Stalin and Israilov and fascist Finland etc..

[l'Enfermé]

I'm sorry you're offended by the refusal of the revisionist-traitor dog-whelps and enemies to worship Mighty Stalin, Father of Athletes, Savior of the People, etc, etc.

[Manic Impressive]

Impressive, i had bomb explosions above my head.

See how pointless and absurd such "scare stories" are?
I'm glad I took my time before responding to this as it wouldn't have been pretty.

It could as you say be made up. Or you could have just taunted someone who is struggling to get enough to eat.

If someone had said in a thread that they had been raped, would you have responded by calling it an absurd scare story?

If someone had said in a thread that they had been racially abused at work, would you have responded by calling it an absurd scare story?

The fact is I'm unemployed and my welfare has been cut off and as a result I've been missing some meals.

I think to flame someone about what is a very stressful situation is fucking sick. I hope you are ashamed of yourself and I hope the admins take action against you for flaming.

[l'Enfermé]

^Stalin's falsifications and revisionism, you mean? "Interpretation" has completely different connotations.

[The Jay]

All that does not change the fact that your response was off-mark. Such stories are not for discussions like these. And i was not flaming. (Notice how you automatically assumed my own "scare story" is a lie.) If you are in a problematical situation, (From your first post, it was not clear how bad the situation is.) i wish you all the best.

You still indicated that people like myself are traitors. What do you propose should be done with traitors? How then should I react to you?

[Omsk]

Leave such silly questions for your comrades.

[The Jay]

Leave such silly questions for your comrades.

I think that your views are very clear here.

[The Jay]

I just got a lovely post on my wall in regards to how "traitors" like myself will be treated.



Such subjects are not open for debate.



I think that it is clear what would happen to myself and others like me if people like that are in control.

[Omsk]

You would be free to help the revolutionary situation and movement in any way possible. That is, if you would help, but i doubt that you would like to help us.

[l'Enfermé]

Anyone that dares raise his voice against Stalin's legacy of murdering almost all Old Bolsheviks is "nazi scum", you see, comrade.

[Drosophila]

You would be free to help the revolutionary situation and movement in any way possible. That is, if you would help, but i doubt that you would like to help us.

Who is "us"? Sorry, but I don't think people praising dead, useless 20th century dictators and touting "anti-revisionism" are going to build a mass proletarian party.

[Omsk]

Anyone that dares raise his voice against Stalin's legacy of murdering almost all Old Bolsheviks is "nazi scum", you see, comrade.


Especially you, Israilovite.

Sorry liberals, this is something between me and Borz..


Who is "us"? Sorry, but I don't think people praising dead, useless 20th century dictators and touting "anti-revisionism" are going to build a mass proletarian party.

You proved that you are infantile.

You actually think all we are doing is "praising Stalin" among the workers?

[l'Enfermé]

Pick one Monsieur "Marxist-Leninist", I can't be both Nazi scum AND an Israilovite.

Well unless you subscribe to the myth expounded by Russian ultra-nationalists that want to justify the ethnic cleansing of Chechnya and Ingushetia. And even then I'd actually have to be an Israilovite, which I'm not. Unlike you, I'm a Marxist.

[Omsk]

We both know how that debate ended, don't let your reactionary nationalist views escape from your "Marxist" wall of smoke again.

I'd love to chat but the admins will punish us both if we derail this thread and turn it into our usual no end argument.

[l'Enfermé]

Yes the debate ended because I completely refuted your bullshit(which you half made up as you went along and half plagiarized from Russian ultra-nationalists) and you insisted on ignoring that fact. But whatever floats your boat is fine I guess.

[Omsk]

If i remember, you had no arguments (Although you tried to turn it into a sad story and run away.) and you were exposed as a Chechen nationalist? Oh well, you can pretend it never happened.

[l'Enfermé]

Then you clearly suffer from memory loss. Or something less flattering.

[Omsk]

Chechen nationalists. I asked you wether you support them or not. I didn't get an answer. You were afraid. If you want, we could forget about it, i understand that a great Marxist such as yourself does now want such cases to be mentioned , frequently?

[l'Enfermé]

Yes, you did. And I answered you several times. Yes, I support Israilov's uprising, incited by Stalin's Great Russian chauvinism. I even said that if I was alive in 1940, I would have picked up a weapon and joined the uprising. There are few better causes than resisting Stalinism to sacrifice your life for. Why do you keep on pretending I didn't answer this question?

[Omsk]

He was a nationalist. His movement was full of nationalism.And you support them. End.Of.Discussion.



Yes, I support Israilov's uprising, incited by Stalin's Great Russian chauvinism.


This is by far the greatest garbage i ever read, good job. Wrong on so many levels. At least, it's funny.

Goodbye now, supporter of nationalists.

This is what you support.

By January 28, 1942, Khasan had decided to extend the uprising from Chechens and Ingush to eleven of the dominant ethnic groups in the Caucasus by forming the Special Party of Caucasus Brothers (OKPB), with the aim of an'armed struggle with Bolshevik barbarism and Russian despotism'.

The valiant Finns (Nazis) are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples

- Israilov

[#FF0000]

stalinist complainin bout nationalism

el

oh

el

[l'Enfermé]

He was a nationalist. His movement was full of nationalism.And you support them. End.Of.Discussion.



This is by far the greatest garbage i ever read, good job. Wrong on so many levels. At least, it's funny.

Goodbye now, supporter of nationalists.

This is what you support.

By January 28, 1942, Khasan had decided to extend the uprising from Chechens and Ingush to eleven of the dominant ethnic groups in the Caucasus by forming the Special Party of Caucasus Brothers (OKPB), with the aim of an'armed struggle with Bolshevik barbarism and Russian despotism'.

The valiant Finns (Nazis) are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples

- Israilov
His "barbarism" point was kind of proven by the Soviet Union's conduct during the Second World War(mass rape, complete disregard for human life, etc, etc), or by the fact that Chechnya and Ingushetia was completely ethnically cleansed and the entire Chechen and Ingush nations were deported to a desolate wasteland where they had to eat roots for over a decade and around a third died(i.e the same percentage of Jews killed in the holocaust)?

And yes, Nazi Finns! The Finns were so Nazi that the actual Nazis in Germany helped the Soviet Union's war effort during the Winter War and set up a naval blockade of Finland and intimidated Sweden into abstaining from joining the war on Finland's side and allowing Swedish territory to be used by the Western allies to transport ammunition and supplies to Finland. I guess the Finns were more Nazi than the Nazis so the Nazis wanted them taken out so they become the most Naziest in the world again.

[Omsk]

The point is, the Finns were fascists, and Finland was a right wing dictatorship built on Bolshevik bones, you idiot. And the petty nationalist swine, Israilov, supported them.

As for the deportations, they were conducted in an organized fashion, and no larger problems happened. (No armed insurrections) As for the root part, that's just your abstract idiocy and Chechen nationalism.

You are running away again, Israilov was a nationalist, accept that.

[l'Enfermé]

Just because Finns were fascists in the heads of delusional Stalinists like you, that doesn't they were actual fascists. I believe that in November 1939, when Stalin invaded Finland in, the government of Finland was a coalition of Social-Democrats and the Agarian League, an anti-monarchist republican/liberal pro-agrarianism party. I.e, a center-left government. The 2 parties together got 62 percent of the vote in the 1939 Finnish parliamentary elections. The third biggest party, the National Coalition Party, receive 13 percent of the vote. They were conservatives. Then came the Swedish People's Party, with 9.5 percent of the vote, who were liberals mainly supported by Finland's Swedish minority.

So where are the all these Finnish fascists? And how did Israilov support them? He applauded the heroism of the Finnish people in successfully resisting the attempts of an empire with 50 times the population of Finland) to annex Finland.

I'm not running away from anything. Can't you read? I told you multiply times: I support the national-liberation movement started by Israilov in 1940, when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were de facto military allies. Similarly, I support most other national-liberation movements. Like Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh, and later the NLF of the South Vietnamese, the FLN which lead the Algerian War of Independence between 1954 and 1962, the Irish Republicans who lead the Irish War of Independence between 1919 and 1921, just to name a few. Especially if a national-liberation movement is fighting against Stalinist counter-revolutionaries who have almost single-handedly destroyed the Marxist movement and caused the paralysis of the working class which has lasted for the last 80 years. There are few better causes. But I already told you that.

[Omsk]

Fine, that is the answer i wanted, you are a nationalist, just like Israilov, although he was an agent of the national bourgeois and a reactionary opportunist who deserved his end, he died in cave, like a dog. Goodbye now.

Plus, Israilov proclaimed that: "For twenty years now, the Soviet authorities have been fighting my people, aiming to destroy them group by group: first the kulaks, then the mullahs and the 'bandits', then the bourgeois-nationalists" He barked that out in 1940. Which means that he was also against Lenin, and the Soviet system in general.

[hetz]

It doesn't matter whether Finland was fascist or not in 1941, what matters is that it was de facto a member of the fascist-imperialist camp. You have for example Bulgaria which perhaps also wasn't "fascist" but it joined the Axis, albeit it didn't declare war on the USSR.
Point is, Finland joined the fascist aggressors against the USSR and its troops advanced past the pre-1939 war borders.

[Igor]

It doesn't matter whether Finland was fascist or not in 1941, what matters is that it was de facto a member of the fascist-imperialist camp. You have for example Bulgaria which perhaps also wasn't "fascist" but it joined the Axis, albeit it didn't declare war on the USSR.
Point is, Finland joined the fascist aggressors against the USSR and its troops advanced past the pre-1939 war borders.

This actually I can agree with, and it's quite an important distinction to make. Post-1941 Finland was a fascist ally, and we shouldn't attempt to apologize for that. But any claims that Finland in itself was a fascist state is just absurd by pretty much any non-Stalinist standard: it was one of the few liberal democracies left in Europe at that point and the actual fascist movement had never any good electoral support: out of 200 seats in the parliament, the highest they ever got was 14. But l'Enferme really did the job here in proving how little Finland at that time had to do with fascism.

It's very very important to remember that Finland during WW2 was involved in two very different conflicts: being attacked by partially Nazi-backed Soviet Union and attacking Soviet Union with Nazi support, money and guns. Those couple of years changed pretty much everything. Trying to justify Winter War as some kind of crusade against fascism has nothing to do with reality but the forums poster Omsk generally doesn't believe facts really matter. You probably think Finland started the conflict in Mainila, right? As a fun anecdote, Finland did have some fascist support during the war: Mussolini was a huge fan of Finland and wanted to send volunteers and arms over. This never happened though, because it would've messed up with Hitler's plans. You know, those plans of letting Soviet Union take over their northern fascist allies.

1941 Finland is a whole different case and I've never seen a single leftist defend that shit. It's always been about 1939, which is fairly unjustifiable for the Soviet Union.

[l'Enfermé]

What's the Continuation War got to do with it? We were talking about the Winter War in 1939, when the USSR tried to annex Finland as another SSR, like it did with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. And all this of "fascist allies" ignores the fact the main and most important "fascist ally" was the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union which was the main foreign benefactor of Hitler's war effort from February 1940 until June 22 1941, the day the Nazis betrayed the USSR. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/GermanImports_USSRPerCent.jpg/800px-GermanImports_USSRPerCent.jpg)

[Drosophila]

The point is, the Finns were fascists

This is just stupid, borderline chauvinistic drivel.

You can't use a government's alliances to generalize its people. This is no different from saying that because the Democratic Party is in power in the U.S. that Americans are liberals. Same goes for painting the people of the USSR as communists, or even the people of Italy and Germany as fascists.

Governments certainly do not represent populations.

[Igor]

This is just stupid, borderline chauvinistic drivel.

You can't use a government's alliances to generalize its people. This is no different from saying that because the Democratic Party is in power in the U.S. that Americans are liberals. Same goes for painting the people of the USSR as communists, or even the people of Italy and Germany as fascists.

Governments certainly do not represent populations.

dude that's totally not in line with the scientifically correct Marxist-Leninist position of committing ethnic cleansing whenever said ethnic group is a threat to the glorious worker's republic

what a liberal

[hetz]

Fine. I just don't understand this support for certain ( pro-fascist ) nationalist movements in the USSR during the War.
Do people here really hold that for example the Ukrainian UPA and others were "national-liberation movements"?

[hetz]

Also, how is this Israilov different from S. Bandera and the like?

[Omsk]

This is just stupid, borderline chauvinistic drivel.

You can't use a government's alliances to generalize its people. This is no different from saying that because the Democratic Party is in power in the U.S. that Americans are liberals. Same goes for painting the people of the USSR as communists, or even the people of Italy and Germany as fascists.

Governments certainly do not represent populations.


You dumb idiot, i obviously mentioned the leading circles of the country, which were reactionary, and later Fascist.

It's not even debatable, on one side, a proletarian dictatorship and on the other, a bourgeois dictatorship.

[Crimson Commissar]

Just because Finns were fascists in the heads of delusional Stalinists like you, that doesn't they were actual fascists. I believe that in November 1939, when Stalin invaded Finland in, the government of Finland was a coalition of Social-Democrats and the Agarian League, an anti-monarchist republican/liberal pro-agrarianism party. I.e, a center-left government. The 2 parties together got 62 percent of the vote in the 1939 Finnish parliamentary elections. The third biggest party, the National Coalition Party, receive 13 percent of the vote. They were conservatives. Then came the Swedish People's Party, with 9.5 percent of the vote, who were liberals mainly supported by Finland's Swedish minority.

I don't think the fact that they were Social Democratic is really any better than them being Fascist.

A bourgeois regime is a bourgeois regime. And 1939 Finland certainly was one.

[Rafiq]

Borz, if you profess support for armed struggles on the basis of national liberation, disregarding class analysis, then you are no better than a stalinist. Perhaps worse, they're much more honest. Your profess your support for bourgeous military forces due to your own bourgeois humanist moralism.

[Geiseric]

I don't think the fact that they were Social Democratic is really any better than them being Fascist.

A bourgeois regime is a bourgeois regime. And 1939 Finland certainly was one.

We learned from the polish experiance though that you can't just fucking export a revolution by invading a country and saying "Now it's socialist!" That's garbage, and the working class of finland also knows that's garbage. That'd be like saying that since Hungary was invaded by the U.S.S.R. in the place of a bourgeois monarchist regime, the U.S.S.R. had every right to put down the rebellion against the proxy government.

The Stalinists had no right to invade anybody except for the real fascists. The finnish were pushed to supporting the Nazis because of the Soviet invasion against it. But this is all pointless to argue because "Stalin didn't do anything wrong. Evar."

But would some Stalinists tell me why invading Finland was necessary, but signing treaties with the Nazis dividing poland is ok?

[Khalid]

So where are the all these Finnish fascists?

The National Coalition Party and people like Mannerheim supported the fascist Lapua Movement. When the fascists attempted a coup d'état in 1932 the Social Democratic Party blamed communists for the rise of fascism.

But there was no need for a traditional fascist dictatorship. Finnish bourgeoisie used social democracy to suppress the working class and the Communist Party. In practice Finland became a quasi-fascist state in 1918 when the revolution was crushed by the White Guards and their German imperialist masters. Finnish government slaughtered over 10,000 revolutionaries in prison camps, banned communist activity and elected German prince as the King of Finland. Communist Party was illegal until 1944.

If you want to play the who-attacked-who-game, you should know that Finland attacked Soviet Union several times before the Winter War. These expansionist attacks ("Kinship Wars") were inspired by the nationalist idea of "Greater Finland".

[l'Enfermé]

Borz, if you profess support for armed struggles on the basis of national liberation, disregarding class analysis, then you are no better than a stalinist. Perhaps worse, they're much more honest. Your profess your support for bourgeous military forces due to your own bourgeois humanist moralism.
I'm not disregarding class analysis. On the contrary. The Stalinist Soviet Union, which served nothing but the interests of it's ruling class, was the greatest impediment the proletariat has ever faced in it's historical mission to emancipate humanity. Any national-liberation struggle which undermined it's stability(like Israilov's) I view as quite welcome. As for other 20th century national-liberation struggles, they undermined the bourgeois regimes of Western Europe and the United States, which was of great benefit to the working classes of those countries(the only national proletariats that mattered at that time) and would have undoubtedly been much more beneficial still if the working class movement wasn't neutered by Stalinist revisionism and sectarianism.

As for Monsieur Stalinist and his idiocy, I haven't much to say:

1 - The Lapua Movement was disbanded and it's leaders were imprisoned 7 or 8 years before the Winter War, even before the conquest of power by the NSDAP in Germany. And no, it wasn't fascist. It was a nationalist, Lutheran, anti-communist movement. No more fascist than the KMT or the modern GOP in America. Though you might not care if you're one of those people that calls everything they don't like "fascist"(from this thread, Omsk is one of them, I'm "nazi scum" according to him because I have a Trotsky quote in my signature). A bit like American Tea Party-ists who call everyone that opposes them communists.

2 - Nice fucking King the Finns had, who abdicated after 2 months and never set foot in Finland

3 - The "Brotherly Wars" lasted from 1918 until 1922, and it wasn't the Soviet Union they were fighting, but the RSFSR, and moreover, the Finnish Army was compeltely uninvolved; the wars were fought by local rebels and a few thousand volunteers from Finland. The whole affair was ended by a treaty between Finland and the RSFSR that ended the whole ordeal in 1922 which is available for reading online:
http://www.kirjazh.spb.ru/biblio/pohleb1/pohleb3.htm
I would gladly translate it for you if you so desire. You do seem to be under the absurd impression that the Winter War was began in 1918 by Finland instead of 1939 by the Soviet Union(oh, yes, I know, the war was incited a "border incident", of course! - funnily enough when Hitler invaded Poland, he fabricated a "border incident" to justify his invasion also...I guess "great minds" truly do think alike!)

4 - Mannerheim's got shit to do with anything, he had no power until the Winter War began and he was appointed Commander-in-Chief. Throughout most of the 30s all he did was Red Cross work and vacationing around the world.

[hetz]

Any national-liberation struggle which undermined it's stability(like Israilov's) I view as quite welcome.
Especially during the war with fascists.:rolleyes:
Didn't Trotsky defend the USSR against imperialist aggression and oppose local-nationalist movements there?


As for other 20th century national-liberation struggles, they undermined the bourgeois regimes of Western Europe and the United States, which was of great benefit to the working classes of those countries(the only national proletariats that mattered at that time) and would have undoubtedly been much more beneficial still if the working class movement wasn't neutered by Stalinist revisionism and sectarianism.
Did Lenin or Trotsky "support" the "national-liberation" movements in the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia etc. during the Civil War.

And once again, would you like to explain how is this Israilov any different from Bandera and others?

[l'Enfermé]

Especially during the war with fascists.:rolleyes:
I don't know what sort of terrible textbooks you had in elementary school, but it's common knowledge that Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 22 1941. Israilov began the national-liberation movement in February 1940, when the Soviet Union was a de facto member of the Axis and was a military ally of Germany and the main foreign benefactor of Hitler's war effort. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/GermanImports_USSRPerCent.jpg/800px-GermanImports_USSRPerCent.jpg)



Didn't Trotsky defend the USSR against imperialist aggression and oppose local-nationalist movements there?
I would care about that if I was a Trotskyist. Thankfully I'm not.


And once again, would you like to explain how is this Israilov any different from Bandera and others?
I don't know, maybe Israilov was different in that he was a member of the Communst Party's youth wing since childhood and later a member of the party itself, and Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist whose father was a priest and whose mother's father was a priest also?

[hetz]

I don't know what sort of terrible textbooks you had in elementary school, but it's common knowledge that Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 22 1941. And what a coincidence, the rebellion started in earnest in Summer 1941 and reached its peak with the Germans closing in on Caucasus.


I would care about that if I was a Trotskyist. Thankfully I'm not.Thing is, that's how pretty much all communists and other anti-fascists thought.


I don't know, maybe Israilov was different in that he was a member of the Communst Party's youth wing since childhood and later a member of the party itself, and Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist whose father was a priest and whose mother's father was a priest also? And that's what matters?
Yeltsin for example was also a member of the Party, so were pretty much all post-Soviet leaders.
The WW2 traitor Vlassov joined the AUCP(b) in 1930.

[l'Enfermé]

And what a coincidence, the rebellion started in earnest in Summer 1941 and reached its peak with the Germans closing in on Caucasus.
And what a coincidence that the Bolsheviks launched their insurrection in October/November 1917, when the Germans were on the verge of winning. THEY BETRAYED GLORIOUS MOTHER RUSSIA! THEY SOLD OUT THE FATHERLAND TO THE KAISER!!!!111!!!


Thing is, that's how pretty much all communists and other anti-fascists thought.
I'm not one to succumb to peer pressure.


And that's what matters?
Yeltsin for example was also a member of the Party, so were pretty much all post-Soviet leaders.

Which is a pretty good indication that Stalinism was logically bound to lead to Gorbachev, Yeltsin and the (fortunate) self-destruction of the Soviet Union.

[Crimson Commissar]

We learned from the polish experiance though that you can't just fucking export a revolution by invading a country and saying "Now it's socialist!" That's garbage, and the working class of finland also knows that's garbage. That'd be like saying that since Hungary was invaded by the U.S.S.R. in the place of a bourgeois monarchist regime, the U.S.S.R. had every right to put down the rebellion against the proxy government.

I don't see at all why you can't. The USSR had an opportunity to depose capitalist control in Finland, and by all means it was right to go ahead and take that opportunity. Whether or not their execution of the invasion was correct is another matter, but the premise behind it and the goal they were working towards was one that the global Communist movement technically supported anyway, only by different means. And I'm not too fond of Stalinism either so it's not as if I'd view a Soviet-installed Socialist Finland at that time as the perfect form of government for the country, but even then it would have been preferable to what happened to the Finnish in reality.


The Stalinists had no right to invade anybody except for the real fascists. The finnish were pushed to supporting the Nazis because of the Soviet invasion against it. But this is all pointless to argue because "Stalin didn't do anything wrong. Evar."

Fascism really isn't that much worse than Capitalism, from a Communist perspective. The only difference being that the former is much more blunt and obvious in it's aims than the latter. The Soviets had just as much right to invade Capitalist Finland at that time as they would have to invade Nazi Germany.

I find it funny that people sometimes think I'm some kind of Stalin-lover just because I don't make it my duty to hate him and everything he did at every opportunity. Trotskyists will call me a Stalinist, Stalinists will call me a Revisionist. In the end it seems I don't get on anyone's good side here. :lol:


But would some Stalinists tell me why invading Finland was necessary, but signing treaties with the Nazis dividing poland is ok?

It was a fragile treaty in the first place, and it's common knowledge that Stalin would have invaded Nazi Germany anyway if Hitler hadn't have declared war first. I'd argue that negotiations with Germany shouldn't have taken place at all, but like I said in another thread recently I just don't see it as a big deal when it actually resulted in some good for the people of Western Belarus and Ukraine, which would have ended up directly under Nazi rule if not for the pact.

[Conscript]

when the Soviet Union was a de facto member of the Axis and was a military ally of Germany and the main foreign benefactor of Hitler's war effort.

Lol, a de facto member of the axis and military ally of germany? Please stop talking out of your ass. 'De facto' axis members usually have good relations with the countries that sign the tripartite and anti-comintern pact, you know, axis members. Military alliances don't have exceptions for the alliance against all but one country.

I'm still surprised people complain about soviet exports to germany. By 1939 it's clear the allies were as imperialist and anti-communist as the germans. Nothing wrong with benefitting as imperialists destroy each other, after you try to convince the liberals to assist you in deposing the hitlerites.

[l'Enfermé]

And I'm not too fond of Stalinism either so it's not as if I'd view a Soviet-installed Socialist Finland at that time as the perfect form of government for the country, but even then it would have been preferable to what happened to the Finnish in reality.
Oh no, the poor, Finns, they were cursed with parliamentary democracy!



It was a fragile treaty in the first place, and it's common knowledge that Stalin would have invaded Nazi Germany anyway if Hitler hadn't have declared war first. I'd argue that negotiations with Germany shouldn't have taken place at all, but like I said in another thread recently I just don't see it as a big deal when it actually resulted in some good for the people of Western Belarus and Ukraine, which would have ended up directly under Nazi rule if not for the pact.
1 - A million and a half people were deported to Kazahsttan, Northern Russia, etc, from Western Ukraine and Belarus between September 1939 and June 1941(i.e between the Soviet invasion of Poland and Operation Barbarossa). Around 700,000 of them died. It resulted in absolutely no good whateversoever for the people of Western Belarus and Ukraine

2 - The whole point is moot because Western Ukraine and Belarus did end up directly under Nazi rule after Barbarossa.

[l'Enfermé]

Lol, a de facto member of the axis and military ally of germany? Please stop talking out of your ass. 'De facto' axis members usually have good relations with the countries that sign the tripartite and anti-comintern pact, you know, axis members. Military alliances don't have exceptions for the alliance against all but one country.
Invading countries together and dividing Europe Eastern Europe between each other usually counts as being military allies.


I'm still surprised people complain about soviet exports to germany. By 1939 it's clear the allies were as imperialist and anti-communist as the germans. Nothing wrong with benefitting as imperialists destroy each other, after you try to convince the liberals to assist you in deposing the hitlerites.
Except all the aid the Soviet Union gave Hitler was used to "destroy" the Soviet Union, not "imperialists". 27 million Soviet dead, "comrade". How many of those would have survived if Germany was in a far weaker position to launch Operation Barbarossa?

[Conscript]

Invading countries together and dividing Europe Eastern Europe between each other usually counts as being military allies.

Carving up territory into spheres of influence, not to mention with one side making concessions to the other (like germany on the balts), is a sign of rivalry, not alliance. Was the partition of poland-lithuania a sign of an 'alliance'? Invading a rival imperialist while it's being invaded by another, presenting an opportunity to reclaim lost land europe's fascist warmonger has deemed to have no interest in, doesn't qualify as an alliance with anybody involved.


Except all the aid the Soviet Union gave Hitler was used to "destroy" the Soviet Union, not "imperialists"

Why is destroy in quotes?

I don't think anybody expected the war to take the path that it did, with the fall of france and the low countries, and the invasion of the USSR early on prior to the fall of britain. Who knew ww2 would be nothing like the great war, where the imperialists truly dug their own grave?

[hetz]

L' Enferme, to cut the story short, do you support Bandera and his "national-liberation" movement? What about Petlyura?
And what do you think of Sultan Galiev?

[Questionable]

Oh no, the poor, Finns, they were cursed with parliamentary democracy!

Haha, yep, l'Enferme expresses his preference for a parliamentary capitalist government over the USSR.

[Art Vandelay]

Haha, yep, l'Enferme expresses his preference for a parliamentary capitalist government over the USSR.

To us, Marxism-Leninism, is an entirely bourgeois ideology, it represented the reaction against October. The sooner the USSR fell, after it's degeneration, the sooner the facade of "existing socialism" fell, the better it was for the possibility of proletarian revolution.

[Questionable]

To us, Marxism-Leninism, is an entirely bourgeois ideology, it represented the reaction against October. The sooner the USSR fell, after it's degeneration, the sooner the facade of "existing socialism" fell, the better it was for the possibility of proletarian revolution.

I'm a bit confused by how you can call an ideology that advocates dictatorship of the proletariat, overthrow of the capitalist economic system, class conflict, and public ownership of the means of production bourgeois. If you want to say it's a communist ideology that failed that's one thing, but to imply that the bourgeoisie invented Marxism-Leninism when it lacks all the characteristics of a bourgeois mode of society.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm a bit confused by how you can call an ideology that advocates dictatorship of the proletariat, overthrow of the capitalist economic system, class conflict, and public ownership of the means of production bourgeois.

It can a wave a red flag all it likes.


If you want to say it's a communist ideology that failed that's one thing, but to imply that the bourgeoisie invented Marxism-Leninism when it lacks all the characteristics of a bourgeois mode of society.

No it doesn't.

[Questionable]

It can a wave a red flag all it likes.



No it doesn't.

Well...okay. I guess I can't really argue with, "Nope, you're wrong."

[l'Enfermé]

L' Enferme, to cut the story short, do you support Bandera and his "national-liberation" movement? What about Petlyura?
And what do you think of Sultan Galiev?
I'm not fond of either Bandera or Petlyura though I guess Bandera was quite a nuisance for the Poles and that was neat. As for Galiev his idiocy re. Islam is inexcusable and he was too much of a nationalist.

And yes, Questionable, I prefer parliamentary democracy over Stalinist autocracy, and not even because it murdered half of my family in the 30s and 40s. Kind of like how the Bolsheviks preferred a democratic republic over Czarist absolutism. This is the usual Marxist position.

[Questionable]

And yes, Questionable, I prefer parliamentary democracy over Stalinist autocracy, and not even because it murdered half of my family in the 30s and 40s. Kind of like how the Bolsheviks preferred a democratic republic over Czarist absolutism. This is the usual Marxist position.

Ignoring the qualitative differences between these government forms and equating the two you dislike is not the Marxist position I'm most familiar wih.

[l'Enfermé]

I have neither ignored anything or equated anything. I'm merely noting that the historical Marxist position re. autocracy(be it Stalinist, fascist or Czarist) v. bourgeois parliamentary democracy is quite clear: it's to support democracy. From Marx, to Engels, Bebel and Liebknecht and other early German Marxists, to Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and other SI Marxists.

[ind_com]

I have neither ignored anything or equated anything. I'm merely noting that the historical Marxist position re. autocracy(be it Stalinist, fascist or Czarist) v. bourgeois parliamentary democracy is quite clear: it's to support democracy. From Marx, to Engels, Bebel and Liebknecht and other early German Marxists, to Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and other SI Marxists.

No there's nothing Marxist about preferring capitalist states over socialist ones. Even Trotsky who considered the USSR to be a degenerated workers' state defended it against the capitalist states.

[l'Enfermé]

No there's nothing Marxist about preferring capitalist states over socialist ones. Even Trotsky who considered the USSR to be a degenerated workers' state defended it against the capitalist states.
The USSR couldn't have possibly been a socialist state, that would necessitate the proletariat being the ruling class. As for Trotsky, his sentimental attachment to the Soviet Union even after counter-revolution is quite unfortunate but perhaps excusable. I would also hesitate completely forsaking what is in large part my legacy, regardless what a grotesque deformity it has become.

[Crimson Commissar]

Oh no, the poor, Finns, they were cursed with parliamentary democracy!

Parliamentary democracy is a good thing now? I think history has shown that all it ever results in is a perpetual two-party system designed to ensure a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie exists for absolutely as long as possible. The main goal of Communism has always been to oppose capitalism in all it's forms. There is no "acceptable" or "humane" form of capitalism, and the fact that the populace gets to vote in largely meaningless elections every 4 years doesn't change this whatsoever.


1 - A million and a half people were deported to Kazahsttan, Northern Russia, etc, from Western Ukraine and Belarus between September 1939 and June 1941(i.e between the Soviet invasion of Poland and Operation Barbarossa). Around 700,000 of them died. It resulted in absolutely no good whateversoever for the people of Western Belarus and Ukraine

At no point have I attempted to defend this. Which is why I would in no way consider myself a Stalinist or a supporter of Stalin. But I think it's still a preferable situation to the Nazi's catastrophically insane plan of herding the entire Slavic peoples into concentration camps to be outright mass murdered. I don't think the aim of the deportation was ever to actually send Ukrainians and Belarusians to their deaths, unlike what Hitler had in store for them. You cannot argue the fact that an unimaginable amount more of these people would have suffered much worse fates if they had have spent the two years between 1939-1941 at the mercy of Nazi German rule.


2 - The whole point is moot because Western Ukraine and Belarus did end up directly under Nazi rule after Barbarossa.

At least the region was kept safe for a couple more years.


To us, Marxism-Leninism, is an entirely bourgeois ideology, it represented the reaction against October. The sooner the USSR fell, after it's degeneration, the sooner the facade of "existing socialism" fell, the better it was for the possibility of proletarian revolution.

On the contrary, I think it was just about the worst thing to ever happen to the Communist movement in the long term. And that's referring to both Stalinists, Trotskyists, and everything in-between and outside of those definitions. Our chances of revolution, in all countries, have dropped considerably since the 1991. There was more possibility of the USSR reforming into a "democratic socialist" state when it existed than there is of a revolution occuring in the ex-Soviet countries today.

And to call Marxism-Leninism/Stalinism bourgeois is just about the most ridiculous claim I've ever heard put out on this forum. Autocratic, authoritarian, bureaucratic or even totalitarian? Sure. But there was no element of capitalism involved in their system post-NEP.


I have neither ignored anything or equated anything. I'm merely noting that the historical Marxist position re. autocracy(be it Stalinist, fascist or Czarist) v. bourgeois parliamentary democracy is quite clear: it's to support democracy. From Marx, to Engels, Bebel and Liebknecht and other early German Marxists, to Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin and other SI Marxists.

Again, holding elections that have absolutely no chance of bringing anything other than neo-liberal capitalist parties into power every 4 or 5 years does NOT count as "democracy".

[ind_com]

The USSR couldn't have possibly been a socialist state, that would necessitate the proletariat being the ruling class. As for Trotsky, his sentimental attachment to the Soviet Union even after counter-revolution is quite unfortunate but perhaps excusable.

Keep your bullshit psychoanalysis of Trotsky to yourself.


I would also hesitate completely forsaking what is in large part my legacy, regardless what a grotesque deformity it has become.

Legacy of what, supporting capitalism against socialism?

[Grenzer]

It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Stalinism is a bourgeois ideology; it is more petit-bourgeois in nature. It is national-reformist in nature, and seeks nothing more than the national management of capital. It could have only come into existence through the isolation and ultimate failure of the proletarian revolution to spread and consolidate its power on the global stage; much as social-democracy came about a serious political tendency only through the degeneration of the Second International.

Stalinism and the political views of Lenin have very little in common. The Stalinists took everything that Lenin regarded as temporary and dangerous emergency measures(such as the dissolution of the independent soviets, the fusion of the party to the state, and the ban on factions) and codified them into not only acceptable, but even desirable permanent features of a proletarian state.

Take a look through any number of Lenin's letters from the early 1920's and one will see that he was very alarmed towards the current state of affairs, and the danger of a sustained police state. The party had abolished the independent soviets, the material basis for the proletarian dictatorship. Some of the measures were unfortunate, but perhaps necessary for the victory of the revolution over the Whites; at the same time, a constant struggle needed to be waged for the restoration of the healthy proletarian dictatorship or it would degenerate into a dictatorship over the proletariat.

Stalinism is the ideological expression of the bureaucracy, and the victory of counter-revolutionary reaction against the forward struggle of the proletariat. Soviet foreign policy was hell bent on doing everything it could to prevent revolution, and to utilize the Third International as an instrument of Russian nationalism. Lenin himself questioned the Third International and wondered whether he had not committed a grave error and established a framework in which Russia would predominate and use the International as a vehicle for its national interests, sabotaging and destroying the international proletarian movement.

The Popular Front is probably the most pernicious form of revisionism that has ever existed alongside Bernstein's reformism. In fact, they do not differ in essence at all. Both call for the total subordination of the workers to the bourgeois dictatorship. At least Socialism in One Country, for all its flaws, doesn't [directly] advocate that. Stalinism has completely annihilated the proletariat as a political force of any significance in a way that anything save the global victory of fascism could ever have hoped to achieve.

Although Stalinism differs in many in many, many ways from fascism, what the two have in common is that neither is satisfied with anything less than the total annihilation of the ability of the proletariat to organize itself independently and politically as a class for itself. In this sense, it is irresponsible for Trotskyists to unconditionally advocate Stalinism over a normal bourgeois republic since in many cases, Stalinism serves as a larger obstacle to ultimately realizing the proletariat's conquest of state power in light of the fact that the proletariat is unable to politically organize itself in such a state.

[Rafiq]

I'm not disregarding class analysis. On the contrary. The Stalinist Soviet Union, which served nothing but the interests of it's ruling class, was the greatest impediment the proletariat has ever faced in it's historical mission to emancipate humanity. Any national-liberation struggle which undermined it's stability(like Israilov's) I view as quite welcome. As for other 20th century national-liberation struggles, they undermined the bourgeois regimes of Western Europe and the United States, which was of great benefit to the working classes of those countries(the only national proletariats that mattered at that time) and would have undoubtedly been much more beneficial still if the working class movement wasn't neutered by Stalinist revisionism and sectarianism.


This isn't how class war functions, Israilov was not some kind of abstract destructive entity which posed a threat, directly, to the Soviet state. Every blow taken by the Soviet state on behalf of Israilov was a strategic gain for his class, and therefore should not by supported by any communist. It's the same for those idiots who say the collapse of the Soviet Union was a victory for the proletariat. Was it? That's the problem, analyzing events in themselves as if they exist abstractly. Neoliberalism followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, so it isn't so much to say that it was neither a defeat nor a victory for the proletariat. There are no exceptions regarding "national liberation struggles". They may be antithetical to the interests of the bourgeoisie and capital in X country, but only in the favor of the national bourgeoisie in said nation.

Perhaps I should make this clearer: Do you support the Taliban?

[l'Enfermé]

"His class"? Israilov was born to a mountain peasant family and grew up to become a communist journalist. "His class" was the proletariat. The second most prominent leader of the Israilov uprising was the communist jurist Mayrbek Sheripov, the younger brother of the Bolshevik commander of the Chechen Red Army during the Civil War, a prominent "national hero" in Chechnya during Soviet times(kind of like K. Nuradilov, a Chechen who supposedly machine-gunned over 900 Germans in Stalingrad - though given the amount of Germans killed during the Battle, maybe that figure is not so fantastical). The class basis of the Israilov rebellion was the proletariat and mountain peasants. You can't paint the Israilov rebellion as some sort of bourgeois restoration. Don't play this game with me, I'm not some fucking Mises-worshipping halfwit from OI.

And yes, the inevitable collapse of Soviet Union was the greatest victory for the working class since October 1917(though of course, October was brought about by conscious activity of the working class, while the collapse of the Soviet Union was brought about by a considerable portion of the Soviet ruling class - so I guess it's not really a victory since the working class hasn't been trying to accomplish it), you will have to count me as a member of those idiots that you mention I suppose. My view of bourgeois states is much more positive than my view of the Soviet State - at least they didn't tarnish the red flag of the proletariat for which so many comrades died and suffered for by pretending they are true to it. The Soviet Union accomplished what the bourgeoisie has not been able to do regardless of how much effort they put into it for decades - discredit the cause of the working class.

[Crimson Commissar]

And yes, the inevitable collapse of Soviet Union was the greatest victory for the working class since October 1917(though of course, October was brought about by conscious activity of the working class, while the collapse of the Soviet Union was brought about by a considerable portion of the Soviet ruling class - so I guess it's not really a victory since the working class hasn't been trying to accomplish it), you will have to count me as a member of those idiots that you mention I suppose. My view of bourgeois states is much more positive than my view of the Soviet State - at least they didn't tarnish the red flag of the proletariat for which so many comrades died and suffered for by pretending they are true to it. The Soviet Union accomplished what the bourgeoisie has not been able to do regardless of how much effort they put into it for decades - discredit the cause of the working class.

You really have to question the allegiances of some people when they will drop all notion of class struggle the moment the "oh so evil and repressive Soviet Union" comes into the question.

If you're spending more time slandering former Socialist states that haven't existed for two decades than you are directing your attention to the real oppressors that exist in today's world, then there's something very wrong with your politics.

[Art Vandelay]

You really have to question the allegiances of some people when they will drop all notion of class struggle the moment the "oh so evil and repressive Soviet Union" comes into the question.

If you're spending more time slandering former Socialist states that haven't existed for two decades than you are directing your attention to the real oppressors that exist in today's world, then there's something very wrong with your politics.

Which isn't representative of Borz at all, this thread was dealing with a specific historical matter.

[Crimson Commissar]

Which isn't representative of Borz at all, this thread was dealing with a specific historical matter.

True, but it's a horribly common tendency I've noticed amongst some Socialists. You often find those that will dedicate their activism entirely towards some moral crusade against Stalinism when instead that energy could easily go towards much more relevant enemies that are a threat to the working class of today, not of the 1930s.

[Art Vandelay]

True, but it's a horribly common tendency I've noticed amongst some Socialists. You often find those that will dedicate their activism entirely towards some moral crusade against Stalinism when instead that energy could easily go towards much more relevant enemies that are a threat to the working class of today, not of the 1930s.

Perhaps in some places, but for the most part M-L's need not be worried about; there perhaps the most irrelevant faction of the left (really saying something) and the majority of the world looks upon them as insane.

[l'Enfermé]

You really have to question the allegiances of some people when they will drop all notion of class struggle the moment the "oh so evil and repressive Soviet Union" comes into the question.
Where have I abandoned "all notion of class struggle"? Is not the whole point underlining my argument that the Soviet ruling class has done more harm to the worker's movement in around 60 years than the bourgousie of all countries have done in around 2 centuries(if let's say the first great battle for power between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was in July 1848 as Engels wrote in 1895). I do nothing but try to defend the interests of my class and as far as posting on RevLeft is concerned the best to serve it is not to capitulate to Stalinist revisionism and stand idly by while Stalinists repeat their old falsifications and try to infect inexperienced comrades with it.


If you're spending more time slandering former Socialist states that haven't existed for two decades than you are directing your attention to the real oppressors that exist in today's world, then there's something very wrong with your politics.I've got over a thousand posts on RevLeft and only a tiny fraction of them are devoted to Soviet Union threads so bugger off with your flamebait. As a communist it's my duty to warn every comrade of Stalinism and it's consequences and believe me I'm a dutiful person.

[l'Enfermé]

True, but it's a horribly common tendency I've noticed amongst some Socialists. You often find those that will dedicate their activism entirely towards some moral crusade against Stalinism when instead that energy could easily go towards much more relevant enemies that are a threat to the working class of today, not of the 1930s.
There are so many fucking capitalists and priests and landowners on RevLeft against whom I can dedicate my "activism" towards.

[Omsk]

there perhaps the most irrelevant faction of the left


And what the hell are the Left-Comms? Carriers of the revolutionary flame? Oh please stop with nonsense.

[Prof. Oblivion]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2525709#post2525709) I'm not disregarding class analysis. On the contrary. The Stalinist Soviet Union, which served nothing but the interests of it's ruling class

I don't think bureaucracy could in any sense be considered a class. There really is not such a thing as the self interest of the bureaucracy generally. The only argument that could be made is that the general interest of the bureaucracy is to maintain its rule, but even in that case the means of maintaining their own positions will differ by bureaucrat/department, oftentimes even coming into conflict with one another, so I don't think it's correct to assert that bureaucracy is a class.

Granted, there is conflict within all classes, but in any case a class is defined by not only its economic relation but also its ability to cohere around its own generalized self-interest. This does not exist for the bureaucrat, and is also why the Soviet state seemingly took on a life of its own, whose policies and general momentum were swayed by individualized/departmentalized bureaucratic struggles.

[Thirsty Crow]

And what the hell are the Left-Comms? Carriers of the revolutionary flame? Oh please stop with nonsense.
It must be really cosy living in your little world where you've got handy labels for anyone who dares to point out your own irrelevance, or to be more precise, the irrelevance of the miserable grouplings which adhere to a dead dogma.

And yeah, every single groupling of people who advocate workers' revolution out there is irrelevant. But what's more irrelevant is this obsession with being relevant.

[Igor]

True, but it's a horribly common tendency I've noticed amongst some Socialists. You often find those that will dedicate their activism entirely towards some moral crusade against Stalinism when instead that energy could easily go towards much more relevant enemies that are a threat to the working class of today, not of the 1930s.

a tendency you've noted in revleft or among actual socialists? i've never met a real life socialist who'd be particularly obsessed about stalinists. you see lots of people having a "crusade" against stalinists here because guess what, you have lots of stalinists in here and not really any of the real working class enemies

[l'Enfermé]

And what the hell are the Left-Comms? Carriers of the revolutionary flame? Oh please stop with nonsense.
Good thing that comrade 9mm is not a Left-Com, then.


I don't think bureaucracy could in any sense be considered a class. There really is not such a thing as the self interest of the bureaucracy generally. The only argument that could be made is that the general interest of the bureaucracy is to maintain its rule, but even in that case the means of maintaining their own positions will differ by bureaucrat/department, oftentimes even coming into conflict with one another, so I don't think it's correct to assert that bureaucracy is a class.

Granted, there is conflict within all classes, but in any case a class is defined by not only its economic relation but also its ability to cohere around its own generalized self-interest. This does not exist for the bureaucrat, and is also why the Soviet state seemingly took on a life of its own, whose policies and general momentum were swayed by individualized/departmentalized bureaucratic struggles.
Comrade check out some of Hillel Ticktin's stuff re. the class nature of the Soviet Union.

[Geiseric]

Well carrying on policies that you know ended up horribly, such as ultra leftism or menshevism, I would consider misleading the working class, and when it comes down to it, it's counter revolutionary, not in the white army sense but in the Martov sense.

Spartacist league sectarianism on a mass scale is basically what left communism comes down to. Stalinism doesn't exist any more since the Soviet bureaucracy because the capitalists in the fSU, Vietnam, and soon to be Cuba. We need to see what worked, and emulate that.

"What has worked," is Marxism, which strategically has thrived off of united fronts with reformist, but STILL WORKING CLASS non marxists, and in most cases (See: Bolsheviks ally with Mensheviks and Populists against the White Army) has led to a stronger party, and even more support for Marxism from the working class.

Trying to emulate Stalinism would be a joke, since you would be trying to emulate the policies taken by the managerial caste of the fSU once they realized that they would be out of the job if the USSR was invaded, and they would also be out of the job if the poverty that was predominant due to economic circumstances ended due to a successful revolution in an industrialized country. I mean imagine how important Molotov, Yezhov, or the other stooges of Stalin would be if the German revolution worked out.

And the eventual conclusion of this ideology was the full on restoration of capitalism, destroying the planned economy, by the heirs of Stalin and his buddies.

[Geiseric]

Well carrying on policies that you know ended up horribly, such as ultra leftism or menshevism, I would consider misleading the working class, and when it comes down to it, it's counter revolutionary, not in the white army sense but in the Martov sense.

Spartacist league sectarianism on a mass scale is basically what left communism comes down to. Stalinism doesn't exist any more since the Soviet bureaucracy because the capitalists in the fSU, Vietnam, and soon to be Cuba. We need to see what worked, and emulate that.

"What has worked," is Marxism, which strategically has thrived off of united fronts with reformist, but STILL WORKING CLASS non marxists, and in most cases (See: Bolsheviks ally with Mensheviks and Populists against the White Army) has led to a stronger party, and even more support for Marxism from the working class.

Trying to emulate Stalinism would be a joke, since you would be trying to emulate the policies taken by the managerial caste of the fSU once they realized that they would be out of the job if the USSR was invaded, and they would also be out of the job if the poverty that was predominant due to economic circumstances ended due to a successful revolution in an industrialized country. I mean imagine how important Molotov, Yezhov, or the other stooges of Stalin would be if the German revolution worked out.

And the eventual conclusion of this ideology was the full on restoration of capitalism, destroying the planned economy, by the heirs of Stalin and his buddies.

[Geiseric]

Well carrying on policies that you know ended up horribly, such as ultra leftism or menshevism, I would consider misleading the working class, and when it comes down to it, it's counter revolutionary, not in the white army sense but in the Martov sense.

Spartacist league sectarianism on a mass scale is basically what left communism comes down to. Stalinism doesn't exist any more since the Soviet bureaucracy because the capitalists in the fSU, Vietnam, and soon to be Cuba. We need to see what worked, and emulate that.

"What has worked," is Marxism, which strategically has thrived off of united fronts with reformist, but STILL WORKING CLASS non marxists, and in most cases (See: Bolsheviks ally with Mensheviks and Populists against the White Army) has led to a stronger party, and even more support for Marxism from the working class.

Trying to emulate Stalinism would be a joke, since you would be trying to emulate the policies taken by the managerial caste of the fSU once they realized that they would be out of the job if the USSR was invaded, and they would also be out of the job if the poverty that was predominant due to economic circumstances ended due to a successful revolution in an industrialized country. I mean imagine how important Molotov, Yezhov, or the other stooges of Stalin would be if the German revolution worked out.

And the eventual conclusion of this ideology was the full on restoration of capitalism, destroying the planned economy, by the heirs of Stalin and his buddies.

[Omsk]

It must be really cosy living in your little world where you've got handy labels for anyone who dares to point out your own irrelevance, or to be more precise, the irrelevance of the miserable grouplings which adhere to a dead dogma.

And yeah, every single groupling of people who advocate workers' revolution out there is irrelevant. But what's more irrelevant is this obsession with being relevant.

Just because i mention Left Communism does not mean you have to jump in and defend it like a fanatic. I mentioned Left-Communism because the user 9mm was a Bordigist or something like that, in any case, something completely obscure. My attack was not an attack on Left Communism in general, but an attack on the internet warriors who are experts at criticism when they deliver the criticism from their chairs, and who have no revolutionary activity.

[l'Enfermé]

Comrade 9mm is not a Bordigist or any other type of Ultra-leftist. He originally joined RevLeft as an Anarchist but has matured on to Marxism a long time ago.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Comrade check out some of Hillel Ticktin's stuff re. the class nature of the Soviet Union.

How does it differ from the typical Cliffite "state-capitalist" line?

[l'Enfermé]

^Ticktin's scientific Marxist analysis is not at all similar to Cliff's.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Found this quote on his wiki page:


My work on the political economy of the USSR showed … it to be inherently unviable, and nothing to do with socialism, while not being capitalist

I agree with that. I'll check out his stuff. Thanks for the rec.