 16:00
However, our eventual aim is the complete abolition of money, the state etc, and as a result we are communists- because we advocate a communist society. What separates us (and other Leninists) from other tendencies is that we have a long term strategy of how to get there after the revolution. We don't think that you can have communism overnight after the revolution- other tendencies will agree with us on that point at least, I think.
Most real communists advocate the overcoming of capital, not the (eventual) creation of some future utopian society. That's what separates you from other tendencies.
Rooster
3rd May 2012, 16:03
I think I need to elaborate a little on what I mean by "money". Marx contended socialism would be moneyless in that labour vouchers would be used (today these would be labour credits in all likeliness).
I think this needs a little clarification. Marx used, as far as I know, the term "labour vouchers" once in a throw away sentence in I think the second volume of Capital. He uses the term labour certificate in the CotGP. He hardly endorses the concept of the voucher. In the CotGP he uses it as a way to distribute the total amount of labour in society, not the total product.
Brosip Tito
3rd May 2012, 16:17
Well this is a good example of what 21st Century Marxism-Leninism would have to compete with, people will not just wait 70 years for transition to Communism it would have to happen soon. because if it doesnt happen we would just been thrown out of office.Thrown out of office? You'll let competing marxist tendencies compete for state positions?
Ha, yeah right.
People will have to wait until the majority of the world, and all of the advanced captialist states, are in the hands of the proletariat and the economy/society is organized, before communism can be achieved.
In your view, who is doing the organizing? The "vanguard"? The local councils, the local councils in collaboration with the national council?
Also, what is your stance on immediate recall (councils vote to remove them from their position and elect someone else) of all members of councils and the state, including Chairman of the national Council (which would have been Stalin, Mao, etc.).
What should be done with the police and military once the vanguard has seized power?
Brosip Tito
3rd May 2012, 18:13
YesSo, why did Stalin not follow this, and why was he right in doing that at the time?
Socialism in one country just slipped my mind.Sorry, that revisionist heap of shit called a theory has been a proven failure.
I am in favour of this, workers need to ability to get rid of incompetent people. Stalin was opposed to this, as was Mao. Why, then, were they right at thetime?
Not sure if it's such a good idea to replace the police with anything after the revolution, and i think the army is
needed to protect the country from capitalist nations.So, you believe that bourgeois/reactionary officers should remain within the army, and it should avoid voluntary disciplineand internal democracy?
I apologize that my answers aren't exactly bright at the moment, only slept about two hours last night and frankly my mind is completely blank.Quite alright.
Not a lot of good answers.
I will try to answer your questions in a simplified way.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?
That is neither our goal,nor possible.
Do you want more democracy, do you want less?
Democracy for the working class,the proletariat.A Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?
It would be inadvisable.
Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management?
A centralised central planned economy during the initial phase of the construction of socialism. Workers councils like the Soviets would exist.Collectives also.They will be various,based on their role in society.For arts,there will be unions,etc etc.
Any spliting of state property like the Yugoslav 'self-managament' will be cast away. Do note that:
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class” (K. Marx / F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, p. 42 )
There is also a lot of truth in Lenin's works about Soviet power. :
“any justification, whether direct or Indirect, of the ownership of the workers of a certain factory or a certain profession for their specific production, or any justification of their right to tone down or hinder the orders from general state power, is a gross distortion of the fundamental principles of Soviet power and complete renunciation of socialism” (V. I. Lenin, “On Democratisation and the Socialist Character of the Soviet Power”)
What about freedom of speech and press?
What about it?
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas).
A collectivisation,an industrialization,a fight against the problems of the capitalist society,of which currently,every country on our planet is suffering from.A Vanguard party of the proletariat would take the lead as the main militant wing of the proletariat in the struggle against the bourgeois and the reactionaries.
Ostrinski
3rd May 2012, 19:02
I want to use this thread to ask Marxist-Leninists what separates them from Trotskyists aside from historical stances.
The Hong Se Sun
4th May 2012, 02:43
"Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?" No for reasons already mentioned
"Do you want more democracy, do you want less?" more communal democracy
"Do you want to abolish money immediately?"no because shit would go nuts so nationalize maybe but abolish directly? no. I'd expropriate a lot of it from the landlords and rich capitalist though!
"Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management?" I'd support an autonomous regions for anarchist who wouldn't want to participate it a state society so that hopeful we wouldn't become enemies after a revolution
"What about freedom of speech and press?"no, if I fight for a revolution Ill be damned if you are going to let fascist have rallies and have them distributing papers calling for fascism. If you mean "will you allow people to be openly critical of the government" then hell yes, I'd encourage it as criticism allows people to grow and move forward
The Hong Se Sun
4th May 2012, 02:48
"I want to use this thread to ask Marxist-Leninists what separates them from Trotskyists aside from historical stances." I don't see socialism in one country as any kind of threat. I don't see trade unions as THE answer and I (only some sects believe this) don't believe in entryism or creating another liberal pro-imperialist party that will be nicer to workers than the democrats is a way forward for the proletariat. I also believe a nation is socialist or revolutionary or it is not. "State capitalist" is not in my vocabulary because a state that is capitalist is just called imperialist. A few other reasons but those are the major reasons.
Yuppie Grinder
4th May 2012, 02:51
I want to use this thread to ask Marxist-Leninists what separates them from Trotskyists aside from historical stances.
Trots don't abandon proletarian internationalism.
Workers-Control-Over-Prod
4th May 2012, 03:01
I don't think Stalinists want to recreate Stalin's utopia.
I don't think they support the immediate abolition of money, since that would be impossible and disastrous.
They aren't going to be for fully autonomous councils, nor should most Marxists since the councils would have the power to contradict the class interests of the workers as a whole by allowing tiny segments of the working class to compete against themselves and try to put themselves ahead. No atomized body should be fully sovereign. This leads to a market environment and back to class society.
It's pretty much the same with self-management, which is a left-liberal concept. It depends on what you mean by self-management as well. If you're talking about the individual workers of a given having total control over production and where the product goes, then they'll be against that too, as will most Marxists. That leads to a market environment; and in addition, individual workers don't need to control the product of their factory since the working class as a whole is already directing production.
If you are talking about self-management in the sense that they be allowed to have a say in how their individual workplace is run in terms of conditions, then I don't think anyone is going to be against that.
I'd imagine that they'd be for temporary restrictions on speech and press.
I don't think there can be an accurate prediction of what society will look like, given that there are an infinite number of variables which can dramatically impact things
Not much to add, except that we should not make the mistake of the party selecting a boss to have social control of production, but rather the whole enterprise's workers becoming their own board of directors that meet roughly 2 to 3 times a year and discuss their needs and plan with the national council's representatives about the society's needs and the workers' needs.
Workers-Control-Over-Prod
4th May 2012, 03:02
Trots don't abandon proletarian internationalism.
I just want to know the secret weapon that Comrade Trotsky wanted to use that would make all workers of the world unite and overthrow their masters...
Yuppie Grinder
4th May 2012, 03:04
I just want to know the secret weapon that Comrade Trotsky wanted to use that would make all workers of the world unite and overthrow their masters...
If only everyone had believed in Trotsky's magic hard enough...
Leftsolidarity
4th May 2012, 03:09
I feel that I should join this discussion. I'm worried that it will just blow up my subscription with a flame war though..... I'll linger here.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
4th May 2012, 03:22
However, I am entirely clueless about what Marxism-Leninists want for the twenty-first century.
We want proletarian revolutions to occur in individual nations as revolutionary situations appear, hopefully in quick succession, although we do have a back-up plan if that does not occur (Socialism in one Country). These revolutions will be led by workers (and peasants in some nations) and their vanguards.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?
No. That is not our goal at all. Material conditions are much, much more different now than they were in Stalin's Soviet Union or Hoxha's Albania.
Do you want more democracy, do you want less?
We want more proletarian democracy (workers' councils, voting for party representatives, etc.) and we want to destroy bourgeois democracy. No less democracy, just better democracy. Proletarian democracy will be the only democracy.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?
Hell no. Everything will collapse if we do that. We would eventually like to turn money into labor vouchers, most likely shortly after the revolution.
Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management?
As Enver Broxha said, nothing in the proletarian dictatorship can be completely sovereign. Yet, we do indubitably wish to make workers' councils the supreme decision making bodies of the land, but not to make them completely sovereign. Also, "self-management" (in the Titoist sense) creates a market environment in which companies are accepted as long as they are "run by workers". We completely reject that. Of course, the control of production by the entire body of the proletariat is not something we oppose.
What about freedom of speech and press?
Appropriate freedom of speech for the proletariat is some quite important to us, but we acknowledge the fact that free speech can be easily manipulated by reactionary forces and the remnants of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie to attack the dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course, hate speech, fascist speech, reactionary speech, etc. fall under inappropriate speech. This kind of speech can easily divide the proletariat and undermine their accomplishments, making it literaly dangerous to the proletarian dictatorship.
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas)
It would look like . . . a country . . . run by the workers. It's not really that hard to imagine. There will be a party and that's pretty much the only thing that might be "special."
It would be much more progressive (socially) and, in the beginning, there will be much less people living in poverty than there were in capitalism (duh), particularly in super-industrialized nations like the United States. Eventually, there will be no more real poverty.
Socialist society will be dictated by this quote by Karl Marx: "From each according to his talents; to each according to his contributions."
Manic Impressive
4th May 2012, 03:27
where do peasants and the feudal system still exist in your opinion?
Vyacheslav Brolotov
4th May 2012, 03:33
where do peasants and the feudal system still exist in your opinion?
Somewhere, most likely in Africa.
Comrade Samuel
4th May 2012, 03:39
I noticed that all of the discussions surrounding Marxism-Leninism concerns archaic historical squabbles, that is defending Stalin's policies against inclinations by anti-Leninist critics.
However, I am entirely clueless about what Marxism-Leninists want for the twenty-first century.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?
Do you want more democracy, do you want less? Do you want to abolish money immediately? Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management? What about freedom of speech and press?
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas).
(I hope that the answers to these questions will restore my hope, don't let me down!).
First of all I'm very happy to see the level of respectful discussion going on here (for the most part) and I will answer your questions to the best of my abilities. Also thanks to OP as I was considering makeing a topic about to hear some discussion on this myself.
Do you want to recreate the USSR: just as Omsk said: not our goal and not possible.
Do you want more democracy or less?: everybody wants more democracy, it's finding an effective method of implacation and practice that causes so many issues in this day and age but as marxists we advocate prolaterate democracy (DotP) just as everybody else here, the point where leftists start to disagree is how to achieve it.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?: No, in a perfect world would we not all say yes to this? but sadly in reality a staple of society that's existed for hundreds of years can't just be entirely eliminated over night.
Do you support sovereign workers councils and self management? Yes, is there really a valid argument as to why not to?
What about freedom of speech and press? Yes, if the world is truely ready for revolution then bourgeois lies will hold no weight and thus the need censorship will wither away and die.
What would happen if M-Ls came to power: on a world wide scale? Eventual communism I would hope but if you mean within one country than I imagine it would be run and operated by the workers and would act as a launch pad for world wide revolution.
Tim Cornelis
4th May 2012, 11:25
Democracy for the working class,the proletariat.A Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Could you be less abstract? Would there be genuine soviets governed through some popular assembly for the workers?
A centralised central planned economy during the initial phase of the construction of socialism. Workers councils like the Soviets would exist.Collectives also.They will be various,based on their role in society.For arts,there will be unions,etc etc.
Who determines whether we shall have a central plan? If it's "the party" aren't you afraid that the party will prolong its existence beyond "the initial phase of construction of socialism"?
Aren't you afraid that centralised planning will be unresponsive to consumer needs because the planning bureau will be detached from the workers?
There is also a lot of truth in Lenin's works about Soviet power. :
“any justification, whether direct or Indirect, of the ownership of the workers of a certain factory or a certain profession for their specific production, or any justification of their right to tone down or hinder the orders from general state power, is a gross distortion of the fundamental principles of Soviet power and complete renunciation of socialism” (V. I. Lenin, “On Democratisation and the Socialist Character of the Soviet Power”)
Don't you think it's up to the workers to coordinate, as opposed to a central body?
What about it?
Will you restrict it? And for whom? Will there be penalties?
Not much to add, except that we should not make the mistake of the party selecting a boss to have social control of production, but rather the whole enterprise's workers becoming their own board of directors that meet roughly 2 to 3 times a year and discuss their needs and plan with the national council's representatives about the society's needs and the workers' needs.
Workers in West Europe have more decision-making power than this, for them your system would be a set back in terms of workers' power.
Countries like Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium have so-called "shop floor councils" or "works councils"
Let me cite wikipedia:
A works council is a "shop-floor" organization representing workers, which functions as local/firm-level complement to national labour negotiations. Works councils exist with different names in a variety of related forms in a number of European countries, including Britain (Joint Consultative Committee); Germany and Austria (Betriebsrat); Luxembourg (Comité Mixte); the Netherlands and Flanders in Belgium (Ondernemingsraad); France (Délégués du Personnel); Wallonia in Belgium (Délégués du Personnel); and Spain (Comité de empresa).
One of the most commonly examined (and arguably most successful) implementations of these institutions is found in Germany. The model is basically as follows: general labour agreements are made at the national level by national unions (e.g. IG Metall) and national employer associations (e.g. Gesamtmetall), and local plants and firms then meet with works councils to adjust these national agreements to local circumstances. Works council members are elected by the company workforce for a four year term. They don't have to be union members; works councils can also be formed in companies where neither the employer nor the employees are organized.
Works council representatives may also be appointed to the Board of Directors.
Basically, your system would replace the employers' association side of the bargain with the national representatives, and also reduce the influence the workers now have in co-determination and deliberation meetings to 2 or 3 times a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council
PS
Everyone assumes that "workers' self-management" equals 'Yugoslavia' for some reason. It simply means workers operating the workplace they work in by means of direct control through a workers' council, irrespective of the existence or non-existence of market mechanisms.
Could you be less abstract? Would there be genuine soviets governed through some popular assembly for the workers?
Yes,but the party will not lose the role as the leading force toward socialism,and as the main fighting force of the proletariat.A standing army is not the only option.
Who determines whether we shall have a central plan? If it's "the party" aren't you afraid that the party will prolong its existence beyond "the initial phase of construction of socialism"?
The party will be there until the most important jobs of the construction of socialism are finished,or until they are in the late phase.
Aren't you afraid that centralised planning will be unresponsive to consumer needs because the planning bureau will be detached from the workers?
It won't be detached,but the focus will be on heavy industry.(Because the factories in the countries that are most likely to go into a revolutionary period usually don't function good,and the privatisation is overwhelming.I am not an expert on economy,as it was never in my area of "study" , so to say. Some other comrade might give you a better answer.
Don't you think it's up to the workers to coordinate, as opposed to a central body?
The central body will also be led by workers and the party of the workers.No distant "elites" that were common in the late USSR will be present.
Will you restrict it? And for whom? Will there be penalties?
Bourgeois,anti-socialist,anti-communist lies won't be tolerated.However,criticism from workers will be promoted,and commissions who work to answer any questions or problems will also be there.
Everyone assumes that "workers' self-management" equals 'Yugoslavia' for some reason. It simply means workers operating the workplace they work in by means of direct control through a workers' council, irrespective of the existence or non-existence of market mechanisms.
Because "workers self-management" in Yugoslavia was useless.
Workers-Control-Over-Prod
4th May 2012, 20:59
where do peasants and the feudal system still exist in your opinion?
70% of Africans are land workers. In Germany it is less than 5%.
In Germany 2010 84% of humans were landless, wage-dependent humans: Proletarians.
In revolutionary workers germany 1918 only 23% of germans were Proletarians.
If the money runs out at the top in the west, a take over of the workplaces by "the bottom" wage-dependent workers to form worker councils, would probably happen quite fast with the right organisation. A lower stage of Communism (labor vouchers, complete socialisation of the whole economy under workers' councils control; ending of the market in production) could be reached relatively fast if there are enough of countries overthrown. But until there is no complete "centralisation" or co-operatisation of the whole economy in the overthrown territories within the workers state, there cannot really be the leap for a "higher stage of socialism", or a "lower stage of communism".
sanpal
4th May 2012, 22:43
Originally Posted by Goti123:
Do you want to abolish money immediately?
Hell no. Everything will collapse if we do that. We would eventually like to turn money into labor vouchers, most likely shortly after the revolution.
It's the most interesting question: by what method do you intend to reach this aim? By Duhring's scheme? Then stalinism again? Then dry-rot of stalinist regime and further restoration of capitalism again? Marx and Engels, would be alive, would be very sad.
Money must be only abolished but not "to be turned" into labour vouchers by any methods: by Cockshott's scheme or by your own scheme or whatever. It is Duhring-ism.
To prevent the collapse of economy you have talked about, it is needed to organise two (not mixed) sectors of economy during the transition period (DOTP): 1) market with monetary economy and 2) moneyless economy with system of labour time calculation for production and distribution according slogan: "from each according to his/her ability to each according to his/her labour contribution".
Rooster
9th May 2012, 16:51
70% of Africans are land workers. In Germany it is less than 5%.
In Germany 2010 84% of humans were landless, wage-dependent humans: Proletarians.
In revolutionary workers germany 1918 only 23% of germans were Proletarians.
What do you mean by land workers?
Tim Finnegan
9th May 2012, 17:18
Somewhere, most likely in Africa.
How is that different from saying "I have no fucking clue"?
Aren't you afraid that centralised planning will be unresponsive to consumer needs
No, we're not afraid. The goal of central planning in socialism (aka the first stage of communism) is to satisfy the basic needs of the people (and not the "consumer needs"), and then get on with advancement into the higher stages of communism ASAP. And in the advanced stage of communism there'll be needs no person with a petty bourgeois outlook can even grasp, while the modern "consumer needs" (such as, for instance, a private car and a family house) won't exist other than at the History portal of Wikipedia - along with the needs to cannibalize fellow humans in a religious ceremony and hunt wild animals for amusement.
Ocean Seal
9th May 2012, 22:17
Comrade Goti, may I first say that you are my favorite anti-Leninist on this site and I would like you to continue your criticisms because they are a big help to improving my line of thought. And I an authoritarian socialist say I am in complete respect of you.
I noticed that all of the discussions surrounding Marxism-Leninism concerns archaic historical squabbles, that is defending Stalin's policies against inclinations by anti-Leninist critics.
Truth.
However, I am entirely clueless about what Marxism-Leninists want for the twenty-first century.
I think most of them are as well.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?
Here's what I think, and I think most ML's would agree.
No one wants the great purges, the famine of 32-33, massive gulags, alienation of the workers from the means of production (which we as authoritarians must admit happened), or having a party which more or less became an assassin's club.
The thing is, most ML's won't admit that proletarian democracy and proletarian control (in the abstract DOTP) did not exist after the mid thirties. But I believe that if they could they would create a society which more or less resembled a mix of the Paris Commune combined with the revolutionary terror of 1919.
Do you want more democracy, do you want less?
Every Stalinist deep down wants more democracy and more freedom for the workers.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?
Perhaps one of the things that I stand strongly against is this. Money will not be abolished immediately. The same goes for commodity production. However, within a few years I would expect commodity production to fade into a vestige, and of course wages should be abolished within a few months if not immediately and replaced by a labor voucher.
Do you support sovereign workers' councils
Absolutely not. This spells murder for the revolution.
and self-management?
I think we envision different things when we say this, so I will say "somewhat".
What about freedom of speech and press?
I will say no, not in its absolute. No free speech for Nazis, for deposed bourgeoisie, liberal pro-colonialists, racists, separatists.
However, I think that we should go miles to protect the free speech that matters. The free speech that entitles workers to complain about their hours, about the way that things are being managed, hell even about the state (in almost (keyword) every sense). And I think that there should constantly be protests to expand party participation to more and more workers, against decrepit bureaucrats, and against generally unpopular initiatives (even if they are socialist initiatives).
How can I call myself authoritarian and allow this? If I don't even work within the confines of pure democracy, how can I want for the people to have freedom against my tyrannical ways? Because I wish for the tyranny to ultimately be the work of the working class. And how can I expect the state to act in their interests if they are placed under my divine constraints.
I wish even for the anarchists to be present and demand the overthrow of my party. And of course, they will be suppressed, no different from how they would in a bourgeois state because they are enemies of the current class dictature.
I should not think to put them in gulags because then how else can the state understand the reflections that its constituents have against it. I want the anarchists to ignite the fires of the brooding workers, even if I am against what the workers demand.
Even so I will say that the workers state will remain in power and the workers will look upon the anarchists with the same bewildered emotion that they bear under capitalism. Who are those kids who vandalize shit? I agree with some of the stuff that they say, but ultimately I get what I want and need from the workers state far better than I did under the bourgeois democratic system, and I don't feel the need to change that. And unpopular policies need resistance, not because the population is right, many times it has been wrong, but for it to understand its mistakes.
A little bit like facebook changing. No one likes it, but then the dictator Zuckerberg changes it, and after a while not a soul really minds, even after the anti-change petitions reach the millions. When people flock to the new policy, it has been strengthened because the nay-sayers were elevated and then defeated. And if the workers are given alternatives, and the authoritarian system fails, then they can destroy it with the confidence that they have and establish a new authoritarian system.
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas).
(I hope that the answers to these questions will restore my hope, don't let me down!).
This I cannot predict. If we presume that it gains a foothold in at least half a dozen industrialized western countries and there is large anti-imperialist upheaval in the third world then hopefully it would only take one wave of terror to wipe out the resurgent strains of the class enemy and establish socialism. And then I would hope that it, would resemble the Paris Commune in its integrity.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
9th May 2012, 22:25
How is that different from saying "I have no fucking clue"?
It's different, you piece of shit. Why are you here if you are not going to add anything to the discussion? It was more like I was questioning myself, but I found out the answer.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
9th May 2012, 22:27
Didn't Stalin say something about labor vouchers? I can't find any Marxist-Leninist resources on that topic.
Koba Junior
9th May 2012, 22:39
Didn't Stalin say something about labor vouchers? I can't find any Marxist-Leninist resources on that topic.
I don't know that he said anything in particular about labor vouchers. Frankly, I can't find anything wherein Stalin specifically mentions such vouchers. I do know that the ruble persisted in some form in Soviet Russia, and that there was such a thing as "vacation vouchers," about which I know next to nothing. I don't find the abolition of money particularly anti-Marxist-Leninist, if that's what you're concerned about.
Raúl Duke
9th May 2012, 22:48
This is a good question that the OP asks...but not exactly the most immediately relevant one.
M-L of the 21st century (of course, the whole left as well, to some extent) faces issues of current contemporary praxis. The OP question is in that "future-tense" talking about the future revolutionary society. They're good questions, but personally I want to see people ask questions/discuss about what/etc M-Ls should do in terms of current praxis in getting that revolution to happen in the first place.
Personally, I find skeptical of the effectiveness of the age-old methods of organization (democratic centralism, vanguard parties, etc) that M-Ls use in attracting a mass movement and stimulating a revolution, particularly in the "first world." Discussions about that I find to be also equally if not more important.
Tim Finnegan
9th May 2012, 23:53
It's different, you piece of shit.
Ok. How?
Vyacheslav Brolotov
9th May 2012, 23:57
Ok. How?
It was like a self question, later to be answered by research.
seventeethdecember2016
10th May 2012, 00:34
Perhaps I'm not the most idea M-L to represent the faction, but I'll try my best.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?What are we a bunch of Reactionists in your mind? The Soviet Union was a product of its time and location, and we would never advocate such a thing.
Do you want more democracy, do you want less? Do you want to abolish money Dictatorship of the Proletariat, I.E. Workers' Democracy.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?If the material conditions are in place once we take power, yes. We cannot abolish money without relative abundance.
Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management?Varies from who you'll ask. All workers' councils will be an appendage of the state.
What about freedom of speech and press?What are you implying?
I don't think there has ever been a Marxist-Leninist country that hasn't promoted this.
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like?Our most important goal are to create the conditions for Communism to be achieved. Our next important goal is to make the lives of the Proletariat as enjoyable as possible, with leisure, freedom, etc.etc. We must also support revolutions in other nations, whenever possible.
Our system will be powered by the Revolutionary Vanguard, which will be directed according to Material Conditions.
I want to use this thread to ask Marxist-Leninists what separates them from Trotskyists aside from historical stances. Trotskyists want an Imperial(I use this term loosely) Socialist state that is ruled by the 1st world and forces the 3rd and 2nd to rapidly develop to meet the culturally supreme 1st. Trotskyists try to skip stagist concepts conjured up by M-L, and form a Socialist world republic via a world revolution.
They are also Exceptionalists, while we're Materialists.
I want to use this thread to ask Marxist-Leninists what separates them from Trotskyists aside from historical stances.Trotskyists want an Imperial(I use this term loosely) Socialist state that is ruled by the 1st world and forces the 3rd and 2nd to rapidly develop to meet the culturally supreme 1st. Trotskyists try to skip stagist concepts conjured up by M-L, and form a Socialist world republic via a world revolution.
They are also Exceptionalists, while we're Materialists.
There is a serious problem with this approach. If we allow some countries to lag through all the stages behind our hypothetical socialist "core" countries, that means we'll be putting on hold its own advancement to higher stages of communism. Moreover, we'll have either to isolate the socialist core from the periphery drudging through capitalism, or engage in some form of global market trade with them, or, well, export the revolution, by heavily investing in the periphery's economy - in a socialist way.
In the present day's globalized world, there indeed would be a lot of room for convergence between the MLs and Trots, if only we could get over our historic differences. That might be night impossible though, seeing how Trotskyism has attracted so many of the "anti-authoritarian left" folks, which means they are people who put politics before economy, and that is clearly a form of revisionism that we cannot accept.
bolshie
10th May 2012, 17:52
Democracy for the working class,the proletariat.A Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
This is something I don't really understand. If if was a dictatorship of the proletariat, it would have to be a dictatorship period, wouldn't it? And all the communist countries, were they dictatorship of the proletariat?
Brosip Tito
10th May 2012, 19:20
This is something I don't really understand. If if was a dictatorship of the proletariat, it would have to be a dictatorship period, wouldn't it? And all the communist countries, were they dictatorship of the proletariat?The "dictatorship of the proletariat" means that the proletariat holds political power. That would mean that the majority holds political power as a class, i.e. democracy.
Today, in capitalism, we have a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Regardless if it is a Representative bourgeois democracy, or if it's a single party dictatorship like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
No, there has never been a DOTP in a self-proclaimed "communist" or "socailist" nation. Not the USSR, not China, not Cuba.
These nations were all capitalist.
Koba Junior
10th May 2012, 19:36
No, there has never been a DOTP in a self-proclaimed "communist" or "socailist" nation. Not the USSR, not China, not Cuba.
These nations were all capitalist.
The above is awfully inaccurate, but I'd be interested in knowing how the original poster explains his point of view.
No, there has never been a DOTP in a self-proclaimed "communist" or "socailist" nation. Not the USSR, not China, not Cuba.
These nations were all capitalist.
Did you ever read The Communist Manifesto?
I'll refresh your memory:
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. "
"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c. "
This is something I don't really understand. If if was a dictatorship of the proletariat, it would have to be a dictatorship period, wouldn't it? And all the communist countries, were they dictatorship of the proletariat?
Yes, we had DOTP. The best historical example was the USSR. You can see above how Marx described the DOTP period.
Tim Finnegan
10th May 2012, 20:40
Did you ever read The Communist Manifesto?
I'll refresh your memory:
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. "
"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c. "
You're going to have to explain the significance of this extract, because the relationship between a Day One program written in 1848 and a generl definition of "socialism" is not exactly self-evident.
You're going to have to explain the significance of this extract, because the relationship between a Day One program written in 1848 and a generl definition of "socialism" is not exactly self-evident.
An advise for you: read always the sequence of the arguing from the beginning and not just the last message. If you see the first message you'll be able to realize that I was giving the definition of the DOTP and not a general definition of socialism.
Tim Finnegan
10th May 2012, 22:00
So, what, you're saying that the theory of Socialism in One Country is incorrect?
So, what, you're saying that the theory of Socialism in One Country is incorrect?
Why you assumed that?
Wait, am I the only ML on here who doesn't call the DotP "socialism"? Because it totally isn't and Stalin was wrong about many, many things.
Tim Finnegan
10th May 2012, 23:02
Why you assumed that?
Well, are you defending a conception of the USSR as "socialist", or aren't you? If it was only ever a DotP, then Stalin was wrong. If it was socialist, the the program of the Manifesto is no good to you. Can't have it both ways.
Well, are you defending a conception of the USSR as "socialist", or aren't you? If it was only ever a DotP, then Stalin was wrong. If it was socialist, the the program of the Manifesto is no good to you. Can't have it both ways.
Since when DOTP is incompatible with socialism?
jookyle
10th May 2012, 23:44
I have a question for the Leninists.
If one of the goals for Lenin and Trotsky was to establish a form of capitalism in Russia first, as they like Marx agreed that capitalism had to happen before socialism, what do you think would be different about the application of Leninism in a country in which capitalism already exists in the modern world?
Tim Finnegan
11th May 2012, 00:00
Since when DOTP is incompatible with socialism?
If socialism represents a post-capitalist society, then it must be a society in which capitalist social relations no longer exist. If capitalist social relations no longer exist, then can be no proletariat. If there is no proletariat, then there can be no dictatorship of the proletariat. Only by defining "socialism" as a particular form of hyper-socialised capitalism could you argue for the compatibility of the DotP and socialism, but in doing so you would be implicitly accepting that the USSR et al. represented capitalist societies, merely of a certain kind.
Brosip Tito
11th May 2012, 00:02
Did you ever read The Communist Manifesto?Yes.
I'll refresh your memory:No need.
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. "Your point?
Yes, we had DOTP. The best historical example was the USSR. You can see above how Marx described the DOTP period.Sorry, the rule of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie claiming to be communists =/= proletarian class rule.
Try harder.
Yes.
So, if you red it tell me. The measures listed by Marx were implemented in USSR or not?
Your point?
Prove that you had the DOTP in USSR and your point was totally false.
Sorry, the rule of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie claiming to be communists =/= proletarian class rule.
Try harder.
Bourgeoisie? Where was the private ownership of capital?
If socialism represents a post-capitalist society, then it must be a society in which capitalist social relations no longer exist. If capitalist social relations no longer exist, then can be no proletariat. If there is no proletariat, then there can be no dictatorship of the proletariat. Only by defining "socialism" as a particular form of hyper-socialised capitalism could you argue for the compatibility of the DotP and socialism, but in doing so you would be implicitly accepting that the USSR et al. represented capitalist societies, merely of a certain kind.
Not at all. If I call USSR "socialist" I am implicitly accepting that is a capitalist society?
For me and for the majority of people you can't have a society that is socialist and capitalist at the same time. Of course, you can have socialism with some capitalist elements like Marx defended but we're going to call it capitalist just because you have some capitalists elements in it? I don't think so. It's still socialist.
Rooster
11th May 2012, 08:56
Not at all. If I call USSR "socialist" I am implicitly accepting that is a capitalist society?
It means your implicitly not accepting that it was capitalist.
For me and for the majority of people you can't have a society that is socialist and capitalist at the same time. Of course, you can have socialism with some capitalist elements like Marx defended but we're going to call it capitalist just because you have some capitalists elements in it? I don't think so. It's still socialist.
Where does Marx say this? How can you have a classless society with some class elements in it?
Rooster
11th May 2012, 08:58
So, if you red it tell me. The measures listed by Marx were implemented in USSR or not?
Marx and Engels would go on to say that the Paris Commune was what the DotP would look like (and that it was in no way, and nor could it be, socialist). Did the USSR take this form?
Where does Marx say this? How can you have a classless society with some class elements in it?
You have it here: “What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerged”. Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” op.cit., p.17.
Marx and Engels would go on to say that the Paris Commune was what the DotP would look like (and that it was in no way, and nor could it be, socialist). Did the USSR take this form?
Your point is completely irrelevant since Marx and Engels didn't live enough to see the USSR form. You don't know what position they would have taken regarding USSR. Only you can do is speculate and I don't speculate. The Paris Commune was the only time that the proletarians took the political power from the bourgeoisie during Karl Marx life so it's quite normal that he had consider it an example of DOTP.
From my point of view, looking at the measures taken in USSR and the Paris Commune I would say that USSR went beyond the Paris Commune as DOTP mainly because the Paris Commune was short-lived and hadn't time enough to develop.
Tim Cornelis
11th May 2012, 14:20
So, if you red it tell me. The measures listed by Marx were implemented in USSR or not?
Most capitalist countries have implemented these measures. This program was meant for 1848. The DOTP, Marx later wrote, would should be modeled after the Paris Commune.
Most Western countries score a 7 or 8 out of 10 on this program.
Most capitalist countries have implemented these measures. This program was meant for 1848. The DOTP, Marx later wrote, would should be modeled after the Paris Commune.
Most Western countries score a 7 or 8 out of 10 on this program.
Give me the 7 or 8 out of the 10 measures advocated by Marx implemented in capitalist countries because I only counted 1 or 2.
Rooster
11th May 2012, 14:51
You have it here: “What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerged”. Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme” op.cit., p.17.
I'd knew you'd bring this up. This isn't talking about any sort of capitalist mode of production, no money, no classes. This is socialism. You're just treading the same old tired Leninist misreading of this to justify your state-capitalist utopian socialism. The bourgeois right that he talks about is the right to take more than you put in because not everyone is equal, some people have families, some people are ill or old.
Your point is completely irrelevant since Marx and Engels didn't live enough to see the USSR form. You don't know what position they would have taken regarding USSR. Only you can do is speculate and I don't speculate. The Paris Commune was the only time that the proletarians took the political power from the bourgeoisie during Karl Marx life so it's quite normal that he had consider it an example of DOTP.
From my point of view, looking at the measures taken in USSR and the Paris Commune I would say that USSR went beyond the Paris Commune as DOTP mainly because the Paris Commune was short-lived and hadn't time enough to develop.
Then why are you bringing up a text written in 1848 to justify your own position on what constitutes the DotP? This makes your point even more irrelevant.
Geiseric
11th May 2012, 14:58
So here's what I gather: ML's want a revolution but if it fails to spread in the immediate phase following the revolution, all plans for international proletarianism are abandoned if it's up to ML's. However this isn't Leninist since SoiC is basically used as opportunism to cuddle with Imperialists.
I wouldn't have a problem with ML's if they abandoned SioC, if they admitted that the purges were an awful event that didn't need to happen, and if they accept history as it is in that Stalin was an opportunist who abandoned Leninism and Marxism.
Geiseric
11th May 2012, 15:01
I have a question for the Leninists.
If one of the goals for Lenin and Trotsky was to establish a form of capitalism in Russia first, as they like Marx agreed that capitalism had to happen before socialism, what do you think would be different about the application of Leninism in a country in which capitalism already exists in the modern world?
You've been listening to Left Communists too much, the goal was to establish a Capitalist mode of production, not capitalism. Even Stalin abolished private property at one point, so Capitalism in the Imperialist sense was never a goal for the Bolsheviks. It's common sense that a revolution can't survive in a backwards peasant country, so industrialisation was a plan that Lenin and Trotsky both agreed on.
However the resources for the Industrialisation would of come from Revolutionary Germany, if Comintern didn't give the KPD such terrible politics to go by. Same goes for Italy.
I'd knew you'd bring this up. This isn't talking about any sort of capitalist mode of production, no money, no classes. This is socialism. You're just treading the same old tired Leninist misreading of this to justify your state-capitalist utopian socialism. The bourgeois right that he talks about is the right to take more than you put in because not everyone is equal, some people have families, some people are ill or old.
You were completely caught on this one.
Look at what you asked: "Where does Marx say this? How can you have a classless society with some class elements in it?"
Now you already admitted that there is capitalist elements in the socialist phase but you are trying to divert the subject to another debate of USSR's nature. If you want we can have this discussion but in a more appropriate thread. We have a lot of them and you can contest my statements about USSR's nature there.
Then why are you bringing up a text written in 1848 to justify your own position on what constitutes the DotP? This makes your point even more irrelevant.
Maybe because it was Karl Marx who elaborated the idea of DOTP and the text written in 1848 was made by Karl Marx? I don't see where is the irrelevancy of that.
Tim Cornelis
11th May 2012, 15:07
Give me the 7 or 8 out of the 10 measures advocated by Marx implemented in capitalist countries because I only counted 1 or 2.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Mexico nominally has common lands since the Mexican revolution. But this is an exception. (0/9) Hong Kong also has nationalised all land.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
This exists in most/many countries. (1/9)
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
It is severely restricted in Western Europe (taxation rate of 60% on monetary inheritance and debt not inheritable in the Netherlands if I recall correctly).
(1/9)
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Not relevant anymore.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Exists in any country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank)to my knowledge, including the Netherlands (2/9).
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Roads, railways, and telecommunication were state-owned in the Netherlands until the 1990s (pre-neoliberalism). (3/9)
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
In 1848 there were no/few businesses state-owned, this number was "extended", so yes, applies to the Netherlands. The former (land) is irrelevant. There are no waste-lands anymore.
(4/9)
8. Equal liability of all to work.
Guaranteed in the Dutch constitution. (5/9)
Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean, doesn't seem relevant.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
Industrial production is used widespread in agriculture in the Netherlands. Town and country are combined in municipalities. (6/9)
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production
Also applies to the Netherlands. Although "combination of education with industrial production" is not really relevant anymore, it exists in specific secondary level education. (7/9).
So that's 7 out of 9 points, so the Netherlands is pretty close to a workers' state. Maybe those right-wingers and conservatives are not so wrong about calling Scandinavia and the Netherlands socialist then.
The USSR scores 8 of 9 points, after all:
By 1922 the government allowed some forms of inheritance, and after 1926 full inheritance rights were restored. By the late 1920s, adults had been made more responsible for the care of their children, and common-law marriage had been given equal legal status with civil marriage.[1]
The question then is, if the Netherlands were to nationalize all land would it become a workers' state all of a sudden? If you answer affirmatively you are incredibly reformist.
the goal was to establish a Capitalist mode of production, not capitalism.
:scared:
I hope to god this is a type o.
Mexico nominally has common lands since the Mexican revolution. But this is an exception. (0/9) Hong Kong also has nationalised all land.
Mexico nominally has? 0. (0/0)
This exists in most/many countries. (1/9)
Agreed. 1 (1/2)
It is severely restricted in Western Europe (taxation rate of 60% on monetary inheritance and debt not inheritable in the Netherlands if I recall correctly).
(1,5/9)
Severely doesn't mean abolished. 0 (1/3)
Not relevant anymore.
We are counting all the measures so it's still relevant. 0 (1/4)
Exists in any country (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank)to my knowledge, including the Netherlands (2,5/9).
Centralization of credit in the hands of state with exclusive monopoly? You must be joking, right? No you don't have it. 0 (1/5)
Roads, railways, and telecommunication were state-owned in the Netherlands until the 1990s (pre-neoliberalism). (3,5/9)
Being Netherlands a member of CEE since its foundation I really doubt that this is true. 0. (1/6)
In 1848 there were no/few businesses state-owned, this number was "extended", so yes, applies to the Netherlands. The former (land) is irrelevant. There are no waste-lands anymore.
(4,5/9)
The timeline 1848-2012 is laughable. We are talking about short/medium(at most)-period of time, not centuries. 0 (1/7)
Guaranteed in the Dutch constitution. (5,5/9)
Not sure what this is supposed to mean, doesn't seem relevant.
Nice try to divide a measure in two just to score a point. Sorry but you can't do that. Another 0. (1/8)
Industrial production is used widespread in agriculture in the Netherlands. Town and country are combined in municipalities. (6,5/9)
Agreed. (2/9)
Also applies to the Netherlands. Although "combination of education with industrial production" is not really relevant anymore, it exists in specific secondary level education. (7,5/9).
Free education in Netherlands? LOL. One more 0. (2/10)
So that's 7 out of 9 points, so the Netherlands is pretty close to a workers' state. Maybe those right-wingers and conservatives are not so wrong about calling Scandinavia and the Netherlands socialist then.
No, that's 2 out of 10 points. Pretty bad for a workers state.
The USSR scores 8 of 9 points, after all:
I could just undermine your all point simple by saying that
USSR applied this measures in a single period unlike you tried to do with Netherlands. That period of USSR was certainly not more than a century. That's why it was DOTP.
Tim Cornelis
11th May 2012, 16:58
Mexico nominally has? 0. (0/0)
It is guaranteed in the constitution. Hong Kong also has nationalized land.
Severely doesn't mean abolished. 0 (1/3)
Already edited this.
We are counting all the measures so it's still relevant. 0 (1/4)
Are you kidding? The Netherlands doesn't even have any rebels. So technically, I could say, it has seized all property from rebels, namely: 0.
Has the USSR done this?
Centralization of credit in the hands of state with exclusive monopoly? You must be joking, right? No you don't have it. 0 (1/5)
De Nederlandsche Bank has an exclusive monopoly, it's a central bank. If we're going to be trivial, the USSR didn't have this either because a neighbour could lend another neighbour money (i.e. credit) without state involvement.
Being Netherlands a member of CEE since its foundation I really doubt that this is true. 0. (1/6)
I have no idea what CEE is.
It's a verifiable fact. KPN (telecommunications) had a monopoly ("KPN in Nederland tot in de jaren negentig aanbieders van mobiele telefonie op de markt kwamen" translated: "KPN in the Netherlands was [a monopoly] till in the 1990s mobile telecommunications entered the market" (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolie))
The company was formerly called Koninklijke PTT Nederland, and before that Staatsbedrijf der Posterijen, Telegrafie en Telefonie or PTT and was the publicly owned fixed line operator of the Netherlands. Before the spin-off of TPG, the company also controlled the national Dutch postal services. The Dutch government progressively privatised KPN beginning in 1994, reducing its stake to 6.4% in 2005 and finally to zero in 2006. It has thus given up its golden share veto rights. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPN)
The timeline 1848-2012 is laughable. We are talking about short/medium(at most)-period of time, not centuries. 0 (1/7)
So now all of a sudden we are not unconditionally using all points in the manifesto? That's inconsistent. If you're going to be nitpicky, I might as well do so. The Manifesto established no timeline therefore I might as well neither.
Den Uyl cabinet, most left-wing in Dutch history, has been described as "nationalizing left and right" (http://resourcessgd.kb.nl/SGD/1972/FULLTEXT/SGD_1972_tekst_0000792.xml). So in that time-frame yes, still true.
Nice try to divide a measure in two just to score a point. Sorry but you can't do that. Another 0. (1/8)
Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Can you tell me what it means then?
Free education in Netherlands? LOL. One more 0. (2/10)
Nor me, nor my parents ever paid a dime for school, it's public, it's paid through taxation, it's free.
I could just undermine your all point simple by saying that
USSR applied this measures in a single period unlike you tried to do with Netherlands. That period of USSR was certainly not more than a century. That's why it was DOTP.
Nowhere does it mention a time frame as a determining characteristic of the DOTP. You're not being lenient with that irrelevant point about rebels and emigrants so a quid pro quo shall we say?
--------------------------
Now let's reaffirm what we have so far:
I've shortened the time frame from circa 1973-1990:
Italics = disputable
Bold = correct
Underlined = incorrect
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. (irrelevant)
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production
So that's 5/10. Unless you can explain what "establishment of industrial armies" means in practice, I include point 8. 6/10. Central banking is also correct 7/10, unless you want to claim only the state supplied credit in the USSR. Nederlandsche Bank "Tot Nederland in 1999 toetrad tot de Economische en Monetaire Unie stelde De Nederlandsche Bank de rentetarieven in Nederland vast."
Translated "Till the Netherlands joined the Economic Monetary Union the Dutch Bank determined all interest rates in the Netherlands"
7 out of 10 in the Netherlands in a period of 17 years versus 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 for the Soviet Union in a period of 11 years (1917-1928). Why 1928? Because then the NEP, private enterprise in land and agriculture (no industrial armies I imagine either) existed which would mean point 1 and arguably point 8 of the program would be invalid (so from 1917-1927 Russia/USSR only scored 7 or 8 out of 10, but I think it's fair to extend the time to 1928).
The 1973 Den Uyl government even wanted to nationalise land. Apparently, this would have made the Netherlands into a workers' state.
EDIT:
Merle Fainsod estimated that, in 1952, collective farm earnings were only one fourth of the cash income from private plots on Soviet collective farms.[42]
This arguably means that point 1 is incorrect for the USSR. But I'll be lenient and let it slide.
EDIT II:
Urbanization in Russia says:
despite very great population losses owing to war and famine in this century, urbanization increased at a remarkable rate, even greater than that of the United States. Between 1897 and 1959, the urbanization process was especially dynamic in four regions—Ural, Central, West Siberia, and Donetsk-Dnepr—and, in general, the east experienced a greater increase than the west. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1969.tb01811.x/abstract)
So, point 9 is disputable for Russia.
So here's what I gather: ML's want a revolution but if it fails to spread in the immediate phase following the revolution, all plans for international proletarianism are abandoned if it's up to ML's.
From what i gather,you have no clue about Marxism-Leninism.
Rooster
11th May 2012, 17:19
You were completely caught on this one.
Look at what you asked: "Where does Marx say this? How can you have a classless society with some class elements in it?"
Now you already admitted that there is capitalist elements in the socialist phase but you are trying to divert the subject to another debate of USSR's nature. If you want we can have this discussion but in a more appropriate thread. We have a lot of them and you can contest my statements about USSR's nature there.
I haven't admitted that there's capitalist elements in a socialist phase as that doesn't make sense. The whole text, the piece of the CotGP that you quoted, deals with a socialist mode of production. Not a class society, not with money, not with commodities, not with wage labour. How is it that you can say that this piece of text means that parts of a capitalist mode of production, that capitalism or a class society, can exist within a socialist mode of production?
Maybe because it was Karl Marx who elaborated the idea of DOTP and the text written in 1848 was made by Karl Marx? I don't see where is the irrelevancy of that.
And the text written by Karl Marx in 1870-1, where he says that the form of the DotP was found with the Paris Commune, is less relevant than a text written in 1848? Hahahahaha!
Per Levy
11th May 2012, 17:27
And the text written by Karl Marx in 1870-1, where he says that the form of the DotP was found with the Paris Commune, is less relevant than a text written in 1848? Hahahahaha!
not to mention that, both, marx and engels argued that the communist manifesto was outdated allready in their lifetimes. so there is absoloutly no reason to take the manifesto as some kind of dogma.
Conscript
11th May 2012, 18:08
I have a question for the Leninists.
If one of the goals for Lenin and Trotsky was to establish a form of capitalism in Russia first, as they like Marx agreed that capitalism had to happen before socialism, what do you think would be different about the application of Leninism in a country in which capitalism already exists in the modern world?
While both mensheviks and bolsheviks thought they couldn't immediately build socialism, only the latter conceived of using russia to tie into the socialist revolution, mainly by being a signal for revolution in the west and an armed camp against reaction.
By linking with the revolution in the west, Russia could essentially 'skip' the capitalist stage because they wouldn't need to accumulate capital to industrialize and build a proletarian majority. But until then Russia could only build modern, electrified state capitalism with the proper centralized management capitalism inevitably tends towards. This provided allowed for the most to be gained from Russia's capital and the best hoped for an ever more rapid industrialization.
This isn't without precedent with Marx, who hinted towards such things in the preface to the Russian edition of the manifesto.
It is guaranteed in the constitution. Hong Kong also has nationalized land.
Even if this is true which I doubt you are arguing with Netherlands, right? So it doesn't count anyway.
Are you kidding? The Netherlands doesn't even have any rebels. So technically, I could say, it has seized all property from rebels, namely: 0. Has the USSR done this?
After the revolution this was done in Russia by the Bolshevik government. If Netherlands didn't have a socialist revolution it isn't my problem. It's still relevant.
De Nederlandsche Bank has an exclusive monopoly, it's a central bank. If we're going to be trivial, the USSR didn't have this either because a neighbour could lend another neighbour money (i.e. credit) without state involvement.
I'm not being trivial. As far as I can remember you didn't have any private organized credit provider in USSR, so yes the credit was centralized in the hands of the state.
I have no idea what CEE is.
It's a verifiable fact. KPN (telecommunications) had a monopoly ("KPN in Nederland tot in de jaren negentig aanbieders van mobiele telefonie op de markt kwamen" translated: "KPN in the Netherlands was [a monopoly] till in the 1990s mobile telecommunications entered the market" (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolie))
CEE is the Portuguese acronym for the European Community and because of the habit I forgot to change it to english.
You are only mentioning telecommunications but that's fine. You didn't have foreign channels operators in your television prior to 1990's? Telecommunications is not restricted to phone communications.
So now all of a sudden we are not unconditionally using all points in the manifesto? That's inconsistent. If you're going to be nitpicky, I might as well do so. The Manifesto established no timeline therefore I might as well neither.
Den Uyl cabinet, most left-wing in Dutch history, has been described as "nationalizing left and right" (http://resourcessgd.kb.nl/SGD/1972/FULLTEXT/SGD_1972_tekst_0000792.xml). So in that time-frame yes, still true.
We are using all points of the manifesto but by your logic that measure must be counted as a workers state measure in every country in the world since the state-owned companies certainly grew in every single of it since 1848. We are talking about a short period of time and not more than a century. This is derailing for non-sense. I also forgot to mention that you didn't have a common plan in Netherlands just to confirm the 0.
Can you tell me what it means then?
It means state workers military labor discipline like you had in USSR, specially in Stalin's period. That's why Marx said armies.
Nor me, nor my parents ever paid a dime for school, it's public, it's paid through taxation, it's free.
You don't pay fees in Netherlands schools and Universities? Be careful, I have sources that tell me exactly the opposite and even that in Netherlands you pay more than the European average.
Nowhere does it mention a time frame as a determining characteristic of the DOTP. You're not being lenient with that irrelevant point about rebels and emigrants so a quid pro quo shall we say?
Not at all. After the revolution in 1917 the property of emigrants and rebels were seized by the government so why it's irrelevant? This leads me to point out another failure in your argumentation since these measures were taken in Russia after a Socialist Revolution while the same didn't happened in Netherlands. Indirectly you admitted yourself that we are talking about two different things. Of course that you can say that one or two of that measures were taken by a capitalist state but that's not enough to put it side by side with USSR as a DOTP. You have to put it in a specific period (not more than one century) and in specific political conditions (socialist revolution). Otherwise you'll be always saying: "It's irrelevant" when it isn't at all because it reveals the revolutionary character of the policy and the new state.
--------------------------
Now let's reaffirm what we have so far:
I've shortened the time frame from circa 1973-1990:
Italics = disputable
Bold = correct
Underlined = incorrect
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. (irrelevant)
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production
So that's 5/10. Unless you can explain what "establishment of industrial armies" means in practice, I include point 8. 6/10. Central banking is also correct 7/10, unless you want to claim only the state supplied credit in the USSR. Nederlandsche Bank "Tot Nederland in 1999 toetrad tot de Economische en Monetaire Unie stelde De Nederlandsche Bank de rentetarieven in Nederland vast."
Translated "Till the Netherlands joined the Economic Monetary Union the Dutch Bank determined all interest rates in the Netherlands"
7 out of 10 in the Netherlands in a period of 17 years versus 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10 for the Soviet Union in a period of 11 years (1917-1928). Why 1928? Because then the NEP, private enterprise in land and agriculture (no industrial armies I imagine either) existed which would mean point 1 and arguably point 8 of the program would be invalid (so from 1917-1927 Russia/USSR only scored 7 or 8 out of 10, but I think it's fair to extend the time to 1928).
The 1973 Den Uyl government even wanted to nationalise land. Apparently, this would have made the Netherlands into a workers' state.
EDIT:
This arguably means that point 1 is incorrect for the USSR. But I'll be lenient and let it slide.
I proved to you that only 2 points were implemented in Netherlands (and not only in Netherlands but almost every country in the world). Try to refute my point and than make your conclusions. Try not to make precipitate conclusions like you just did it. It's a waste of time.
I haven't admitted that there's capitalist elements in a socialist phase as that doesn't make sense. The whole text, the piece of the CotGP that you quoted, deals with a socialist mode of production. Not a class society, not with money, not with commodities, not with wage labour. How is it that you can say that this piece of text means that parts of a capitalist mode of production, that capitalism or a class society, can exist within a socialist mode of production?
This is the part I love, when my opponent starts to contradict itself.
Look at what you said: "The bourgeois right that he talks about is the right to take more than you put in because not everyone is equal, some people have families, some people are ill or old."
You are admitting that is a capitalist element right? I'm not even gonna to discuss the rest because I want to catch you on this one, and boy, I just did it.
And the text written by Karl Marx in 1870-1, where he says that the form of the DotP was found with the Paris Commune, is less relevant than a text written in 1848? Hahahahaha!
I understand that you are getting nervous but try to restrain yourself and keep concentrated, otherwise you'll keep to say rubbish just like you said above. I said that is irrelevant because Marx never saw USSR and not because of the date. Understood?
EDIT:
This arguably means that point 1 is incorrect for the USSR. But I'll be lenient and let it slide.
EDIT II:
Urbanization in Russia says:
So, point 9 is disputable for Russia.
I just saw your edits now. So the Hong Kong example is valid for you but USSR isn't? USSR had more private land than Hong KOng or Mexico. Do you want me to take this seriously?
As far as the urbanization is concerned the same. The Netherlands example is valid for you but the USSR isn't?
It's not a matter of letting slide is a matter of being coherent. You are coherent or not? If you are you accept without any doubts both points to USSR.
bolshie
11th May 2012, 19:48
The "dictatorship of the proletariat" means that the proletariat holds political power. That would mean that the majority holds political power as a class, i.e. democracy.
Today, in capitalism, we have a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". Regardless if it is a Representative bourgeois democracy, or if it's a single party dictatorship like Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
No, there has never been a DOTP in a self-proclaimed "communist" or "socailist" nation. Not the USSR, not China, not Cuba.
These nations were all capitalist.
Right, so the dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy? So why is it called a dictatorship? Because the government would take companies into public ownership against the wishes of the owners? That makes sense I guess.
I think China is capitalist now and Cuba is going that way but the USSR?
Per Levy
11th May 2012, 23:57
Right, so the dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy? So why is it called a dictatorship?
see the DotP as the rule of the proletariat and as an atagonist to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, ergo rule of the bourgeoisie.
Brosip Tito
12th May 2012, 01:16
Right, so the dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy? So why is it called a dictatorship? Because the government would take companies into public ownership against the wishes of the owners? That makes sense I guess.
I think China is capitalist now and Cuba is going that way but the USSR?
It's the dictatorship of the working class, which is rule of the majority, which is democracy.
Not only that, but democracy is how things will be decided. Workers' councils are democratic institutions, for example.
Proletariat democracy.
jookyle
12th May 2012, 04:34
You've been listening to Left Communists too much, the goal was to establish a Capitalist mode of production, not capitalism. Even Stalin abolished private property at one point, so Capitalism in the Imperialist sense was never a goal for the Bolsheviks. It's common sense that a revolution can't survive in a backwards peasant country, so industrialisation was a plan that Lenin and Trotsky both agreed on.
However the resources for the Industrialisation would of come from Revolutionary Germany, if Comintern didn't give the KPD such terrible politics to go by. Same goes for Italy.
Well, that's why I said a "form" of capitalism. So what steps do Lennists/marxist-Leninists take after the revolution in a country where capitalism is established? What does the role of the party play into here? How does the dictatorship of the proletariat come about? I ask because what I've read from Lenin and Trotsky(not that I've read everything obviously) talks about these steps in terms of what had to happen in Russia.
Brosa Luxemburg
12th May 2012, 04:41
So here's what I gather: ML's want a revolution but if it fails to spread in the immediate phase following the revolution, all plans for international proletarianism are abandoned if it's up to ML's. However this isn't Leninist since SoiC is basically used as opportunism to cuddle with Imperialists.
I wouldn't have a problem with ML's if they abandoned SioC, if they admitted that the purges were an awful event that didn't need to happen, and if they accept history as it is in that Stalin was an opportunist who abandoned Leninism and Marxism.
Then they wouldn't be M-L's anymore.
scarletghoul
12th May 2012, 14:06
MLism is a highly relevant ideology and is changing the world as we speak, provided you include the 2nd M on the end. otherwise yes its mostly historical debate. marxism leninism maoism however is constantly regenerating in various places, from the jungles of india to parisian intellectual debate to strikes and riots in china
bolshie
12th May 2012, 16:58
I have a question for the Leninists.
If one of the goals for Lenin and Trotsky was to establish a form of capitalism in Russia first, as they like Marx agreed that capitalism had to happen before socialism, what do you think would be different about the application of Leninism in a country in which capitalism already exists in the modern world?
Lenin and Trotsky's goal was to establish capitalism? That doesn't sound right. Why did they bother having a revolution then?
Tim Finnegan
12th May 2012, 23:31
Do you actually know anything about the Naxalites? Their leadership adheres to a brand of Maoism other Indian Maoists regard as completely batshit, and it has always been pretty much entirely peripheral to the actual struggle being waged. (Take their insistence that they lead an army of "peasants" in a war against "semi-feudalism", when in fact the overwhelming majority of their supporters are landless agricultural workers.) The only reason they occupy the sort of position they do is because no other group were both willing and able to united the hill-peoples on an extralocal basis, and they're not even particularly good at that. (An easy read (http://platypus1917.org/2010/08/06/the-maoist-insurgency-in-india-end-of-the-road-for-indian-stalinism/) on the topic.)
Paul Cockshott
13th May 2012, 00:00
Quote:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
Mexico nominally has common lands since the Mexican revolution. But this is an exception. (0/9) Hong Kong also has nationalised all land.
Quote:
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
This exists in most/many countries. (1/9)
Quote:
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
It is severely restricted in Western Europe (taxation rate of 60% on monetary inheritance and debt not inheritable in the Netherlands if I recall correctly).
The restrictions on inheritance rights due to death duties are a gain for the labour movement but there is a big difference between abolition and restriction. In practice there are many loopholes in the taxes on inheritance.
(1/9)
Quote:
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Not relevant anymore.
Quote:
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Exists in any country to my knowledge, including the Netherlands (2/9).
No, the state bank does not have an absolute monopoly of banking in any capitalist country.
Quote:
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
Roads, railways, and telecommunication were state-owned in the Netherlands until the 1990s (pre-neoliberalism). (3/9)
The same could be said of the UK in the 50s, but that was a conquest by the labour movement as part of a deliberate socialist programme. Once the political power of labour was weakened the transport and communications industries were privatised.
Quote:
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
In 1848 there were no/few businesses state-owned, this number was "extended", so yes, applies to the Netherlands. The former (land) is irrelevant. There are no waste-lands anymore.
It is fair to say that the social democratic parties were carrying out part of the programme of the Communist Manifesto in extending nationalised industry.
(4/9)
Quote:
8. Equal liability of all to work.
Guaranteed in the Dutch constitution. (5/9)
There is a difference between a right to work and a liability or obligation to work. This existed in the USSR but not in Western Countries. In the USSR there was a criminal charge of Parisitism if you did not have a job.
In capitalist countries it is quite legal to live off interest or dividends without any liability to work.
Quote:
Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Not sure what this is supposed to mean, doesn't seem relevant.
I think the idea was that people would be enlisted in agricultural and industrial armies which would carry out large scale collective agriculture. Perhaps the nearest thing to this were the communes in China.
Quote:
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
Industrial production is used widespread in agriculture in the Netherlands. Town and country are combined in municipalities. (6/9)
Quote:
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production
Also applies to the Netherlands. Although "combination of education with industrial production" is not really relevant anymore, it exists in specific secondary level education. (7/9).
This has to be seen in the context of widespread child labour in the 1840s which was necessary to the incomes of working class families, so the demand was being put forward that in addition to children working, they should be educated for part of the day. The Owen system in New Lanark may have been the motivating idea here.
You overstate the number of gains made by the working class movement in the Netherlands, but it is realistic to say that several of the gains were ones that the Communists were aiming for back in the mid 19th century.
Rooster
13th May 2012, 00:05
This is the part I love, when my opponent starts to contradict itself.
Look at what you said: "The bourgeois right that he talks about is the right to take more than you put in because not everyone is equal, some people have families, some people are ill or old."
You are admitting that is a capitalist element right? I'm not even gonna to discuss the rest because I want to catch you on this one, and boy, I just did it.
lol how is it that you can miss the point that I'm making? This section doesn't deal with the capitalist mode of production, it doesn't deal with a class society and how production arises from that. It states only how labour is to be distributed and that is through labour certificates.
I understand that you are getting nervous but try to restrain yourself and keep concentrated, otherwise you'll keep to say rubbish just like you said above. I said that is irrelevant because Marx never saw USSR and not because of the date. Understood?
How incoherent can you be? How is a text written in 1848 more relevant than a text written in 1871? Is it because that text totally ruins what it is that you call a DotP?
lol how is it that you can miss the point that I'm making? This section doesn't deal with the capitalist mode of production, it doesn't deal with a class society and how production arises from that. It states only how labour is to be distributed and that is through labour certificates.
Lets see if we can understand here. My initial point was that you still had capitalist elements in the socialist phase and I quoted Marx to prove that. You initially asked me where Marx said that and I transcribed the quote for you. What is your difficulty here?
How incoherent can you be? How is a text written in 1848 more relevant than a text written in 1871? Is it because that text totally ruins what it is that you call a DotP?
What you possible didn't understand from my answer? I said that it wasn't relevant not because of the date but instead the fact that Marx never saw the USSR experience. I have to say this million times to this simple point enters in your brain?
Rooster
13th May 2012, 00:24
Lets see if we can understand here. My initial point was that you still had capitalist elements in the socialist phase and I quoted Marx to prove that. You initially asked me where Marx said that and I transcribed the quote for you. What is your difficulty here?
The difficulty here is that you have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean by capitalist elements? If you mean capitalist elements such as class society and the capitalist mode of production, then no, you can not have that at the same time as socialism. Have you actually read the text that you quoted or did you just quote the part that Lenin used?
What you possible didn't understand from my answer? I said that it wasn't relevant not because of the date but instead the fact that Marx never saw the USSR experience. I have to say this million times to this simple point enters in your brain?
It's because what you're saying is stupid and is a justification for ignoring everything in that text that would discredit the USSR as a DotP (which is all of it). What does it mean for these demands to be met? Would that then mean that the place that does is the DotP? Of course not. The important thing is the form that this takes.
The difficulty here is that you have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean by capitalist elements? If you mean capitalist elements such as class society and the capitalist mode of production, then no, you can not have that at the same time as socialism. Have you actually read the text that you quoted or did you just quote the part that Lenin used?
This guy even claims that I am the one with no idea of what I am talking about. LOL When I ever specified what elements I was talking about?
I didn't, did I? Why don't you keep quiet instead of making this foolish figures. I mentioned capitalist elements in socialism and you said no. I gave you a quote from Marx, you were completely caught and now you are trying to escape by diverting the subject but I won't let you. Sorry.
I'm gonna quote Marx again: "What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
If you want I'll continue to quote this passage from the Critique as many times as necessary to enter in your brain.
It's because what you're saying is stupid and is a justification for ignoring everything in that text that would discredit the USSR as a DotP (which is all of it). What does it mean for these demands to be met? Would that then mean that the place that does is the DotP? Of course not. The important thing is the form that this takes.
Dude, this is very simply and you apparently have some difficulty in understanding simple things. I'm gonna try to be the most basic I can to explain you this. Karl Marx elaborated the idea of DOTP, right? He said that was the first step after the socialist revolution, correct? In this case the measures that he proposed in the manifesto were the ones to be taken in the DOTP, right? All of those measures were applied in a single place (USSR) during a specific short period after a socialist revolution. That is why i that is correct to say that USSR was DOTP. Understood, now?
Ocean Seal
13th May 2012, 01:17
So here's what I gather: ML's want a revolution but if it fails to spread in the immediate phase following the revolution, all plans for international proletarianism are abandoned if it's up to ML's. However this isn't Leninist since SoiC is basically used as opportunism to cuddle with Imperialists.
I wouldn't have a problem with ML's if they abandoned SioC, if they admitted that the purges were an awful event that didn't need to happen, and if they accept history as it is in that Stalin was an opportunist who abandoned Leninism and Marxism.
This is pretty silly. Either socialism in one country was a failure or the world was going towards international socialism and Stalin ruined it.
Pick one: either a great man theory or materialism.
This is pretty silly. Either socialism in one country was a failure or the world was going towards international socialism and Stalin ruined it.
Pick one: either a great man theory or materialism.
Or, or, Russia was not even remotely ready to advance to socialism at the time the Bolsheviks took power, and Stalin being a dumb asshole is just secondary.
Socialism in one country was certainly not a failure.
and Stalin being a dumb asshole is just secondary.
Is this even serious?
Socialism in one country was certainly not a failure.
In 1930's USSR? I think some tiny, stunted Ukrainian corpses might disagree. Even if we accept that the Stalin administration did every possible thing in their might to relieve that famine (they didn't) and that the kulaks were solely to blame (they carry a lot of the blame, but not all of it), the fact that a scarcity-based calamity like that was even possible ought to point in the direction of the USSR not being an excellent example of what socialism (in one country or at any level) should look like.
Is this even serious?
Hokey-dokey guy whose avatar is Stalin in a military uniform
In 1930's USSR? I think some tiny, stunted Ukrainian corpses might disagree. Even if we accept that the Stalin administration did every possible thing in their might to relieve that famine (they didn't) and that the kulaks were solely to blame (they carry a lot of the blame, but not all of it), the fact that a scarcity-based calamity like that was even possible ought to point in the direction of the USSR not being an excellent example of what socialism (in one country or at any level) should look like.
A famine due to bad conditions and a draught plus the kulak resistance is not something that could define socialism in one country (Or the construction of socialism in the USSR alone.) When i said it was not a failure,i simply ment that it served it's purpose.
Hokey-dokey guy whose avatar is Stalin in a military uniform
What does the little picture in the corner has to do with anything? Your original notion is utterly false.
bolshie
13th May 2012, 11:45
So, was Russia socialist or capitalist?
Geiseric
14th May 2012, 18:30
Well, that's why I said a "form" of capitalism. So what steps do Lennists/marxist-Leninists take after the revolution in a country where capitalism is established? What does the role of the party play into here? How does the dictatorship of the proletariat come about? I ask because what I've read from Lenin and Trotsky(not that I've read everything obviously) talks about these steps in terms of what had to happen in Russia.
Where Capitalism is established, the role of Leninists was to aggitate and organize for the overthrow of the bourgeois governments.
The Party is the organ of the working class that politicizes the sections of the proletariat who haven't reached revolutionary consciousness, and the party also acts as an engine to strip the bourgeois of their political power.
The DotP comes around from a revolution, the Feburary Revolution established Dual Power between the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie and the October brought the DotP. When the working class has political power in its hands, that it DotP, regardless of what ends up happening with it.
They never wanted to establish privately owned capitalism like we are most familiar with, if anything their lives were dedicated to getting rid of it, but they had to industrialise Russia which historically was able to happen with Capitalism in North America and Western Europe, but wasn't able to in Russia nor other imperialised 3rd world countries. They were trying to make up for what Capitalism was unable to do in Russia, i.e. modernizing the mode of production, through measures such as state monopolies where the profit went back into modernizing the country instead of a rich Kulak's pocket.
Brosip Tito
14th May 2012, 18:54
So, was Russia socialist or capitalist?Capitalist.
So, was Russia socialist or capitalist?
Capitalist. For a short period, before the abolition of the soviets, construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or what Lenin called "the first stage(s) of communism" (neither Marx nor Lenin differentiated between socialism and communism) was attempted. However, it was quickly realised that Russia was such a backwards, poorly industrialised country that it was not materially ready to create the scarcity-free society that socialism is. Shit, it was barely fit for capitalism. Look at it this way: since socialism is the complete, uncompromising liberation of all humanity, a society that materially forces people to work (in that if they don't, everyone will starve) cannot be socialist. In response to this realisation, the USSR was made into a heavily socialised capitalist society. That this society was a lot less painful for the working class than the private capitalist societies seen elsewhere notwithstanding, it still required a revolution to progress to the DotP and eventually socialism.
A famine due to bad conditions and a draught plus the kulak resistance is not something that could define socialism in one country (Or the construction of socialism in the USSR alone.) When i said it was not a failure,i simply ment that it served it's purpose.
Excuses that have nothing to do with the actual criticism I posed - that a country, capitalist or not, that is more dependent on its peasantry than its proletariat to keep fed cannot transition to socialism.
And, if you'll excuse me asking - I'm still living, slaving, and suffering under capitalism, so exactly what purpose did the "socialism in one country" of Stalin et al. serve? It crushed fascism (a very good thing), sure, but that really was more coincidental than anything.
What does the little picture in the corner has to do with anything? Your original notion is utterly false.
You make an off-hand comment about an off-hand comment I made (that wasn't really directed at you anyway) and then expect me to write you a goddamn novel in response? Eat glass.
And, if you'll excuse me asking - I'm still living, slaving, and suffering under capitalism, so exactly what purpose did the "socialism in one country" of Stalin et al. serve? It crushed fascism (a very good thing), sure, but that really was more coincidental than anything.
A.) It was not absolutely not coincidental.
B.) Socialism in one country served it's purpose,it replaced the former economic and strategic policies and stabilized the USSR to a big extent.It enabled the CCCP to survive,basically.
You make an off-hand comment about an off-hand comment I made (that wasn't really directed at you anyway) and then expect me to write you a goddamn novel in response? Eat glass.
Please explain how he was dumb.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
14th May 2012, 20:33
I wouldn't have a problem with ML's if they abandoned SioC, if they admitted that the purges were an awful event that didn't need to happen, and if they accept history as it is in that Stalin was an opportunist who abandoned Leninism and Marxism.
Lol, you're crazy. I will never abandon socialism in one country for your social-imperialist Trot bullshit and I will always support the Great Purges. If I didn't, I would be a fake Marxist-Leninist.
Rooster
14th May 2012, 20:38
According to anti-revisionists, in the period that MLs consider socialist in the USSR, there wasn't even socialism in one country (not that they'd admit that and this is of course ignoring everything else that tells us that it was capitalist) because the urban sector traded commodities with the rural. How far down the line can one go then? Socialism in one town? Socialism in one factory?
According to anti-revisionists, in the period that MLs consider socialist in the USSR, there wasn't even socialism in one country
According to which anti-revisionist and in which post(s) ?
Socialism in One Country came out of necessity and not an option after the failure of the German revolution. USSR was still economically devastated and backward in mid-20's with no conditions of exporting revolutions outside. Since the revolution in Germany didn't succeed they only had one option: strengthen itself internally and try to advance the revolutionary process as much as it was possible to do in one country. I don't see how this can be criticized. And they were successful since it allowed the USSR to not only survive a World War but also to become a world superpower in little more than a decade while at the same time progressing in the revolutionary process. This didn't mean that the goal of a world revolution was abandoned. Stalin never refuted himself the fact that the transition to communism would only be possible after the final victory of socialism all over the world. The prove of this is that Stalin supported revolutions abroad once he got conditions to do so after the WW II.
Koba Junior
14th May 2012, 20:44
According to anti-revisionists, in the period that MLs consider socialist in the USSR, there wasn't even socialism in one country (not that they'd admit that and this is of course ignoring everything else that tells us that it was capitalist) because the urban sector traded commodities with the rural. How far down the line can one go then? Socialism in one town? Socialism in one factory?
So there was no collective ownership of production because two sectors traded with one another.
Brosip Tito
14th May 2012, 21:05
So there was no collective ownership of production because two sectors traded with one another.
Do you mean ownership over the means of production?
No, the state bourgeoisie, Stalin and co, owned the means of production.
It also had a capitalist MODE of production.
Ergo, we have capitalism.
Koba Junior
14th May 2012, 21:12
Do you mean ownership over the means of production?
No, the state bourgeoisie, Stalin and co, owned the means of production.
It also had a capitalist MODE of production.
Ergo, we have capitalism.
I'd be very interested in an illustration as to what made production in the Soviet Union under Stalin capitalist. I'd also be interested your critique of vanguard substitutionism.
sanpal
14th May 2012, 21:50
Do you mean ownership over the means of production?
No, the state bourgeoisie, Stalin and co, owned the means of production.
It also had a capitalist MODE of production.
Ergo, we have capitalism.
If in the f. USSR it had a capitalist MoP and monetary/market economy under control of the proletariat (DOTP) it could be genuine marxist model of society of transition period, not deformed with Duhring's wrong scheme which was applied by Stalin after Lenin's death.
Having "ownership over the means of production" by "...the state bourgeoisie, Stalin and co ...", as you describe it, - it is sequent effect from applying Duhring's = Stalin's scheme in practice but not the cause (see "Anti-Duhring").
Geiseric
15th May 2012, 17:47
There wasn't a market thus it wasn't Capitalist, things were rationed throughout the entire time to the population based on needs rather than who can afford it.
Anyways, I reccomend the Stalinists to read a book about what Comintern did in China and the 3rd Period in Europe and to tell me that everything they did was fully Bolshevist and pro working class. Popular frontism is really what I want an answer for, why did the ML parties work with the Bourgeois political parties before the working class ones when Fascism was rising, and during imperialist conflicts?
You can't tell me that the Capitalists were to be trusted more than the working people who were still in organizations led by social democrats right? Do you think that once the Capitalists entered in a popular front, they would willingly go to Socialism? I want a reason for the popular front strategies in France and Spain, which I see as opportunistic sectarianism.
Brosip Tito
15th May 2012, 17:55
If in the f. USSR it had a capitalist MoP and monetary/market economy under control of the proletariat (DOTP) it could be genuine marxist model of society of transition period, not deformed with Duhring's wrong scheme which was applied by Stalin after Lenin's death.
Having "ownership over the means of production" by "...the state bourgeoisie, Stalin and co ...", as you describe it, - it is sequent effect from applying Duhring's = Stalin's scheme in practice but not the cause (see "Anti-Duhring").The means of production were not under the control of the proletariat, because the state was not under proletariat control.
In which way is this "socailism" or a "dotp"?
Rooster
15th May 2012, 18:39
So there was no collective ownership of production because two sectors traded with one another.
How is it that you can type stuff but never say anything? Are you not aware of the implication of what I wrote?
wsg1991
15th May 2012, 18:58
As Enver Broxha said, nothing in the proletarian dictatorship can be completely sovereign. Yet, we do indubitably wish to make workers' councils the supreme decision making bodies of the land, but not to make them completely sovereign. Also, "self-management" (in the Titoist sense) creates a market environment in which companies are accepted as long as they are "run by workers". We completely reject that. Of course, the control of production by the entire body of the proletariat is not something we oppose.
Appropriate freedom of speech for the proletariat is some quite important to us, but we acknowledge the fact that free speech can be easily manipulated by reactionary forces and the remnants of the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie to attack the dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course, hate speech, fascist speech, reactionary speech, etc. fall under inappropriate speech. This kind of speech can easily divide the proletariat and undermine their accomplishments, making it literaly dangerous to the proletarian dictatorship.
."
btw self employers , and doctors ( i am a medical student ) are not proletariat , so according to you they have no right to represent themselves , thus will be automatically oppressed , 2 your concept of free speech + central economic is a recipe for corrupt bureaucratic dictatorship , that i consider a personal threat since i never be a worker , oops i used reactionary speech
So let me get this straight stalinists, sorry marxist-leninists, have no desire to recreate the USSR, yet any discussion one socialism falls back to a discussion of the USSR? Now I know this is the internet and all and as a trot I've certainly done my share of history discussions too. But what are the M-L's ideas moving forward? It can't be denied that many of the main M-L groups have become reformists or worse, these would be the "revisionists" in M-L lingo. But I am having problem understanding this "anti-revisionist" versus "revisionist" angle. To take one example: Cuba, one of the last refuge of arch-revisionism, at least if you go by the standards set out in the 60's and 70's, yet today many of those same groups, indeed "anti-revisionists" in general seem to strongly defend Cuba as socialist. So it seems to all be down to some kind of realpolitik, rather than much inherent ideological differences. I am speaking in rather broad terms of course, but how should this difference be understood today?
Vyacheslav Brolotov
15th May 2012, 19:42
So let me get this straight stalinists, sorry marxist-leninists, have no desire to recreate the USSR, yet any discussion one socialism falls back to a discussion of the USSR? Now I know this is the internet and all and as a trot I've certainly done my share of history discussions too. But what are the M-L's ideas moving forward? It can't be denied that many of the main M-L groups have become reformists or worse, these would be the "revisionists" in M-L lingo. But I am having problem understanding this "anti-revisionist" versus "revisionist" angle. To take one example: Cuba, one of the last refuge of arch-revisionism, at least if you go by the standards set out in the 60's and 70's, yet today many of those same groups, indeed "anti-revisionists" in general seem to strongly defend Cuba as socialist. So it seems to all be down to some kind of realpolitik, rather than much inherent ideological differences. I am speaking in rather broad terms of course, but how should this difference be understood today?
What the hell are you taking about?
What the hell are you taking about?
He says Fidel is a revisionist and we should hate him for it.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 19:58
He says Fidel is a revisionist and we should hate him for it.
I happen to agree that Castro is a revisionist. That being said, I don't know too much about the situation in Cuba. It's something I'm still studying up on.
Bostana
15th May 2012, 20:00
So let me get this straight stalinists, sorry marxist-leninists, have no desire to recreate the USSR, yet any discussion one socialism falls back to a discussion of the USSR?
Actually the only time the U.S.S.R. is brought up in this forum is when people use it to criticize Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism has no intention to recreate the U.S.S.R. , but rather, try to create the paradise of the Proletariat. To say that the U.S.S.R. was ever communist would be wrong. And to say that Marxist-Leninist believed it was ever Communist would be just as wrong. To say that at a certain point that the U.S.S.R. represented a correct and successful practical implementation of the ideas of the scientific socialist ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 20:02
Actually the only time the U.S.S.R. is brought up in this forum is when people use it to criticize Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism has no intention to recreate the U.S.S.R. , but rather, try to create the paradise of the Proletariat. To say that the U.S.S.R. was ever communist would be wrong. And to say that Marxist-Leninist believed it was ever Communist would be just as wrong. To say that at a certain point that the U.S.S.R. represented a correct and successful practical implementation of the ideas of the scientific socialist ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
What is it the kids say these days? Oh, yes.
WHATCHOO TALKIN BOUT, BOSTANA?
Art Vandelay
15th May 2012, 20:13
What is it the kids say these days? Oh, yes.
WHATCHOO TALKIN BOUT, BOSTANA?
The part you bolded might be the only thing I have seen Bostana type that I agreed with.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
15th May 2012, 20:16
Castro is a revisionist and basically just an anti-imperialist bourgeois revolutionary who liked to nationalize things and kiss Khrushchev's ass all the time. I don't know why any real Marxist-Leninist party or individual that follows the line of Stalin and Enver Hoxha (or even Mao) would support him . . .
Except Maoist Rebel News. Hail the Rebel Lord!
Hail!
Brosip Tito
15th May 2012, 20:32
Castro is a revisionist and basically just an anti-imperialist bourgeois revolutionary who liked to nationalize things and kiss Khrushchev's ass all the time. I don't know why any real Marxist-Leninist party or individual that follows the line of Stalin and Enver Hoxha (or even Mao) would support him . . .
Except Maoist Rebel News. Hail the Rebel Lord!
Hail!
Castro was petty-bourgeois, as was Che Guevara. The revolution itself isn't determined by it's leaders, as you ML's seem to believe.
If that was the case, then you'd better rethink your stance, quickly.
The make-up of the Cuban revolution was of petty-bourgeois leadership, with a majority peasant base, with passive proletariat support.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 20:35
What is it about some of you people that you can't go a post without being nasty?
Krano
15th May 2012, 20:41
What is it about some of you people that you can't go a post without being nasty?
Because you people have no learning curve.
bad ideas actualised by alcohol
15th May 2012, 20:42
What is it about some of you people that you can't go a post without being nasty?
Welcome to the internet , enjoy your stay!
Because you people have no learning curve.
I would not criticize ML's if i were you.You were a ML not so long ago.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 20:48
Because you people have no learning curve.
It's good to know I'm among adults.
I happen to agree that Castro is a revisionist. That being said, I don't know too much about the situation in Cuba. It's something I'm still studying up on.
Unlike Guevara, Castro was never a "true" Marxist-Leninist to begin with. Then, as a matter of realpolitik, he had to do business with the Soviet revisionists as soon as he got himself a country to run, and that couldn't have passed without consequence.
Then even as we brand him a revisionist, we have to look at the particular situation Cuba finds itself in, to determine how vile his revisionism really is. Tito, for instance, cannot be excused for his revisionism, because he betrayed communist movement at the hight of its tide. Same applies to the CPSU - they were the "shock brigade" of the movement and with their turnabout it began to ebb away. The Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean revisionists were already caught up in the circumstances of the Sino-Soviet split.
These days, what the Cubans can do? At least they hold to what they can, their education and medical and international humanitarian programs, speaking out against capitalism, as long as they can.
Unlike Guevara, Castro was never a "true" Marxist-Leninist to begin with.
Sorry comrade Zulu,but Che Guevara was just an adventurist and a 'revolutionary' and in that sense,he can be admired,but he was not a Marxist-Leninist.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
15th May 2012, 20:53
I would not criticize ML's if i were you.You were a ML not so long ago.
He was never a Marxist-Leninist, he was a revisionist who liked Ho Chi Minh like we like Stalin and Hoxha.
Krano
15th May 2012, 21:12
I would not criticize ML's if i were you.You were a ML not so long ago.
Since im not anymore i can throw as many stone as i want :tt2:
He was never a Marxist-Leninist, he was a revisionist who liked Ho Chi Minh like we like Stalin and Hoxha.
Right Stalin wasn't a revisionist at all.
Prometeo liberado
15th May 2012, 21:13
Sorry folks but ML transcends the old baggage of even Stalin. I for one am not going haul around that in this next century. ML grows and offers us an insight to ever changing conditions without abandoning the goal. Stalin and Hoxha were great men, but they were men.
Art Vandelay
15th May 2012, 21:22
Sorry folks but ML transcends the old baggage of even Stalin. I for one am not going haul around that in this next century. ML grows and offers us an insight to ever changing conditions without abandoning the goal. Stalin and Hoxha were great men, but they were men.
You are probably the only M-L I have ever seen on the boards who adopts that stance, which IMO is agreeable (even from an anarchist) and pragmatic.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
15th May 2012, 21:23
Sorry folks but ML transcends the old baggage of even Stalin. I for one am not going haul around that in this next century. ML grows and offers us an insight to ever changing conditions without abandoning the goal. Stalin and Hoxha were great men, but they were men.
Blasphemer!
:p
But in reality, Marxism-Leninism doesn't revolve solely around Stalin or Hoxha, like Trotskyism does around Trotsky. It's dynamic and should be as long as people don't start revising and abandoning the aspects of it that make it revolutionary and viable.
They were one of the more important figures and theoreticians in the field of Marxism-Leninism and should be studied as such.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 21:31
Stalin is hardly what I'd call baggage. He's one of the most important figures of Marxism-Leninism, and his contributions to socialism both theoretically and practically represent lessons invaluable to the international communist movement.
Sorry comrade Zulu,but Che Guevara was just an adventurist and a 'revolutionary' and in that sense,he can be admired,but he was not a Marxist-Leninist.
He was an adventurist, yes. But he was a Marxist-Leninist adventurist.
Actually, he was an anti-revisionist in the Cuban government, which was the main reason he had to leave for new adventures, before things could get ugly between him and Fidel because of the Soviets.
It looks like he was into economy as much as he was into guerrilla warfare, but his untimely death prevented him from developing into a big Marxist-Leninist theoretician.
http://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffeh/che-critic.htm
The Cuban revolution was not a proletarian revolution,nor was it led by workers and revolutionary leaders,but by petty-bourgeois.
As for Castro,there are many gems related to him,like this:
"Capitalism sacrifices man, the Communist state sacrifices man. . Our revolution is not red, but olive-green, the colour of the rebel army". ('Guia del Pensiamento politicoeconomico de Fidel' (Guide to the Politico-economic Thought of Fidel); Havana; 1959; p. 48).
As for Che, his theories and the idea of the "guerilla revolution" are not in line with Marxist-Leninist principles.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 22:00
The question of Guevara does not seem clear-cut, but I would be interested in further explanation regarding guerrilla revolution and its place regarding Marxism-Leninism.
There is no 'question of Guevara' - he was a part of the system which Fidel tried to create,and the 'revolution' they organized,and they mainly used principles such as:
the abstract and classless theory of "armed revolution";
the purely military "foco";
the primacy of spontaneity and,
the overall aim of "the happiness of the people" divorced from any concrete class analysis.
ml-r.
The Communist party did not act like a Marxist-Leninist party of the proletariat,but like the comprador-type overseer which followed the instructions of the revisionist USSR and tried to keep good relations with both the East and the West,while not actually going forth in the construction of socialism or any kind of an important step in the peoples struggle.
As for Castro himself,it is pretty obvious why he is not a Marxist-Leninist.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 22:15
Well, then, that dampens my opinion of Guevara quite a bit. I'll be doing some research into this.
The Cuban revolution was not a proletarian revolution,nor was it led by workers and revolutionary leaders,but by petty-bourgeois.
As for Castro,there are many gems related to him,like this:
"Capitalism sacrifices man, the Communist state sacrifices man. . Our revolution is not red, but olive-green, the colour of the rebel army". ('Guia del Pensiamento politicoeconomico de Fidel' (Guide to the Politico-economic Thought of Fidel); Havana; 1959; p. 48).
As for Che, his theories and the idea of the "guerilla revolution" are not in line with Marxist-Leninist principles.
There is no such thing as a "universal way to make a revolution" in Marxism-Leninism. Marxist-Leninists are expected to improvise, depending on the local conditions. And Lenin himself wrote something on the occasional usefulness of guerrilla warfare as early as 1905, I believe.
Che Guevara put emphasis on economic development and the role of the party cadre, repressed syndicalists and trotsyists after the revolution. He swore to fight capitalism on Stalin's picture! What else do you need?
Yeah, it kind of sucks he turned into this pan-leftist "t-shirt guy" we all know him now as, but in reality he was a Marxist-Leninist. One of the most outstanding, in fact.
Koba Junior
15th May 2012, 22:22
Now I'm just confused.
There is no such thing as a "universal way to make a revolution" in Marxism-Leninism. Marxist-Leninists are expected to improvise, depending on the local conditions.
They abandoned Lenin.Marxism-Leninism states that the proletariat was the main moving force behind the revolution,and that the proletariat should keep the power, -
And that it must do so,in order to :
"The proletariat . . . alone is able . . . to retain power sufficiently long to suppress completely all the exploiters as well as all the elements of disintegration". (V.I. Lenin: 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', (March-April 1918), in: 'Collected Works' Volume 27; Moscow; 1965; p. 265). - That is the first prerequisite for successful socialist planning. And in the Cuban 'revolution' - the proletariat played a minor role.
The revolution was led by petty-bourgeois,Che - a doctor,and Fidel -
"A 32-year-old lawyer, the son of a wealthy sugar planter"; ('Keesing 's Contemporary Archives', Volume 12; p. 16,631).
And without the concrete support of the proletariat,the petty bourgeois were the option left in the void,alone,and the option used. And we all know what Lenin said abut the petty-bourgeois and their runs for power:
"The petty bourgeois democrats are incapable of holding power".
And Lenin himself wrote something on the occasional usefulness of guerrilla warfare as early as 1905, I believe.
They tried to ignore the Vanguard party as the main instrument of power used by the proletariat,and while ignoring this Marxist-Leninist principle,they went on the road of the military leadership and a non-ML party which was not capable of doing what it should do.
Che Guevara put emphasize on the economy and the role of the party cadre, repressed syndicalists and trotsyists after the revolution. He swore to fight capitalism on Stalin's picture! What else do you need?
I don't need people who are ready to jump into 'adventures' and almost suicidal missions without real organization. He gambled,and he lost his life,resulting in a meaningless sacrifice.
Art Vandelay
15th May 2012, 22:51
And we all know what Lenin said abut the petty-bourgeois and their runs for power:
"The petty bourgeois democrats are incapable of holding power".
Looks like Lenin was wrong ;)
Prometeo liberado
15th May 2012, 22:54
Stalin is hardly what I'd call baggage. He's one of the most important figures of Marxism-Leninism, and his contributions to socialism both theoretically and practically represent lessons invaluable to the international communist movement.
By no means is Stalin "baggage", but I would sooner win people over to ML first and then let them come to clarity as to Stalin. Putting Stalin before the greater science of ML is the baggage created by far too many. Though Stalin was/is invaluable to ML you can not ignore the fact the name means so many different things to the majority of workers. Ill fight to uphold concrete theory and tactics, not the allegations or images of an era long since gone. That is baggage.
Ismail
16th May 2012, 04:13
However, I am entirely clueless about what Marxism-Leninists want for the twenty-first century.Presumably they want to fight for communism like their ideological ancestors did in the 19th and 20th centuries. Also it's a bad idea to act as if RevLeft actually represents even 1% of the world's Marxist-Leninists, just like I wouldn't say it represents even 1% of the world's Trots. On the internet we have to constantly debate a fairly controversial man named Stalin, so yeah.
Do you want to relive the Soviet Union and recreate a nearly identical society?It'd be quite hard to "relive" the USSR, what with existing almost 100 years ago in pretty dramatically different conditions.
Do you want more democracy, do you want less?As Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha noted, proletarian democracy is incomparably democratic compared to bourgeois democracy.
Do you want to abolish money immediately?No, we are not anarchists, nor are we fans of Pol Pot.
Do you support sovereign workers' councils and self-management?No, we don't support capitalism. Anyone who associates socialism with, say, "workers' should take over a gold mine and do whatever they like with it, so long as it's managed by the workers" isn't going to get very far. The working-class seizes state power and manages the entire economy on a planned basis. Calls for "workers' self-management" were always advanced by opportunists, from Tito's Yugoslavia to the 1970's-80's Swedish Social-Democratic Party.
What about freedom of speech and press?Freedom for the speech and press of the working-class, not for the bourgeoisie. This position was shared by Trotsky as well, so it's hardly a "Stalinists versus the world" issue.
Let's say Marxism-Leninism comes to power, what will it look like? (of course, we cannot predict, yadayada, but it gives me an insight in your ideas).It will operate with the examples given by the USSR under Lenin and Stalin, and by Albania under Hoxha. The proletariat will seize state power, establish its class dictatorship over the bourgeoisie, nationalize industry, begin building the socialist economic base, will revolutionize society and culture, and will adopt a new, internationalist foreign policy.
Marxism-Leninism is scientific socialism. There's no need to modify anything concerning it in terms of the 21st century anymore than there was a need to modify it in, say, 1940 or 1991. What must be modified is done quite naturally, in accordance with materialist analysis. The only people who speak of "WE NEED A NEW 21ST CENTURY MARXISM" or whatever are either revisionists who are opening the door to reformism or secluded academics who would otherwise become absolutely cynical.
I don't need people who are ready to jump into 'adventures' and almost suicidal missions without real organization. He gambled,and he lost his life,resulting in a meaningless sacrifice.
Regarding Guevara, I can only repeat again: he jumped into new adventures after he found it impossible to implement his more radical socialist political-economic line on Cuba.
Regarding Cuban Revolution: despite being not proletarian on its conception and despite being consolidated around then already revisionist Soviet model, it actually achieved and maintained certain features that are characteristic of socialism, including planning and public property, with very limited liberalization in the 1990s, some of which even got reverted in the 2000s. Some of its institutions, such as their education system, are particularly interesting.
Looks like Lenin was wrong
He was not wrong,in Cuba the Fidelist clique had to resort to farmers and some workers,and to actually build a party,so in the end they abandoned their previous ideas,but it remained a non-revolution. It was not proletarian and the proletarait did not hold power,nor is the proletariat holding power now. So there you have it - the demise of the Cuban revolution explained by a man who died so long ago.
he jumped into new adventures after he found it impossible to implement his more radical socialist political-economic line on Cuba.
But he built that system himself,with Castro so we can't say he was not aware of the concrete state of affairs in Cuba.
despite being not proletarian on its conception and despite being consolidated around then already revisionist Soviet model, it actually achieved and maintained certain features that are characteristic of socialism, including planning and public property, with very limited liberalization in the 1990s, some of which even got reverted in the 2000s. Some of its institutions, such as their education system, are particularly interesting.
Every event,process,time in history must be analyzed and examined with great care,the Cuban revolution too. But we should not take its example as 'great' , just simply learn from their errors. (Although such a revolution is not something which can be done in the Western world.)
But he built that system himself,with Castro so we can't say he was not aware of the concrete state of affairs in Cuba.
He suggested to build it differently. His suggestions were rejected. What should he have done? Assassinated Castro, so that the Americans could get back in and restore full blown capitalism? That would have been a bit counterrevolutionary, Marxism-Leninism or not, don't you think?
Krano
16th May 2012, 12:16
''Marxism-Leninism in the 21st century'' And this thread is 8 pages of Stalin.
Brosip Tito
16th May 2012, 13:36
''Marxism-Leninism in the 21st century'' And this thread is 8 pages of Stalin.His theory, his policies, his actions are all relevant to "Marxism-Leninism in the 21st century".
Do you really think they don't plan on sending their political opposition into exile? You're an anarchist, I'm a Luxemburgist. We'd be in the gulags before you can say state capitalist dictatorship.
Krano
16th May 2012, 13:45
His theory, his policies, his actions are all relevant to "Marxism-Leninism in the 21st century".
Do you really think they don't plan on sending their political opposition into exile? You're an anarchist, I'm a Luxemburgist. We'd be in the gulags before you can say state capitalist dictatorship.
No i think they will just shoot us.
honest john's firing squad
16th May 2012, 14:04
No i think they will just shoot us.
I'd have to agree. GULAG is so 1937.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
16th May 2012, 14:06
I'd have to agree. GULAG is so 1937.
Not really.
wsg1991
16th May 2012, 16:26
can't we just focus more on any leftist or pseudo leftist on the 21 century that might be helpful , and keep us more close to reality . btw i am been here a week , and this word revisionist , is quite ridiculous (''revisionist : any one who defy Karl divine mandate '')
Well,a "revisionist" (As we ML's use it.) is in the historical context,a man who is revising,changing,watering down Marxism-Leninism. I don't see what is so wrong about it.
Ismail
16th May 2012, 16:31
No i think they will just shoot us.There were quite a few anarchists who were able to live out their lives in the 1920's and onwards so long as they didn't attack the dictatorship of the proletariat. Kropotkin was an early example of this. In the USSR and in Albania there were also bourgeois figures who lost their pre-revolution jobs and were either given more appropriate ones (e.g. dockworker or whatever) or were forced into retirement; they weren't touched since they agreed to not struggle against the proletarian dictatorship.
It goes without saying that after a revolution those who seek to undermine it won't be allowed to do so.
Well,a "revisionist" (As we ML's use it.) is in the historical context,a man who is revising,changing,watering down Marxism-Leninism. I don't see what is so wrong about it.Trotsky used the word as well and had basically the same definition.
Trotsky used the word as well and had basically the same definition.
Time to change the definition.:D
Brosip Tito
16th May 2012, 16:42
As Ismail said, keep your mouth shut, and you'll be fine!
Nothing like a proletarian dictatorship which is afraid of criticism and debate within it's ranks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Glorious ML "DOTP" is achieved*
"Excuse me, but you're doing it wrong! You are going against Marxism by doing this!"
"WE DECIDE WHAT IS AND ISN'T REVISIONST, NOT YOU! TO THE GULAGS ULTRA LEFTIST REVISIONIST TROT PIG SCUM!"
*Utopia*.
Ismail
16th May 2012, 16:44
Nothing like a proletarian dictatorship which is afraid of criticism and debate within it's ranks.I was unaware that anarchists participated in the affairs of the state or Party, or the mass organizations of the latter. So no, not "within it's [sic.] ranks."
Not afriad of criticism, (Stalin responded to critics,so did Lenin.) but afriad of lies and propaganda which could cause severe problems.
Geiseric
16th May 2012, 16:48
Trotsky described SoiC as revisionism because it is. Perminant Revolution was accepted by Lenin, as was the need for internationalism. It was accepted by the entire bolshevik party, and every other communist who was part of the 3rd International untill Stalin killed most of the leadership of other political oppositions and stole the ideas about Industrialisation.
wsg1991
16th May 2012, 16:54
good , now let's talk about some 21 century leaders \ country identified as Left , any hope ,, and are they doing any good ? are they revisionist or being realist and try to act according to the situation ? is there any lesson we can learn from
Ismail
16th May 2012, 16:57
good , now let's talk about some 21 century leaders \ country identified as Left , any hope ,, and are they doing any good ? are they revisionist or being realist and try to act according to the situation ? is there any lesson we can learn fromWell lets see, Hugo Chávez said in the past that he does not envision an era of proletarian revolutions, considers himself a good Christian, and recently has been reaching out to the petty-bourgeoisie, not to mention that his foreign policy line is clearly not consistently anti-imperialist, unless praising Iran and Russia counts as such.
So yeah, not very good. Ortega, Correa and Morales are to the right of him while Raúl Castro is "being realist" by privatizing huge chunks of the Cuban economy and working to emulate China.
Then you have the DPRK, which claims that the army is the leading force of the revolution and that Marxism-Leninism is flawed, for apparently Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin didn't understand that socialism must be "man-centered" (whatever that means), thus demonstrating the glories of Juche and the theoretical brilliance of Kim Il Sung to the world. In other words, nothing much good there either.
Then you have China, Vietnam and Laos which use sparse amounts of Marxist terminology in the flattest and least revolutionary way possible in order to justify full-scale capitalism in a way that pretends it is being done in accordance with Marxism. Pretty much no one in these countries cares one bit about Marxism.
wsg1991
16th May 2012, 17:20
Well lets see, Hugo Chávez said in the past that he does not envision an era of proletarian revolutions, considers himself a good Christian, and recently has been reaching out to the petty-bourgeoisie, not to mention that his foreign policy line is clearly not consistently anti-imperialist, unless praising Iran and Russia counts as such.
So yeah, not very good. Meanwhile Ortega, Correa and Morales are to the right of him while Raúl Castro is "being realist" by privatizing huge chunks of the Cuban economy and working to emulate China.
Then you have the DPRK, which claims that the army is the leading force of the revolution and that Marxism-Leninism is flawed, for apparently Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin didn't understand that socialism must be man-centered (whatever that means), thus demonstrating the glories of Juche and the theoretical brilliance of Kim Il Sung to the world. In other words, nothing much good there either.
Then you have China, Vietnam and Laos which use sparse amounts of Marxist terminology in the flattest and least revolutionary way possible in order to justify full-scale capitalism in a way that pretends it is being done in accordance with Marxism.
first chavez international policies are very like any other country , making similar friends (anti USA ) and same political orientation countries , i see nothing wrong with international policies , i did read his interview with aljazeera back in 2006 (although in it contain some populist bullshit ) , he said he would like to see a world with multiple super power , which would allow smaller country to develop and have a fighting chance , and btw i know he was reaching petty bourgeois since 2006 nothing new about it , and i see nothing wrong with the one you call it petty bourgeois since i am one ( medical student , doctors are not proletariat) , and from a petty bourgeois family
North Korea is :thumbdown: , the only thing china did kept revolutionary is the red color this countries should studied as failure and see what did go wrong ,
wsg1991
16th May 2012, 17:22
why such hostility with free people owning their personal means of production :confused:
Ismail
16th May 2012, 17:23
why such hostility with free people owning their personal means of production :confused:You ought to ask this in a thread of your own. To answer though, Lenin noted that small-scale commodity production engenders capitalism. It inevitably must give way to socialist relations of production which are the property of the whole people. Consumer cooperatives were established in the USSR, Albania, etc. to deal with such producers.
bolshie
16th May 2012, 18:35
Capitalist. For a short period, before the abolition of the soviets, construction of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or what Lenin called "the first stage(s) of communism" (neither Marx nor Lenin differentiated between socialism and communism) was attempted. However, it was quickly realised that Russia was such a backwards, poorly industrialised country that it was not materially ready to create the scarcity-free society that socialism is. Shit, it was barely fit for capitalism. Look at it this way: since socialism is the complete, uncompromising liberation of all humanity, a society that materially forces people to work (in that if they don't, everyone will starve) cannot be socialist. In response to this realisation, the USSR was made into a heavily socialised capitalist society. That this society was a lot less painful for the working class than the private capitalist societies seen elsewhere notwithstanding, it still required a revolution to progress to the DotP and eventually socialism.
Oh, so it was capitalist and then socialist? When was the revolution?
bolshie
16th May 2012, 18:47
Stalin is hardly what I'd call baggage. He's one of the most important figures of Marxism-Leninism, and his contributions to socialism both theoretically and practically represent lessons invaluable to the international communist movement.
I thought he was a dictator and even the Russians said so after he died?
Trotsky described SoiC as revisionism because it is. Perminant Revolution was accepted by Lenin, as was the need for internationalism. It was accepted by the entire bolshevik party, and every other communist who was part of the 3rd International untill Stalin killed most of the leadership of other political oppositions and stole the ideas about Industrialisation.
Since when Stalin rejected the need of internationalism?
He stole the ideas about industrialization?
Ismail
16th May 2012, 21:13
I thought he was a dictator and even the Russians said so after he died?J. Arch Getty, Robert W. Thurston, and various others note that this mental image of the all-powerful Stalin does not stand up to scrutiny either logically or in terms of actual archival material. There were policies of Stalin's that were voted down by the Politburo, even ones relating to his personality cult, with Stalin going "don't name X factory after me, name it after Comrade Y" and his proposal being rejected. Ironically one of the biggest propagators of the cult was Khrushchev.
This same Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" contained all sorts of distortions. Most notably the claim that Stalin planned military operations during on a globe during WWII, something explicitly debunked later by Zhukov's memoirs, etc. If under Stalin Soviet literature barely mentioned Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, etc. and acted as if they only existed to suck and to harm the Party, Soviet literature after 1956 attributed everything bad in the 1930's-50's to Stalin and never mentioned him unless it was unavoidable. Speeches by communists in the 1920's-50's published after 1956 had parts praising Stalin cut out, etc.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
16th May 2012, 21:42
There were quite a few anarchists who were able to live out their lives in the 1920's and onwards so long as they didn't attack the dictatorship of the proletariat. Kropotkin was an early example of this. In the USSR and in Albania there were also bourgeois figures who lost their pre-revolution jobs and were either given more appropriate ones (e.g. dockworker or whatever) or were forced into retirement; they weren't touched since they agreed to not struggle against the proletarian dictatorship.
Stop making us look kind. Their very existence is a threat!!!!!!
He stole the ideas about industrialization?
Yes, Trotsky had reserved the copyright, but Stalin pirated it.
Geiseric
17th May 2012, 01:00
Stalin called it "adventurism," and actively fought to prolong the N.E.P. into the mid 1920s, paving the way for the decade of famines while the Kulaks gained huge amounts of political power.
Vyacheslav Brolotov
17th May 2012, 01:05
Stalin called it "adventurism," and actively fought to prolong the N.E.P. into the mid 1920s, paving the way for the decade of famines while the Kulaks gained huge amounts of political power.
You're pulling that out of either your ass or Trotsky's.
Brosip Tito
17th May 2012, 01:21
I was unaware that anarchists participated in the affairs of the state or Party, or the mass organizations of the latter. So no, not "within it's [sic.] ranks."
Where am I talking about anarchists?
Trotsky was an Anarchist? Zinoviev and anarchist?
I bet Stalin would have handled Luxemburg in the same manner as the Freikorps.
Rooster
17th May 2012, 01:43
You're pulling that out of either your ass or Trotsky's.
It's still true though.
Conscript
17th May 2012, 02:03
Since when Stalin rejected the need of internationalism?
He's probably referring to when stalinists started calling the USSR the motherland of the world proletariat and such, which at least in the context it was used it was a pretty drastic change in the relationship between the USSR and outside revolutionaries. Stalin placed soviet interests ahead of the world revolution, especially after 1934.
His idea of SIOC meant safeguarding the interests of the USSR at the expense of other revolutionaries, the reinforcing of some bourgeois states with the weight comintern-aligned parties, and the repression of communists not part of the comintern, such as trotskyists and anarchists, who either didn't fit into his plans or had interests contradictory to his.
I think the petty-bourgeois nationalism described in this quote is descriptive of Stalin's version of internationalism:
The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
Ismail
17th May 2012, 03:05
Then again Lenin said that a rejection of compromises is ultra-left childishness (or something of the sort) and when faced in Turkey with Atatürk's forces and communists, Lenin chose the former which moved against the latter. He also said that to support other revolutions at the probable price of the destruction of the USSR was foolishness.
It's pretty obvious from archival sources (e.g. Erik Van Ree's The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin) that Stalin saw what he was doing as being both in accordance with the words of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and as advancing the cause of revolution worldwide. Thus he would discuss arming the PCI and PCF in the late 40's in anticipation of a bourgeois crackdown on both, to give one example, which is something that would have been unthinkable after 1956 when the USSR promoted reformism in Western Europe.
Comrade Hill
17th May 2012, 03:18
Stalin called it "adventurism," and actively fought to prolong the N.E.P. into the mid 1920s, paving the way for the decade of famines while the Kulaks gained huge amounts of political power.
There was no "decade of famines." Why do you think you can sneak in lies about history and get away with it?
There were two major famines in the from 1918 to 1922 from the civil war. True, the NEP gave rise to NEP men and Kulaks. However, it didn't create a "decade of famines." The NEP was established to abandon the rigid "War communism." We could have, however, kept the War Communism, and created even more famines continuing to ration food that was scarce from the war, and liquidated the peasants, but that would've been bad. Sometimes, you can't just childishly storm to new heights when the conditions don't warrant it. Building socialism with a party depends on the support of the masses of poor peasants and urban workers.
wsg1991
17th May 2012, 03:26
so what happened to those Kulaks ?
Ismail
17th May 2012, 03:28
so what happened to those Kulaks ?They met the same fate as the bourgeoisie in the cities: destroyed as a class. And deservedly so, since among other things they sought to take advantage of food shortages in said cities by jacking up prices for grain to sell to the state.
Koba Junior
17th May 2012, 03:30
They met the same fate as the bourgeoisie in the cities: destroyed as a class. And deservedly so, since among other things they sought to take advantage of food shortages in said cities by jacking up prices for grain to sell to the state.
That's the way it should be.
He's probably referring to when stalinists started calling the USSR the motherland of the world proletariat and such, which at least in the context it was used it was a pretty drastic change in the relationship between the USSR and outside revolutionaries.
It's good to see that we're gonna have the same discussion in two different forums.
However, this time you turned things easier for me. Calling USSR the motherland of the World proletariat is pretty internationalist. If it was calling motherland of only the Russian proletariat I would agree with you but since its world I can't see more internationalism than that. At the time USSR was the socialist reference world wide not only for the entire world working class but also for the world bourgeoisie.
Stalin placed soviet interests ahead of the world revolution, especially after 1934.
His idea of SIOC meant safeguarding the interests of the USSR at the expense of other revolutionaries,
It meant that? So, you may also be able to explain me why Stalin bothered to support the "other" revolutionaries in Spain, China, Korea, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Hungary, Germany and so on.
the reinforcing of some bourgeois states with the weight comintern-aligned parties,
Are you referring specifically to what? Stagism? The Popular Fronts?
and the repression of communists not part of the comintern, such as trotskyists and anarchists, who either didn't fit into his plans or had interests contradictory to his.
He did it nationally, why he wouldn't do it internationally? Do you think the trotskyists would be loyal to Stalin after the forced exile of Trotsky? Do you think it's reasonable to think so?
I think the petty-bourgeois nationalism described in this quote is descriptive of Stalin's version of internationalism:
I have some quotes from Lenin myself. Look:
"Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone."
"...because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible."
Geiseric
17th May 2012, 04:57
1st off, how about you read a book from Lenin instead of a few quotes, especially one on Comintern... And you don't dissolve Comintern because of "realism," you dissolve it, and join the league of nations because of opportunism. also on the topic of social patriotism, lenin formed the 3rd international BECAUSE the 2nd were social patriots! how can you say that Lenin was a nationalist? thats seriously disrespectful.
Geiseric
17th May 2012, 05:01
by the way Trotsky said to support the USSR but not the bureaucratic detatched leadership who leeched off of the workers.
1st off, how about you read a book from Lenin instead of a few quotes,
I've already red.
especially one on Comintern... And you don't dissolve Comintern because of "realism," you dissolve it, and join the league of nations because of opportunism.
You're a little bit confused. Nobody dissolved the Comintern until 1943...
also on the topic of social patriotism, lenin formed the 3rd international BECAUSE the 2nd were social patriots! how can you say that Lenin was a nationalist? thats seriously disrespectful.
When I ever said that Lenin was a nationalist? :confused:
by the way Trotsky said to support the USSR but not the bureaucratic detatched leadership who leeched off of the workers.
I'm aware of that. That is why he and his followers adopted the revolutionary defeatism towards the USSR during the Second World War.
I'm just a little bit confused about something and you might give me some good explanation: Why Trotsky, the Patriarch of bureaucrats, complained so much about the bureaucracy of USSR. I mean, wasn't he the patriarch?
Grenzer
17th May 2012, 06:27
If that was the case, then you'd better rethink your stance, quickly.
The make-up of the Cuban revolution was of petty-bourgeois leadership, with a majority peasant base, with passive proletariat support.
Actually it was pretty much just petit-bourgeois the whole way 'round. The peasantry only decided they would prefer Castroite leadership at the last minute.
Grenzer
17th May 2012, 06:30
by the way Trotsky said to support the USSR but not the bureaucratic detatched leadership who leeched off of the workers.
That's primarily because he was a hypocrite in this respect. Either the Soviet Union was a dictatorship of the proletariat building socialism, or it was state capitalist building liberal capitalism. The former renders orthodox Trotskyism invalid, the latter renders it counter-revolutionary. There is no imaginary stage between socialism and capitalism.
1st off, how about you read a book from Lenin instead of a few quotes, especially one on Comintern... And you don't dissolve Comintern because of "realism," you dissolve it, and join the league of nations because of opportunism. also on the topic of social patriotism, lenin formed the 3rd international BECAUSE the 2nd were social patriots! how can you say that Lenin was a nationalist? thats seriously disrespectful.
How about you study some history? The Comintern was formally disbanded in 1943 at the request of the idiot western bourgeois politicians (like it could stop communists all over the world from supporting the USSR) and the Cominform was created in its place as soon as the Cold War began. And the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations in 1939 - after it actually began "exporting" the revolution (I bet Trotsky ate another hat then, just like after Stalin "stole" his industrialization program...)
And the "social patriotism" of the 2nd international was bad, because they called the masses to back the capitalist regimes of their countries out of bourgeois patriotism, that is they were nationalist! Lenin, on the contrary called the masses to support Soviet Russia because after the revolution it became the "socialist fatherland", the stronghold of the world proletariat of all nationalities. And by the way, it was Trotsky who came the closest to call Lenin a nationalist in some memoir.
by the way Trotsky said to support the USSR but not the bureaucratic detatched leadership who leeched off of the workers.
Didn't he go a bit farther than that, by saying support the USSR by fighting its bureaucratic leadership? Which in effect meant support the imperialists who wanted the end of the USSR?
jookyle
17th May 2012, 08:30
Didn't he a bit farther than that, by saying support the USSR by fighting its bureaucratic leadership? Which in effect meant support the imperialists who wanted the end of the USSR?
Not supporting the leadership is not the same as wanting to end the USSR. By that logic, any people who have gotten rid of a leader of their country would be doing so because they wanted their country to end.
I think the petty-bourgeois nationalism described in this quote is descriptive of Stalin's version of internationalism:
Originally Posted by Lenin
The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
Yet, when the actual sacrifices that the proletariat and the masses in general had to make under Stalin are brought up, the Trotskyists immediately begin beating their "bureaucracy" drum about how the working class was oppressed and stuff.
He's probably referring to when stalinists started calling the USSR the motherland of the world proletariat and such,
Lenin was the first of such "stalinists" then.
which at least in the context it was used it was a pretty drastic change in the relationship between the USSR and outside revolutionaries. Stalin placed soviet interests ahead of the world revolution, especially after 1934.
The USSR was the world revolution. At least until Hitler's invasion. It could be discussed how much that changed things, but up until 1941 USSR remained the Union, that all the socialist countries would join in the end to become the English SSR, the Texan SSR, the Chilean SSR, the Papua SSR, etc. ()some of them probably autonomous SSRs within federations like the RSFSR.
His idea of SIOC meant safeguarding the interests of the USSR at the expense of other revolutionaries, the reinforcing of some bourgeois states with the weight comintern-aligned parties, and the repression of communists not part of the comintern, such as trotskyists and anarchists, who either didn't fit into his plans or had interests contradictory to his.
Yes, because the USSR had no "national interests", but only the "international interests" as the guiding principle of its policies. Opposing the USSR at that time on any grounds was counterrevolutionary.
Not supporting the leadership is not the same as wanting to end the USSR. By that logic, any people who have gotten rid of a leader of their country would be doing so because they wanted their country to end.
When the country in question is surrounded by the enemies ready to tear it apart, it is. That was the argument why the nationalist counterrevolutionaries of the 2nd International opposed the revolutionary defeatists (like Lenin), who said "let 'em [the capitalists] tear each other apart, then finish off the surviving ones. Proletarians have nothing to lose anyway".
Thus Trotsky's position was that of revolutionary defeatism (mirroring Lenin's defeatism in the WW1) - with one "minor" detail: USSR was not a bourgeois country, but a socialist country, and the world proletariat had a lot to lose from its defeat, thus Trotsky's defeatism was in fact quite counterrevolutionary.
Since i am very busy these days,i'm afraid we can't really look for a final 'word' on Che, Zulu. However,i have a photo which could change your opinion,or the opinion of any other anti-revisionist.
http://www.uco.es/~i62guigm/che/imagenes/che-tito.jpg
Rooster
17th May 2012, 09:49
Is that Maoist Rebel News standing in the back ground?
Since i am very busy these days,i'm afraid we can't really look for a final 'word' on Che, Zulu. However,i have a photo which could change your opinion,or the opinion of any other anti-revisionist.
http://www.uco.es/~i62guigm/che/imagenes/che-tito.jpg
No.
Otherwise all those photos of the Soviet leaders and military personnel shaking hands and shining smiles at each other with their Nazi counterparts during the first phase of WW2 could change my mind too, couldn't they?
Tim Finnegan
17th May 2012, 10:14
Is that Maoist Rebel News standing in the back ground?
MRN finds all the old photographs where they've removed people and edits himself into their place.
Brosip Tito
17th May 2012, 11:25
So, if you red it tell me. The measures listed by Marx were implemented in USSR or not?No.
Prove that you had the DOTP in USSR and your point was totally false. You haven't, and youcan't.
Bourgeoisie? Where was the private ownership of capital?The state, controlled by internal, bureacratic bourgeoisie, owned capital.
Ismail
17th May 2012, 12:26
Is there any actual source (as in direct, not hearsay) that Stalin disbanded the Comintern to "appease" his WWII Allies? I mean Dimitrov's own diaries show Stalin being like "because of the Comintern the bourgeoisie is persecuting communist parties by arguing that they're 'puppets' of Moscow, plus their activities are becoming increasingly limited as they grow more mature while the Comintern is forced to monitor everything they do." The CPUSA, after all, had to openly distance themselves from the Comintern in 1939 or else face illegalization.
Is there any actual source (as in direct, not hearsay) that Stalin disbanded the Comintern to "appease" his WWII Allies? I mean Dimitrov's own diaries show Stalin being like "because of the Comintern the bourgeoisie is persecuting communist parties by arguing that they're 'puppets' of Moscow, plus their activities are becoming increasingly limited as they grow more mature while the Comintern is forced to monitor everything they do." The CPUSA, after all, had to openly distance themselves from the Comintern in 1939 or else face illegalization.
Either way it shows that the liquidation of the Comintern was a tactical move, not having anything to do with Stalin's giving up on the world revolution (which the critics seem to imply). I remember watching some TV documentary about the Western counterintelligence effort against the Soviets' penetration, and it said that some analysts later suggested that the Comintern had been disbanded mainly for the purpose of disorienting those services, as they lost trace of many suspected operatives around that time; the "honest fools" were let to remain "honest fools", and the real moles went underground and could no longer be compromised by some Comintern's superficial red-tape. Something like that.
No.
Which of them weren't?
You haven't, and youcan't."Where did I say it wasn't a proletarian democracy? I believe that it was in the beginning.!" by Brosip Tito about the Russian Revolution. ;)
The state, controlled by internal, bureacratic bourgeoisie, owned capital.
The state is a private agent that owns capital?
Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie? The Russian state was a private company? What were the private profits of those bureaucrats?
Brosip Tito
17th May 2012, 15:09
Which of them weren't?Which of them were?
"Where did I say it wasn't a proletarian democracy? I believe that it was in the beginning.!" by Brosip Tito about the Russian Revolution. ;)
This is my acknowledgement of a DOTP under Lenin in the first couple years of the revolution.
It lost it's proletarian character, and was no longer a proeltarian dmeocracy/dictatorship by the time Stalin had become GS.
The state is a private agent that owns capital?
Indeed, when it acts in the interests of the ruling class, in this case it did.
How do you explain commodity production and wage labour? Are these thing's a part of a socialsit economy?
Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie? The Russian state was a private company? What were the private profits of those bureaucrats?This is EXCATLY wat I said. Goober.
The Russian state was the Russian state, it operated, however, in a capitalist manner, as it was ran by capitalists. The state itself, did, act in a way, like a private company.
Would you argue that, in Fascist Germany, the nationalizations that took place made the fascist state a workers state? Or would that requrie complete nationalization?
And if so, why fight for revolution if we canuse the state to win in elections and nationalize everything?
MustCrushCapitalism
17th May 2012, 15:49
by the way Trotsky said to support the USSR but not the bureaucratic detatched leadership who leeched off of the workers.
Trotsky's degenerated/deformed workers' state theory makes no sense in terms of material analysis.
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.
Let's assume, although I'd argue this is incorrect, that the USSR was dominated by a bureaucratic, detached leadership, as Trotsky described.
Trotsky's theory was then essentially claiming that state capitalism was somehow a degenerated workers' state, which could be turned into a proper workers' state through a political revolution. If his analysis was correct, the USSR was by no means any sort of workers' state, but a state capitalist state, in which a state bourgeoisie has developed. If this is the case - a political revolution, as he calls it, won't cut it. This state should not be distinguished from any other capitalist state, and shouldn't be supported, period.
Even more damning is the theory of the deformed workers' state. These states, if Trotsky's analysis is still correct, never had a true socialist revolution, and were state capitalist from the start. According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers%27_state) (not the best source, I know) some Trotskyists believe that Syria is a deformed workers' state... again a perfect example of Trots calling state captialist states "workers' states". Syria's economy is undoubtably state capitalist, and Ba'athism is, in reality, probably a lot closer to Mussolinian economics (again, state capitalism) than Marxian economics.
From this, we can see that, by the same standard that some Trotskyists are applying to "deformed workers' states", fascist Italy could be considered a workers' state. If we actually go into material analysis, rather then emotionalist analysis, we can find the Brezhnevite states (and, if you're in favor of Trotsky's analysis, Stalin's USSR) to be state capitalist. Through material analysis, we can equate the deformed/degenerated workers' state theory to be nothing short of support for state capitalism at its core.
Which of them were?
All of them.
This is my acknowledgement of a DOTP under Lenin in the first couple years of the revolution.
It lost it's proletarian character, and was no longer a proeltarian dmeocracy/dictatorship by the time Stalin had become GS.
What was the difference between the period before Stalin became GS and after he became? What made the Revolution lost its proletarian character?
Indeed, when it acts in the interests of the ruling class, in this case it did.
How do you explain commodity production and wage labour? Are these thing's a part of a socialsit economy?
This is EXCATLY wat I said. Goober.
A socialist economy can have capitalist elements since it born from it. The question here is if commodity production (which is practically absent and irrelevant in a socialist economy like the USSR) and wage labor have the same meaning in a socialist economy as it have in a capitalist economy? I don't think so. You talked about commodity production and wage labor but you forgot to say that capitalism is way more than commodity production and wage labor.
The Russian state was the Russian state, it operated, however, in a capitalist manner, as it was ran by capitalists. The state itself, did, act in a way, like a private company.
I didn't ask you if acted like a private company, but if it was a private company. One thing is acting like, other thing is if it really was. Here lies the border between being bourgeoisie or not.
Because by your logic the state was and will always be a private company since it needs someone to sustain it, right?
Would you argue that, in Fascist Germany, the nationalizations that took place made the fascist state a workers state? Or would that requrie complete nationalization?
Yes, you need complete nationalization. As far as I know the simply act of nationalization of something doesn't make the state a "workers state". The fascist Germany was heavily supported by the German bourgeoisie and was far from being a total nationalized economy.
And if so, why fight for revolution if we canuse the state to win in elections and nationalize everything?
If you nationalize everything that means that you are already at war with the bourgeoisie and that implicates a socialist revolution. A fully nationalized economy is one of the pre-requisites of a socialist economy.
Tim Finnegan
17th May 2012, 16:00
Trotsky's degenerated/deformed workers' state theory makes no sense in terms of material analysis.
Let's assume, although I'd argue this is incorrect, that the USSR was dominated by a bureaucratic, detached leadership, as Trotsky described.
Trotsky's theory was then essentially claiming that state capitalism was somehow a degenerated workers' state, which could be turned into a proper workers' state through a political revolution. If his analysis was correct, the USSR was by no means any sort of workers' state, but a state capitalist state, in which a state bourgeoisie has developed. If this is the case - a political revolution, as he calls it, won't cut it. This state should not be distinguished from any other capitalist state, and shouldn't be supported, period.
Even more damning is the theory of the deformed workers' state. These states, if Trotsky's analysis is still correct, never had a true socialist revolution, and were state capitalist from the start. According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers%27_state) (not the best source, I know) some Trotskyists believe that Syria is a deformed workers' state... again a perfect example of Trots calling state captialist states "workers' states". Syria's economy is undoubtably state capitalist, and Ba'athism is, in reality, probably a lot closer to Mussolinian economics (again, state capitalism) than Marxian economics.
From this, we can see that, by the same standard that some Trotskyists are applying to "deformed workers' states", fascist Italy could be considered a workers' state. If we actually go into material analysis, rather then emotionalist analysis, we can find the Brezhnevite states (and, if you're in favor of Trotsky's analysis, Stalin's USSR) to be state capitalist. Through material analysis, we can equate the deformed/degenerated workers' state theory to be nothing short of support for state capitalism at its core.
It's nice to see that you're willing to mangle Trotsky as badly as you are Marx. Shows a lack of favouritism, y'know?
Anarcho-Brocialist
17th May 2012, 16:02
Trotsky's degenerated/deformed workers' state theory makes no sense in terms of material analysis.
Let's assume, although I'd argue this is incorrect, that the USSR was dominated by a bureaucratic, detached leadership, as Trotsky described.
Trotsky's theory was then essentially claiming that state capitalism was somehow a degenerated workers' state, which could be turned into a proper workers' state through a political revolution. If his analysis was correct, the USSR was by no means any sort of workers' state, but a state capitalist state, in which a state bourgeoisie has developed. If this is the case - a political revolution, as he calls it, won't cut it. This state should not be distinguished from any other capitalist state, and shouldn't be supported, period.
Even more damning is the theory of the deformed workers' state. These states, if Trotsky's analysis is still correct, never had a true socialist revolution, and were state capitalist from the start. According to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformed_workers%27_state) (not the best source, I know) some Trotskyists believe that Syria is a deformed workers' state... again a perfect example of Trots calling state captialist states "workers' states". Syria's economy is undoubtably state capitalist, and Ba'athism is, in reality, probably a lot closer to Mussolinian economics (again, state capitalism) than Marxian economics.
From this, we can see that, by the same standard that some Trotskyists are applying to "deformed workers' states", fascist Italy could be considered a workers' state. If we actually go into material analysis, rather then emotionalist analysis, we can find the Brezhnevite states (and, if you're in favor of Trotsky's analysis, Stalin's USSR) to be state capitalist. Through material analysis, we can equate the deformed/degenerated workers' state theory to be nothing short of support for state capitalism at its core.
Trotsky's degenerated/deformed workers' state theory makes no sense in terms of material analysis.
Let's assume, although I'd argue this is incorrect, that the USSR was dominated by a bureaucratic, detached leadership, as Trotsky described.
The USSR had a state bureaucratic bourgeoisie. Didn't they own the means of production and reap the surplus value? Let's be honest here; the workers' certainly didn't. They didn't have the right to organize in their workplaces, form unions, free speech, nor press. Anton Pannekoek speaks about such State Bureaucratic bourgeoisie. The famous expression : The USSR was a dictatorship of a [B]clique over the proletariat. It was an exclusive monopoly of machines and power, the state, not the people, possessed them.
MustCrushCapitalism
17th May 2012, 16:15
The USSR had a state bureaucratic bourgeoisie. Didn't they own the means of production and reap the surplus value? Let's be honest here; the workers' certainly didn't. They didn't have the right to organize in their workplaces, form unions, free speech, nor press. Anton Pannekoek speaks about such State Bureaucratic bourgeoisie. The famous expression : The USSR was a dictatorship of a [B]clique over the proletariat. It was an exclusive monopoly of machines and power, the state, not the people, possessed them.
I'm not arguing as to the class character of the USSR. I'm saying that if it were correct that bureaucrats owned the means of production in the USSR (I'd agree that this was the case by, at the latest, 1965), it wasn't any kind of workers' state, degenerated or not, but solely a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
Geiseric
17th May 2012, 22:33
Is there any actual source (as in direct, not hearsay) that Stalin disbanded the Comintern to "appease" his WWII Allies? I mean Dimitrov's own diaries show Stalin being like "because of the Comintern the bourgeoisie is persecuting communist parties by arguing that they're 'puppets' of Moscow, plus their activities are becoming increasingly limited as they grow more mature while the Comintern is forced to monitor everything they do." The CPUSA, after all, had to openly distance themselves from the Comintern in 1939 or else face illegalization.
It's funny because up untill that point, the CP USA was actually working with the FBI against the SWP and most other communist/anarchist groups in an attempt to be accepted. I guess that tactic didn't work out.
By the way, owning capital means that you can freely exchange it, and Bureaucrats were just managers of the capital, not ones who had sole control and ownership.
And it was a workers state since Soviets were the government. It was ruled by workers organs of power.
Ismail
18th May 2012, 07:37
And it was a workers state since Soviets were the government. It was ruled by workers organs of power.Using that logic Russia was a "degenerated workers' state" until the Soviets were abolished in October 1993 by Yeltsin's decree. It apparently doesn't matter that by the 1960's any popular content they had was basically nil, or that Soviets are not sufficient in themselves to actually ensure socialist construction or prevent capitalist restoration.
It's funny because up untill that point, the CP USA was actually working with the FBI against the SWP and most other communist/anarchist groups in an attempt to be accepted. I guess that tactic didn't work out.I guess it didn't, what with the Voorhis Act and all. Maybe Trotsky would have had more success had he lived longer, though, since he promised to testify before the Dies Committee against the Comintern-affiliated Communist Parties (arguing that they were all controlled by the GPU) and communicated with FBI agents (http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm) on this and other subjects.
I guess the FBI, quite naturally, viewed the Soviet Union and the parties friendly to it as a bigger threat than an exiled dissident who actively worked to undermine both.
bolshie
18th May 2012, 19:41
J. Arch Getty, Robert W. Thurston, and various others note that this mental image of the all-powerful Stalin does not stand up to scrutiny either logically or in terms of actual archival material. There were policies of Stalin's that were voted down by the Politburo, even ones relating to his personality cult, with Stalin going "don't name X factory after me, name it after Comrade Y" and his proposal being rejected. Ironically one of the biggest propagators of the cult was Khrushchev.
This same Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" contained all sorts of distortions. Most notably the claim that Stalin planned military operations during on a globe during WWII, something explicitly debunked later by Zhukov's memoirs, etc. If under Stalin Soviet literature barely mentioned Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, etc. and acted as if they only existed to suck and to harm the Party, Soviet literature after 1956 attributed everything bad in the 1930's-50's to Stalin and never mentioned him unless it was unavoidable. Speeches by communists in the 1920's-50's published after 1956 had parts praising Stalin cut out, etc.
But were the Politburo elected or appointed?
Geiseric
19th May 2012, 03:50
Using that logic Russia was a "degenerated workers' state" until the Soviets were abolished in October 1993 by Yeltsin's decree. It apparently doesn't matter that by the 1960's any popular content they had was basically nil, or that Soviets are not sufficient in themselves to actually ensure socialist construction or prevent capitalist restoration.
I guess it didn't, what with the Voorhis Act and all. Maybe Trotsky would have had more success had he lived longer, though, since he promised to testify before the Dies Committee against the Comintern-affiliated Communist Parties (arguing that they were all controlled by the GPU) and communicated with FBI agents (http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm) on this and other subjects.
I guess the FBI, quite naturally, viewed the Soviet Union and the parties friendly to it as a bigger threat than an exiled dissident who actively worked to undermine both.
Yes it does matter when they were abolished, the popularity for them was at nil because of how degenerated they were... What does popularity have to do with the overal mode of production? Profit wasn't given to private entities or people, it was invested back into the fSU for things that were needed.
It's kind of like the windmill example in Animal Farm, all of the surplus labor went into industrialising and modernizing the economy rather than accumulating more peasant farms/small workshops which is what the predominant mode of production would have been with Capitalism or Feudalism.
And I'd like some proof about your last claim that is from a seriously reliable source, not J. Arch Getty.
Edit: the link you gave said that he wanted to give the FBI info for a Visa, but that's funny because he didn't live in the U.S. and there's really no actual proof for anything in that link. You're insulting my intelligence by posting that garbage, those claims are by no means credible.
ALSO it's ironic that Prof. Chase, the source of that information, also wrote:
Murder Most Sacred, Murder Most Foul:A book-length manuscript in progress that uses the assassination of Leon Trotsky to examine the rise and nature of threat construction, scapegoating, conspiratorial worldviews, and political violence among communists in the USSR, Spain, Mexico and the United States in 1935–40.
And despite his "Concrete Proof," that Trotsky was an FBi informer, I actually don't see any in that article. If I missed something, please let me know.
jookyle
19th May 2012, 04:16
And just for the record, the people who consider themselves Trotskyists or prefer Trotsky to Stalin don't do so because we all think he was such a cool stand up guy. The gravitation is to his ideas, not his person. Even if he did that with the FBI it doesn't change his writings. There's stuff Trotsky did that I don't like but, it doesn't change the effect of his writings. I'm sure those of you who like Stalin don't approve of everything Stalin(or Hoxha) ever did ever, but it doesn't change that you see yourself as Marxist-Leninists. Simply taking shots at a single person isn't going to discredit the ideology that centers around the ideas presented by the person in the first place.
The gravitation is to his ideas, not his person. Even if he did that with the FBI it doesn't change his writings. There's stuff Trotsky did that I don't like but, it doesn't change the effect of his writings.
And here is the funniest part about you guys: Trotsky himself didn't believe in at least half the stuff he wrote in exile, especially after Stalin had "stolen" his industrialization program... Trotsky didn't really mean it all, he just used his skill of demagogy to rally as many supporters to his persona as he could to get back on high horse with a bit of luck... Pity for him, that bit of luck didn't come soon enough.
Yes it does matter when they were abolished, the popularity for them was at nil because of how degenerated they were...
Actually, the soviets became quite popular in Russia during the late Perestroika and they were as democratic as it can ever get, with plenty of workers' delegates in them. Yeltsin had to shoot up the Supreme Soviet with tanks and massacre several thousands of pro-soviets protesters in Moscow in 1993. But with the communist ideas being totally discredited with all the "Stalin ate babies for lunch after Beria had raped them" stuff, the soviets were dominated by all kinds of nationalists and "co-operators", supporters of "people's capitalism" and such nonsense. Yeltsin's gang just didn't have the mood to lose any pieces of the pie during the privatization. So the "soviet power" is not necessarily for socialism, you see... Lenin knew that better than anyone, by the way.
Geiseric
19th May 2012, 05:42
Which is funny since Stalin allowed for that to happen when he allowed non bolsheviks, rich peasantry, and ex capitalists to join the bolshevik party in the late 1920s.
he allowed non bolsheviks ... to join the bolshevik party in the late 1920s.
You see, Bolsheviks cannot join the Bolshevik party, because they have already done that. So naturally, the Party only could expand itself by recruiting non-Bolsheviks.
rich peasantry, and ex capitalists
Plenty of whom were subsequently purged and executed for moral-political degradation. If it wasn't for one Nikita Khrushchev (ex-Trotskyite, btw), who canceled the practice of purges, things might not have gone awry so quickly in the USSR.
Although yes, it's actually a commonplace in certain circles, that Joseph Stalin was "too soft" most of the time.
Ismail
19th May 2012, 08:25
But were the Politburo elected or appointed?Check the party statues and documents and report back to me.
Yes it does matter when they were abolished, the popularity for them was at nil because of how degenerated they were... What does popularity have to do with the overal mode of production?Nothing. You were the one saying that the Soviets apparently had a decisive influence on the USSR being a so-called "degenerated workers' state" rather than state-capitalist. The irony, though, is that in 1993 they weren't actually unpopular; Yeltsin abolished them by fiat as part of a powergrab against the legislature and against the supposed "remnants of Communism." They were just local administrative divisions.
And I'd like some proof about your last claim that is from a seriously reliable source, not J. Arch Getty.Getty isn't reliable? I seem to recall you saying a while ago that he was a "Stalinist," which is false; I can show you articles where he calls communism "the god that failed" or whatever. He's a Professor and anti-communist. He cites nothing less than actual Soviet archival documents or, in the case of that 1986 article on Trotsky noting that he really did try to organize a conspiratorial left-right bloc against Stalin, nothing less than Trotsky's own archives at Harvard were used, the same archives Isaac Deutscher used to make his three-volume biography of Trotsky. I've never seen him considered unreliable (and it's hard to see how someone whose can get a book into Yale University's "Annals of Communism" series alongside veteran anti-communists can be called such.)
ALSO it's ironic that Prof. Chase, the source of that information, also wrote:
Murder Most Sacred, Murder Most Foul:A book-length manuscript in progress that uses the assassination of Leon Trotsky to examine the rise and nature of threat construction, scapegoating, conspiratorial worldviews, and political violence among communists in the USSR, Spain, Mexico and the United States in 1935–40.Yeah, as you can see he's quite anti-Stalin; the book is going to be about how the evil "Stalinists" beat up Trots in the USA, Spain, etc. This is the same Professor who wrote a book about "Stalinist repression" in the Comintern. What's your point?
Fact is that Trotsky was willing to divulge info (or his suspected info, since a lot of his "GPU" claims were stupid and echoed those of proto-McCarthyites) on the Comintern and other things to the Dies Committee and to the FBI.
said that he wanted to give the FBI info for a Visa, but that's funny because he didn't live in the U.S.I don't think you know what a visa is or the fact that Trotsky considered it his "duty" to visit the USA to testify before the Dies Committee.
Grenzer
19th May 2012, 14:14
And I'd like some proof about your last claim that is from a seriously reliable source, not J. Arch Getty.
Oh man, not this again.
Getty is a credited scholar in Soviet studies and is a confirmed anti-communist and is profoundly anti-Stalin. His flaw lies not in the facts that are presented, but his liberal moralizing.. which is why Marxist-Leninists are able to make use of his works, as moral judgements are ultimately irrelevant. If anything, this makes the use of his works for pro-Stalin purposes to be more reliable. It's kind of ironic how people complain about the Stalinists warping historical fact, yet when the Trotskyites see something they don't like, they do the same thing. This simple fact is left ignored to preserve the anti-Stalin popular front.
There are many things to criticize Stalin and Stalinism for, that goes without saying; however, it's a huge mistake for anti-Stalin people to assume that Trotsky was a shining beacon of light merely because he was opposed to Stalin. The simple facts reveal that many of his contemporary and most enthusiastic supporters were evangelical anti-communists, and most of those that weren't later became so as the pinnacle of their ideological evolution. It is also fact that Trotsky collaborated with bourgeois authorities for anti-communist purposes on numerous occasions, though allegations of him actually working with the fascists is a gross distortion, this should not undermine the reality of his cooperation with other anti-communists.
Geiseric
19th May 2012, 15:01
Why are we quoting somebody who has a bourgeois world historical outlook? Does this mean that we should quote ayn rand or milton freidman as well because they're "established scholars,"? Is there anything that somebody with a sense of materialism has written with serious quotes, i mean more specific than saying it was "yale records,"? I'll even look up these referances on my own time if you find a link.
Ismail
19th May 2012, 15:05
Why are we quoting somebody who has a bourgeois world historical outlook? Does this mean that we should quote ayn rand or milton freidman as well because they're "established scholars,"?Were Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand professors who had degrees in Soviet history? I mean I'm pretty sure I recall Rand being remembered as a pseudo-philosophical hack writer and Friedman as a right-wing economist.
Also saying that only communists can present historical facts is rather dumb.
Is there anything that somebody with a sense of materialism has written with serious quotes, i mean more specific than saying it was "yale records,"? I'll even look up these referances on my own time if you find a link.What are you talking about? What "Yale records"?
Geiseric
19th May 2012, 15:20
None of this really matters though since Trotsky still defined Russia as a workers state thus said that it was worth defending for the gains it made in collective farming and the revolution. he probably thought that the GPU was trying to kill him, if he spoke out against the secret police. But, he never spoke out against any communists like the CP USA did against the SWP.
bolshie
19th May 2012, 18:33
Fact is that Trotsky was willing to divulge info (or his suspected info, since a lot of his "GPU" claims were stupid and echoed those of proto-McCarthyites) on the Comintern and other things to the Dies Committee and to the FBI.
I don't think you know what a visa is or the fact that Trotsky considered it his "duty" to visit the USA to testify before the Dies Committee.
What did he say?
bolshie
19th May 2012, 18:41
Plenty of whom were subsequently purged and executed for moral-political degradation. If it wasn't for one Nikita Khrushchev (ex-Trotskyite, btw), who canceled the practice of purges, things might not have gone awry so quickly in the USSR.
Although yes, it's actually a commonplace in certain circles, that Joseph Stalin was "too soft" most of the time.
Well why let them in in the first place then? I find it extrodinary that you think Stalin was 'soft' by the way. My impression is that he was very hard. And why was he talkinh about denationalisning the land in 1925?
Ismail
19th May 2012, 21:42
What did he say?Concerning what? The Dies Committee?
This (http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GC/GC-AK-MS-chapter21.htm): "In 1939, Trotsky was in contact with the Congressional Committee headed by Representative Martin Dies of Texas. The Committee, set up to investigate un-American activities, had become a forum for anti-Soviet propaganda. Trotsky was approached by agents of the Dies Committee and invited to testify as an 'expert witness' on the menace of Moscow. Trotsky was quoted in the New York Times of December 8, 1939, as stating he considered it his political duty to testify for the Dies Committee. Plans were discussed for Trotsky's coming to the United States. The project, however, fell through... ."
bolshie
20th May 2012, 13:58
so he didnt say anything actually?
Ismail
20th May 2012, 20:49
He said it was his duty to testify to a bourgeois committee charged with attacking and laying the basis for persecuting communists. The project fell through and Trotsky was assassinated less than a year later by the Soviets. What's your point, again?
Geiseric
21st May 2012, 01:46
Well he didn't say anything and there's no record of him actually reporting on people for being communists. Explain the other committees which the CP-USA reported on the SWP, with the Smith Act if you don't mind though, which was done by the Comintern party in the USA.
That's coming from the new york times though, who aren't necessarily totally reliable while reporting on communist stuff...
bolshie
22nd May 2012, 15:15
He said it was his duty to testify to a bourgeois committee charged with attacking and laying the basis for persecuting communists. The project fell through and Trotsky was assassinated less than a year later by the Soviets. What's your point, again?
I don't have a point I was cuorious what he said but now you say he didnt actually say anything so the original claim ("Trotsky was willing to divulge info") is a bit hollow in my view. I mean, I could go to testify in a court, but who's side would I be on, the prosecution or the defence?
Why did the project fall through? Do we know?
Permanent Revolutionary
22nd May 2012, 15:22
Concerning what? The Dies Committee?
This (http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GC/GC-AK-MS-chapter21.htm): "In 1939, Trotsky was in contact with the Congressional Committee headed by Representative Martin Dies of Texas. The Committee, set up to investigate un-American activities, had become a forum for anti-Soviet propaganda. Trotsky was approached by agents of the Dies Committee and invited to testify as an 'expert witness' on the menace of Moscow. Trotsky was quoted in the New York Times of December 8, 1939, as stating he considered it his political duty to testify for the Dies Committee. Plans were discussed for Trotsky's coming to the United States. The project, however, fell through... ."
Trotsky's intention was never to "report" or indict fellow comrades in America.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/03/dies.htm
Karabin
22nd May 2012, 16:16
I'd like to see Workers' Self-Management implemented into society relatively quickly. But thanks to privately owned business and corporations I doubt something like that would work out quickly in a modern western nation.
Ismail
22nd May 2012, 18:31
Trotsky's intention was never to "report" or indict fellow comrades in America.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/03/dies.htmSo why did he agree to appear before it? He certainly ranted about "GPU" influence everywhere, from a guy who dared criticize him at the Dewey Commission (http://www.revleft.com/vb/fewer-outsiders-better-t124508/index.html) to fictional events in Mexico:
"A second, very serious blow to Mexico's left came when Trotsky and his Mexican followers disseminated the rumor that communists and Nazis had formed a coalition in Mexico to prepare a coup against the Cárdenas administration in the context of the approaching presidential elections. This rumor had first emerged in the U.S. Congress's Dies Investigative Committee, and it gained widespread popular attention on October 2, 1939, through a Ultimas Noticias newspaper article with the title 'Ofensiva Contra los Stali-Nazis.' It created a pro-Allied propaganda monster that, in the end, almost convinced Allied governments that its own propaganda were fact. In November 1939, the artist and sometimes Communist party member Diego Rivera reinforced existing fears when he stated that Mexico was already in the hands of the 'Communazis.' Right away, conservative Mexican anticommunist senators of Mexico's Congress jumped on Rivera's bandwagon and demanded the dissolution of the Mexican Communist Party and the denunciation of its members as traitors to the country. Against the background of the Soviet invasion of Finland, they argued 'that taking orders from Stalin and to agitate in such a manner as to be subversive in character and to undermine the framework of Mexican Governmental procedure' was un-Mexican!
The debate received new fuel on April 13, 1940, this time during the German invasions of the Benelux countries and France. Again, Ultimas Noticias published an article about 'outstanding members of the Comintern in Mexico.' Quoting Diego Rivera, a German exile, and other confidential agents as sources, the article claimed that the Comintern's goal in Mexico was to foment a civil war through agitation, with the intention of distracting U.S. attention from Europe and, subsequently, preventing the United States from entering the European conflict. Most importantly, it claimed again that Russian and German agents were working together to start a revolt in Mexico."
(Schuler, Friedrich. Mexico between Hitler and Roosevelt: Mexican Foreign Relations in the Age of Lázaro Cárdenas, 1934-1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 1998. p. 144.)
bolshie
22nd May 2012, 18:32
Trotsky's intention was never to "report" or indict fellow comrades in America.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/03/dies.htm
"The suppression of the Communist Party would immediately re-establish its reputation in the eyes of the workers as a persecuted fighter against the ruling classes."
Interesting.
bolshie
22nd May 2012, 19:31
He certainly ranted about "GPU" influence everywhere
well, they did rake his house with machine gun fire and stick an ice axe in his head.
Ismail
23rd May 2012, 05:32
well, they did rake his house with machine gun fire and stick an ice axe in his head.In 1939?
bolshie
23rd May 2012, 13:49
1940. So, did he deserve it? What did he do to get assasinated by the Russians?
Ismail
23rd May 2012, 14:47
Sudoplatov's memoirs (Special Tasks) might be of some interest; he was the guy assigned to organize the assassination on the orders of the Central Committee and (of course) of Stalin.
"In March 1939 [Stalin] summoned Sudoplatov and told him that 'this Fascist hireling must be liquidated without further ado. Spare no expense. Bring in whoever you want.'"
(Volkogonov, Dimitri. Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. New York: Free Press. 1996. p. 445.)
Evidently "Fascist hireling" refers to the Moscow Trials and their charges against him. It's worth noting that the Soviet press during the Great Purges and onwards (until the 60's) treated Trotskyism more as a disease than an ideology, where being one was practically synonymous with committing sabotage, establishing relations with capitalist governments, etc.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2020 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.