I hereby contest Marxism's status as a political paradigm. It is a religion.

[Ignoratio_The_Great]

Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion? It is certainly not a science, not even a social science. Despite the numerous failures and millions of famine deaths, followers of Marxism still take the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha on the basis of faith, believing that every time Marxism is implemented "this time it will be different" and the "capitalist-imperialists" will fall.

Marxism has rituals, it prescribes how to live one's daily life, it is an unfalsifiable explanation about anything in the natural world, it is mystical metaphysics.

Orthodox Marxism is decisively religious. It has the characteristics of a dogmatic utopian belief-system, and for some is a direct extension of Judeo-Christian saviourism, totalism and reliance on expert opinion.

As human beings dogma almost inevitably plays a part in how we view the world, but not all philosophical positions are as centred on the close-minded ideas many Marxists display. Most Marxists accept hierarchy, most recognise the need for a vanguard, a Party or a number of enlightened revolutionaries to lead the rest of us to a fair and equal society. Most see history as developing in a series of stages and accept an almost unquestionable analysis of the world. Because of it's political acceptance of leaders and led, dogma is not only inevitable, it is essential for them.

When Marxists come to power, Marxism becomes a state religion. Quite a deadly religion at that, as history has shown us with the USSR, Mao's China, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Castro Brothers Cuba, etc.


From the Marxist Holy Chronicles of Neue Rheinische Zeitung and the 18th Brumaire:

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable."

Marx believed using violence is congenital to the affirmation of the universalism of rights, which in order to assert itself must deny the inequalities on which it is grounded, before inevitably re-proposing them through dialectical materialism.


Marx believed that "human prehistory" is deterministic and that rather than men making history, it is in fact the mystical "forces of production" that make history for us. There is a reason why any and all reputable philosophers and economists say that Marx got the wrong species when spouting his pseudoscience. It describes ants, not humans. Not only is historical materialism completely debunk, followers of Marxism believe it can explain or explain away any fact brought before it, making it unfalsifiable.


From the Holy Scriptures of Engels, "Anti-Duhring"

"Let us take a grain of barley. Millions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which for it are normal, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture a specific change takes place, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilized and finally once more produces grains of barley, and, as soon as these have ripened, the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten, twenty or thirty fold."


Marxism is a religious belief system like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism; which do not base their beliefs on verifiable facts and hypotheses.

What data would disprove Marxism in your eyes? If nothing would, then followers of Marxism view it as a religion and no amount of counter-evidence based on empirical observation of real world data will sway their belief in Marxism.



We all began as something else. It was hard for me to accept, too, when I first heard the words debunking Marxism. I too used to be a follower of Marxism. But I changed. I let the power of science take away my pain and angst.

Just as you will change when you realize that the threshold to seizing your own destiny will be crossed only by those who have embraced the power of the individual, rather than letting the mystical "forces of production" curtail your success in the world.

As a former disciple of Marx, I hereby denounce disciples of Marxism and their interpretations of Marxist scripture. I am no longer chained to the mystical "forces of production" and am in control of my own life. The less people that channel their power into the "force," the less power that this site, the last source of Marxism, has to re-establish a dictatorship over the people.

We all began as something else. What will you be?

[Red Banana]

Marxist Nazis? Seriously?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Now this member does have a distinct odour of "under the bridge" about them. Unless of course, "Ignoratio_The_Great" unselfconsciously chose his username, which is bloody hilarious considering the nonsense he spouts about Marxism being a religion.

Look troll (or idiot, but most likely troll), anyone who calls themselves a "disciple" of Marx doesn't understand what he was trying to say. Marxism isn't a hypothesis. It's a framework. It's evident that the "means of production" (the factories etc that make the stuff that everyone under capitalism buys) are in private hands, and Marxism is about recognising that and working out the build-up to and consequences of that state of affairs.

Protip: one can work within a Marxist framework and still be a supporter of capitalism. That should give you a clue as why Marxism can't be a religion.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j319/Piggy111/LOLs/CoolStoryBro2.jpg

[Yuppie Grinder]

Some of your criticisms are valid if applied to Stalinism, certainly not Marxism. Its clear you don't know a thing about Marxism.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Also, FYI, Karl Marx is one of the three founding fathers of Social Science.

[Jack]

Some of your criticisms are valid if applied to Stalinism, certainly not Marxism. Its clear you don't know a thing about Marxism.

Why is it that every post you make has something concerning "hurr Stalinism"? Are you just completely incapable of communicating anything without trying to deride Marxism-Leninism?

[#FF0000]

Marxism has rituals, it prescribes how to live one's daily life

no


it is an unfalsifiable explanation about anything in the natural worldno


Most Marxists accept hierarchyNo


most recognise the need for a vanguardNo


a Party or a number of enlightened revolutionaries to lead the rest of us to a fair and equal society.That isn't what a vanguard is


Most see history as developing in a series of stages and accept an almost unquestionable analysis of the world.No.


National Socialist German Workers' Party
Not remotely Marxist and only "socialist" if your definition of socialism is "literally anything"

Marx believed using violence is congenital to the affirmation of the universalism of rights, which in order to assert itself must deny the inequalities on which it is grounded, before inevitably re-proposing them through dialectical materialism.



Marx believed that "human prehistory" is deterministic and that rather than men making history, it is in fact the mystical "forces of production" that make history for us. No.


There is a reason why any and all reputable philosophers and economists say that Marx got the wrong species when spouting his pseudoscience.No.


Not only is historical materialism completely debunkNo.


followers of Marxism believe it can explain or explain away any fact brought before it, making it unfalsifiable.Its a method of analysis -- not a model.


We all began as something else. It was hard for me to accept, too, when I first heard the words debunking Marxism. I too used to be a follower of Marxism. But I changed. I let the power of science take away my pain and angst.I don't really think you were ever a marxist. If you were, you were a hella shitty one that believed every wrong thing you posted here already (e.g. Marxism = economic determinism), then realized you were bad at thinking and thought that all the dumb shit you believed was what actual Marxists believed, and that it wasn't just your third grader perception of the world.

Or you're just lying -- I can't possibly know either way but it wouldn't be the first time someone tried to say "oh I was a leftist once" as if that'll sell me on their poor arguments. (I remember a libertarian once telling me he was once a "trotskyite" lol)

[Yuppie Grinder]

Of course.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Oh dude he said Hoxha
He's been doing his revleft homework.

[Red Banana]

You seem to be making the straw man of equating Marxism entirely with things Marxists oppose, namely State Capitalism, Utopianism, Fascism, and Theism. You also claim to be a former Marxist, so you would know Marxism is materialist i.e. all that exists is the material. That pretty much disqualifies it from any supernatural religious status.

You really seem to be making a more religious argument by talking about the "mystical forces of production" (what you're supposed to mean by that, I have no clue). If you mean the capitalist mode of production curtailing my success and controlling my life then I'd agree with you, not out of any religious or "mystic" reasoning as you do but because the material relation between wage labor and capital serves to oppress the working class. And because it's a conflict not of specific individuals but of opposing classes the only way we could ever break our metaphorical chains would be through liberating the entire working class. Individual liberation from the capitalist mode of production is not possible.

[Rugged Collectivist]

lulz

[Comrade Jandar]

I am no longer chained to the mystical "forces of production" and am in control of my own life.

Whatever helps you sleep at night bro.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

What does he mean by human "prehistory being deterministic"? Because this makes no sense.

Marx studied recorded history, from feudalism to the inevitable socialism. You are aware that "prehistory" is the time before humans started to write and record stuff, right?

[Zostrianos]

Don't bother arguing with him guys, he's a spammer, he posted the same message on other forums:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/261-politics/64279173
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=145485&p=14120533

[#FF0000]

holy shit gamefaqs aahahahahaha

fuck this dude i'm letting my internet bill run out

[Geiseric]

He's a troll sock puppet, there's no way anybody would know about Hoxha without being on this forum before.

[Os Cangaceiros]

There are certainly those who are about as set in their beliefs as the devoutly religious, but I obviously don't think that Marxism is a religion. In regards to Karl Marx and history, I think that the Marxist historical method is one in which you look back at human history and try to discern broad trends; obviously not every human society is going to move at the same rate, and in some cases human societies have degenerated: the destruction of the library at Alexandria, ecclesiastical Spain, the Khmer Rouge etc. But at the same time human society today is a lot different than human society in the year 1000. How did this change occur? IMO Marxist conceptions of history offer plausible explanations for change in this respect.


rather than men making history, it is in fact the mystical "forces of production" that make history for us.

"Means of production" is an inseperable entity from humanity. I don't like Mao, but he was right when he said that human agency was crucial to any sort of historical change, because "tools are made by humans".

With certain other aspects of Marxism, like dialectics, you may get a bit closer to "Marxism as religion". ;) Also, the history of people claiming to be influenced by Marx and the terrible societies they built worry me, but I think that this is a different era, with a lot of technologies that can enable a more egalitarian society and help with planning that simply didn't exist back then, and we can learn from the mistakes of the past.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time trying to reply to this.

Anyway, I think that any number of other ideologies besides Marxism draw conclusions or assumptions about humanity's fundamental character (and the ideal way to construct a society around this character) and one could probably argue that all other ideologies are "religions" because of this.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well I had to find a new religion after I dropped Christianity!

[Flying Purple People Eater]

http://religiousleftexposed.com/images/marx-catholic.png

[Ismail]

http://religiousleftexposed.com/images/marx-catholic.pnghttp://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/RedCocaine.jpg

"When Nikita Khrushchev was reported to have informed the West that 'we will bury you', he was misquoted. What Khrushchev actually said was: 'we will be present at your funeral'. And, as anyone who has lost a family member, relative or loved one knows at first-hand, there have been many funerals since the drugs offensive began." - p. 156.

Also this book came out in like 1997 and argues that the demise of the USSR was actually just a big fraud put up by the evil Marxist cabal which still rules Russia (and China.)

[Avanti]

of course

marxism

is a religion

it should be

if it could be

criticised

it is

because

it isn't enough

of a religion

and its boring

with old men

in suits

giving one another

medallions

with st. lenin's name

no drugs

no holy wars

no jungle music

for a religion

to be successful

i believe

it has to

incorporate

the mystical-mythical

marxism

turns the mundane

into

the mystical-mythical

through dialectics

labor surplus value

the inevitability

of socialism

which they treat

as faith-based concepts

also

the myth

of the industrial worker

as inherently progressive

those who called me

"a fucking nigger

get a jawb"

were often

industrial workers

or kids

of industrial workers

but this

is not a polemic

to be successful

you have to

have faith

when you lose faith

you lose everything

it doesn't matter

if what you believe in

is stupid

if enough people believe

in their stupidity

they can

transform the world

in their image

[Beeth]

Marxism is not a religion. It is social science. It could also be considered an analytical method. But 'Marxists' could act as if Marxism were a religion - by fanatically adoring their leader, believing every word of their literature with no scope for originality, simplistic analysis or resorting to 'blame capitalism' for all seasons, and so on. North Korea, china, and Russia are examples.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Marx and Lenin never wanted to be icons or objects of veneration or adulation. That came later via Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Ceausescu, and the Kim dynasty. IMO the result has been nearly catastrophic. When I became political back in the 70s the Revolutionary Left had a small but nonetheless real presence in Baltimore. That presence is now a fraction of what it was then.:(

[ken6346]

edit

[GoddessCleoLover]

When Marxists in power create a state religion around the embalmed corpse of their Great Leader, they unwittingly serve the interests of international capitalism.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Marx will smite you with bolts of lightening from the sky for your blasphemy! Repent scoundrel!
:laugh:

[Jason]

I look at it this way: You don't have to care about the oppressed. You don't have to advocate sharing as total way of life. If you choose the communist life, then your making a "religious choice", so to speak. In addition, your advocating forcing your views on people that don't want it (to be honest). So that makes it similar to varieties of Islam or Christianity which seek to expand thier religion via peaceful propoganda or force (or both).

So Marxism is a violent religion, but so is capitalism. So there are no ways to cop out of the conflict; you have to choose sides in the war. Finally, I will admit, some peaceful types of Marxism exist. However, those types don't do much because they can't really fight an aggressive capitalism which isn't peaceful.


Marxism is not a religion. It is social science. It could also be considered an analytical method. But 'Marxists' could act as if Marxism were a religion - by fanatically adoring their leader, believing every word of their literature with no scope for originality, simplistic analysis or resorting to 'blame capitalism' for all seasons, and so on. North Korea, china, and Russia are examples.


Marxism is a religion, because it has to resort to "Communist Fundementalism" to have order. You can't have reactionary thinking in a Communist society. You have to get with the program or get out. Of course, communists could go a little haywire in blaming capitalism for everything, as though individual laziness plays no role. However, to keep order, a socialist society cannot succumb to "free thought". Let's look at the anology of an army. If you have an army, you can't have soldiers and commanders who question orders, otherwise it all falls apart.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

I look at it this way: You don't have to care about the oppressed. You don't have to advocate sharing as total way of life. If you choose the communist life, then your making a "religious choice", so to speak. In addition, your advocating forcing your views on people that don't want it (to be honest). So that makes it similar to varieties of Islam or Christianity which seek to expand thier religion via peaceful propoganda or force (or both).
So because Marxism and religion may share common features, they are automatically twins? Comparing "criteria" in this way is rather abstract, in my opinion. Have you looked into their respective origins? How they both evolved over the course of history? Have you become intimately knowledgeable of the class interests of Marxism and religion? The crucial struggles both had to undergo? How many thinkers of either one do you know, anyway? If you investigated any of these questions, your views may have changed. But until you do, I suppose we have you deal with your habit of speaking in silly Cold War one-liners.

[Jason]

So because Marxism and religion may share common features, they are automatically twins? Comparing "criteria" in this way is rather abstract, in my opinion. Have you looked into their respective origins? How they both evolved over the course of history? Have you become intimately knowledgeable of the class interests of Marxism and religion? The crucial struggles both had to undergo? How many thinkers of either do you know, anyway? My guess is that you haven't a clue about any of this, otherwise you wouldn't be speaking in silly Cold War one-liners.

Marxism believes the world should be a certain way and indocrinates people to fit that mode (when Marxism is put into action). So that's just like any religion I think. I'm not claiming to be a "know it all", but the origins of religion seem irrelevant. What matters is how religions (including Marxism) behave.

Now I do think Marxism is grounded more in scientific and moral rationality than major religions. However, the belief that sharing is a the best way of life is just an opinion. So in the respect, it's like the opinion that everybody should worship Allah.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Some 20th century Marxists have admittedly diverted Marxism from its 19th century social science origins onto the path of a quasi-religion. Some of us believe that this trend has greatly damaged the revolutionary workers' movement and harken back to the era before Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Ceausescu and three generations of the Kim dynasty reinvented Marxism to suit their purpose, to establish their authority as Great Leaders.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Marxism believes the world should be a certain way and indocrinates people to fit that mode (when Marxism is put into action). So that's just like any religion I think. I'm not claiming to be a "know it all", but the origins of religion seem irrelevant. What matters is how religions (including Marxism) behave.
But that argument is preposterous. You cannot just divorce origin from (your perceived) form and content. This is like saying that pretzels and anchovies are the same because they have a salty taste. Behavior is but one piece of the puzzle, and this goes for any social movement. Your crude empiricism leaves you very ill-equipped to defend your position.

[Jason]

Some 20th century Marxists have admittedly diverted Marxism from its 19th century social science origins onto the path of a quasi-religion. Some of us believe that this trend has greatly damaged the revolutionary workers' movement and harken back to the era before Stalin, Mao, Enver Hoxha, Ceausescu and three generations of the Kim dynasty reinvented Marxism to suit their purpose, to establish their authority as Great Leaders.

Cult of personality is not central to Marxist control. A communist nation can exist without it. However, such a nation cannot tolerate reactionary thinking. Nonetheless, it can tolerate limited criticism. Here is an analogy: Baptists can tolerate different theological opinions, but not those which criticize core beliefs like the trinity.

As far as the Kims go, you have to take into account Asian nationalism. The Kim cult developed as Kim Ill Sung was seen as some kind of divine protector from the horrors of the Korean War. In other words, America bombed them heavily, even using napalm. This obviously scared the population and they sought refuge in a leader savior type. It's kind of like on 1984 where fear of Goldstien keeps people in line. In the North Korean case, the Korean War was VERY real and this allowed the leadership to develop the "fear society". In other words, the Korean War was real, but most of the modern threats they claim (like people's hands melting off from touching South Korean leaflets) are obviously not true.


But that argument is preposterous. You cannot just divorce origin from (your perceived) form and content. This is like saying that pretzels and anchovies are the same because they have a salty taste. Behavior is but one piece of the puzzle, and this goes for any social movement. Your crude empiricism leaves you very ill-equipped to defend your position.

Let's look at the definition of religion and see how it applies to Marxism.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Let's look at the definition of religion and see how it applies to Marxism.
You think a dictionary definition would settle this? Please. If you're not going to adequately address what I said, don't bother responding at all. I don't take kindly to one-sentence replies; it's a total cop-out.

[CryingWolf]

So many good criticisms of Marxism out there you could use for troll material, yet you had to resort to this... :thumbdown:

[Marxaveli]

OP is the Biggest. Troll. Ever.

And no, Marxism isn't a religion. In fact, it is CAPITALISM that is the religion. Now fuck off you fucking douche nozzle.

[Marxaveli]

Marxism believes the world should be a certain way and indocrinates people to fit that mode (when Marxism is put into action). So that's just like any religion I think. I'm not claiming to be a "know it all", but the origins of religion seem irrelevant. What matters is how religions (including Marxism) behave.

Now I do think Marxism is grounded more in scientific and moral rationality than major religions. However, the belief that sharing is a the best way of life is just an opinion. So in the respect, it's like the opinion that everybody should worship Allah.

You, like the OP, clearly have no understanding of what Marxism is. Marxism doesn't believe the world should be ANY way, let alone a specific way. In fact, it doesn't "believe" in anything at all, it has no agenda. It is a scientific analysis of human development and social organization, not a set of morals or value systems or an ideology. One can be a Marxist, and not be a communist (not a logical outcome, but nevertheless possible as communism IS an ideology but Marxism is not). It is impossible for Marxism to be a religion because it is grounded in a materialist conception of history, and relies on scientific criteria that analyses objective and empirical social phenomena and change of class relationships. Religion is based entirely on faith, and faith alone - it is pure ideology with an specific agenda and has no relevance to the material workings of the world.

[Rafiq]

Im going to reply to the OP for the sake of formally addressing the shit he posted in case someone else says the same thing (i'll be able to link the post then).

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Jason]

As a former disciple of Marx, I hereby denounce disciples of Marxism and their interpretations of Marxist scripture. I am no longer chained to the mystical "forces of production" and am in control of my own life. The less people that channel their power into the "force," the less power that this site, the last source of Marxism, has to re-establish a dictatorship over the people.


But many people are convinced of similar "fantasy ideas" like God approves of capitalism and US intervention in the middle east.



Marx believed using violence is congenital to the affirmation of the universalism of rights, which in order to assert itself must deny the inequalities on which it is grounded, before inevitably re-proposing them through dialectical materialism.

So did Lincoln and Washington.

Modern anti-communists are also firmly commited to violence. In fact, you could even argue that German and Japanese expansion took place to contain communism.



Orthodox Marxism is decisively religious. It has the characteristics of a dogmatic utopian belief-system, and for some is a direct extension of Judeo-Christian saviourism, totalism and reliance on expert opinion.



The OP has a point. The support of extreme egalitarianism is simply one of many views. That doesn't mean marxism isn't right though.



Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion? It is certainly not a science, not even a social science. Despite the numerous failures and millions of famine deaths, followers of Marxism still take the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha on the basis of faith, believing that every time Marxism is implemented "this time it will be different" and the "capitalist-imperialists" will fall.


Marxism might not be a religion. However, the belief that extreme egalitarianism is the best way is simply an opinion. But it's one worth fighting for, especially against Nazis.



You, like the OP, clearly have no understanding of what Marxism is. Marxism doesn't believe the world should be ANY way, let alone a specific way. In fact, it doesn't "believe" in anything at all, it has no agenda. It is a scientific analysis of human development and social organization, not a set of morals or value systems or an ideology. One can be a Marxist, and not be a communist (not a logical outcome, but nevertheless possible as communism IS an ideology but Marxism is not). It is impossible for Marxism to be a religion because it is grounded in a materialist conception of history, and relies on scientific criteria that analyses objective and empirical social phenomena and change of class relationships. Religion is based entirely on faith, and faith alone - it is pure ideology with an specific agenda and has no relevance to the material workings of the world.


You could also argue that darwinism is a scientific study with no agenda. However, it can be turned into social darwinism and then becomes some guide for human society (an opinion on how it should be run).

[Ravachol]

6/10, acceptable troll. Would recommend to friends.

[Marxaveli]

You could also argue that darwinism is a scientific study with no agenda. However, it can be turned into social darwinism and then becomes some guide for human society (an opinion on how it should be run).

Darwinism is indeed that, and like Historical Materialism, it is a study of objective, observable social phenomena.

social darwinism is a vulgarization of Darwinism, and in general they are completely unrelated for the same reasons Marxism and religion are unrelated.

I find it terribly ironic that two of the most important and scientific thinkers of the 19th century (and perhaps of all time), Marx and Darwin, have been misconstrued by so many people. You cannot blame science for that though - as science is used to objectively better understand the world around us, and from there we can improve the human condition. The reactionaries of course, misuse it by turning it into pseudoscience and vulgarize it for their own agendas, but the blame is on them, not on science or its adherents.

[Crux]

So when he says he "used to be a marxist" he means he used to be a nazi, right?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion? It is certainly not a science, not even a social science. Despite the numerous failures and millions of famine deaths, followers of Marxism still take the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha on the basis of faith, believing that every time Marxism is implemented "this time it will be different" and the "capitalist-imperialists" will fall.

You got that one right!

[Geiseric]

Well i'd hope that this time would be different, seeing as the last time was messed up by opportunists and disorganization, things we can prevent this time around. I mean we don't want to try the same tactics such as popular frontism and ultra leftism, if we are to expect superior results.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Well i'd hope that this time would be different, seeing as the last time was messed up by opportunists and disorganization, things we can prevent this time around. I mean we don't want to try the same tactics such as popular frontism and ultra leftism, if we are to expect superior results.

True as far as it goes, but IMO we have to dig deeper and avoid the incipient authoritarian tendencies inherent in the single-party dictatorship model so eloquently warned against by Rosa Luxemburg.

[Geiseric]

Were there any major parties other than the bolsheviks that didn't support the white army, or which weren't representative of peasant consciousness?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Were there any major parties other than the bolsheviks that didn't support the white army, or which weren't representative of peasant consciousness?

Given the specific facts and circumstances present in Russia at the time, one can understand the decision to outlaw the SRs, Cadets, Mensheviks. That is a matter of history and good arguments can be marshalled each way.

Here and now in the USA in the 21st century Revolutionary Leftists would do well to realize that we are highly unlikely to have any success following the "Russian model" Lenin himself warned against revolutionaries treating the Russian experience as an icon. Here, now and in the future workers will demand political choices and will never rally to our cause as long as single party dictatorship is part of our platform.

[Ostrinski]

Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion? It is certainly not a science, not even a social science. Despite the numerous failures and millions of famine deaths, followers of Marxism still take the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha on the basis of faith, believing that every time Marxism is implemented "this time it will be different" and the "capitalist-imperialists" will fall.To qualify as a religion a system of thought must reserve a belief in the supernatural and build its structure of views upon such a premise. Marxism doesn't come close to this and in fact provided us with the first sociological method of interpreting religiosity in society in terms of its relationships to the social and material conditions of the society. As has been noted Marx is considered by most sociologists to be the founder of modern social science and it is pretty much irrefutable. Certainly many methodologies have developed since the 19th century but the materialist conception of history constitutes the first application of scientific means of studying historical developments, i.e. critically considering their relationship to the broader productive, social, and political systems and trends that have an affect on the phenomena in question.

Also, most of us do not appreciate the linkage of Marx, Engels, and Lenin (and further still some that wouldn't appreciate the third with the other two) to Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, or any of the other Communist state dictators of the twentieth century, as not only do we not observe any theoretical continuity between them but many of us view the societies that they politically presided over as merely another form of capitalism, what we usually call state capitalism wherein the state assumes the traditional functions of the private capitalist, but that's content for another discussion.


Marxism has rituals, it prescribes how to live one's daily life, it is an unfalsifiable explanation about anything in the natural world, it is mystical metaphysics.

Orthodox Marxism is decisively religious. It has the characteristics of a dogmatic utopian belief-system, and for some is a direct extension of Judeo-Christian saviourism, totalism and reliance on expert opinion.Absolutely not. Any distinguished Marxist will tell you that Marxism is not a lifestyle, merely a prism of theoretical understanding. It is not even its own political program, as Marxism wasn't even applied to a political directive until the Second International formed in 1889 which tackled the political questions of the working class socialist movement.

I don't know what you mean by rituals. Accusations of mysticism and metaphysics are completely unfounded precisely because of the fact that those trends in social thinking were the target of most of Marx and Engels's criticisms. In fact that's the entire premise that the materialist dialectic is based on: that idealistic modes of thought don't provide us with any real insight into the forces behind society and social processes.

Reliance on expert opinion? Well, that's not really unique to Marxism as much as all theoretical schools, I imagine most newcomers to any system of thought frequently reference the writings of those more theoretically advanced or those that have an important stake in the theory, in our case Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, et al. Of course I've seen Hayek, Dewey, and other non-Marxist figures used by people that would be as quick as you to condemn Marxism in this way.


As human beings dogma almost inevitably plays a part in how we view the world, but not all philosophical positions are as centred on the close-minded ideas many Marxists display. Most Marxists accept hierarchy, most recognise the need for a vanguard, a Party or a number of enlightened revolutionaries to lead the rest of us to a fair and equal society. Most see history as developing in a series of stages and accept an almost unquestionable analysis of the world. Because of it's political acceptance of leaders and led, dogma is not only inevitable, it is essential for them.It's true that some communists support the top-down characteristics that you describe as positive aspects of organizational structure, but it couldn't be further from the case for the rest of us. In fact, I'd say that none other than communists are true adherents to democracy and the struggle toward a truly democratic society, because a democratic society in the most meaningful sense of the word can only be realized through a socialist economy of free producers. So those that uphold the type of arrangement that you mention are the exception rather than the rule, as there are many other organizational and strategical approaches to the socialist movement, some that reject "organization," "strategy," and "the movement" in their entirety.

If by closed-mindedness you mean adherence to nothing below a standard of scientific inquiry then I would be nothing short of glad to accept the title of "closed mindedness" on behalf of all Marxists. Utopian? My friend, the utopian is the one that thinks that things as they are can continue unabated without radical social change to come about as a result of the decay of the system we live in, and furthermore that this system is sustainable. There is nothing utopian about proposing a society planned for human need and being run by the people who make it run.


When Marxists come to power, Marxism becomes a state religion. Quite a deadly religion at that, as history has shown us with the USSR, Mao's China, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Castro Brothers Cuba, etc.I'm not sure if throwing the Nazis in there is a cynical debate ploy to associate socialists with the Nazi regime or if it is just the result of ignorance of what is being discussed. The market economy was never even abolished, he surrounded himself with industrialists and large capitalists, and as part of his own weird ideology considered communists one of the largest enemies of the Aryan race but since I see you have already started a thread on the topic I will let discussion commence there.



From the Marxist Holy Chronicles of Neue Rheinische Zeitung and the 18th Brumaire:

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror. But the royal terrorists, the terrorists by the grace of God and the law, are in practice brutal, disdainful, and mean, in theory cowardly, secretive, and deceitful, and in both respects disreputable."

Marx believed using violence is congenital to the affirmation of the universalism of rights, which in order to assert itself must deny the inequalities on which it is grounded, before inevitably re-proposing them through dialectical materialism.Ah yes. This was the last issue from NRZ, after it was forced to be shut down for "inciting violent revolution" and Marx was kicked out of Germany. What Marx is saying here is essentially a version of what I say a lot in regard to political violence: "you accuse us of being terrorists for not rejecting the possibility of violence as a means of social change, but you aren't able to call out the conspicuous and roughshod violence of this wretched capitalist society in which we live."

I think it's a good rhetorical move if I do say so.


Marx believed that "human prehistory" is deterministic and that rather than men making history, it is in fact the mystical "forces of production" that make history for us. There is a reason why any and all reputable philosophers and economists say that Marx got the wrong species when spouting his pseudoscience. It describes ants, not humans. Not only is historical materialism completely debunk, followers of Marxism believe it can explain or explain away any fact brought before it, making it unfalsifiable.This is a common misconception and misrepresentation of historical materialism. The point is not that the history of society is deterministically on a predecided trajectory. Men and women make history, but not at their own discretion or under conditions of their choosing, to paraphrase Marx. Meaning, history is indeed shaped by the conscious actions of human groups and individuals, but their consciousness is determined by their interaction with the present conditions in society and are therefore constrained by that paradigm intellectually.



From the Holy Scriptures of Engels, "Anti-Duhring"

"Let us take a grain of barley. Millions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which for it are normal, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture a specific change takes place, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilized and finally once more produces grains of barley, and, as soon as these have ripened, the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten, twenty or thirty fold."Here Engels is merely trying to draw an example from the physical world to explain the dialectical materialist approach to social motion.


What data would disprove Marxism in your eyes? If nothing would, then followers of Marxism view it as a religion and no amount of counter-evidence based on empirical observation of real world data will sway their belief in Marxism.What is their to disprove? Marxism is a methodology of the social sciences and as such is perfectly adaptable to societal change. In fact stretching the limits of a methodology is what gives it its strength because it is that by which it shows its strength and usefulness as a method. And a methodology can only survive through being revised. Constant adaptation and application are what make it useful. So we don't need to abandon it, merely to update the formulas, modernize how we look at things, and Marxism comes out unscathed.

Consider the scientific method: you'd be hard pressed to find scientists out there that could fathom anything that they could experience or observe in the physical world that would make them doubt the validity of the scientific method. That doesn't make it a religion, that just means it is a sturdy and valid system.


We all began as something else. It was hard for me to accept, too, when I first heard the words debunking Marxism. I too used to be a follower of Marxism. But I changed. I let the power of science take away my pain and angst.

Just as you will change when you realize that the threshold to seizing your own destiny will be crossed only by those who have embraced the power of the individual, rather than letting the mystical "forces of production" curtail your success in the world.

As a former disciple of Marx, I hereby denounce disciples of Marxism and their interpretations of Marxist scripture. I am no longer chained to the mystical "forces of production" and am in control of my own life. The less people that channel their power into the "force," the less power that this site, the last source of Marxism, has to re-establish a dictatorship over the people.

We all began as something else. What will you be?I do not mean to be disrespectful but if indeed you were once a Marxist, then you didn't really learn much during your tenure. The numerous countless misconceptions and misrepresentations above and not the least your insistence that it is a religion only solidify that conclusion.

The humor here is that you attempt to be condescending but end up looking like a dunce.

Stick around, read something, learn something. We have plenty of well read and theoretically esteemed Marxists that would be more than glad to help you on your way.

[Let's Get Free]

Were there any major parties other than the bolsheviks that didn't support the white army, or which weren't representative of peasant consciousness?

It should be noted that both the Bolsheviks and the Whites were anti-working class. At best, you can argue that the repression of workers under a white regime would have been considerably more terrible.

[Ostrinski]

There are other threads to talk about this.

[Let's Get Free]

Just pointing something out real quick.

[prolcon]

Tangentially, "Darwinism" is more of an historical concept than a scientific discipline. It refers to the historical support for the Darwinian model of evolution as an explanation for biodiversity. Nothing about acknowledging the mechanisms of nature is "turned into" Social Darwinism, which is a gross misnomer; it assumes those with political power are inherently more "worthy" of their wealth in a very moralistic way. Like Marxism, Darwinian evolution isn't really about determining what is moral or immoral; it is a method of figuring out how the universe around us works. I'd call Darwinian evolution apolitical, at least by this point, but Marxism is still quite political in its character, something it may grow out of as Marxist conclusions become accepted.

[Ostrinski]

I like that NRZ quote from Marx. I think I'll put it in my sig :thumbup1:.

[Jason]

Tangentially, "Darwinism" is more of an historical concept than a scientific discipline. It refers to the historical support for the Darwinian model of evolution as an explanation for biodiversity. Nothing about acknowledging the mechanisms of nature is "turned into" Social Darwinism, which is a gross misnomer; it assumes those with political power are inherently more "worthy" of their wealth in a very moralistic way. Like Marxism, Darwinian evolution isn't really about determining what is moral or immoral; it is a method of figuring out how the universe around us works. I'd call Darwinian evolution apolitical, at least by this point, but Marxism is still quite political in its character, something it may grow out of as Marxist conclusions become accepted.

Darwinism stresses that the environment can only be changed by nature, so animals have to adapt or die. However, Marxism stresses that people can change their social environment. In fact, that's the whole point of Marxism.

Social darwinists claim the elites have some moralistic right to power. However, they may have gotten that power because somebody changed the environment for them unfairly. For instance, George W. Bush was born into wealth. He had no characteristics that made him more superior to most people.

[prolcon]

Darwinism stresses that the environment can only be changed by nature, so animals have to adapt or die. However, Marxism stresses that people can change their social environment. In fact, that's the whole point of Marxism.

I don't think that's true of the Darwinian evolutionary model at all. Changing the environment is a method of adaptation. In fact, many species actively participate in their environment. Natural history, biology, and Marxism are really all on the same page with regards to life's dialectical character.


Social darwinists claim the elites have some moralistic right to power. However, they may have gotten that power because somebody changed the environment for them unfairly. For instance, George W. Bush was born into wealth. He had no characteristics that made him more superior to most people.

The environment is whatever the environment is. There isn't any distinction between the "natural" world and civilization. We're as much a product of our environments as our environments are products of us. Capitalism is a natural part of the cycle of human civilization; Marxism acknowledges that socialism is the stage following capitalism, leading to the obliteration of class, property, and state.

[Marxaveli]

Tangentially, "Darwinism" is more of an historical concept than a scientific discipline. It refers to the historical support for the Darwinian model of evolution as an explanation for biodiversity. Nothing about acknowledging the mechanisms of nature is "turned into" Social Darwinism, which is a gross misnomer; it assumes those with political power are inherently more "worthy" of their wealth in a very moralistic way. Like Marxism, Darwinian evolution isn't really about determining what is moral or immoral; it is a method of figuring out how the universe around us works. I'd call Darwinian evolution apolitical, at least by this point, but Marxism is still quite political in its character, something it may grow out of as Marxist conclusions become accepted.

I find it rather odd that so many people have finally accepted Darwin's theory of evolution at this point, but won't accept Marxism - even though Darwin and Marx observed and wrote about human development in a different context. People can accept a scientific explanation or paradigm of how the world works and how we adapt to the environment, but they are quick to deny that there are scientific laws and objective processes guiding the social development of our species as well, and not just the biological aspects - as if we are so unique, so complex and high and mighty that our behavior cannot be scientifically explained. I suspect this comes from history being taught for so long in the context of Great Man theories, thus many people have a hard time accepting a scientific conception of history as truth much in the same way people of faith still cannot accept evolution, though it has long been proven as fact. Still, religious fundamentalists not withstanding, Darwin is widely accepted now, while Marx isn't. It just seems so illogical to accept one but not the other.

[Ismail]

Here and now in the USA in the 21st century Revolutionary Leftists would do well to realize that we are highly unlikely to have any success following the "Russian model" Lenin himself warned against revolutionaries treating the Russian experience as an icon. Here, now and in the future workers will demand political choices and will never rally to our cause as long as single party dictatorship is part of our platform.I'm sure you're well aware but have forgotten of the fact that the Bolsheviks did, in fact, contend with other parties in 1917-1922. Experience demonstrated that all of them could find unity not with the proletarian vanguard, but amongst themselves in alliance with the Allied intervention forces.

Likewise in Eastern Europe after WWII Stalin spoke of how the communists in these states could create the "Democratic Republics" that Marx spoke about. But then the bourgeois parties promptly worked in order to attack the communist parties and the gains achieved through their work. Experience demonstrated that the indivisible role of the Communist Party was a necessity born from reality.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The Bolsheviks certainly contended with opposition parties at the time of the elections for the Constituent Assembly. It is also indisputable to the Bolsheviks tried to coalesce with the Left SRs, at least until the SRs began their terror campaign against the Soviet government.

I would further agree that the leadership of the opposition to the Bolsheviks opportunistically betrayed the revolution and side with the white armies and imperialistic forces. I believe that only Makhno and his anarchist-oriented forces were able to assert political opposition while maintaining support for the revolution.

The controversial issue involves the political conduct of the RCP (b) after the end of the Civil War. By anointing itself as the sole vanguard, actually sole legal representative of the workers, the RCP (b) substituted its ruled for that of the working class. All of the political evils that came to fruition in the Soviet Union can be traced to this fateful error.

With respect to the People's Republics, I find it interesting that the People's Republics allowed a measure of legal existence from bourgeois and petit-bourgeois parties while suppressing any development of organic working class representation. One example I recall from back in my salad days was the late Rudolf Bahro, a German Marxian dissident, who was marginalized by the DDR regime.

Getting back to the subject of the thread, IMO the quasi-religious tendencies that developed among certain 20th century Marxists has done enormous harm to the working class movement. If MArxism has any hope of revival it lies in rediscovering its roots as a political, social, and economic paradigm and divesting itself of the quasi-religious iconography.

[Ismail]

The Bolsheviks certainly contended with opposition parties at the time of the elections for the Constituent Assembly. It is also indisputable to the Bolsheviks tried to coalesce with the Left SRs, at least until the SRs began their terror campaign against the Soviet government.Lenin was against coalition with the Left SRs though, as Carr notes. Circumstances forced it and a number of Bolsheviks supported it.


With respect to the People's Republics, I find it interesting that the People's Republics allowed a measure of legal existence from bourgeois and petit-bourgeois parties while suppressing any development of organic working class representation.Not all of them had other parties. Albania never had any coalition government whatsoever, Yugoslavia had a brief one, and the People's Democracies of Hungary and Romania had no other parties after 1948 or so. The existence of other parties in the GDR, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia was to be a temporary phenomenon.

Also, as Hoxha noted:

"After the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established and consolidated, which is achieved under the guidance of the communist party, the existence for a long time of other parties, inside or outside the front, even if they are 'progressive' ones, has no meaning, no 'raison d'être' even formally on account of their alleged traditions. Every progressive tradition is blended with the revolutionary line of the communist party. The revolution overthrows a whole world, let alone a single tradition. As long as the class struggle goes on during the whole period of socialist construction of society and transition to communism, and since political parties uphold the interests of specific classes, it would be absurd and opportunist to have other non-Marxist-Leninist parties existing in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, especially when the economic basis of socialism has been laid. This does not affect democracy at all but, on the contrary, strengthens genuine proletarian democracy. The democratic nature of a system is in no way gauged by the number of parties, but is determined by its economic basis, by the class in power, and by the policy and activity of the State and by the fact whether it conforms to the interests of the broad masses of the people, whether it serves them or not.

With a view to achieving their counter-revolutionary aims in the service of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, the modern revisionists are ever more zealously proceeding along the way of degrading the communist parties and socialist regimes. They are liquidating the parties of the working class denying their proletarian class nature and proclaiming them as 'parties of the people as a whole'. In fact they have turned them into bourgeois parties of a new type. The degeneration of the communist parties and socialist order in certain countries, where revisionist cliques hold sway, is bringing about the revival of the system of two or more bourgeois parties under the guise of socialism and on behalf of the alleged development of socialist democracy. The fronts that exist in some of these countries have remained so on paper, they are lifeless and signs are already apparent of the revival and political and organizational activation of parties taking part in these fronts striving to win commanding posts in the socialist state which is continually assuming the features of a bourgeois state. The extreme groupings of modern revisionists, particularly in capitalist countries like France and Italy, are striving to persuade their revisionist colleagues in socialist countries to speedily proceed along this road in order to give a further proof to the western bourgeoisie that they are prepared to put an end to 'Stalinist socialism' and to re-establish a new bourgeois socialism of the social-democratic type and to make the work of revisionists in capitalist countries easier to unite and merge with the bourgeoisie and their parties, in order to join it in setting up such a 'socialist' order in these countries."
(Enver Hoxha. Report on the Role and Tasks of the Democratic Front for the Complete Triumph of Socialism in Albania. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1974. pp. 44-46.)

This speech was originally from 1967, a year before Dubček's "socialism with a human face" and calls for the "regeneration" of the Czechoslovak National Front and its parties.


One example I recall from back in my salad days was the late Rudolf Bahro, a German Marxian dissident, who was marginalized by the DDR regime."Marxian" in the same sense as Lezsek Kołakowski and other intellectuals who opposed Soviet revisionism in favor of their own "humanist" variant and later junked Marxism.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Lenin was against coalition with the Left SRs though, as Carr notes. Circumstances forced it and a number of Bolsheviks supported it.

If Lenin opposed coalescing with the Left SRs that would help explain his push for single party dictatorship. No sweat. I have generally far preferred Rosa Luxemburg's theoretical approach to politics to to that of Lenin in any event.

"Marxian" in the same sense as Lezsek Kołakowski and other intellectuals who opposed Soviet revisionism in favor of their own "humanist" variant and later junked Marxism.

Rudolf Bahro is deceased. Did he in fact completely renounce a Marxian approach prior to his death? Edit; apparently Bahro did move away from Marxism. The last years of his life were marked by tragedy and illness. He died from a cancer that he may have contracted after being subjected to radiation while imprisoned by the DDR regime.

[Ismail]

Rudolf Bahro is deceased. Did he in fact completely renounce a Marxian approach prior to his death?Kołakowski is deceased as well.

Bahro was apparently involved in the "deep ecology" movement in the 80's and called for the establishment of self-sufficient communes. "From scientific socialism I have returned to utopian socialism, and politically I have moved from a class-dimensional to a populist orientation." (quoted in Boris Frankel, The Post Industrial Utopians, 1987, p. 16.)

If it makes you feel any better there was a clandestine pro-Albanian party in the GDR: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv5n1/gdrkpd.htm

[GoddessCleoLover]

Kołakowski is deceased as well.

Bahro was apparently involved in the "deep ecology" movement in the 80's and called for the establishment of self-sufficient communes. "From scientific socialism I have returned to utopian socialism, and politically I have moved from a class-dimensional to a populist orientation." (quoted in Boris Frankel, The Post Industrial Utopians, 1987, p. 16.)

If it makes you feel any better there was a clandestine pro-Albanian party in the GDR: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv5n1/gdrkpd.htm

Thanks for the 411. Any idea of the peak membership number of the pro-Albanian East Germans?

[Ismail]

Thanks for the 411. Any idea of the peak membership number of the pro-Albanian East Germans?From link: "the total number of members or supporters of the KPD/ML in the GDR amounted to three dozen people. In addition, there were about 50 to 60 sympathizers who were in direct personal contact with the above-mentioned circle. (These figures are based on findings of the StaSi)."

The KPD/ML (which operated in both West and East Germany) was one of the main pro-Albanian parties, its leadership visited Albania regularly. The PCdoB in Brazil and CPC-ML in Canada had a similar status.

A photo of Ernst Aust, its leader, with Hoxha:

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc207/MrdieII/enver_ernst.jpg

[Lowtech]

Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion?no, subjugation and artificial scarcity is very tangible and observable. The rich consume more than they produce.
It is certainly not a science, not even a social science.compared to what? Capitalism? I have never heard of Capitalism-ology
Marxism is a religious belief system like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism; which do not base their beliefs on verifiable facts and hypotheses.again, compared to what? scientists didn't have a sit down and deep debate over the validity of a plutocratic class and a mathematical mechanism to retain value.
What data would disprove Marxism in your eyes?if all the workers of the world walked out on capitalist society and somehow the rich didn't starve and still magically were living it up, man, you'd have opened my eyes!
We all began as something else. What will you be?I want to become a butterfly like you!

[freehobo]

Yes, I would agree that Marxism is a religion masquerading as a science.

[Rafiq]

Would you agree with the idea that Marxism is a religion? It is certainly not a science, not even a social science. Despite the numerous failures and millions of famine deaths, followers of Marxism still take the words of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hoxha on the basis of faith, believing that every time Marxism is implemented "this time it will be different" and the "capitalist-imperialists" will fall.

This is golden. You begin a thread making exceedingly grand claims about Marxism yet, you unequivocally have not even an elementary understanding of what Marxism is. Like the shit scum who remain not even a pimple on the ass of Marxists, you still are under the impression that Marxism is a mode of production in itself, a 'system'. This alone revokes any legitimacy persisting in your posts. Not only were you never a Marxist, you never even, and remain without, a decent understanding of what Marxism actually is.


Marxism has rituals, it prescribes how to live one's daily life, it is an unfalsifiable explanation about anything in the natural world, it is mystical metaphysics.


You can't just go about declaring things, and making baseless assertions. To say that Marxism "prescribes how to live one's daily life" is quite a grand claim, and none the less would be quite a surprising circumstance to any Marxist. It is possible that you mean this in the sense that, it forces you to understand your surroundings in a different way. And for this (unfortunate?) circumstance, on behalf of Marxists I sincerely apologize. I sincerely apologize on behalf of any adheres of the sciences, who are forced to do away with the notion that the earth is flat, that the weather is the humble expression of gods above, and so on. And there is half of a grain of truth in the post, namely regarding Dialectics. Some Marxists are incapable of understanding Dialectics and therefore superimpose it upon nature, indeed bastardizing it into a "mystical metaphysics". However this is obviously can say nothing about Marxism itself.


Orthodox Marxism is decisively religious. It has the characteristics of a dogmatic utopian belief-system, and for some is a direct extension of Judeo-Christian saviourism, totalism and reliance on expert opinion.


This doesn't even mean anything. Nothing intrinsic to Marxism could allow someone to come to the conclusion that it is Utopian. You may have previously had a messiah complex, however you must recognize that this was not a result of your Marxism, but your own incompetence in understanding Marxism.


As human beings dogma almost inevitably plays a part in how we view the world, but not all philosophical positions are as centred on the close-minded ideas many Marxists display. Most Marxists accept hierarchy, most recognise the need for a vanguard, a Party or a number of enlightened revolutionaries to lead the rest of us to a fair and equal society. Most see history as developing in a series of stages and accept an almost unquestionable analysis of the world. Because of it's political acceptance of leaders and led, dogma is not only inevitable, it is essential for them.


Actually most Marxists don't recognize the dichtomony between "hierarchy" and "non hierarchy". And none the less, this conception of a vanguard you hold is just as much in substance as your conception of Marxism itself. It is non existent. Marxism is not a philosophy.


When Marxists come to power, Marxism becomes a state religion. Quite a deadly religion at that, as history has shown us with the USSR, Mao's China, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Castro Brothers Cuba, etc.


Ideological bastardizations of Marxism did objectively exist following the Bolshevik revolution. To attribute ideology with the deaths of millions is nothing short of laughable. Any idiot can see that "Marxism" existent in these states constantly was changed, adjusted and so on in accordance to their respective material conditions, like any ideology. There existed systemic mechanisms which birthed the deaths, of which "Marxism" was merely super structural. Did you really fucking just mention the Nazi party? You're done, fucking jackass.


Marx believed using violence is congenital to the affirmation of the universalism of rights, which in order to assert itself must deny the inequalities on which it is grounded, before inevitably re-proposing them through dialectical materialism.


No, you worthless pile of shit, you're just pulling shit out of your ass. Marx never had to justify "using violence". Marx recognized the necessity of violence in the proletariat's conquest for state dictatorship, yes. Cry about it, you scum. Again, you're just making bizarre assertions.


Marx believed that "human prehistory" is deterministic and that rather than men making history, it is in fact the mystical "forces of production" that make history for us. There is a reason why any and all reputable philosophers and economists say that Marx got the wrong species when spouting his pseudoscience. It describes ants, not humans. Not only is historical materialism completely debunk, followers of Marxism believe it can explain or explain away any fact brought before it, making it unfalsifiable.


It's so funny because Marx actually, with uttermost clarity wrote that "Men and women make history, but not as they please". "History is not some being which utilizes men to achieve it's own ends. History is the process in which men attempt to achieve their own ends." etc.

I mean it's really difficult to address your baseless proclamations because you are incapable of providing adaquet substantiations of them, besides of course a few sentences which actually falsify your argument. No, I don't need evidence, I just need an explanation.

Are you a troll?


Marxism is a religious belief system like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism; which do not base their beliefs on verifiable facts and hypotheses.


Historical materialism is unequivicolly verifiable. How are any of the social sciences "verifiable" if historical materialism is not?


What data would disprove Marxism in your eyes? If nothing would, then followers of Marxism view it as a religion and no amount of counter-evidence based on empirical observation of real world data will sway their belief in Marxism.


What data today would "disprove" Darwin's materialist conception of natural history? Nothing. Therefore those who adhere to the materialist conception of natural history view it as a religion and no amount of counter evidence based on empirical observation of real world data will sway their belief in the fact that indeed the world is round, errm, I mean, Darwin's materialist conception of natural history. The reason it's so difficult for you to attack Marxism is because Marxism is an objective understanding of human social behavior, based in objective existing phenomena.


We all began as something else. It was hard for me to accept, too, when I first heard the words debunking Marxism. I too used to be a follower of Marxism. But I changed. I let the power of science take away my pain and angst.


You were never a Marxist. You were a clown.


Just as you will change when you realize that the threshold to seizing your own destiny will be crossed only by those who have embraced the power of the individual, rather than letting the mystical "forces of production" curtail your success in the world.

As a former disciple of Marx, I hereby denounce disciples of Marxism and their interpretations of Marxist scripture. I am no longer chained to the mystical "forces of production" and am in control of my own life. The less people that channel their power into the "force," the less power that this site, the last source of Marxism, has to re-establish a dictatorship over the people.


This is golden. This made my day. In your dismissal of Marxism, in your incompetence in understanding the "forces of production", in your inability to recognize that you are "chained", your chains are stronger. Only Marxism, only a scientific understanding of social and class relations can emancipate a person from being constrained by the ideological superstructure of the existing mode of production, the basis for all production of life.

[Geiseric]

Marxism is basically mixing sociology with economics. That's all it is, so I don't see how it's a religion.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Marxism is basically mixing sociology with economics. That's all it is, so I don't see how it's a religion.

That's how it should be. But i definately get a cult of personality vibe (secular messiahs) when people preach the word of Hoxha

[Rafiq]

That's how it should be. But i definately get a cult of personality vibe (secular messiahs) when people preach the word of Hoxha

Why the fuck do people like you categorize this as Marxism? What does Marxism have to do with a "cult of personality"? What? I mean, we were the first to attack the great man theory.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Why the fuck do people like you categorize this as Marxism? What does Marxism have to do with a "cult of personality"? What? I mean, we were the first to attack the great man theory.

Old habit of equating marxists with MLs. But to be fair, groups like revolutionary marxists are hella vague.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Marx and those who understand his theory eschew "great man" historiography. OTOH certain schools of Marxist-Leninist thought have belied that theory in practice. Let me count the ways; embalmed bodies of Great Leaders placed on display to be venerated, 2) a certain party/state "Great Leader" who is still officially president even though he died in 1994, 3) the huge picture of Chairman Mao that adorns Tienanmien square, 4( quote-mongering of one's favorite theoretician like Christians do with the Bible. I am sure that I have overlooked other examples.

[Ismail]

Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha fought against "great men" and the personality cult deriving from this. Stalin, for instance, once remarked on a draft version of his biography that after the average person was done reading it all that was left was to bend down on his knees and pray. He stressed the role of the Party and edited his biography (as well as the Short Course) accordingly.

To give other examples:

"When Feuchtwanger told Stalin how he found some manifestations of the cult tasteless and excessive, Stalin agreed, but said that he only answered one or two of the hundreds of greetings he received and did not allow most to be printed, especially the most excessive. He claimed that he did not seek to justify the practice, but to explain it: evidently the workers and peasant masses were simply delighted to be freed from exploitation, and they attributed this to one individual: 'of course that’s wrong, what can one person do – they see in me a unifying concept, and create foolish raptures around me.'

Feuchtwanger then asked a very legitimate question: why could he not stop the most excessive forms of rapture? Stalin responded that he had tried several times but that it was pointless as people assumed he was just doing so out of false modesty. For example, he had been criticised for preventing celebrations of his 55th birthday. According to Stalin, the veneration of the leader was the result of cultural backwardness and would pass with time. It was difficult to prevent people expressing their joy, and to take strict measures against workers and peasants. Feuchtwanger responded that what concerned him was not so much the feelings of workers and peasants, but the erection of busts and so on. Echoing some of his comments (above) about the abuse of the cult, Stalin answered that bureaucrats were afraid that if they did not put up a bust of Stalin, they would be criticised by their superiors. Putting up a bust was a form of careerism 'a specific form of the 'self-defence' of bureaucrats: so that they are left alone, they put up a bust'....

His interventions often reveal a concern to tone down, or to be seen to be toning down, some of the excesses of the cult... There are many examples of this. While a draft report for Pravda described a reception of a delegation of kolkhozniki of Odessa province in November 1933 as a reception by Stalin, Stalin himself added the names of Kalinin, Molotov and Kaganovich. He also criticised the writer A. Afinogenov for highlighting the 'vozhd' [leader] rather than the collective leadership of the Central Committee in his play Lozh'. When the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (IMEL) produced a history of 30 years of the party in 1933, he removed some references to himself....

Stalin continued to pay close attention to the editing of reports of Kremlin receptions for publication in Pravda. He would sometimes (but not always) cut out or tone down the references to the endless clapping which accompanied these quintessentially cultic occasions. He also tried to reduce the language of adulation, or to distribute it more equally with other colleagues....

While some members of the Politburo approved the renaming [of a electromechanical factory after Stalin in 1936], others proposed a discussion of the issue. However Stalin declared emphatically that he was not in favour, writing 'I am against. I advise that it should take the name of Kalinin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kosior, Postyshev or another of the leading comrades.' Nevertheless, despite Stalin's objections, on 25 March the Politburo went on to approve the attaching of Stalin’s name to the factory."
(Balázs Apor, Jan C. Behrends, Polly Jones & E.A. Rees (eds). The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. pp. 37-39.)

As for Hoxha, writing of his diary of Mao's cult, he comments that:

"We have condemned the cult of the individual and condemn it to this day about anybody at all. On this question we follow the view of Marx, and for this reason amongst us, in our leadership, there is Marxist-Leninist unity, affection, sincerity, Marxist-Leninist respect towards comrades on the basis of the work which each does and his loyalty to the principles of the Party. Amongst us there is no idolâtrie. Above all we speak about the Party, while we speak about Enver only as much as the interests of the Party and country require, and when from the base and the masses there has been some excess in this direction, the Central Committee, the leadership of the Party and I personally, as much as I can and to the extent that they have listened to me about it, have always taken and always will take measures to proceed on the right course."
(Enver Hoxha. Reflections on China Vol. II. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. pp. 419-420.)

This is fundamentally different from the likes of Mao and Kim Il Sung, who portrayed their "thoughts" as immortal and universal contributions above everything that came before.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha fought against "great men" and the personality cult deriving from this. The former, for instance, once remarked on a draft version of his biography that after the average person was done reading it all that was left was to bend down on his knees and pray. He stressed the role of the Party and edited his biography (as well as the Short Course) accordingly.

To give other examples:

"When Feuchtwanger told Stalin how he found some manifestations of the cult tasteless and excessive, Stalin agreed, but said that he only answered one or two of the hundreds of greetings he received and did not allow most to be printed, especially the most excessive. He claimed that he did not seek to justify the practice, but to explain it: evidently the workers and peasant masses were simply delighted to be freed from exploitation, and they attributed this to one individual: 'of course that’s wrong, what can one person do – they see in me a unifying concept, and create foolish raptures around me.'

Feuchtwanger then asked a very legitimate question: why could he not stop the most excessive forms of rapture? Stalin responded that he had tried several times but that it was pointless as people assumed he was just doing so out of false modesty. For example, he had been criticised for preventing celebrations of his 55th birthday. According to Stalin, the veneration of the leader was the result of cultural backwardness and would pass with time. It was difficult to prevent people expressing their joy, and to take strict measures against workers and peasants. Feuchtwanger responded that what concerned him was not so much the feelings of workers and peasants, but the erection of busts and so on. Echoing some of his comments (above) about the abuse of the cult, Stalin answered that bureaucrats were afraid that if they did not put up a bust of Stalin, they would be criticised by their superiors. Putting up a bust was a form of careerism 'a specific form of the 'self-defence' of bureaucrats: so that they are left alone, they put up a bust'....

His interventions often reveal a concern to tone down, or to be seen to be toning down, some of the excesses of the cult... There are many examples of this. While a draft report for Pravda described a reception of a delegation of kolkhozniki of Odessa province in November 1933 as a reception by Stalin, Stalin himself added the names of Kalinin, Molotov and Kaganovich. He also criticised the writer A. Afinogenov for highlighting the 'vozhd' [leader] rather than the collective leadership of the Central Committee in his play Lozh'. When the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute (IMEL) produced a history of 30 years of the party in 1933, he removed some references to himself....

Stalin continued to pay close attention to the editing of reports of Kremlin receptions for publication in Pravda. He would sometimes (but not always) cut out or tone down the references to the endless clapping which accompanied these quintessentially cultic occasions. He also tried to reduce the language of adulation, or to distribute it more equally with other colleagues....

While some members of the Politburo approved the renaming [of a electromechanical factory after Stalin in 1936], others proposed a discussion of the issue. However Stalin declared emphatically that he was not in favour, writing 'I am against. I advise that it should take the name of Kalinin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kosior, Postyshev or another of the leading comrades.' Nevertheless, despite Stalin's objections, on 25 March the Politburo went on to approve the attaching of Stalin’s name to the factory."
(Balázs Apor, Jan C. Behrends, Polly Jones & E.A. Rees (eds). The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. pp. 37-39.)

As for Hoxha, writing of his diary of Mao's cult, he comments that:

"We have condemned the cult of the individual and condemn it to this day about anybody at all. On this question we follow the view of Marx, and for this reason amongst us, in our leadership, there is Marxist-Leninist unity, affection, sincerity, Marxist-Leninist respect towards comrades on the basis of the work which each does and his loyalty to the principles of the Party. Amongst us there is no idolâtrie. Above all we speak about the Party, while we speak about Enver only as much as the interests of the Party and country require, and when from the base and the masses there has been some excess in this direction, the Central Committee, the leadership of the Party and I personally, as much as I can and to the extent that they have listened to me about it, have always taken and always will take measures to proceed on the right course."
(Enver Hoxha. Reflections on China Vol. II. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. pp. 419-420.)

This is fundamentally different from the likes of Mao and Kim Il Sung, who portrayed their "thoughts" as immortal and universal contributions above everything that came before.

You do know that this is all propaganda bullshit right?

[Ismail]

You do know that this is all propaganda bullshit right?Bit strange how stuff that only came to light after the Soviet archives were opened in 1989-1991 (every single thing mentioned in that work I quoted in-re Stalin cites said archival sources) and cited in a book called nothing less than The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships, and stuff from Hoxha's own diary, qualify as "propaganda."

I guess Stalin anticipated the collapse of the USSR decades after his death and knew that he had to cover his tracks by confusing anti-communists searching around the archives when that time came.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

Bit strange how stuff that only came to light after the Soviet archives were opened in 1989-1991 (every single thing mentioned in that work I quoted in-re Stalin cites said archival sources) and cited in a book called nothing less than The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships, and stuff from Hoxha's own diary, qualify as "propaganda."

You sure that stuff wasn't planted for a future use that was stopped by your precious "soviet recapitalization" period? I thought most thinking people know that Stalin was a monster.

[Ismail]

You sure that stuff wasn't planted for a future use that was stopped by your precious "soviet recapitalization" period?I'm pretty sure considering that not a single researcher of Soviet history believes in anything like that. At most you get claims that confidential NKVD reports unearthed in 1989 and onwards aren't too reliable because of cases of local men trying to impress those above them, not "Joseph Stalin planted these fake reports to confuse us all years later!!!1" That's not how archives work.

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

I'm pretty sure considering that not a single researcher of Soviet history believes in anything like that. At most you get claims that confidential NKVD reports unearthed in 1989 and onwards aren't too reliable because of cases of local men trying to impress those above them, not "Joseph Stalin planted these fake reports to confuse us all years later!!!1" That's not how archives work.

So do the archives portray uncle Joe as benevolent? And how would things crticizinghim for his cult of personality even make it into the archives if Stalin had people killed for far less?

[Ismail]

So do the archives portray uncle Joe as benevolent?The archives have been used by everyone; the post-1953 Soviet leadership used them to vilify Stalin, as have various anti-communist authors. They're archives, they don't "portray" anything. For what it's worth that last quote in the cited work has Stalin mentioning Kosior and Postyshev positively, whereas both men were executed in the Great Purges afterwards. Had that speech/comment by Stalin been published in the USSR anywhere from 1938 to whenever both men were rehabilitated after 1956 both men's names would have been edited out, whereas the original would have been preserved in the archives.

Don't forget that it was the Soviet archives which produced the "smoking gun" that the Soviets did Katyn.


And how would things crticizinghim for his cult of personality even make it into the archives if Stalin had people killed for far less?The Soviet archives have all sorts of NKVD reports and whatnot on criticisms of the government from every fact of Soviet society. That's the point of archives, the materials are classified and are only meant to be seen by very select groups of persons since contained within them are raw data, transcripts, reports, letters, etc.

In any case what is being discussed here is not your lack of understanding of how archives work, but the issue of the cult of personality. Archival materials make it clear that Stalin had a low opinion of the personality cult built around him. Even before 1989, however, it was known that he had a low opinion based on published works including those by Western authors. See for instance: http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm

[GoddessCleoLover]

The archives have been used by everyone; the post-1953 Soviet leadership used them to vilify Stalin, as have various anti-communist authors. They're archives, they don't "portray" anything. For what it's worth that last quote in the cited work has Stalin mentioning Kosior and Postyshev positively, whereas both men were executed in the Great Purges afterwards. Had that speech/comment by Stalin been published in the USSR anywhere from 1938-1956/62 both men's names would have been edited out, whereas the original would have been preserved in the archives.

Don't forget that it was the Soviet archives which produced the "smoking gun" that the Soviets did Katyn.

The Soviet archives have all sorts of NKVD reports and whatnot on criticisms of the government from every fact of Soviet society. That's the point of archives, the materials are classified and are only meant to be seen by very select groups of persons.

In any case what is being discussed here is not your lack of understanding of how archives work, but the issue of the cult of personality. Archival materials make it clear that Stalin had a low opinion of the personality cult built around him. Even before 1989, however, it was known that he had a low opinion based on published works including those by Western authors. See for instance: http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/StalinBB.htm

IMO Stalin created a "paper trail" for the archives. One that was exculpatory. Common sense would indicate that what was said verbally "off the record" was far different than what was committed to paper for the archives. David Irving has made a career of minimizing the Holocaust based on the fact that Hitler never provided any written "smoking gun" order. Common sense would teach us that Hitler would not commit something like that in writing. I am not drawing any broad Hitler-Stalin comparison here, but doesn't common sense indicate that Stalin would not put anything incriminating in writing?

[Ismail]

I am not drawing any broad Hitler-Stalin comparison here, but doesn't common sense indicate that Stalin would not put anything incriminating in writing?Again, the "smoking gun" evidence used to demonstrate that the Soviets did Katyn came from the archives. There are countless "incriminating" materials that all sorts of authors have used from the archives to portray Stalin as evil.

Ironically it was Stalin's successors, as Zhores and Roy Medvedev note, who burned various archival materials to cover their own asses.

Fact is I gave evidence from both pre and post-1991 sources that Stalin had a low opinion of his cult and opposed it within the limits he considered possible. I await counter-evidence.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Again, the "smoking gun" evidence used to demonstrate that the Soviets did Katyn came from the archives. There are countless "incriminating" materials that all sorts of authors have used from the archives to portray Stalin as evil.

Ironically it was Stalin's successors, as Zhores and Roy Medvedev note, who burned various archival materials to cover their own asses.

Fact is I gave evidence from both pre and post-1991 sources that Stalin had a low opinion of his cult and opposed it within the limits he considered possible. I await counter-evidence.

But those documents incriminate lower level functionaries not Stalin himself.;)

[Ismail]

But those documents incriminate lower level functionaries not Stalin himself.;)Allow me to cite one bit from the archives noted in one of ComradeOm's posts:

These were the infamous 'national operations' of the NKVD that set out to persecute entire national groups on the basis of perceived disloyalty due to a suspect ethnic background. Stalin himself was relatively closely involved in the overseeing of the operation: "As his correspondence with Ezhov clearly shows, Stalin closely monitored the implementation of the National Operations. On Ezhov’s first report on the progress of the Polish Operation (23,000 arrests in four weeks) Stalin wrote: 'Cam. Ezhov. This is excellent! Continue to dig, cleanse, eradicate all this polish dirt ! Liquidate all this dirt in the name of the interests of the USSR. J.Stalin, 14.X.37'" (Werth, The NKVD Mass Secret National Operations)Also the Katyn document I mentioned has Stalin's signature.

Likewise the Albanian archives have materials which can be used to praise or condemn Hoxha as well. For instance anti-communists have made use of a confidential letter Hoxha wrote during the war against a Trotskyist-turned-social-democrat named Llazar (Zai) Fundo who was working with the British. "Torture Zai Fundo to death and then shoot him. Ask him why he went to Kosovo, who sent him and what instructions he had. What did he want with Gani and the Englishmen? Have him explain his earlier activities and his treason. Send me Zai's statement with a secure messenger. Then kill him. Enver."

[Sea]

Posts: 2

Reputation: -73That's an average of -36 per post. This man is my hero. :wub:

[Jason]

Yes, I would agree that Marxism is a religion masquerading as a science.

I don't think Marxism is a religion. However, the idea that people should "fight for a totally egalitarian society" is relgious in nature. That's not saying it's a bad idea, but it's an opinion.