Durham Debate: Stalinism reinforces capitalist apologetics

[l'Enfermé]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/935/durham-debate-stalinism-reinforces-capitalist-apologetics

Durham Debate: Stalinism reinforces capitalist apologetics

Ben Lewis spoke at the Durham Union Debating Society

http://cpgb.org.uk/assets/images/wwimages/ww935/harpal-brar.jpg
Harpal Brar: USSR was ‘greatest society ever seen’

"This house believes capitalism has failed" was the motion put before around 120 students from the Durham Union Debating Society on October 19. The society has a rich and prestigious history spanning nearly 200 years, and has been addressed by a number of esteemed speakers from across the political spectrum.1 (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/935/durham-debate-stalinism-reinforces-capitalist-apologetics#1) The society has something of the quirky and anachronistic about it (black ties, ‘voting’ by shouting and a president’s gown “designed for a man”, as the current chair, Elise Trewick, told me). Despite this, the society is still popular today, with around 3,000 current students signed up and 50,000 “lifetime members” amongst Durham university’s alumni.
I was speaking on behalf of Communist Students and Harpal Brar, chairman of the ultra-Stalinite CPGB-ML, and leading member of the Stalin Society, was also down to speak in favour of the motion. The New Left Project declined an invitation to send a speaker. Luke Cooper of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative informs me that “we turned down that debate, as we didn’t think teaming up with Harpal Brar would be particularly conducive to winning students to an anti-authoritarian vision of communism. To put it mildly ...” A pretty pathetic argument, of course - particularly when the format actually encouragesdisagreement between speakers on the same side of the debate.
So effectively we had just two speakers fighting the cause of anti-capitalism: myself and an outspoken Stalinist. In the blue corner, opposing the motion, were Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute; Michael Brindle QC and Mark Littlewood, director of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Opening shots

A former Durham student who now represents Grant Thornton, the accounting and consulting professional services network, introduced the debate. Without in any way wishing to influence the proceedings, he told us that he had just returned from an international gathering of his company, where lots of champagne and good food was consumed (the result of successful capitalist entrepreneurship, of course).
Opening the case for the proposing team, Harpal Brar pointed out that this question is obviously the one currently exercising most minds today: “If you read the serious financial press, they are all talking about the capitalist crisis”, which he described as one of “overproduction”. Comrade Brar gave an eloquent and witty account of the Marxist theory of crisis, arguing that the banks and the government were now propping each other up like two drunks leaving the pub at closing time. Moreover, while he had the greatest respect for the work of Adam Smith, today’s world is much different. Monopoly capitalism runs our lives “from the cradle to the grave”.
He was followed by Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, who made a case for “more” capitalism. He chided the malignant influence of government regulation and intervention in markets - for him the source of many of the problems (poverty, etc) outlined by Brar. He then proceeded to argue that value is essentially something that “exists in our heads” and is realised subjectively in the process of trade and exchange.
I had prepared a speech of about 10 minutes in length,2 (http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html) but I suppose my intervention vindicated von Clausewitz’s maxim that even the most finely tuned military strategy is often thrown out of the window in the opening shots of battle. Although it had implications for the structure and delivery of my talk, I decided instead to concentrate on some of Butler’s more specious assertions.
Firstly, I pointed out that any pro-capitalist who thinks that governments should not have bailed out the banks following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 is clearly living on another planet. Any serious financial commentator knew what was at stake in 2008: the meltdown of the entire system. Articles in the Financial Times castigated those like Dr Butler and the loony fringe of the Republican Party for opposing bank bailouts: do they not remember what happened in the 1930s as a result of letting banks go to the wall?
I also questioned Butler’s understanding of value and trade. He was perfectly entitled to hold this standard marginalist view of economics. But it was a bit rich to do so in the name of Adam Smith. I quoted the latter’s Wealth of nations to this effect: “Though the manufacturer [ie, the worker] has his wages advanced to him by his master, he, in reality, costs him [the capitalist master] no expense, the value of those wages being generally restored, together with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which his labour is bestowed.”3 (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/935/durham-debate-stalinism-reinforces-capitalist-apologetics#3)

No return to the ‘free market’

I maintained that those wishing to return to the supposed halcyon days of ‘perfect competition’ (which only really exists in A-level economics textbooks) are chasing a pipe-dream. Monopoly and state intervention have evolved out of the fundamental laws of motionintrinsic to capitalist accumulation. The dominance of monopoly and state intervention in fact negatively anticipates a higher form of society based on planning and social control, not the anarchic imperatives of capitalist production and the law of value.
I asserted that this was one of the most compelling aspects of Marx’s critique of political economy. Even during the 1840s - when capitalism was expanding across the globe, transforming the world in a way that no previous mode of production had done - Marx could both marvel at this system and presciently observe that its very success would sow the seeds of its own destruction. Marx sought to place capitalism in its historical context. Like feudalism and slavery, with their own particular social dynamics, capitalism and its laws go through a period of birth, maturity and decline. Capitalism is not a form of society that has existed forever, and obviously will not last forever either. Those like Butler, who reify and eternalise capitalism, view it as the supposed culmination of ‘human nature’. But capitalism is an inhumane system: it cannot meet human needs because it is not designed to.
I concluded by arguing that the spectre of Marx still haunts the establishment: comments made by Thatcher’s biographer, Charles Moore, the recent Masters of money BBC documentary and the appearance of Marx’s picture on the front page of a recent edition of the German business newspaper, Handelsblatt, all testify to this. However, as long as it is able to keep its system staggering on - a zombie seeking bailout blood - the capitalist class has no real reason to fear for its own survival. Objectively the system is in a big hole. But the subjective factor, the working class “gravedigger” of capital, is still a long way from coming to power, from filling in this hole and burying the system once and for all.
One major reason for this is that Marxist political organisation and ideas are tainted by ideas purporting to provide an ‘alternative’ to capitalism: ie, Stalinism, with its dictatorship over the proletariat and‘socialism in one country’; and social democracy, which attempted to bureaucratically steer the economy through state intervention.
The failed transition to socialism in the 20th century weighs down like a nightmare on the present: it is all too easy for establishment apologists to say, ‘Capitalism might not be perfect, but change capitalism and you get Stalin and unfreedom.’ Some, like Harpal Brar, even positively desire such an outcome.
But such views can only act as a brake on the emergence of an alternative: how can Marxism win millions to its banner if we excuse what happened? Nobody will take us seriously, and quite rightly so. It was not just that millions died in the Soviet Union, or that people lived under extremely alienating conditions of state repression. It is that this route towards communism patently did not work. The Soviet economy was a disaster, and Russia is now on the road back to capitalism. Little wonder, then, that for the vast majority of people today it is often easier to imagine some kind of ‘end of the world’ scenario than it is a credible alternative to capitalism.

Freedom and love

With Michael Brindle QC stepping up to speak, the debate started to take on a different direction. It was now not so much a question ofwhether capitalism had failed, but how, despite its failure, it was still more attractive than what all the speakers, with the exception of yours truly, described as “communism” (ie, its opposite, Stalinism).
Brindle is an expert in banking law who was ‘lawyer of the year’ in 2010. He was a little more sensible than Butler on the question of banking bailouts, and argued that the crisis could be traced to elaborate financial schemes that nobody understood at all. This is why he was at a loss as to how this could be seen as a crisis of overproduction - after all, we are dealing with the financial sector, not production (Brar, however, had already pointed out that speculation is often where capital turns when it cannot sell the mass of what it produces).
Brindle assured us that we should not get too excited about the crisis: it was only the financial system, after all. He then drew a distinction between the “freedom society” (capitalism) and the “love society” (communism), making a fairly robust case against the utter failings of ‘communism’ by pointing out that those in the “love society” tended to love each other too much - so much so that they stamped out the freedom of the very people they were trying to emancipate. A quaint little allegory, perhaps. But pretty much useless in understanding either Marxism or where we are today.
Mark Littlewood of the IEA also argued for more capitalism and less regulation. But the main thrust of his intervention exhibited all the limitations of empiricism so common in bourgeois thought: he heavily drew on statistics pointing out how much longer a worker had to toil just to get shelter or food 200 years ago, compared with today. Of course, communists do not dispute the historical achievements of capitalism - or the working class under the conditions of capitalism.
But then he simply extrapolated these trends into the future, as if they would continue inexorably. He assumed that living standards would simply rise and rise, and that capitalism would expand indefinitely. This is particularly preposterous at a time of the biggest crisis of capital since the 1930s. He predicted that living standards in Britain would rise by 2015 - I am more than willing to have a tenner with him on this.
Interestingly, however, after falsely accusing me of wanting to “nationalise everything” (Harpal Brar can speak for himself, but I obviously never said such a thing), he went on to laud the success ofChina, where, although the capitalist sector is developing at a rate of knots, all the major means of production are still in the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy and where bureaucratic state planning is still dominant. It says a lot about the current state of capitalism that so many avowedly pro-market, pro-capitalist forces are looking to Chinafor inspiration. It actually further underlines how capitalism has failed even on its own terms.

Stalinist ‘alternative’

Things got worse when Harpal Brar summed up for the proposing team. He was brimming with the most dewy-eyed Stalinist apologia, which only served to strengthen the false dichotomy created by Brindle and others between ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’. He described the Soviet Union as “the greatest society we have ever seen” - even praising Ceaușescu’s Romania to the skies. I could only hold my head in my hands, as the audience began to wonder if this was actually for real. When it came to the ‘vote’ at the end, our side was pretty substantially defeated.
Afterwards we were led through the picturesque university grounds to a ‘members only’ room for a glass of wine and further discussion. I had quite a long conversation with Michael Brindle and his wife, both of whom thought they knew a little about Marx’s work (on the level of “Marx was a determinist” and “He was wrong to predict the total collapse of capitalism”, etc.) For some reason, after I had suggested to Dr Butler that I might make a good employee at the Adam Smith Institute, he did not seem all that keen on me ... oh well.
But there was keen interest from many of the students. The topics of discussion afterwards ranged from value theory to China, to Eric Hobsbawm. Some were particularly enthused to hear a non-Stalinist defence of Marxism. One politics student felt that I was absolutely correct to highlight that Marx was not seriously taught or studied any more. When it came to the section on Marx in her course, the lecturer would simply say something like: ‘You are not going to understand this - nobody ever correctly answers the exam question on Marx, so it is probably best to concentrate on the other parts of the course.’ A fitting symbol of the poverty of education today.

Notes

1. More information can be found at www.dus.org.uk (http://www.dus.org.uk).
2. A longer article based on my speech notes will soon be published on the Communist Students website and circulated amongst members of the DUS.
3. A Smith [I]An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations book 2, chapter 3, p430 (available at www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html (http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN.html)).

http://cpgb.org.uk/

[l'Enfermé]

Ben Lewis is a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and a founding member of the British Marxist student organisation, Communist Students.
His main area of research is the disputed legacy of 'Second International Marxism' and its main theoretician, Karl Kautsky. He has written many articles on this subject and translated several key German language texts from this period. Together with historian Lars T Lih, he has co-produced a book on the Halle Congress of the German USPD in 1920, Martov and Zinoviev: Head to Head in Halle. He sits on the Revolutionary History Editorial Board and on the Marxists' Internet Archive Steering Committee.

More Weekly Worker articles from comrade Lewis: http://cpgb.org.uk/home/authors/ben-lewis

[Questionable]

NEWS FLASH: Stalinists ruin everything, the left sucks, but it's all Stalin's fault not ours.

There, I summed up that article for everyone.

[Igor]

NEWS FLASH: Stalinists ruin everything, the left sucks, but it's all Stalin's fault not ours.

There, I summed up that article for everyone.

because saying something contributes to something means saying "it's all their fault nothing else is wrong"

no. you didn't

[Questionable]

because saying something contributes to something means saying "it's all their fault nothing else is wrong"

no. you didn't

Pretty much I did. The article even starts out saying that Harpal Brar was doing a good job, but then the writer seems to act surprised when a prestigious club doesn't like communism and blames it all on Stalinism. No real analysis, just "Oh, but the Soviet Union doesn't count" all over again.

[Geiseric]

Well Stalinism =/= "the soviet union." In fact he executed many people who were instrumental in creating it... As in if those people were killed in 1917, who he killed when he was in charge, there would of been no soviet union.

[doesn't even make sense]

NEWS FLASH: Stalinists ruin everything, the left sucks, but it's all Stalin's fault not ours.

There, I summed up that article for everyone.

Well I think what Harpal Brar calls communism would be considered revisionism by many supporters of Stalin on this site. Of course, that just shows some of the weakness of the discourse of "Stalinism" that the left inherits from Trotskyism. The term generally seems to be used as some vague catch-all for the various manifestations of "actually-existing socialism(s)" during the Cold War.

Lewis certainly has a point that "Stalinist" views such as those of Brar provide rhetorical support to pro-capitalists by presenting a rather ambivalent, defunct, and now quite archaic system as the main alternative to contemporary capitalism. But the rhetoric of "Stalinism" he employs is similarly problematic. The blurring together of every movement, society, and institution identified as socialist is an integral part of so much capitalist propaganda. The logic tends to go something like "Trade-unions/veganism/universal healthcare/feminism = Socialism = USSR = Bread lines = Stalin = Pol Pot etc.".

Not only is it inaccurate and dishonest to equate every established government calling itself socialist to (a stereotyped and simplified image of the person and doings of) Stalin, it's a very short and easy cognitive leap from that to the conclusion that this rhetorical bogeyman of Stalinism is the inevitable result of any attempt to break from capitalism.

[Questionable]

Well I think what Harpal Brar calls communism would be considered revisionism by many supporters of Stalin on this site. Of course, that just shows some of the weakness of the discourse of "Stalinism" that the left inherits from Trotskyism. The term generally seems to be used as some vague catch-all for the various manifestations of "actually-existing socialism(s)" during the Cold War.

Lewis certainly has a point that "Stalinist" views such as those of Brar provide rhetorical support to pro-capitalists by presenting a rather ambivalent, defunct, and now quite archaic system as the main alternative to contemporary capitalism. But the rhetoric of "Stalinism" he employs is similarly problematic. The blurring together of every movement, society, and institution identified as socialist is an integral part of so much capitalist propaganda. The logic tends to go something like "Trade-unions/veganism/universal healthcare/feminism = Socialism = USSR = Bread lines = Stalin = Pol Pot etc.".

Not only is it inaccurate and dishonest to equate every established government calling itself socialist to (a stereotyped and simplified image of the person and doings of) Stalin, it's a very short and easy cognitive leap from that to the conclusion that this rhetorical bogeyman of Stalinism is the inevitable result of any attempt to break from capitalism.

My issue with the article is that it's another one of those where the writer's thought and feelings on the USSR are identical to bourgeois propaganda. I'm with Zizek on the issue; regardless of what we would like the USSR happened and to the rest of the world it is OUR history, we will not be able to shake free of it, people are always going to associate the USSR with socialism and we need to answer the question. Like it or not, we either need to defend that history or criticize it on the Marxist terms that our bourgeois opponents are incapable of grasping.

[Ocean Seal]

Pretty sure a dead Georgian isn't the reason that the left is in the shitter, that kind of sounds like a great man theory. Stop complaining, if you aren't a Stalinist then tell people you aren't a Stalinist, that should fix all of your problems.

[Geiseric]

Uhh well yeah he and his apparatus are the things that killed the militants and purged the main leading revolutionaries from every section of the communist international. They also subordinated the communist parties, in every european country (And the US, see Earl Browder), to a bourgeois popular front, in order to aid the bourgeoisie convincing the international proletariat into imperialist war with Germany and Japan. He supported subordinating the CPC to the KMT in the 1920s, which was the reason the Chinese revolution died. He supported subordinating the KPD to the SPD's efforts in the mid twenties, and in the midst of the rise of fascism in Germany, it was a farce, and the party with the support of fucking millions of people turned ultra left, when millions of other working class people were willing to struggle against the Nazis. I don't even have to talk about what the Stalinists did in the spanish civil war.

[Grenzer]

Well the Stalinists did ruin a quite a lot; not everything, but things could have gone a fair bit better without their ruinous foreign policy based along russian nationalism.

The KPD should never have been formed, or the Third International(in the form and manner that it was, at least) for that matter. Then the handling of the CCP in China in relation to the KMT? Absolutely disgraceful. It's awfully hard to get the impression that they were doing anything other than deliberately sabotaging the international workers' movement, but apparently that's just how the Stalinist ideology is.. but I digress.

It's very commendable that Mr. Lewis was willing to work with a Stalinist; true, Stalinism is a terrible ideology and has done more to ruin to communism than even the most virulent anti-communist could ever hope to do in a lifetime, but it's important to not let sectarianism prevent us from working together in a constructive way while still giving much needed criticism where applicable.

We need to work with the Stalinists and win them over to revolution. This fasionable "Fuck the left" bullshit needs to go and these people need to get their heads out of their asses. This is it. This is what we have to work with. No magical anarcho-wunderbar vanguard is going to materialize out of thin air. If it was, then it would have happened by now.

[jookyle]

http://assets.diylol.com/hfs/eef/204/093/resized/silly-stalin-meme-generator-u-mad-komrade-dfe300.jpg?1322645244.jpg

[Geiseric]

Well the Stalinists did ruin a quite a lot; not everything, but things could have gone a fair bit better without their ruinous foreign policy based along russian nationalism.

The KPD should never have been formed, or the Third International(in the form and manner that it was, at least) for that matter. Then the handling of the CCP in China in relation to the KMT? Absolutely disgraceful. It's awfully hard to get the impression that they were doing anything other than deliberately sabotaging the international workers' movement, but apparently that's just how the Stalinist ideology is.. but I digress.

It's very commendable that Mr. Lewis was willing to work with a Stalinist; true, Stalinism is a terrible ideology and has done more to ruin to communism than even the most virulent anti-communist could ever hope to do in a lifetime, but it's important to not let sectarianism prevent us from working together in a constructive way while still giving much needed criticism where applicable.

We need to work with the Stalinists and win them over to revolution. This fasionable "Fuck the left" bullshit needs to go and these people need to get their heads out of their asses. This is it. This is what we have to work with. No magical anarcho-wunderbar vanguard is going to materialize out of thin air. If it was, then it would have happened by now.

Look at present day greece, and you'll see why that's impossible.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

how can Marxism win millions to its banner if we excuse what happened?

What happened? Did i miss something that we communist have to publicly excuse ourselves for?! Sure 20th century Socialism was not perfect and mistakes were made by the ruling Communist Parties (failing international party integration, lacking internal party democracy etc.), but ask the workers of the socialist societies that collapsed and they will respond in a majority that they want that what sectarianists call "Stalinism", back.

I have a problem calling the whole 20th century socialism "Stalinism" as well.

Yes, there were quite definite tendencies to inner-party hierarchical decision making in 20th century Socialism that we should discuss further, but excuse me what happened? No Communist has to ever excuse themselves to the Bourgeoisie, and if you compare the "terrible-Bolshevik-Stalinist-Red-Terror" of the 20th century real existing socialism, to what the active proponents of the cause of violence, the Class enemy, does; then we should become aware that all this kind of idiotic talk does is split the communist movement and getting a mass support for Marxism begins with uniting.


The terms Socialism, Communism, Marxism etc. have and always will be brandished in the brains of the ignorant with oppression, instead of liberation. This means that education is necessary to get workers to become class conscious. We Communists should never in public give in to the bourgeois propaganda and agree that 20th century socialism was a "failure", it was not. The living standards and social lives of the vast majority of people under Socialism was were very good in comparison to what they had before.

We publicly have to stand to real existing socialism (that does not mean not to criticise certain specific aspects of it), if we like all or very little of its aspects is an irrelevant and even harmful question to discuss so publicly and frequent. When i hear Zizek saying to an anticommunist BBC shit wit reporter that "Yes ,yes, i agreee, Socialism ended in the biggest catastrophe in human history, Stalinism was the most perverse horror ever in existence" blablabla; it totally splits the communist movement and makes us look like idiots. Stop with the sectarianism, we are all communists and should settle our differences scientifically and within a unified communist party.

[Geiseric]

What happened? Did i miss something that we communist have to publicly excuse ourselves for?! Sure 20th century Socialism was not perfect and mistakes were made by the ruling Communist Parties (failing international party integration, lacking internal party democracy etc.), but ask the workers of the socialist societies that collapsed and they will respond in a majority that they want that what sectarianists call "Stalinism", back.

I have a problem calling the whole 20th century socialism "Stalinism" as well.

Yes, there were quite definite tendencies to inner-party hierarchical decision making in 20th century Socialism that we should discuss further, but excuse me what happened? No Communist has to ever excuse themselves to the Bourgeoisie, and if you compare the "terrible-Bolshevik-Stalinist-Red-Terror" of the 20th century real existing socialism, to what the active proponents of the cause of violence, the Class enemy, does; then we should become aware that all this kind of idiotic talk does is split the communist movement and getting a mass support for Marxism begins with uniting.


The terms Socialism, Communism, Marxism etc. have and always will be brandished in the brains of the ignorant with oppression, instead of liberation. This means that education is necessary to get workers to become class conscious. We Communists should never in public give in to the bourgeois propaganda and agree that 20th century socialism was a "failure", it was not. The living standards and social lives of the vast majority of people under Socialism was were very good.

We publicly have to stand to real existing socialism (that does not mean not to criticise certain specific aspects of it), if we like all or very little of its aspects is an irrelevant and even harmful question to discuss so publicly and frequent. When i hear Zizek saying to an anticommunist BBC shit wit reporter that "Yes ,yes, i agreee, Socialism ended in the biggest catastrophe in human history, Stalinism was the most perverse horror ever in existence" blablabla; it totally splits the communist movement and makes us look like idiots. Stop with the sectarianism, we are all communists and should settle our differences scientifically and within a unified communist party.

HAHA wow Stalinists are the ones who started the sectarianism when they excused the murders of hundreds of thousands of socialist people for the good of the soviet bureaucracy. I like how you tried to shift the blame elsewhere, instead of tackling the actual issue.

Also your "real 20th century socialism," wasn't socialism, and it never existed, at all, at any point. By the way the U.S.S.R. and all countries that had planned economies are now market driven, so nothing at all is left of your supposed "success," meaning it wasn't a success at all. If anything, the question the rulers of the USSR had the entire time was "How can we re establish capitalism as soon as we can? I hate running this economy for no profit!" Modern day russia is a shit hole by any standards, but this USSR nostalga creeps with russian nationalism.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

HAHA wow Stalinists are the ones who started the sectarianism when they excused the murders of hundreds of thousands of socialist people for the good of the soviet bureaucracy. I like how you tried to shift the blame elsewhere, instead of tackling the actual issue.

Also your "real 20th century socialism," wasn't socialism, and it never existed, at all, at any point. By the way the U.S.S.R. and all countries that had planned economies are now market driven, so nothing at all is left of your supposed "success," meaning it wasn't a success at all. If anything, the question the rulers of the USSR had the entire time was "How can we re establish capitalism as soon as we can? I hate running this economy for no profit!" Modern day russia is a shit hole by any standards, but this USSR nostalga creeps with russian nationalism.

It's quite obvious that the meaning of Socialism has been defined by its practice. To us this might have been "State Capitalism", which i am not disputing, but the goal of all communists is communism, and Marx shows how to get there. Do you honestly hold on to the dogma that all the existing socialist states were "bureaucratic dictatorships" instead of CP-dictatorships with a very politically strong bureaucracy? How did dead Uncle Joe install the "bureaucracy" posing as a communist regime in Cuba? Vietnam, Angola, Nicaragua, Burkina Faso and all other self proclaimed Marxist-Leninist regimes who really disguised as bureaucratic dictatorships in your opinion? To claim that all these socialist countries' leaders were just bureaucrats posing as communists is utterly absurd.

[Thirsty Crow]

We need to work with the Stalinists and win them over to revolution.
How would that work exactly? Do you really think that it is possible at one and the same time to:

1) conclude that Stalinism is a counter-revolutionary ideology which has severely damaged the workers movement

2) advocate common work with contemporary Stalinist organizations all the while

3) arguing for an effective break up of said organizations through propaganda and persuasion

Is this viable? Do you really think that a handful of "converts" is worth the political and organizational mess such a stunt would entail?



This fasionable "Fuck the left" bullshit needs to go and these people need to get their heads out of their asses. This is it. This is what we have to work with.
The rest of your post is, unfortunately, merely ranting and claiming that what you say is actually so.

[Q]

Pretty much I did. The article even starts out saying that Harpal Brar was doing a good job, but then the writer seems to act surprised when a prestigious club doesn't like communism and blames it all on Stalinism. No real analysis, just "Oh, but the Soviet Union doesn't count" all over again.

Whether you like it or not, this is how society sees stalinists. It is bad enough that genuine communists get equated with you lot and I can only agree with how Ben clearly tried to put himself apart from that.

[Ocean Seal]

Uhh well yeah he and his apparatus are the things that killed the militants and purged the main leading revolutionaries from every section of the communist international. They also subordinated the communist parties, in every european country (And the US, see Earl Browder), to a bourgeois popular front, in order to aid the bourgeoisie convincing the international proletariat into imperialist war with Germany and Japan. He supported subordinating the CPC to the KMT in the 1920s, which was the reason the Chinese revolution died. He supported subordinating the KPD to the SPD's efforts in the mid twenties, and in the midst of the rise of fascism in Germany, it was a farce, and the party with the support of fucking millions of people turned ultra left, when millions of other working class people were willing to struggle against the Nazis. I don't even have to talk about what the Stalinists did in the spanish civil war.
He died 60 years ago. Let go of it, he isn't the reason that your lefty sect is failing. Nor is he is the reason that mine is. Also you have a reason rosy colored picture of what the left looked like before Stalin. Stalin killed the Chinese revolution?????? Are you serious? What Chinese revolution? You mean the one with a mass base of proletarian support? With all of the proletarians in China? Now stop it, its people like you who are the reason we can't move forward. You are so convinced that your narrow minded world view is true, and that you need to evangelize us with it, that you don't even bother to learn anything from the rest of us. The left needs to learn to shut up and listen rather than engaging in shouting matches that are almost always extremely dishonest.

[Questionable]

Whether you like it or not, this is how society sees stalinists. It is bad enough that genuine communists get equated with you lot and I can only agree with how Ben clearly tried to put himself apart from that.

I just think it's silly for the author to get all uptight about Stalinism when people at this prestigious club prefer the Adam Smith Institution. The issue is on your ballpark, too. People are going to always equate socialism with the bourgeois image of "Stalinism," so is the answer really to give in and say "You guys are right, we totally sucked, but listen! I hate Stalin!"

It's like those TV show episodes where the kid in high school allows the popular kids to insult him so he can hang out with them, but then they never really had any intention of being his friend anyway, and everyone learns a valuable lesson.

[Geiseric]

He died 60 years ago. Let go of it, he isn't the reason that your lefty sect is failing. Nor is he is the reason that mine is. Also you have a reason rosy colored picture of what the left looked like before Stalin. Stalin killed the Chinese revolution?????? Are you serious? What Chinese revolution? You mean the one with a mass base of proletarian support? With all of the proletarians in China? Now stop it, its people like you who are the reason we can't move forward. You are so convinced that your narrow minded world view is true, and that you need to evangelize us with it, that you don't even bother to learn anything from the rest of us. The left needs to learn to shut up and listen rather than engaging in shouting matches that are almost always extremely dishonest.


Lol well my "sect," is doing fine by advocating for politics that are the polar opposite of the Stalinist nonsense that dominated the 30's. The only thing to learn from Stalinism is "What NOT to do." And there was indeed a chinese revolution brewing in the 20's, maybe you should read about it, the leader was a guy named Chen Duxiu, who reluctantly followed Comintern's orders, and was imprisoned because the orders failed, and 40,000 of the most dedicated communists were massacred in Shanghai. Or Canton, I can't remember, but it happened. All because Comintern, which Stalin and Bukharin were in charge of, told them to ally with the Kuomindang.

[l'Enfermé]

Meh. It's quite clear that the Stalinist counter-revolution in the 1920s was definitely the worst thing that has ever happened to the working class movement, there's no way of of denying that. It completely subjugated the working class movement throughout the entire world through the Comintern and forced it pursue only the national interests of the Soviet ruling class. The legacy of Stalinism, which still endures, is a disgusting degeneration of Marxism into an ideology incapable of overcoming the severest forms of revisionism and sectarianism and the lowering of the intellectual level of Marxism to that lower of fascism(Giovanni Gentile's writings are genius compared to the writings of the stupid fucking idiots that have passed of as Marxists for the past century). And it's not even the Stalinists only, look at the Trots. They still adhere to Stalinist revisionism(for example, Trots believe there is such a thing as "Leninism").

[rednordman]

Meh. It's quite clear that the Stalinist counter-revolution in the 1920s was definitely the worst thing that has ever happened to the working class movement, there's no way of of denying that. It completely subjugated the working class movement throughout the entire world through the Comintern and forced it pursue only the national interests of the Soviet ruling class. The legacy of Stalinism, which still endures, is a disgusting degeneration of Marxism into an ideology incapable of overcoming the severest forms of revisionism and sectarianism and the lowering of the intellectual level of Marxism to that lower of fascism(Giovanni Gentile's writings are genius compared to the writings of the stupid fucking idiots that have passed of as Marxists for the past century). And it's not even the Stalinists only, look at the Trots. They still adhere to Stalinist revisionism(for example, Trots believe there is such a thing as "Leninism").Absolute pish. If it wasn't for Leninist ideas, than ALL of these working class movements of the time would have been easily destroyed by authoritarian rightwing governments and militia. Also that gentile comparison you made is daft and the sort of thing a die hard libertarian would say.

[Geiseric]

Well Trotskyism only exists because the old elements that adhered to the same politics as before the degeneration happened were centered around Trotsky as the main guy who wrote the literature. I'd identify my politics more with James P. Cannon than Trotsky though, but the spectrum on the site works this way.

However "Leninism" is just basic marxism, as it always was against imperialism, opposing to bourgeois social democracy like Kautsky turned the SPD into when it supported the World War. Vanguardism has always been part of Marxism as well, so it really isn't a Leninist thing, but Leninism is just revolutionary marxism as opposed to reformist pseudo marxism.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Whether you like it or not, this is how society sees stalinists. It is bad enough that genuine communists get equated with you lot and I can only agree with how Ben clearly tried to put himself apart from that.


The words "Communism" "Marxism""Socialism" have all been made to look like oppressive words to society by the capitalist propaganda. So, if one says that one is not a Stalinist, the person will most likely think 'Well, what about the other mass murderering dictators Mao, Honecker, Castro?'. It only makes us look like sectarian fools if we agree with the capitalist propaganda on some of its lies, but not all of it. My experience is that the best thing to do is to play onto the image that the person has of communists but then sear that image through mentioning whatever that person sympathizes with. Anyway, sectarianism is the worst thing for the left, a big reason imo why we communists do not relevantly exist, because we are not consequently for communism but for making us look not-so-evil to the bourgeois public.

[l'Enfermé]

Oh no!, really? then it's quite a wonderful thing that Lenin came and invented "Leninism" and created the working class movement! What, the working class movement predates "Leninism" by almost a century? How is that possible!? It can't possibly have existed for long, because the "authoritarian" right-wing governments would have easily destroyed it, right?

*sigh*

1 - "Leninism" is not a real thing, but a revisionist invention of the Stalinists in the 1920s which was also adopted by Trotsky in the 1930s.
2 - I don't give a fuck about what a die-hard libertarian would say. Libertarians are not very fond of feudalism either, does that mean that Marxists should praise feudalism then, just to contradict them? Should we no longer be horrified by the Holocaust because libertarians curse it? Should we campaign for monopolism because libertarians worship the free market?

Bugger off with that bullshit. If revolutionary politics consists solely of contradicting whatever bourgeoisie apologists say for you, you're less than worthless.

The Soviet Union was a grotesque monstrosity that has so badly wrecked and derailed the proletariat's struggle for emancipation that it still hasn't recovered 2 fucking decades after the Soviet Union finally self-destructed. By comparison, the movement began a steady recovery and a march towards what seemed inevitably victory years after Paris Commune was put down and tens of thousands of Communards were butchered like lambs. By comparison, 4-5 years after the catastrophic August Betrayal of the Second International in 1914, the victory of the socialist revolution within a few years was foreseen by all but the most pessimistic comrades.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The Soviet Union was a grotesque monstrosity that has so badly wrecked and derailed the proletariat's struggle for emancipation that it still hasn't recovered 2 fucking decades after the Soviet Union finally self-destructed.

Mind going into detail on this comrade?

[Questionable]

Oh no!, really? then it's quite a wonderful thing that Lenin came and invented "Leninism" and created the working class movement! What, the working class movement predates "Leninism" by almost a century? How is that possible!? It can't possibly have existed for long, because the "authoritarian" right-wing governments would have easily destroyed it, right?

you're dodging the issue. You know what he meant when he said that Leninism mobilized the working class. He didn't say it invented the working class.


1 - "Leninism" is not a real thing, but a revisionist invention of the Stalinists in the 1920s which was also adopted by Trotsky in the 1930s.

Oh look guys, it's not a real thing, it was all in our dreams! It doesn't matter who coined the term, you know what people mean when they say "Leninism," so stop playing dumb and arguing semantics when people bring it up.


2 - I don't give a fuck about what a die-hard libertarian would say. Libertarians are not very fond of feudalism either, does that mean that Marxists should praise feudalism then, just to contradict them? Should we no longer be horrified by the Holocaust because libertarians curse it? Should we campaign for monopolism because libertarians worship the free market?

Bugger off with that bullshit. If revolutionary politics consists solely of contradicting whatever bourgeoisie apologists say for you, you're less than worthless.

We don't contradict what you're saying because the bourgeoisie are saying it. We contradict it because it is erroneous and saturated in untrue bourgeois propaganda about evil Stalin mass murdering millions for his own pleasure. There are plenty of good Anti-Stalinists on this site whom I respect. You are not one of them.


The Soviet Union was a grotesque monstrosity that has so badly wrecked and derailed the proletariat's struggle for emancipation that it still hasn't recovered 2 fucking decades after the Soviet Union finally self-destructed. By comparison, the movement began a steady recovery and a march towards what seemed inevitably victory years after Paris Commune was put down and tens of thousands of Communards were butchered like lambs. By comparison, 4-5 years after the catastrophic August Betrayal of the Second International in 1914, the victory of the socialist revolution within a few years was foreseen by all but the most pessimistic comrades.

Your logic is so bad here I'm not sure what to say. Are you really trying to say that because the Left hasn't been mobilizing lately, that it's all because of the Soviet Union? Wow, when I posted that mock summary of the article people got mad at me for saying criticizing Stalin = blaming everything on Stalin, but when I read stuff like this what am I to think?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Things got worse when Harpal Brar summed up for the proposing team. He was brimming with the most dewy-eyed Stalinist apologia, which only served to strengthen the false dichotomy created by Brindle and others between ‘capitalism’ and ‘communism’. He described the Soviet Union as “the greatest society we have ever seen” - even praising Ceaușescu’s Romania to the skies.

I see why the author holds his hands over his hears at the typical awkward Stalinist praise of such regimes of Romania, USSR etc. But, you have to understand that the reason why people like Harpal Brar make such fools out of themselves, is because for the majority of people in the 20th century socialist societies, life was good.

I don't understand why most comrades have absolutely no differentiated strategy to 20th century Socialism. Certainly, i know from my own family that societies we do not find ideal were created (my uncle was forced to take doping as a teenager so he could outrun the runners from capitalist countries etc.), but for the majority of people life continued, and that free from the social and material ills of captialist society. In the US alone, every fourth child is "Food Insecure" eats irregular meals and experiences regular hunger. Those social ills were combated in the 20th century Socialism in the interests of the working class.

Of course, the reason why the author cringes at the presentation, is because 1) he most likely does not have a differentiated view of the 20th century Socialism himself as it does not fit to his ideal of Socialism, and 2) because the "Stalinists" counteract this without a balanced approach as well.

My recommendation is we take a more passive view of the 20th century (third world) revolutionary countries and Socialism. We have to ask Why did there exist a bureaucracy in the first place, were all the communists before us so unaware of the threat of the bureaucracy? Of course not, a lot was always written by communists of this threat. There is a reason for a bureaucratic system instead of a real communist system emerging, and we should maybe start on seriously discussing how to overcome the bureaucratic tendencies of revolution which have enshrouded each revolutionary country.

In the end though, there is no objective reason not to defend the 20th century socialism against the bourgeoisie, it was objectively better than capitalism/imperialism, although we most likely have and should have our own subjective critique of it (i.e., a lower stage of communism was never reached, not democratic enough/too bureaucratic, whatever).

[Ocean Seal]

Lol well my "sect," is doing fine by advocating for politics that are the polar opposite of the Stalinist nonsense that dominated the 30's.
This is actually pretty funny considering the only differences between Stalinists and Trots lie in SIOC, which of course doesn't actually make any sense to advocate for when we have SIZC. Also when you say "advocating for politics that are the polar opposite of the Stalinist nonsense that dominated the 30's." All it really sounds like is that you have a paper which criticizes some obscure old Stalinist policies or some group like the KKE, rather than you creating your own politics.




The only thing to learn from Stalinism is "What NOT to do."
And yet you ironically advocate quite a few of the same things.

[ind_com]

This is actually pretty funny considering the only differences between Stalinists and Trots lie in SIOC, which of course doesn't actually make any sense to advocate for when we have SIZC.

Exactly! And it is to be noted that most Trots forget Trotsky's theoretical line where it advocated revolution in the semi-feudal countries. It's as if they exist only to point out where Stalin went wrong.

[l'Enfermé]

you're dodging the issue. You know what he meant when he said that Leninism mobilized the working class. He didn't say it invented the working class.
Not really maybe you should re-read his post.




Oh look guys, it's not a real thing, it was all in our dreams! It doesn't matter who coined the term, you know what people mean when they say "Leninism," so stop playing dumb and arguing semantics when people bring it up.
There's no such thing as Leninism. Lenin simply upheld and continued the pre-war Marxist tradition. Lenin made no major theoretical or philosophical contributions to the Marxist tradition for there to exist another "ism" with Lenin's name preceding it. Lenin was a Marxist, not a Leninist. The end. What you call "Leninism" is the revisionism of Stalin, Zinoviev, Bukharin and co. invented in the 1920s and the 1930s. It makes no sense whatsoever to call it "Leninism" - if Marxism is named after Marx, Hegelianism after Hegel, if the Freudians name themselves after Freud, well, then "Leninism" should be named after it's main creator also, Stalin...so, Stalinism.



We don't contradict what you're saying because the bourgeoisie are saying it. We contradict it because it is erroneous and saturated in untrue bourgeois propaganda about evil Stalin mass murdering millions for his own pleasure. There are plenty of good Anti-Stalinists on this site whom I respect. You are not one of them.

The Soviet ruling class "mass-murdered" millions in order to safeguard and reinforce it's position as the ruling class of the Soviet Union, not out of pleasure.


Your logic is so bad here I'm not sure what to say. Are you really trying to say that because the Left hasn't been mobilizing lately, that it's all because of the Soviet Union? Wow, when I posted that mock summary of the article people got mad at me for saying criticizing Stalin = blaming everything on Stalin, but when I read stuff like this what am I to think?
There's no "left" to "mobilize". It's dead. There are a few small groups here and there but they don't make for any sort of genuine movement. The Stalinist counter-revolution completely discredited the Marxist tradition and so greatly lowered it's intellectual level that most sound-minded potential comrades shudder in horror if you mention Marxism.

[l'Enfermé]

Mind going into detail on this comrade?
What do you mean? Today's global worker's movement is weaker right now than the German worker's movement was during the anti-socialist laws. That in itself is quite a revealing fact.

[rednordman]

Oh no!, really? then it's quite a wonderful thing that Lenin came and invented "Leninism" and created the working class movement! What, the working class movement predates "Leninism" by almost a century? How is that possible!? It can't possibly have existed for long, because the "authoritarian" right-wing governments would have easily destroyed it, right?

*sigh*

1 - "Leninism" is not a real thing, but a revisionist invention of the Stalinists in the 1920s which was also adopted by Trotsky in the 1930s.
2 - I don't give a fuck about what a die-hard libertarian would say. Libertarians are not very fond of feudalism either, does that mean that Marxists should praise feudalism then, just to contradict them? Should we no longer be horrified by the Holocaust because libertarians curse it? Should we campaign for monopolism because libertarians worship the free market?

Bugger off with that bullshit. If revolutionary politics consists solely of contradicting whatever bourgeoisie apologists say for you, you're less than worthless.

The Soviet Union was a grotesque monstrosity that has so badly wrecked and derailed the proletariat's struggle for emancipation that it still hasn't recovered 2 fucking decades after the Soviet Union finally self-destructed. By comparison, the movement began a steady recovery and a march towards what seemed inevitably victory years after Paris Commune was put down and tens of thousands of Communards were butchered like lambs. By comparison, 4-5 years after the catastrophic August Betrayal of the Second International in 1914, the victory of the socialist revolution within a few years was foreseen by all but the most pessimistic comrades.:lol::laugh::thumbup1: that's just a plain funny response to my easy to understand few sentences. People like you tarnish my view of the whole of trotskyism and left-communism and not surprisingly it isn't just me that your putting off. Best thing about it is that i'm not even much of a stalin apologist either. But then again neither are most of us who you piginhole into one colossal category.

[rednordman]

Not really maybe you should re-read his postwhat the hells that supposed to mean?:rolleyes:

[l'Enfermé]

I am neither a Trotskyist nor a Left-Communist, I'm a Marxist.

[Questionable]

Not really maybe you should re-read his post.


Absolute pish. If it wasn't for Leninist ideas, than ALL of these working class movements of the time would have been easily destroyed by authoritarian rightwing governments and militia. Also that gentile comparison you made is daft and the sort of thing a die hard libertarian would say.Is there something I'm missing here? I still don't see where Lenin created the working class.



There's no such thing as Leninism. Lenin simply upheld and continued the pre-war Marxist tradition. Lenin made no major theoretical or philosophical contributions to the Marxist tradition for there to exist another "ism" with Lenin's name preceding it. Lenin was a Marxist, not a Leninist. The end. What you call "Leninism" is the revisionism of Stalin, Zinoviev, Bukharin and co. invented in the 1920s and the 1930s. It makes no sense whatsoever to call it "Leninism" - if Marxism is named after Marx, Hegelianism after Hegel, if the Freudians name themselves after Freud, well, then "Leninism" should be named after it's main creator also, Stalin...so, Stalinism.I don't really care who made the name. You know what people are talking about when they say "Leninism," and you add nothing to the discussion when you go on these huge semantics rants.

Leninism takes its cue from the political thought of Lenin, the vanguard party, the dictatorship of the proletariat. It's very true that all those things had their roots in pre-Lenin Marxists but Lenin put great effort into analyzing them and realizing them. I just don't see what the big deal is with giving his style of political thought a name. What is the point in having everyone saying "I'm a Marxist who likes Lenin" when the meaning of "Leninist" is just as easily understood and carries the same effect?


The Soviet ruling class "mass-murdered" millions in order to safeguard and reinforce it's position as the ruling class of the Soviet Union, not out of pleasure. There's no "left" to "mobilize". It's dead. There are a few small groups here and there but they don't make for any sort of genuine movement. The Stalinist counter-revolution completely discredited the Marxist tradition and so greatly lowered it's intellectual level that most sound-minded potential comrades shudder in horror if you mention Marxism.So yes, you believe that the Soviet Union is the sole force to blame. To you overcoming the horrors and critiques of capitalism are secondary, and trashing "Stalinists" is primary. You've proven my point. Thank you. EDIT: Oh my god, please respond to Paul Cockshott's post when you respond to mine. What he said 1000x times.


What do you mean? Today's global worker's movement is weaker right now than the German worker's movement was during the anti-socialist laws. That in itself is quite a revealing fact.And it has nothing to do with the strengthening of capitalism, it can all be blamed on a dead man with a mustache.

[Paul Cockshott]

There's no "left" to "mobilize". It's dead. There are a few small groups here and there but they don't make for any sort of genuine movement. The Stalinist counter-revolution completely discredited the Marxist tradition and so greatly lowered it's intellectual level that most sound-minded potential comrades shudder in horror if you mention Marxism.

And when did this happen?
The left internationally was at the peak of its influence from the 1940s to the 1970s, so at the time Stalinism was not unpopular. What has discredited it in the West is the unremitting anti communist propaganda first during the cold war and then even intensified since 1990.
At the time the USSR was explicitly Stalinist communist parties around the world had far far more support than the entire left has now.

[Questionable]

And when did this happen?
The left internationally was at the peak of its influence from the 1940s to the 1970s, so at the time Stalinism was not unpopular. What has discredited it in the West is the unremitting anti communist propaganda first during the cold war and then even intensified since 1990.
At the time the USSR was explicitly Stalinist communist parties around the world had far far more support than the entire left has now.

It's all a part of the doublethink that goes with Anti-Stalinism. If the Soviet Union doesn't give sufficient aid to workers' movements, it's turning its back on the world revolution. If it does, it was actually a bureaucratic puppet master trying to control all the genuine revolutions with its money and weapons.

[l'Enfermé]

And when did this happen?
The left internationally was at the peak of its influence from the 1940s to the 1970s, so at the time Stalinism was not unpopular. What has discredited it in the West is the unremitting anti communist propaganda first during the cold war and then even intensified since 1990.
At the time the USSR was explicitly Stalinist communist parties around the world had far far more support than the entire left has now.
I don't consider any of those genuine working class movements. In the East, they were peasant-based and thus not socialist and in the West they were bureaucratic-centralist agents of the Soviet Union's ruling class, like Hezbollah in Lebanon is an agent of the Iranian clerical class and the Iranian military elite.

[l'Enfermé]

Is there something I'm missing here? I still don't see where Lenin created the working class.
I didn't say that he said that Lenin created the working class [movement].


I don't really care who made the name. You know what people are talking about when they say "Leninism," and you add nothing to the discussion when you go on these huge semantics rants.Semantics, eh? Is it semantics when Stalinists brand their revisionist idiocy "Leninism" and thus tarnish Lenin's legacy and discredit his politics, and by extension, Marxism in general? Maybe it would be if Lenin was some sort of footnote in 20th century history, but as it happens, Lenin was the figurehead of world's first socialist revolution.


Leninism takes its cue from the political thought of Lenin, the vanguard party, the dictatorship of the proletariat. It's very true that all those things had their roots in pre-Lenin Marxists but Lenin put great effort into analyzing them and realizing them. I just don't see what the big deal is with giving his style of political thought a name. What is the point in having everyone saying "I'm a Marxist who likes Lenin" when the meaning of "Leninist" is just as easily understood and carries the same effect?It doesn't take cue from the political thought of Lenin, only a fictional version of it, adapted to suit the needs of the USSR emerging ruling class. As for Lenin's conception of the vanguard party and the DoTP, it has little to do with the Marxist-Leninist dogma.



So yes, you believe that the Soviet Union is the sole force to blame. To you overcoming the horrors and critiques of capitalism are secondary, and trashing "Stalinists" is primary. You've proven my point. Thank you. EDIT: Oh my god, please respond to Paul Cockshott's post when you respond to mine. What he said 1000x times.The Soviet Union is the sole force to blame for what? The dissolution of the Marxist tradition? If so, then yes.


And it has nothing to do with the strengthening of capitalism, it can all be blamed on a dead man with a mustache.And pray tell how was capitalism reinforced so? Not because of the bankruptcy of the Stalinist project in Russia and it's semi-colonies and thus, by extension, of the entire scientific opposition to bourgeois society(i.e "Marxism", "Communism", etc, etc)? No? As for dead men with mustaches, unlike Marxist-Leninists, I don't subscribe to a great man theory, so no, I don't blame him, I blame the Soviet bureaucracy and ruling class, of which he was merely the most powerful and prominent member.

[Questionable]

I didn't say that he said that Lenin created the working class [movement].


Oh no!, really? then it's quite a wonderful thing that Lenin came and invented "Leninism" and created the working class movement! What, the working class movement predates "Leninism" by almost a century? How is that possible!? It can't possibly have existed for long, because the "authoritarian" right-wing governments would have easily destroyed it, right?I'll say no more.


Semantics, eh? Is it semantics when Stalinists brand their revisionist idiocy "Leninism" and thus tarnish Lenin's legacy and discredit his politics, and by extension, Marxism in general? Maybe it would be if Lenin was some sort of footnote in 20th century history, but as it happens, Lenin was the figurehead of world's first socialist revolution.You're confusing to discuss these things with. When someone brought up Leninism, you went on a rant about how Soviet bureaucrats ruin everything and Leninism doesn't exist. When I called you out for avoiding the subject and ranting about the origin of the term "Leninism" when it didn't really matter, you've just started talking about revisionism and tarnishing Lenin. Stick to one topic, please.


It doesn't take cue from the political thought of Lenin, only a fictional version of it, adapted to suit the needs of the USSR emerging ruling class. As for Lenin's conception of the vanguard party and the DoTP, it has little to do with the Marxist-Leninist dogma.Yes it does.


The Soviet Union is the sole force to blame for what? The dissolution of the Marxist tradition? If so, then yes.Well I would argue with you but every time someone brings up a success made by the Soviet Union you just handwave it away as "not real workers." It's like arguing against a Christian.


And pray tell how was capitalism reinforced so? Not because of the bankruptcy of the Stalinist project in Russia and it's semi-colonies and thus, by extension, of the entire scientific opposition to bourgeois society(i.e "Marxism", "Communism", etc, etc)? No?Do you really want me to catalogue the entire history of how capitalism-imperialism shit all over communism? I won't anyway, because you're not going to listen to me. To you, all bourgeois propaganda heaped upon the USSR is well-deserved, and all the actions of imperialism is the lesser evil of history. You've even admitted you prefer capitalism to the USSR. It doesn't get much more reactionary than you.


As for dead men with mustaches, unlike Marxist-Leninists, I don't subscribe to a great man theory, so no, I don't blame him, I blame the Soviet bureaucracy and ruling class, of which he was merely the most powerful and prominent member.Any discussion with you is a pointless insult-fest where you just attribute things to me that I don't believe it. You ignore all contrary evidence in a flurry of verbal abuse. Speaking with your kind is a waste of time. You also resort to semantics once again. You know very well that when people say "Stalin," they're referring to the USSR while Stalin was in charge. It's a symbolic phrase. Even ultra-leftists do this.

I don't understand why Marxist-Leninists get the reputation for being dogmatic when their critics are people like you. I've met far more individual Marxist-Leninists and ML organizations who were scientific, critical, and had a more nuanced view of the Soviet Union, looking at its successes and failures, than you. All you do is smash your face into the keyboard typing out the same shit about Soviet bureaucrats and the ruling class while demonizing MLs as the primary enemy of the Modern Left.. It's like the writings of an angry child. Your strengths lie in emotion, not logic.

[Art Vandelay]

You're confusing to discuss these things with. When someone brought up Leninism, you went on a rant about how Soviet bureaucrats ruin everything and Leninism doesn't exist.

Leninism doesn't exist, because Lenin was an orthodox Marxist. What is known as Leninism was largely codified in the 20's, after Lenin's death.


Well I would argue with you but every time someone brings up a success made by the Soviet Union you just handwave it away as "not real workers." It's like arguing against a Christian.

Your missing the point, no one is denying the fact that the USSR made gains for its population, it did undergo the fastest industrialization in world history, however "success" on the part of the USSR, doesn't make it socialist.


To you, all bourgeois propaganda heaped upon the USSR is well-deserved, and all the actions of imperialism is the lesser evil of history.

:rolleyes: You're better than this; don't paint Borz with sweeping generalizations.


You've even admitted you prefer capitalism to the USSR. It doesn't get much more reactionary than you.

The USSR was a non-mode of production; the sooner it was re-integrated into the global capitalist system, the sooner the Comintern's negative coercion of the proletarian movement ended, the sooner the Marxist movement would be able to get it's shit together (which it still hasn't). The USSR, ironically, was one of the biggest impediment's to the revolutionary movement in the 20th century.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Well Stalinism =/= "the soviet union." In fact he executed many people who were instrumental in creating it... As in if those people were killed in 1917, who he killed when he was in charge, there would of been no soviet union.
scores of people who were ideologically committed to the revolution and to building the soviet union were killed in the civil war. why? because they were out fighting.

but of course, "ifs" and "buts" are how this whole goddamn debate goes...

[Invader Zim]

And when did this happen?
The left internationally was at the peak of its influence from the 1940s to the 1970s, so at the time Stalinism was not unpopular. What has discredited it in the West is the unremitting anti communist propaganda first during the cold war and then even intensified since 1990.
At the time the USSR was explicitly Stalinist communist parties around the world had far far more support than the entire left has now.

You really think that? I would suggest the left was seriously, if not mortally, wounded in 1956 with the Soviet Union's response to the Hungarian Uprising and acknowledgement of the criminality of the Stalinist regime, and has continued to hemorrhage its life blood ever since. Certainly that has been the case in Britain when the power of the left waned throughout the 60s and 70s, despite occasional flashes of new life, until its final mauling at the hands of the Thatcher government in the 80s.


I'll say no more.

Are you being serious or is that some cunning sarcasm that has gone over my head? I only ask because l'Enfermé is not arguing that Lenin invented the the working class movement, in fact, they appear to me to be arguing the precise reverse.


it did undergo the fastest industrialization in world history

But at what cost?

[Art Vandelay]

But at what cost?

I'm an orthodox Marxist, in the vein of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky.....you don't have to lecture me on the pitfalls of the industrialization of the USSR.

[Paul Cockshott]

I don't consider any of those genuine working class movements. In the East, they were peasant-based and thus not socialist and in the West they were bureaucratic-centralist agents of the Soviet Union's ruling class, like Hezbollah in Lebanon is an agent of the Iranian clerical class and the Iranian military elite.

the pci and pcf were mass sociall democratic workers parties in the post war period stronger than their second international predecessors why do the second international ones count as real workers parties?

[Paul Cockshott]

The USSR was a non-mode of production; the sooner it was re-integrated into the global capitalist system, the sooner the Comintern's negative coercion of the proletarian movement ended, the sooner the Marxist movement would be able to get it's shit together (which it still hasn't). The USSR, ironically, was one of the biggest impediment's to the revolutionary movement in the 20th century.

All societies have modes of production. You are just repeating Ticktins idiocy here.

[Art Vandelay]

All societies have modes of production.

EHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (the sound of a buzzer on a talk show when you get the wrong answer) The USSR was the most formative and radical break with traditional property relations in the history of man kind; hence, no current classifications of societies (at that time), could accurately describe the USSR (once it degenerated).

Edit: Perhaps you are right, but it was a mode of production, not seen before in human history, and of which we do not have much of an accurate depiction.

[Paul Cockshott]

You really think that? I would suggest the left was seriously, if not mortally, wounded in 1956 with the Soviet Union's response to the Hungarian Uprising and acknowledgement of the criminality of the Stalinist regime, and has continued to hemorrhage its life blood ever since. Certainly that has been the case in Britain when the power of the left waned throughout the 60s and 70s, despite occasional flashes of new life, until its final mauling at the hands of the Thatcher government in the 80s.
So you concede that the left was never stronger than in Stalin's life time, but claim its decline started in 1956 when Krushchev denounced Stalin - can you produce figures for the long term membership of the PCItaly, PC Indian and PCF that back your claims?
The weakening of the working class movement in the UK since the 1970s might be more intelligently sought in changes in the UK class structure than in Soviet policies in the 1930s.

[l'Enfermé]

^Comrade Cockshott, the PCF that entered into a coalition with Gaullists? I spit on those traitors. As for the PCI, it was Comintern/Cominform puppet, representing the Soviet ruling class, not the proletariat of Italy. Well until they turned to Euro-Communism and Social-Democracy.

[Invader Zim]

So you concede that the left was never stronger than in Stalin's life time, but claim its decline started in 1956 when Krushchev denounced Stalin - can you produce figures for the long term membership of the PCItaly, PC Indian and PCF that back your claims?
The weakening of the working class movement in the UK since the 1970s might be more intelligently sought in changes in the UK class structure than in Soviet policies in the 1930s.

Not off the top of my head, and nor am I going to bother looking up and party membership statistics - life is too short. And the demise of Marxism relative to the rise of the New Left in the wake of 1956 is, or at least should on this board, be common knowledge without need of explanation. It's like asking for evidence that the Second World War in Europe broke out in 1939. Indeed this is something that can be confirmed by a cursory examination of a relevant wikipedia article.


So you concede that the left was never stronger than in Stalin's life time

I suppose that depends on what you mean by the 'left'. The left had been destroyed in Spain, primarily by the anti-revolutionary 'communists'. Meanwhile under Stalinism the labour movement in Britain, which pinnacled with the Red Clydeside Movement during WW1 and 1919 when it arguably presented the only 'revolutionary opportunity' the british left has seen in this country. And it clearly never regained that strength under the entire lifespan of Stalinist Regime in the Soviet Union. But yeah, the legacy and revelations regarding the Stalinist regime in the 1950s put the British left, at least, into terminal decline.



The weakening of the working class movement in the UK since the 1970s might be more intelligently sought in changes in the UK class structure than in Soviet policies in the 1930s.

What, so you think that revelations regarding the Soviet Union did not have a profound effect on the British left? It is like suggesting that the viability of fascism was not dealt an almost terminal blow by the revelation of the Holocaust. The fact is that if you mention 'communism' to people, the first image conjured up in their head is almost invariably James Bond villains and slave labour camps. Both a product and legacy of Uncle Joe's regime.


The weakening of the working class movement in the UK since the 1970s might be more intelligently sought in changes in the UK class structure than in Soviet policies in the 1930s.

Which is somewhat different to your earlier explanation:

'What has discredited it in the West is the unremitting anti communist propaganda first during the cold war and then even intensified since 1990.'

And the fact is that the Stalinist regime handed the anti-communist propagandists the most powerful weapon in the propaganda arsenal - the truth. The fact is that the propagandists didn't have to invent the most serious accusations they levelled against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a dictatorship; it did commit brutal acts of mass murder with victims numbering in the 7 figures (albeit the propagandists did add another order of magnitude to that); it did operate a police state; and huge numbers of people did pass through slave labour camps. All of them, the most damning charges that were levelled against the Soviet Union, were true. And that is why the propaganda was, and remains, so effective. The fact is that all we can do to challenge this propaganda is point out that contrary to claims by Cold Warrior historians, the Stalinist regime actually only killed millions, as oppose to tens of millions. Hardly a selling point.

[Paul Cockshott]

^Comrade Cockshott, the PCF that entered into a coalition with Gaullists? I spit on those traitors. As for the PCI, it was Comintern/Cominform puppet, representing the Soviet ruling class, not the proletariat of Italy. Well until they turned to Euro-Communism and Social-Democracy.

Of course it is well known that the PCF and PCI became essentially social demcrats, that is what I said at the begining. The point is that you are claiming that the old pre 1914 social democrats were the bee's knees but the post world war 2 ones were not even a workers movement.

Why was the PCF terrible but Millerand ok?

Communism was most always a movement of working people and intellectuals in relatively backward countries not developed capitalist ones, so you should not have expected a strong communist as opposed to social democrat movement in France or Britain. But you did get militant communist movements post WWII in the Balkans and Asia.

[Paul Cockshott]

Not off the top of my head, and nor am I going to bother looking up and party membership statistics - life is too short. And the demise of Marxism relative to the rise of the New Left in the wake of 1956 is, or at least should on this board, be common knowledge without need of explanation. It's like asking for evidence that the Second World War in Europe broke out in 1939. Indeed this is something that can be confirmed by a cursory examination of a relevant wikipedia article.
Well my memory of the 60s and 70s was that the PCF and PCI were polling perhaps 30% support in elections, I dont recall that level of mass support for any new left parties, nor do I think the pre 1914 socialist party in Italy got that level of support. So where is the evidence for this fall off in support for socialism as a result of the USSR.

If you are claiming this, you have to show that the pre 1914 movement had more support than the left had say in the 40s and 50s. (We can't look at the 20s and 30s in Italy because that prominent Italian second international politician, old what's his name was in power then.)