How do dictatorships work?

[Lobotomy]

I never really thought of a dictatorship as a state that is actually run by one supremely powerful individual. I thought of dictators as figureheads who represent a ruling class and its agenda. but then there have been plenty of instances of dictators who were truly insane that were primarily guided by some crackpot ideology instead of the rational self-interest of the ruling class. there are many examples in recent history of generals and statesmen following the orders of a dictator, even when it was clear that the results of said order would be disastrous for the state. Thoughts?

[cyu]

Never under-estimate the level of cowardice among humanity - especially among those used to a coddled and luxurious life.

The main thing is, nobody wants to be the first. If you stick your head out, they know they'll be the first to get hammered down. So if nobody is the first to stick their neck out, then basically it all looks like one solid wall of support for the dictator.

About the only way for cowards to succeed in an environment like this is to move in groups - that is, there will have to be many backroom meetings and deals - they will in fact have to form a conspiracy. And the more plotting that is required to organize a coup, the more likely their conspiracy will be exposed, and all the plotters hanged.

But dictatorships aren't such a mystery. Just about every large corporation in a capitalist economy is run like a dictatorship.

[Creative Destruction]

There isn't any one way to run a dictatorship. I mean, there are examples of absolute rule, like Hitler, who farmed out responsibilities to different leaders, but maintained general rulership, and then there are the dictatorial committees like Greece's military juntas in the 60s.

[Halert]

dictators serve one group of people for example nationalists, religious zealots, an ethnic group, the army, etc. That group supports the dictator because they are afraid to lose there privilege and/or they believe in the same ideology as the dictator.

Every ruler or government needs the support of some group to stay in power. What or who that group is, differs.

[Ocean Seal]

You are forgetting the materialist analysis here. You state that you believe that certain dictators don't act as agents of the ruling class because they are insane? However, I would like to look at the most insane dictators as with the exception of a set of perks that are handed to each of them, I can't find that they really do things which are insane and not profit driven.

Qaddafi might have owned a golden gun, but all of his economic policies dealt with empowering the bourgeoisie in Libya, and the same can be said of Kim Jong Un.
A man can wave his middle finger at another nation's representative, but ultimately the capitalist classes of each country are not petty enough to take each other's representatives seriously and ruin business opportunities.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

There is a difference between eccentric dictators (figureheads of a dictatorship) and the sheer lunatic spectacle some dictatorships provide us with (such as Nazi Germany and Turkmenistan). One can only conclude of course that even the wildest crackpot regime serve the rational self- interest of the ruling classes in the end, though it may appear obscured on the surface, f.e. because of the often populist rhetoric of such regimes. I think those kind of regimes are a product of a profound crisis (of one sort or another) and represent ruling classes who feel insecure and have great need for domineering mystification.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Human beings, on an individual level, often act in irrational ways. I don't see why institutions comprised of human beings would always act in a rational fashion.

[Lobotomy]

You state that you believe that certain dictators don't act as agents of the ruling class because they are insane?

No, I'm questioning how some dictators were able to mobilize entire apparatuses to do their bidding despite having irrational and harmful plans. for example, prior to the Nazis invading the Soviet Union, most of the Soviet military leaders were aware of the impending doom and tried to warn Stalin, who was firmly in denial until it was too late. Also, Stalin insisted on leading the military for some time after the invasion, despite having no knowledge in this area and being pretty shitty at it. On the surface it appears that the people working directly under Stalin simply went along with what he wanted. am I missing something?

(please no one let this thread devolve into a tired old Stalin debate, I'm not interested in that.)

[Firebrand]

I don't know about turkmenistan, but the whole nazi thing makes a tragic sort of sense if you consider the material and political conditions in germany and europe as a whole at the time. Consider

a) the fact that most european capitalists were bloody terrified of a communist revolution and willing to go to pretty much any lengths to avoid that and,
b) the fact that germany was an economic disaster zone, desperate poverty, hyperinflation, the works. Therefore invading other countries/finding a scapegoat/rejuvenating the weapons industry seemed like a pretty appealing idea to the capitalist classes of germany

and it all makes a lot more sense

[Lobotomy]

another example - and I know that this topic has already been beaten to death on revleft, so please forgive me - is Hoxha's bunkers. For real tho, what motivation did the Albanian government have to pursue such a ridiculous endeavor? I don't see how anyone profited from it. they could have put that money and manpower into far more useful things, but instead they blew it all on an inefficient attempt to combat a threat that was hardly even there.

Historical materialism made a lot of sense to me until I tried to analyze situations like that, now I just don't know.

[Remus Bleys]

another example - and I know that this topic has already been beaten to death on revleft, so please forgive me - is Hoxha's bunkers. For real tho, what motivation did the Albanian government have to pursue such a ridiculous endeavor? I don't see how anyone profited from it. they could have put that money and manpower into far more useful things, but instead they blew it all on an inefficient attempt to combat a threat that was hardly even there.

Historical materialism made a lot of sense to me until I tried to analyze situations like that, now I just don't know.

Ismail will tell you that everyone wanted to invade Albania. Except that ignores
1. Albania was unimportant in the eyes of world leaders.
2. They. Weren't. Invaded.
3. They faced inwards.

[Ismail]

another example - and I know that this topic has already been beaten to death on revleft, so please forgive me - is Hoxha's bunkers. For real tho, what motivation did the Albanian government have to pursue such a ridiculous endeavor? I don't see how anyone profited from it. they could have put that money and manpower into far more useful things, but instead they blew it all on an inefficient attempt to combat a threat that was hardly even there.

Historical materialism made a lot of sense to me until I tried to analyze situations like that, now I just don't know.Albania had a small army, so it relied on training the entire people in armed defense of the country in event of an external invasion.

On precisely why the bunkers were constructed I quote one Albanian source: "our uneven mountainous and fortified terrain, as well as the fact that our people know it like the back of their hand, constitute a very great obstacle to possible aggressors, to manoeuvres and the utilization of the modern military technique on their part, and a great facility for our popular war. Therefore, the Party has always given special importance to the fortification of the country now, in time of peace, in which the army and the people are actively mobilized." - Simon Ballabani, Scientific Conference on the Marxist-Leninist Theoretical Thinking of the Party of Labour of Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha, 1983, pp. 206-207.

There actually was a faction inside the armed forces that opposed the strategy of people's war (including the bunkers), resented the abolition of ranks, and sought to overthrow the government in order to bring forth a privileged caste within the army which could dictate to the party, as occurred to a considerable extent in the USSR and which the DPRK represents the most blatant case. This faction was exposed. Thus in the Albanian Constitution of 1976 the Party's leadership of the armed forces was guaranteed through Article 89: "The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania is the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and Chairman of the Defence Council."


1. Albania was unimportant in the eyes of world leaders.This ignores the strategic value Albania had to the Soviet revisionists, as well as the fact that Greece, a NATO member, declared itself as being in a "state of war" with Albania until 1987, and that British-trained paratroopers had been sent into Albania in 1949-51 with the intent of overthrowing the government.

"Quite apart from the symbolic implications of Hoxha's [split with the USSR], Khrushchev had always regarded Albania as a key member of the Warsaw Pact because of 'its superb strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea.' The rift with Yugoslavia in 1948 had eliminated the only other possible outlet for the Soviet navy in the region. To ensure that Albania could serve as a full-fledged 'military base on the Mediterranean Sea for all the socialist countries,' the Soviet Union had been providing extensive equipment and training to the Albanian army and navy. In particular, the Albanian navy had received a fleet of twelve modern attack submarines, which initially were under Soviet control but were gradually being transferred to Albanian jurisdiction. Khrushchev believed that the submarines would allow Albania to pose a 'serious threat to the operation of the NATO military bloc on the Mediterranean Sea,' and thus he was dismayed to find that Soviet efforts to establish a naval bulwark on the Mediterranean might all have been for naught.

As soon as the rift with Albania emerged, the Soviet Union imposed strict economic sanctions, withdrew all Soviet technicians and military advisers, took back eight of the twelve submarines, dismantled Soviet naval facilities at the Albanian port of Vlona, and engaged in bitter polemical exchanges with the Albanian leadership. Khrushchev also ordered Soviet warships to conduct maneuvers along the Albanian coast, and he secretly encouraged pro-Moscow rivals of Hoxha to carry out a coup. The coup attempt was rebuffed, and the other means of coercion proved insufficient to get rid of Hoxha or to bring about a change of policy. In December 1961, Khrushchev broke diplomatic relations with Albania and excluded it from both the Warsaw Pact and CMEA. However, he was unwilling to undertake a full-scale invasion to bring Albania back within the Soviet orbit, not least because of the logistical problems and the likelihood of confronting stiff armed resistance."
(Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert & Detlef Junker (Ed.). 1968: The World Transformed. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. pp. 117-119.)


2. They. Weren't. Invaded.Were the Albanians supposed to be psychic? Yugoslavia and Romania also understandably pursued various defensive measures in light of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and these were states with significantly larger and well-equipped armies. Albania was also far more vulnerable in regards to the international situation. For instance: unlike Yugoslavia and Romania which posed as "maverick" states and entered into all sorts of deals with US imperialism, Albania was the only Eastern European country which had no relations whatsoever with the US and UK, both of which these states broke off in 1946. Contingency planning done by every military force on earth tries to anticipate unlikely scenarios, and there is no basis to blame them for doing so.


3. They faced inwards.Some did, yes. That obviously makes sense when one understands another policy pursued concurrently with that of bunker construction, as described by a 1989 visitor: "in hillier areas, where there are vineyards, the message [of resistance to foreign attack] is reinforced by the iron spikes that are set in the tops of each of the posts supporting the vines, to spear enemy paratroops as they land."

@Lobotomy, as far as your original question goes, when was the last time a leader abolished capitalism by decree and restored feudalism? Niyazov renaming the month of April after his mother, to give one example, had nothing to do with the relations to the means of production, so one is hardly talking about historical materialism.

Also,

Also, Stalin insisted on leading the military for some time after the invasion, despite having no knowledge in this areaYou seem to be forgetting his role in the Civil War. The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia describes his service as follows: "He was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, one of the organizers of the defense of Petrograd, a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Southern, Western, and Southwestern fronts, and the representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense. Stalin showed himself to be a prominent party worker in military affairs and politics. By a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Stalin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on Nov. 27, 1919."

[Red Economist]

No, I'm questioning how some dictators were able to mobilize entire apparatuses to do their bidding despite having irrational and harmful plans. for example, prior to the Nazis invading the Soviet Union, most of the Soviet military leaders were aware of the impending doom and tried to warn Stalin, who was firmly in denial until it was too late. Also, Stalin insisted on leading the military for some time after the invasion, despite having no knowledge in this area and being pretty shitty at it. On the surface it appears that the people working directly under Stalin simply went along with what he wanted. am I missing something?

No. You're not missing anything. Most of the general staff were purged in the 30's. So anyone who stood up to Stalin could reasonably expect the same thing to happen to them.
The only thing to keep in mind is that at the time, if you happened to live in one of these countries, it was not self-evident that their plans were harmful or irrational. The mass media would have been full of pro-government ideology and told everyone that things were going to be great. Human beings have subjective limits to their perception which means that what they know, they have learned from other people. The only time this isn't the case is when you have direct personal experience or knowledge because then you can see how ignorant a position is, and therefore you can challenge it.

it is the same principle at work when everyone decides to get into debt and speculate on the stock market during a boom. if enough people say them same thing like "it's different this time", "today we have a better understanding of how markets work" or "you can't possibly loose, look what this guy did", people believe it and join in. they quite genuinely believe it and don't see the end coming until it's too late. The social pressure to conform is very hard to resist because much of what we think is 'realistic' is dependent on what other people are saying, (unless you're better informed/have a different source of information).

[Zealot]

Often through clientelism or extending large benefits to a small group of elites within the dictatorship. These people realise that their privileges depend upon the maintenance of the authoritarian regime and are unlikely to give it up. But dictatorships are brought down by insiders just as easily as outsiders. In any case, could you name specific examples of orders "disastrous for the state" or threatening to elite privilege?

[Zealot]

No, I'm questioning how some dictators were able to mobilize entire apparatuses to do their bidding despite having irrational and harmful plans. for example, prior to the Nazis invading the Soviet Union, most of the Soviet military leaders were aware of the impending doom and tried to warn Stalin, who was firmly in denial until it was too late. Also, Stalin insisted on leading the military for some time after the invasion, despite having no knowledge in this area and being pretty shitty at it. On the surface it appears that the people working directly under Stalin simply went along with what he wanted. am I missing something?

(please no one let this thread devolve into a tired old Stalin debate, I'm not interested in that.)

This isn't actually true though. Stalin was well aware of the threat posed by Nazism as can be seen in his writings and speeches several years prior to the invasion. If anything, the purges were carried out to prevent dissent in the military in the context of an impending war and under the direct knowledge of said threat. Stalin seemed to be under the impression that there were fascist sympathisers within the military and bureaucracy, though this is really another debate altogether.

[Ismail]

This isn't actually true though. Stalin was well aware of the threat posed by Nazism as can be seen in his writings and speeches several years prior to the invasion. If anything, the purges were carried out to prevent dissent in the military in the context of an impending war and under the direct knowledge of said threat. Stalin seemed to be under the impression that there were fascist sympathisers within the military and bureaucracy, though this is really another debate altogether.It's also worth noting that the general consensus within the Party (which, after all, was superior to the military command), as Molotov notes in his 1970's-80's recollections, was that Hitler would attack a year later than he actually did. The Soviets were anxious to avoid responding to a possible provocation which could give Hitler a casus belli, allowing him to declare that he was "defending" Nazi Germany from a Soviet "invasion."

And in any case this is not crazy/eccentric behavior. At worst you can say Stalin's suspicious nature got the best of him in the context of trying to anticipate the moves of the USSR's main enemy at the time.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Human beings, on an individual level, often act in irrational ways. I don't see why institutions comprised of human beings would always act in a rational fashion.
True enough, but there tends to be some rationality underlying most irrational acts. A lot of stuff which seems complete bonkers serves some kind of rational function, or can be understood rationally if you look at the context of it.

[Remus Bleys]

Ismail, I'm not anti-bunker. Hoxha just went overboard.


Albania had a small army, so it relied on training the entire people in armed defense of the country in event of an external invasion.

On precisely why the bunkers were constructed I quote one Albanian source: "our uneven mountainous and fortified terrain, as well as the fact that our people know it like the back of their hand, constitute a very great obstacle to possible aggressors, to manoeuvres and the utilization of the modern military technique on their part, and a great facility for our popular war. Therefore, the Party has always given special importance to the fortification of the country now, in time of peace, in which the army and the people are actively mobilized." - Simon Ballabani, Scientific Conference on the Marxist-Leninist Theoretical Thinking of the Party of Labour of Albania and Comrade Enver Hoxha, 1983, pp. 206-207.

There actually was a faction inside the armed forces that opposed the strategy of people's war (including the bunkers), resented the abolition of ranks, and sought to overthrow the government in order to bring forth a privileged caste within the army which could dictate to the party, as occurred to a considerable extent in the USSR and which the DPRK represents the most blatant case. This faction was exposed. Thus in the Albanian Constitution of 1976 the Party's leadership of the armed forces was guaranteed through Article 89: "The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania is the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces and Chairman of the Defence Council." Yeah. In agreement with.


This ignores the strategic value Albania had to the Soviet revisionists, as well as the fact that Greece, a NATO member, declared itself as being in a "state of war" with Albania until 1987,Which is why they had diplomatic relations with eachother since 1971? Is this why Hoxha traded with them since 1971?

and that British-trained paratroopers had been sent into Albania in 1949-51 with the intent of overthrowing the government. Ah yes. Trained paratroopers. In order to combat that we must build a million bunkers!



As soon as the rift with Albania emerged, the Soviet Union imposed strict economic sanctions, withdrew all Soviet technicians and military advisers, took back eight of the twelve submarines, dismantled Soviet naval facilities at the Albanian port of Vlona, Are we going to act like the Soviets were ever fair in their trade with Albania?

and engaged in bitter polemical exchanges with the Albanian leadership. Words hurt.

Khrushchev also ordered Soviet warships to conduct maneuvers along the Albanian coast, and he secretly encouraged pro-Moscow rivals of Hoxha to carry out a coup. The coup attempt was rebuffed, and the other means of coercion proved insufficient to get rid of Hoxha or to bring about a change of policy. An attempted coup? This also necessitates the building of thousands of bunkers.

In December 1961, Khrushchev broke diplomatic relations with Albania and excluded it from both the Warsaw Pact and CMEA. However, he was unwilling to undertake a full-scale invasion to bring Albania back within the Soviet orbit, not least because of the logistical problems and the likelihood of confronting stiff armed resistance." Wasn't Kruschev a "revisionist" as he dared to attack Stalin, and thus anti-communist in the eyes of Hoxha? Aren't you always saying it was the principled Albanians who denied trade with the Soviets?



Were the Albanians supposed to be psychic? Yugoslavia and Romania also understandably pursued various defensive measures in light of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and these were states with significantly larger and well-equipped armies. Albania was also far more vulnerable in regards to the international situation. For instance: unlike Yugoslavia and Romania which posed as "maverick" states and entered into all sorts of deals with US imperialism, Albania was the only Eastern European country which had no relations whatsoever with the US and UK, both of which these states broke off in 1946. Contingency planning done by every military force on earth tries to anticipate unlikely scenarios, and there is no basis to blame them for doing so. Are we going to act as if the Albanian army could withstand the Soviets? Are we going to pretend like the Soviets couldn't have taken over Albania if they wanted to?


Some did, yes. That obviously makes sense when one understands another policy pursued concurrently with that of bunker construction, as described by a 1989 visitor: "in hillier areas, where there are vineyards, the message [of resistance to foreign attack] is reinforced by the iron spikes that are set in the tops of each of the posts supporting the vines, to spear enemy paratroops as they land." Also to take up arms against all those albanians trying to leave Albania, right? Or did albania just let people leave?:rolleyes:

Also. About that Soviet Revisionists. I wish you would stop saying that.


The successful carrying out of the policy of the Party for the construction of the economic base of socialism also brought about the radical transformation of the old class structure of our society. With the complete establishment of socialist relations of production the process of the elimination of the exploiting classes as classes came to an end. Our society is now comprised of two friendly classes – the working class and the cooperativist peasantry, as well as the stratum of the people's intelligentsia. The alliance of the working class and the cooperativist peasantry, under the leadership of the working class, and the raising to a qualitatively new level of the unity of our people, which now has the friendship and cooperation of the two socialist classes at its foundation, constitutes the fundamental distinguishing feature of the class structure in our country today.

During this period, the working class itself, the working peasantry and the intelligentsia, have undergone radical changes, too.

The establishment of socialist ownership and the creation of the new class structure eliminated, once and for all, the exploitation of man by man as well as the social antagonisms, which are the offspring of this exploitation and the system, based on it, such as the antagonisms between town and countryside, industry and agriculture, mental work and manual work, while the essential differences between them are being gradually narrowed. They put an end to the age-long oppression of the woman and ensured the fundamental conditions for her complete emancipation, for her active participation equal with the men in running the country and in all spheres of socialist construction and social activity. The quote is clearly stating socialism has been established while the intelligentsia and peasantry are seperate from the proletariat. As if a state could exist in socialism. But I don't want to get into that. Im more interested in this idea of the peasantry and proletariat being seperate classes under socialism.

Socialism means the abolition of classes. Source. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm) Who's the revisionist now?

[cyu]

The mass media would have been full of pro-government ideology and told everyone that things were going to be great. Human beings have subjective limits to their perception which means that what they know, they have learned from other people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuvGh_n3I_M

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity

He exposed people in a group to a series of lines, and the participants were asked to match one line with a standard line. All participants except one were confederates and gave the wrong answer in 12 of the 18 trials. The results showed a surprisingly high degree of conformity: 74% of the participants conformed on at least one trial.

After his first test, Asch wanted to investigate whether the size or unanimity of the majority had greater influence on test subjects. “Which aspect of the influence of a majority is more important – the size of the majority or its unanimity? The experiment was modified to examine this question. In one series the size of the opposition was varied from one to 15 persons.” The results clearly showed that as more people opposed the subject, the subject became more likely to conform.

Baron and his colleagues conducted a second eyewitness study that focused on normative influence. there were both high and low motives to be accurate. The low motivation group conformed 33% of the time. The high motivation group conformed less at 16%. These results show that when accuracy is not very important, it is better to get the wrong answer than to risk social disapproval.

An experiment using procedures similar to Asch's found that there was significantly less conformity in six-person groups of friends as compared to six-person groups of strangers. Because friends already know and accept each other, there may be less normative pressure to conform in some situations.

[Ismail]

Which is why they had diplomatic relations with eachother since 1971? Is this why Hoxha traded with them since 1971?Well yes, the Albanian side stated that the "state of war" was legally baseless (the "Albania" that invaded Greece alongside Italy during WWII was a puppet regime that enjoyed no popular support and whose troops deserted in large numbers) and should be ended as soon as possible. At the same time, the Greeks couldn't make a peace treaty with a country they did not recognize as legitimate.


Are we going to act like the Soviets were ever fair in their trade with Albania?Certainly, as Hoxha noted at the time: "In 1945, when our people were threatened with starvation, comrade Stalin ordered the ships loaded with grain destined for the Soviet people, who were also in dire need of food at that time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people. Whereas, the present Soviet leaders permit themselves these ugly deeds." (quoted in O'Donnell, A Coming of Age, p. 51.)


An attempted coup? This also necessitates the building of thousands of bunkers.Actually the plotters had opposed the bunker scheme, as I noted.

The bunkers were built in response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in response to the Soviet claims that there existed an "international dictatorship of the proletariat" that could invade wherever it liked in "defense of socialism."


Wasn't Kruschev a "revisionist" as he dared to attack Stalin, and thus anti-communist in the eyes of Hoxha? Aren't you always saying it was the principled Albanians who denied trade with the Soviets?In 1960 and 1961 the Albanians did stress that they stood for relations of equality between the USSR and Albania, as had occurred under Stalin. The Soviet revisionists replied by attempting to overthrow the Albanian leadership, pursuing economic blockade, and finally trying to starve the Albanians into submission while cutting off all ties with the country. The Albanian leadership eventually came to the conclusion that restoring ties with the USSR (as with the USA) would be inherently harmful to the independence of Albania, and thus Hoxha repeatedly stressed that Albania would never restore any sort of relations whatsoever with those states.


Are we going to act as if the Albanian army could withstand the Soviets? Are we going to pretend like the Soviets couldn't have taken over Albania if they wanted to?The US tried taking over Vietnam, that didn't work out too well. The Soviets tried taking over Afghanistan, that also failed. What is important is that in both cases it was the whole people who arose in rebellion against the external aggressor, and that is precisely what the Albanians focused on as their defense strategy.


Also to take up arms against all those albanians trying to leave Albania, right?No, that was the job of border security.


The quote is clearly stating socialism has been established while the intelligentsia and peasantry are seperate from the proletariat. As if a state could exist in socialism. But I don't want to get into that. Im more interested in this idea of the peasantry and proletariat being seperate classes under socialism.

Source. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm) Who's the revisionist now?I don't see why you mention that quote. The Albanians took the same line as the USSR under Stalin.

"We have achieved only the first, the lower phase, of communism. Even this first phase of communism, socialism, is far from being completed, it is built only in the rough.

In our country the parasitic classes, i.e., all and sundry capitalists and little capitalists, have been liquidated. Thanks to this, the exploitation of man by man has been abolished. This is not only a gigantic step forward in the lives of the peoples of our country, but also a gigantic step forward along the road of emancipation of the whole of mankind.

We, however, have not fully carried out the task of abolishing classes, although the working class of the U.S.S.R. which is in power is no longer a proletariat in the strict sense of the word, and the peasantry, the great bulk of which has joined the collective farms, is no longer the old peasantry.

Both the two classes which exist in the U.S.S.R. are building socialism and come within the system of socialist economy. But although both are in the same system of socialist economy, the working class in its work is bound up with state socialist property (the property of the whole people), while the collective farm peasantry is bound up with cooperative and collective farm property which belongs to individual collective farms and to collective-farm and cooperative associations. This connection with different forms of socialist property primarily determines the different position of these classes. This also determine the somewhat different paths of further development of each of them.

What is common in the development of these two classes is that both are developing in the direction of communism. As this proceeds the difference in their class positions will be gradually obliterated until here too the last remnants of class distinctions finally disappear.

We cannot but realize that this is a long road."
(V.M. Molotov. The Constitution of Socialism: Speech Delivered at the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R., November 29, 1936. Moscow: Co-operative Publishing Society of Workers in the U.S.S.R. 1937. pp. 28-29.)

Lenin was speaking of the final victory of socialism, not the construction of it in the main. As both Molotov and Kapo make clear, the class distinctions between the proletariat and peasantry, and differences with the intelligentsia, were gradually becoming obsolete.

It was the Soviet revisionists who proclaimed that the USSR and the CPSU were "of the whole people," that the dictatorship of the proletariat did not exist under socialism.

[Remus Bleys]

First off, to the OP think about Caligula. He appointed a horse to the Senate. Was that indicative of insanity? Or was that a message to the Senate of how powerless they were compared to him?


Certainly, as Hoxha noted at the time: "In 1945, when our people were threatened with starvation, comrade Stalin ordered the ships loaded with grain destined for the Soviet people, who were also in dire need of food at that time, and sent the grain at once to the Albanian people. Whereas, the present Soviet leaders permit themselves these ugly deeds." (quoted in O'Donnell, A Coming of Age, p. 51.) I meant post-stalin


Actually the plotters had opposed the bunker scheme, as I noted. I think i made it quite clear that I am not criticizing the existence of bunkers, just the sheer amount of them.


The bunkers were built in response to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, in response to the Soviet claims that there existed an "international dictatorship of the proletariat" that could invade wherever it liked in "defense of socialism." See above



The US tried taking over Vietnam, that didn't work out too well. Vietnam was backed up by the USSR "Revisionists".

The Soviets tried taking over Afghanistan, that also failed. The Mujahideen had America backing it up.

What is important is that in both cases it was the whole people who arose in rebellion against the external aggressor, In addition to being backed up by a world superpower.

and that is precisely what the Albanians focused on as their defense strategy. Did I imply that I am against that?



I don't see why you mention that quote. I had it handy.

The Albanians took the same line as the USSR under Stalin. As you probably know, I view post 1920s USSR as state capitalist.


"We have achieved only the first, the lower phase, of communism. Even this first phase of communism, socialism, is far from being completed, it is built only in the rough. Okay, so in the Leninist definition of the terms, the Albanians claimed to achieve socialism.


In our country the parasitic classes, i.e., all and sundry capitalists and little capitalists, have been liquidated. Thanks to this, the exploitation of man by man has been abolished. The Albanian government exploited no one?

This is not only a gigantic step forward in the lives of the peoples of our country, but also a gigantic step forward along the road of emancipation of the whole of mankind. Tru dat.


We, however, have not fully carried out the task of abolishing classes, although the working class of the U.S.S.R. which is in power is no longer a proletariat in the strict sense of the word, and the peasantry, the great bulk of which has joined the collective farms, is no longer the old peasantry. Then. You. Have. Not. Achieved. Socialism.


Both the two classes which exist in the U.S.S.R. are building socialism and come within the system of socialist economy. But although both are in the same system of socialist economy, the working class in its work is bound up with state socialist property (the property of the whole people), while the collective farm peasantry is bound up with cooperative and collective farm property which belongs to individual collective farms and to collective-farm and cooperative associations. This connection with different forms of socialist property primarily determines the different position of these classes. This also determine the somewhat different paths of further development of each of them. Bunch of revisionist bullshit.



What is common in the development of these two classes is that both are developing in the direction of communism. As this proceeds the difference in their class positions will be gradually obliterated until here too the last remnants of class distinctions finally disappear. Both are developing the road of socialism, but then its the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.



Lenin was speaking of the final victory of socialism, not the construction of it in the main. :rolleyes:
To me, this seems like your saying that Lenin was talking about ultimately creating Communism. Because we all know lenin used socialism synonymously with communism.

Also, constructing socialism =/= Socialism.

As both Molotov and Kapo make clear, the class distinctions between the proletariat and peasantry, and differences with the intelligentsia, were gradually becoming obsolete. Then it would be a DotP still (even if it was a DotP).


It was the Soviet revisionists who proclaimed that the USSR and the CPSU were "of the whole people," that the dictatorship of the proletariat did not exist under socialism. The "Soviet Revisionists" were right, except for the fact Russia was neither socialism nor DotP.

From my same source: (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm)


This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism—or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble. Nascent Communism is obviously First Phase of Communism, i.e. Socialism.
Dying Capitalism is obvious.

This is the DotP, which is a transition to socialism, not socialism itself.


In order to solve the second and most difficult part of the problem, the proletariat, after having defeated the bourgeoisie, must unswervingly conduct its policy towards the peasantry along the following fundamental lines. The proletariat must separate, demarcate the working peasant from the peasant owner, the peasant worker from the peasant huckster, the peasant who labours from the peasant who profiteers.

In this demarcation lies the whole essence of socialism.
The Proletariat must raise the peasant to the status of proletariat, and destroy the rich peasants. This is the essence of socialism. The job of the proletariat in these countries is to abolish the class of the peasantry, thus go to socialism (lower-phase communism).


Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke.
Here he states Socialism = No classes and DotP has classes. Thus Socialism =/= DotP.


Lastly, the peasants, like the petty bourgeoisie in general, occupy a half-way, intermediate position even under the dictatorship of the proletariat: on the one hand, they are a fairly large (and in backward Russia, a vast) mass of working people, united by the common interest of all working people to emancipate themselves from the landowner and the capitalist; on the other hand, they are disunited small proprietors, property-owners and traders. Such an economic position inevitably causes them to vacillate between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In view of the acute form which the struggle between these two classes has assumed, in view of the incredibly severe break up of all social relations, and in view of the great attachment of the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie generally to the old, the routine, and the unchanging, it is only natural that we should inevitably find them swinging from one side to the other, that we should find them wavering, changeable, uncertain, and so on.

In relation to this class—or to these social elements—the proletariat must strive to establish its influence over it, to guide it. To give leadership to the vacillating and unstable—such is the task of the proletariat. Here Lenin states that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not do away with classes instantly, and that the job of the proletariat is to proletarianize the peasant (and to abolish itself as a class). Whereas Socialism is the abolishment of all classes.
Yet again, Lenin stresses that socialism =/= dictatorship of the proletariat.

Why supposed "anti-revisionists" ignore this is beyond me.

I would quote marx, but you would probably call me an "orthomarx" and accuse me of being an internet tendency. Which is funny....

[Questionable]

ITT: We learn about how the Albanian freedom fighters who kicked the Germans and Italians out of their country didn't understand military matters as well as some guy on the internet.


I think i made it quite clear that I am not criticizing the existence of bunkers, just the sheer amount of them.

What, in your mind, is too much, then? Is there a cutoff point of too many bunkers? What kind of standards are you applying? Is there some ratio you're looking at about square mileage to bunkers? Or is it your own subjective opinion as an observer versus the actual Albanians who lived and fought in the country?


Vietnam was backed up by the USSR "Revisionists".

But the actual fighting was done by the Vietnamese, same with the Mujaheddin. Futhermore, Russia and Albania both defeated external counter-revolution (well, in Albania's case the revolution started against the fascist occupation, but you see my point) without any significant foreign aid. The implication in your post, that revolution is impossible against imperialist powers, paves the way for defeatism and revisionism.


Yet again, Lenin stresses that socialism =/= dictatorship of the proletariat.

He states that nowhere, except in the inferences you are making.

Socialism is indeed the abolition of classes, in that sense that the differences between the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia are slowly abolished, paving the way for full communism.

[Brotto Rühle]

itt: We learn about how the albanian freedom fighters who kicked the germans and italians out of their country didn't understand military matters as well as some guy on the internet.



What, in your mind, is too much, then? Is there a cutoff point of too many bunkers? What kind of standards are you applying? Is there some ratio you're looking at about square mileage to bunkers? Or is it your own subjective opinion as an observer versus the actual albanians who lived and fought in the country?



But the actual fighting was done by the vietnamese, same with the mujaheddin. Futhermore, russia and albania both defeated external counter-revolution (well, in albania's case the revolution started against the fascist occupation, but you see my point) without any significant foreign aid. The implication in your post, that revolution is impossible against imperialist powers, paves the way for defeatism and revisionism.



He states that nowhere, except in the inferences you are making.

Socialism is indeed the abolition of classes, in that sense that the differences between the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia are slowly abolished, paving the way for full communism.
full communismmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Red_Banner]

But the actual fighting was done by the Vietnamese, same with the Mujaheddin. Futhermore, Russia and Albania both defeated external counter-revolution (well, in Albania's case the revolution started against the fascist occupation, but you see my point) without any significant foreign aid. The implication in your post, that revolution is impossible against imperialist powers, paves the way for defeatism and revisionism.

The Mujahadeen mostly conisted of foreign interventionists, not so much Afghans.

[Remus Bleys]

Oh look. Ismail's dog.


ITT: We learn about how the Albanian freedom fighters who kicked the Germans and Italians out of their country didn't understand military matters as well as some guy on the internet.:laugh: Yeah. Sure, thats what I am arguing.
Cut that shit out. The statement of me being some guy on the internet arguing against bunkers equally applies to you, except pro-bunkers. So, almighty General, tell me about military matters.



What, in your mind, is too much, then? Is there a cutoff point of too many bunkers? What kind of standards are you applying? Is there some ratio you're looking at about square mileage to bunkers? I don't know. However, 1:1 ratio for something not used reaks of paranoia.

Or is it your own subjective opinion as an observer versus the actual Albanians who lived and fought in the country? So, the Albanian Party of Labor represented the entire proletariat? No beauracracy?

I know your going to say yes, but show me and explain your reasoning.




But the actual fighting was done by the Vietnamese, same with the Mujaheddin. So people are sole part of war? Not technology? Not funding?

Futhermore, Russia and Albania both defeated external counter-revolution (well, in Albania's case the revolution started against the fascist occupation, but you see my point) without any significant foreign aid. There is a difference between 1917 and 1971. WWII doesn't really help your argument, as the invasion was being fought against by countries other than Albania, so yeah, they had help here.

The implication in your post, that revolution is impossible against imperialist powers, paves the way for defeatism Thats not my implication. I mean, I can see it, but I was obviously talking about NATIONAL DEFENCE. Now, revolution and being attacked in times of revolution will happen, and it can be said my post was indicating that that was impossible. I get how you can see that, but again, we have access to materials that Albania did not at the time. The Revolution will have to involve an internationalist basis, even if it is and one country, or it will fail.
Albania didn't really have access to it. Does that mean they give up? No.

But the USSR didn't invade. The USSR was not intimidated by the bunkers. That was the point of what I was saying.


and revisionism. Nonsense. I never claimed to be a marxist-leninist in the first place.
I think I've established Marxist-Leninism is revisionism on Lenin already. And the Revisionism of Marx has been fleshed out enough.




He states that nowhere, except in the inferences you are making.
Socialism is indeed the abolition of classes, in that sense that the differences between the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia are slowly abolished, paving the way for full communism.
:laugh:


Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Notice how he states transition. A transition of seeds to a tree does not mean that the tree is both a tree and a seed; nor does it mean that the seed is both a seed and a tree. Its one or the other. The DotP is not socialism, nor is it capitalism as we know it. It is more capitalist, however, as Socialism in One Country is impossible.
Remember, to marx communism=socialism

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm Notice how Transistion of Capitalism to Communism, First Phase, and Second Phase are all seperate.

Now, you'll probably just say "SioC is possible Remus! Stop being a Revisionist!"
That position is goddamn revisionism.

No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range. Which ties in nicely to my point about Revolution needing to be internationalist.
Capitalism is a global system. Socialism is a global system.

My position on SioC is also explained here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2677154&postcount=11), much better than I could.

[Questionable]

full communismmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I normally ignore such immaturity, but I have to ask, how can you be comfortable being such an idiot? How can having nothing to offer to the Left, let alone the human race, possibly satisfy you?

As for Remus, I will respond to you when I'm on my break.

[Remus Bleys]

I normally ignore such immaturity, but I have to ask, how can you be comfortable being such an idiot? How can having nothing to offer to the Left, let alone the human race, possibly satisfy you?

:confused:
Why does that make him an idiot? There is no such thing as "full communism" the most its used in is Socialist Meme Caucus jokes. Socialism constructs and turns into communism, which may construct some higher phase (maybe). However, it doesn't "advance." There is no such thing as full capitalism, full feudalism, full primitive communism, full feudalism, so why would you use full communism in a serious matter.

Unless of course you believe that Socialism does advance its self. Which would mean Lower Phase Communism advances into... Lower Phase Communism. Which you obviously do believe, as you keep insisting things such as Socialism in One Country and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat staying to Socialism.

I don't really like to name call, but... (http://images.sodahead.com/polls/002398921/3416856308_youstartedit128552031297338467_xlarge.j peg)

I think that makes you an idiot. How can you be comfortable claiming to follow the line of marx and believe such a revisionist lie? I, mean, I wouldn't care if you didn't refer to yourself as a leninist or as a marxist. Because hoxhaism is orthodox stalinism. Marxist-Leninism has nothing to do with either Marx or with Lenin.

And by spouting off your a Marxist when you obviously are not is detrimental to the left. It actively hinders the leftist movement. Thus you actively hurt marxism, and as we know, if the human race is to continue, it must achieve communism. Thus, unlike that silly post Subvert posted (which just a jab at your terminology, that you highly overreacted to) you are actively hurting Progress.

Do you know what that makes you? A Reactionary. How can you live with yourself knowing you are actively keeping the human race back.

At first in my days I thought this, then I convinced myself it wasn't so, as the conversation with mls had a lot to offer and tried to base itself on marx. Unfortunately, you and your ilk have convinced me otherwise. Stalinism and all of its deviation is inherently reactionary, and its followers likewise.

OH! But you base yourself off Marx. You base yourself off Marx as Bernstein did.

Those third world stalinists who are fighting for their bastardize socialism, do you think I attack them? Do you think I think of them as reactionary?
To be honest, I do. Just as I view the fight for social democracy as reactionary, I view their fight as reactionary.
Does that mean I armchair around and ignore them? Of course not. They might actually maybe alleviate some of the suffering caused by capitalism. But you know what? So does social democracy.


So maybe you shouldn't have told a left com (specifically councillist) that s/he has nothing the left or the world for a stupid post on Revleft. Because you and your kind are goddamn Reactionaries.

[Brotto Rühle]

I normally ignore such immaturity, but I have to ask, how can you be comfortable being such an idiot? How can having nothing to offer to the Left, let alone the human race, possibly satisfy you?

As for Remus, I will respond to you when I'm on my break.

As Remus got at, but didn't quite nail, Full communism isn't a thing. Communist society is communist society. You cannot have a little communism, half communism, communism x π, or whatever.

By the way, socialism is communism.

[Ismail]

I meant post-stalinI don't see your point, then. Obviously Albania and the USSR under the Soviet revisionists did not enjoy an equal relationship, which logically followed from the latter's efforts to restore capitalism (thus eschewing proletarian internationalism) and enforce its "de-stalinization" policies on other countries in order to further its revisionist aims and appease the Yugoslav revisionists.


Vietnam was backed up by the USSR "Revisionists".
The Mujahideen had America backing it up.
In addition to being backed up by a world superpower.Actually the Soviet social-imperialists tried to undermine the Vietnamese national liberation struggle, while the American imperialists did not care about the Afghan resistance (who they funded the most reactionary segments of) outside of their ability to rebuff the Soviet invaders, and once that objective was complete the Americans left the future of Afghanistan entirely in the hands of their Pakistani allies, hence the rise of the Taliban.


The Albanian government exploited no one?Of course.


The "Soviet Revisionists" were right, except for the fact Russia was neither socialism nor DotP.No they weren't, they were completely wrong, as were the Yugoslav revisionists who likewise claimed that Stalin's defense of the continuation of class struggle under socialism demonstrated his supposed "bureaucratic state-capitalist" ideology. The purpose of the Soviet revisionists calling for an end to class struggle was to discourage any opposition to themselves and their state-capitalist and social-fascist regime, by declaring it "un-Marxist" to posit the existence of antagonistic contradictions in Soviet society, of which the most fundamental became that between exploiters and exploited, between the new Soviet bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Such demonstrates the reactionary nature of the supposed "return to Leninism" advocated by the Soviet and Yugoslav revisionists.


The Proletariat must raise the peasant to the status of proletariat, and destroy the rich peasants. This is the essence of socialism. The job of the proletariat in these countries is to abolish the class of the peasantry, thus go to socialism (lower-phase communism).The rich peasantry were liquidated as a class in the USSR and in Albania, whereas virtually every other peasant lived in cooperatives or state farms. They were thus put in the sphere of socialist relations. The process of raising the peasantry to the status of a proletariat was being gradually carried out under the direction of the socialist state.

[Remus Bleys]

I don't see your point, then. Obviously Albania and the USSR under the Soviet revisionists did not enjoy an equal relationship, which logically followed from the latter's efforts to restore capitalism (thus eschewing proletarian internationalism) and enforce its "de-stalinization" policies on other countries in order to further its revisionist aims and appease the Yugoslav revisionists.
1. What do you mean restore?
2. Because SioC didn't eschew proletarian internationalism?
3. The fact they didn't praise Stalin is besides the point. A lot of Russians like Stalin, but they themselves are not communist. This point literally makes no sense, yet it is your favorite one.


Actually the Soviet social-imperialists tried to undermine the Vietnamese national liberation struggle, Source.
Wait. No. I get what you mean now. I see, you are talking about that "National Right to self rule" or whatever bullshit.
Try harder. That's not what I was saying.

while the American imperialists did not care about the Afghan resistance (who they funded the most reactionary segments of) outside of their ability to rebuff the Soviet invaders, and once that objective was complete the Americans left the future of Afghanistan entirely in the hands of their Pakistani allies, hence the rise of the Taliban. Did I fucking say differently? If anything this proves my point about the Muj. The Soviets didn't care about Vietnam, the americans didn't care about afghanistan.


Of course.
:rolleyes:

No they weren't, they were completely wrong, as were the Yugoslav revisionists who likewise claimed that Stalin's defense of the continuation of class struggle under socialism demonstrated his supposed "bureaucratic state-capitalist" ideology. The purpose of the Soviet revisionists calling for an end to class struggle was to discourage any opposition to themselves and their state-capitalist and social-fascist regime, by declaring it "un-Marxist" to posit the existence of antagonistic contradictions in Soviet society, of which the most fundamental became that between exploiters and exploited, between the new Soviet bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

Such demonstrates the reactionary nature of the supposed "return to Leninism" advocated by the Soviet and Yugoslav revisionists.1. I feel as if you are thinking I in anyway support or emulate what the soviets or yugoslavians did. Stop that now.
2. You are simply stating "Thats what the Soviet Revisionists did" WHY WOULD THAT ARGUMENT WORK IF I JUST EXPLICITLY CALLED STALIN AND STALINISTS REACTIONARY?
3. I HAVE QUOTED MARX, ENGELS AND LENIN ON THIS SUBJECT.
Questionable told me I was misinterpreting Lenin without telling me how.
You however, did not even attempt to tell me how I was wrong. You can't just go "HUR DURR THEY WERE BECAUSE HOXHA SAID SO" Without directly, or even indirectly, addressing any of my points, my evidence, my reasoning, or my quotes. It is intellectually dishonest at best and you fucking know it.



The rich peasantry were liquidated as a class in the USSR and in Albania, whereas virtually every other peasant lived in cooperatives or state farms. They were thus put in the sphere of socialist relations. The process of raising the peasantry to the status of a proletariat was being gradually carried out under the direction of the socialist state.Wait... they weren't proletariats? How the fuck does that disprove what I was saying.



NOW ISMAIL, DO YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP GRASPING AT STRAWS?

[Ismail]

1. What do you mean restore?You know very well what I mean.


2. Because SioC didn't eschew proletarian internationalism?Nope. As Stalin wrote (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm), "the serious assistance of the international proletariat is a force without which the problem of the final victory of Socialism in one country cannot be solved."


3. The fact they didn't praise Stalin is besides the point. A lot of Russians like Stalin, but they themselves are not communist. This point literally makes no sense, yet it is your favorite one.The Soviet revisionists slandered Stalin, trying to claim he was an aberration from Marxism-Leninism, a man who "violated socialist legality," was a "subjectivist" in theoretical affairs, etc. The fact that they did not uphold Stalin is very much the point, for, as Hoxha noted, he who does not uphold Stalin as the continuer of the work of Lenin is not a Marxist-Leninist. To restore capitalism and to enforce a social-fascist dictatorship upon the Soviet people, it was necessary to negate the valuable experience of socialist construction under Stalin and to attack, among other things, his important conclusions in Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. and other works.


Source.The Soviet revisionists continuously tried to get the Vietnamese to cease their struggle against the Southern puppet regime. In neighboring Cambodia, which US imperialism tried using as a base against this struggle, the Soviet revisionists gave diplomatic recognition to the Lon Nol regime and even assisted it in procuring arms and other materials, as noted in Red Papers #7 (http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7.pdf), page 71.


Did I fucking say differently? If anything this proves my point about the Muj. The Soviets didn't care about Vietnam, the americans didn't care about afghanistan.Of course they didn't, both were imperialist powers. What's your point? Both the Vietnamese and Afghans resisted the external invaders despite the intrigues of both superpowers.


1. I feel as if you are thinking I in anyway support or emulate what the soviets or yugoslavians did. Stop that now.You just said that the Soviet and Yugoslav revisionists were correct in denouncing the continuation of class struggle under socialism. it doesn't matter if you think those same revisionists are capitalists, it matters that you adopt and apologize for their reactionary arguments under the cover of opposing "Stalinism."


Wait... they weren't proletariats? How the fuck does that disprove what I was saying.I don't really care too much what you're saying about socialism, I'm just stating the facts about Albania (and, coincidentally, the USSR.)

[Remus Bleys]

You know very well what I mean.

Nope. As Stalin wrote (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm), "the serious assistance of the international proletariat is a force without which the problem of the final victory of Socialism in one country cannot be solved." Show me how he did this in praxis, and not some bullshit theory.


The Soviet revisionists slandered Stalin, trying to claim he was an aberration from Marxism-Leninism, a man who "violated socialist legality," was a "subjectivist" in theoretical affairs, etc. The fact that they did not uphold Stalin is very much the point, for, as Hoxha noted, he who does not uphold Stalin as the continuer of the work of Lenin is not a Marxist-Leninist.
WAIT? THEY WERENT MARXIST-LENINIST?
:laugh: So what?
And I was talking about current Russia.

The Soviet revisionists continuously tried to get the Vietnamese to cease their struggle against the Southern puppet regime. In neighboring Cambodia, which US imperialism tried using as a base against this struggle, the Soviet revisionists gave diplomatic recognition to the Lon Nol regime and even assisted it in procuring arms and other materials, as noted in Red Papers #7, page 71. Besides the point.


Of course they didn't, both were imperialist powers. What's your point? Both the Vietnamese and Afghans resisted the external invaders despite the intrigues of both superpowers. My point is not that the USSR tried to save Vietnam and free the Vietnamese and help with their petty-bourgeoisie national liberation movement; my point was that since the USSR supplied the Vietnamese to combat the Americans, that that had a HUGE effect on the Vietnam War.

Its lovely how you ignore the fact that Albania was not invaded by the USSR, instead changing the subject.



You just said that the Soviet and Yugoslav revisionists were correct in denouncing the continuation of class struggle under socialism. it doesn't matter if you think those same revisionists are capitalists, it matters that you adopt and apologize for their reactionary arguments under the cover of opposing "Stalinism." :rolleyes:
The "Soviet Revisionists" were right, except for the fact Russia was neither socialism nor DotP.
How you misconstrued my simultaneous condemnation of the USSR and the inane idea that dotp = socialism as apologetic to the USSR is beyond me.

Furthermore, the system of "class struggle under socialism" logically leads to "Comrade Stalin destroyed the classes. We now have full socialism" and further apologisms for the state capitalist nature of the USSR



I don't really care too much what you're saying about socialism, I'm just stating the facts about Albania (and, coincidentally, the USSR.)
And this Questionable, is an instance of Ismail putting irrelevant information about the Holy Land Albania, guided by the light of Hoxha, the only true Disciple of our Lord and Saviour Stalin.

ISMAIL BE RELEVANT AND ADDRESS MY ACTUAL POINTS OR LEAVE

[Ismail]

Show me how he did this in praxis, and not some bullshit theory.In practice the Soviet Union assisted the socialist movements of various countries while at home Stalin exposed the theses of Trotsky, Bukharin, and other renegades who sought collaboration with imperialism and the overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship.


WAIT? THEY WERENT MARXIST-LENINIST?
So what?
And I was talking about current Russia.
Besides the point.Who cares about modern-day Russia? Who brought up modern-day Russia in this debate?


My point is not that the USSR tried to save Vietnam and free the Vietnamese and help with their petty-bourgeoisie national liberation movement; my point was that since the USSR supplied the Vietnamese to combat the Americans, that that had a HUGE effect on the Vietnam War.And yet that was not the determining factor in the victory of the Vietnamese national liberation struggle. It was the Vietnamese themselves who led and carried this struggle to the end.


Furthermore, the system of "class struggle under socialism" logically leads to "Comrade Stalin destroyed the classes. We now have full socialism" and further apologisms for the state capitalist nature of the USSRNo it doesn't. As Stalin noted, the basis for counter-revolution continued to exist and, in fact, class struggle deepened as socialist construction continued. The Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked this thesis.

And it is you who started ranting about Albania's social system, away from the subject of this thread.

[Questionable]

Oh look. Ismail's dog.

It must be hard to think with a piece of shit in your head instead of a brain.

Really, what is this supposed to imply? Ismail has never requested that I join these debates. I do so of my own accord. I'm no more his "dog" than Subvert is yours (or you his for defending his dumbass post mocking me).


The statement of me being some guy on the internet arguing against bunkers equally applies to you, except pro-bunkers. So, almighty General, tell me about military matters.I accept that the Albanians probably knew more than me about how to defend their homeland, considering they liberated it from fascism. It takes more nerve to say that they were totally wrong from the comfort of your computer chair, several decades later.


I don't know.Thank you for admitting this. Now if you could just say the same for everything else you talk about, we'd be a lot better off.


I know your going to say yes, but show me and explain your reasoning.By defending the interests of the proletariat against imperialism and revisionism, and leading the construction of a non-exploitative socialist society.

Then again, your question is incredibly vague. If you want me to address specific points, please ask them.


So people are sole part of war? Not technology? Not funding?You know you need to clean all that straw off your keyboard after posting this, right?

I never said people were the "only" thing that mattered in war, but they're obviously the main component. It's the masses that make history.



WWII doesn't really help your argument, as the invasion was being fought against by countries other than Albania, so yeah, they had help here.Nope. Albania was liberated by the Albanians only, with the communists playing the leading role.



But the USSR didn't invade. The USSR was not intimidated by the bunkers. That was the point of what I was saying.The point of the bunkers wasn't to intimidate. It was to provide a position of defense in the case of invasion.


I think I've established Marxist-Leninism is revisionism on Lenin already.Then you thought wrong. I wrote a paragraph explaining how Lenin never contradicted Marxism-Leninism, and your response was ":laugh:." That is invalid.



Remember, to marx communism=socialismI see you've been talking to the "Orthodox" Marxists.

Lenin's division of communism into separate stages is derived from Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Furthermore, you seem to be setting up a contradiction here. You adhere to the line that Marx believed socialism and communism were synonymous, yet you use Lenin's State and Revolution to criticize Marxism-Leninism, where the division between the two stages has its theoretical origins. Even anti-Lenin Leftcoms admit it started with him, they just hate him for it.


Notice how Transistion of Capitalism to Communism, First Phase, and Second Phase are all seperate.Yes...and? I still see nothing that contradicts the continuation of class struggle under socialism. In fact, I seem many quotes which support the Marxist-Leninist view:


Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then "the state... ceases to exist", and "it becomes possible to speak of freedom".
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.Granted you would obviously argue that he's using "communism" as a blanket statement for all the phases, I would disagree since he clearly draws a distinction between "socialism" and "communism, such as here:


But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism. The great significance of Marx's explanations is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards communism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, “concocted” definitions and fruitless disputes over words (What is socialism? What is communism?), Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic maturity of communism. But there's more:


The economic basis for the complete withering away of the state is such a high state of development of communism at which the antithesis between mental and physical labor disappears, at which there consequently disappears one of the principal sources of modern social inequality--a source, moreover, which cannot on any account be removed immediately by the mere conversion of the means of production into public property, by the mere expropriation of the capitalists.
That is why we are entitled to speak only of the inevitable withering away of the state, emphasizing the protracted nature of this process and its dependence upon the rapidity of development of the higher phase of communism, and leaving the question of the time required for, or the concrete forms of, the withering away quite open, because there is no material for answering these questions.
Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers. Most importantly, in nowhere does he state that the dictatorship of the proletariat does not continue into socialism, in fact he supports the use of the state still.

Ergo, all this talk of us revising Lenin is shit.



That position is goddamn revisionism. I thought you didn't believe in revisionism because you're not an ML or something?

Anyway, using this quote to disprove socialism in Russia is dogmatic and ahistorical. It's obvious that Engels is writing this from the theoretical standpoint that revolution would occur in the most advanced capitalist countries first, which was the dominant viewpoint during his lifetime. This was proven to be mistaken, and revolution occurred in the weakest link of imperialism.

Not only that, but he doesn't really argue that it's "impossible" either. He expects the revolution to knock down all the other capitalist states like a house of cards since they're all heavily intertwined.

He doesn't state that it is impossible. He states that it won't happen. It did happen.


Why does that make him an idiot?Because it was a stupid, immature post that added absolutely nothing to the conversation, and the only reason you're not agreeing with me is because Subvert is your "dog," as you would say.


There is no such thing as "full communism"By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution.

[Brotto Rühle]

It must be hard to think with a piece of shit in your head instead of a brain.

Really, what is this supposed to imply? Ismail has never requested that I join these debates. I do so of my own accord. I'm no more his "dog" than Subvert is yours (or you his for defending his dumbass post mocking me).

I accept that the Albanians probably knew more than me about how to defend their homeland, considering they liberated it from fascism. It takes more nerve to say that they were totally wrong from the comfort of your computer chair, several decades later.

Thank you for admitting this. Now if you could just say the same for everything else you talk about, we'd be a lot better off.

By defending the interests of the proletariat against imperialism and revisionism, and leading the construction of a non-exploitative socialist society.

Then again, your question is incredibly vague. If you want me to address specific points, please ask them.

You know you need to clean all that straw off your keyboard after posting this, right?

I never said people were the "only" thing that mattered in war, but they're obviously the main component. It's the masses that make history.


Nope. Albania was liberated by the Albanians only, with the communists playing the leading role.


The point of the bunkers wasn't to intimidate. It was to provide a position of defense in the case of invasion.

Then you thought wrong. I wrote a paragraph explaining how Lenin never contradicted Marxism-Leninism, and your response was ":laugh:." That is invalid.


I see you've been talking to the "Orthodox" Marxists.

Lenin's division of communism into separate stages is derived from Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Furthermore, you seem to be setting up a contradiction here. You adhere to the line that Marx believed socialism and communism were synonymous, yet you use Lenin's State and Revolution to criticize Marxism-Leninism, where the division between the two stages has its theoretical origins. Even anti-Lenin Leftcoms admit it started with him, they just hate him for it.

Yes...and? I still see nothing that contradicts the continuation of class struggle under socialism. In fact, I seem many quotes which support the Marxist-Leninist view:

Granted you would obviously argue that he's using "communism" as a blanket statement for all the phases, I would disagree since he clearly draws a distinction between "socialism" and "communism, such as here:

But there's more:

Most importantly, in nowhere does he state that the dictatorship of the proletariat does not continue into socialism, in fact he supports the use of the state still.

Ergo, all this talk of us revising Lenin is shit.


I thought you didn't believe in revisionism because you're not an ML or something?

Anyway, using this quote to disprove socialism in Russia is dogmatic and ahistorical. It's obvious that Engels is writing this from the theoretical standpoint that revolution would occur in the most advanced capitalist countries first, which was the dominant viewpoint during his lifetime. This was proven to be mistaken, and revolution occurred in the weakest link of imperialism.

Not only that, but he doesn't really argue that it's "impossible" either. He expects the revolution to knock down all the other capitalist states like a house of cards since they're all heavily intertwined.

He doesn't state that it is impossible. He states that it won't happen. It did happen.

Because it was a stupid, immature post that added absolutely nothing to the conversation, and the only reason you're not agreeing with me is because Subvert is your "dog," as you would say.

By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution.

Have you ever read capital? What does the 25th chapter say?

[Remus Bleys]

In practice the Soviet Union assisted the socialist movements of various countries while at home Stalin exposed the theses of Trotsky, Bukharin, and other renegades who sought collaboration with imperialism and the overthrow of the proletarian dictatorship.
What the fuck do either of those two twats have to do with this?

What "Revolutions" did the USSR help with? China? USSR WAS SO SOCIALIST WITH BOURGEOISIE REVOLUTIONS!
But, if you say it is for the Eastern Bloc, then, you've contradicted yourself, because you say your against "Soviet Imperialism."


Who cares about modern-day Russia? Who brought up modern-day Russia in this debate? According to you, all anti-stalinists are anti-communists, which means those supportive of stalin are supportive of communism. Current day Russia is proof against such naive, idealistic assertions.


And yet that was not the determining factor in the victory of the Vietnamese national liberation struggle. It was the Vietnamese themselves who led and carried this struggle to the end. This is besides the point anyway. You keep focusing on this because you know your wrong. Lets talk about something closer to home.
How would Albania protect itself with its measely army when Czeckoslovakia couldn't?

What happened when the Soviet Union invaded? Oh wait... You mean they didnt? The bunkers must have scred them off.


No it doesn't. As Stalin noted, the basis for counter-revolution continued to exist and, in fact, class struggle deepened as socialist construction continued. The Soviet revisionists explicitly attacked this thesis. So... Stalin said so. Okay. This is indicative of your anti-revisions, but it is only in regards to stalin.

I don't really care too much what you're saying about socialism,
THIS IS NOT WHAT i AM SAYING ABOUT SOCIALISM. THIS IS WHAT MARX ENGELS AND LENIN ARE YOU GODDAMN REVISIONIST.

And it is you who started ranting about Albania's social system, away from the subject of this thread.
The subject of the thread is how dictatorship work. The social system is a very important aspect to this. Thus, Albania's social system is of high relevance.

[Ismail]

What "Revolutions" did the USSR help with? China? USSR WAS SO SOCIALIST WITH BOURGEOISIE REVOLUTIONS!Actually Stalin never trusted Mao, as Mao himself admitted after Stalin's death. Stalin warned against nationalism in the CPC, whereas Mao constantly went on about Stalin's so-called "mistakes" in regards to China. Still yes, the Soviets rendered valuable assistance to the CPC in its efforts against the Chiang Kai-shek clique, and thus paved the way for a bourgeois-democratic revolution which, however, revisionism would ensure would not become a socialist revolution.


But, if you say it is for the Eastern Bloc, then, you've contradicted yourself, because you say your against "Soviet Imperialism."There was nothing imperialist about the USSR's relations with Eastern Europe in Stalin's time. It was the Soviet revisionists who called for an "international socialist division of labor" in which the policy of Lenin and Stalin for the development of heavy industry would be subordinated to the needs of Soviet capital.


According to you, all anti-stalinists are anti-communists, which means those supportive of stalin are supportive of communism. Current day Russia is proof against such naive, idealistic assertions.Except "supporters" of Stalin in Russia don't view him as Stalin the Marxist-Leninist theorist and leader of socialist construction in the USSR, so I don't see how that's relevant.

And Mao also claimed to "support" Stalin. In fact the CPC to this day claims that it upholds the line of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Obviously it doesn't.


How would Albania protect itself with its measely army when Czeckoslovakia couldn't?Czechoslovakia didn't resist; its revisionist leadership under Dubček capitulated and engaged in collaboration with the occupying forces, and the Czechoslovak people did not have arms. Albania's strategy, as already noted, was to train the entire people in armed defense of the country, it didn't rely solely on the armed forces of the country. Every Albanian in school had to train for use in weapons and many had guns in their homes, ready to respond to regular drills in which a foreign invasion would be simulated.


The subject of the thread is how dictatorship work. The social system is a very important aspect to this. Thus, Albania's social system is of high relevance.From Hoxha's last interview (http://ml-review.ca/aml/Albania/ALBANIANLIFE/No321985.htm), in December 1984: "I am only a member of the Party of Labour and I only serve my people. Every success achieved here has its origin in our own forces; everything has been realised with the People and in unity with it. The enemies of our country say that I am a dictator. But a single person can neither act nor work with the necessary strength without being surrounded by friends and comrades."

[Remus Bleys]

It must be hard to think with a piece of shit in your head instead of a brain. Funny coming from someone whos entire political ideology comes from some irrelevant dictator.

Really, what is this supposed to imply? Ismail has never requested that I join these debates. I do so of my own accord. When you constantly and uncritically uphold everything Ismail says, you become his dog.

I'm no more his "dog" than Subvert is yours Me and Subvert aren't even the same tendency.

(or you his for attacking my dumbass post ). Fixed.


I accept that the Albanians probably knew more than me about how to defend their homeland, considering they liberated it from fascism. It takes more nerve to say that they were totally wrong from the comfort of your computer chair, several decades later. Do you accept Maoism, considering they just liberated China from imperialism and capitalism?
See what a dumbass thing this is to say
And nerve? DUDE IM LIKE SO TOTALLY EDGY!

Thank you for admitting this. Now if you could just say the same for everything else you talk about, we'd be a lot better off. Har de har har. yes, why don't I come up with a completely arbitrary number, right? Will that satisfy you?


By defending the interests of the proletariat against imperialism and revisionism, and leading the construction of a non-exploitative socialist society. How?


Then again, your question is incredibly vague. If you want me to address specific points, please ask them.
So, the Albanian Party of Labor represented the entire proletariat? No beauracracy? Didn't you just call me shit-for-brains? How the fuck is this not clear. Show me how the Party of Labor was controlled by the Proletariat.


You know you need to clean all that straw off your keyboard after posting this, right? So I am supposed to believe that a world superpowers help had no effect on a war?


I never said people were the "only" thing that mattered in war, but they're obviously the main component. It's the masses that make history. AND THEIR CONDITIONS!
What ever happened to "We are not utopian"?



Nope. Albania was liberated by the Albanians only, with the communists playing the leading role. Yes. Clearly the Allied invasion of Italy had nothing to do with this.



The point of the bunkers wasn't to intimidate. It was to provide a position of defense in the case of invasion. Which never came... Why? Albania was irrelevant in world politics.


Then you thought wrong. I wrote a paragraph explaining how Lenin never contradicted Marxism-Leninism, and your response was ":laugh:." That is invalid. You mean this piece of shit?

He states that nowhere, except in the inferences you are making.
Socialism is indeed the abolition of classes, in that sense that the differences between the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia are slowly abolished, paving the way for full communism. I looked for your "paragraph" for about ten minutes now.
So, you want me to take this seriously? Ill get back to it when im done with this piece of shit post.



I see you've been talking to the "Orthodox" Marxists. lol. attacking "orthodox marxists" You know lenin was very inspired by orthodox marxism, right?

And a recognition of the terms marx and engels use does not mean I use them. I recognize they used this diffferently than i do, in an effort to understand what is meant.


Lenin's division of communism into separate stages is derived from Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme. Do you think your educating me?


Furthermore, you seem to be setting up a contradiction here. You adhere to the line that Marx believed socialism and communism were synonymous, yet you use Lenin's State and Revolution to criticize Marxism-Leninism, where the division between the two stages has its theoretical origins. Even anti-Lenin Leftcoms admit it started with him, they just hate him for it. Recognizing Marx and Engels used it differently than Lenin, and perfering Lenin's usage is not a contradiction. Its doing history properly.

And look under my fucking picture. It says right there "Left Leninist."


Yes...and? I still see nothing that contradicts the continuation of class struggle under socialism. In fact, I seem many quotes which support the Marxist-Leninist view:
I really can't explain it more simply. A child understands that. unless your that obtuse.


But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary. Actual inequality being discussed in the Critique of the Gotha Program, actual inequality being one that result from "to each contribution" instead of need.



Granted you would obviously argue that he's using "communism" as a blanket statement for all the phases, I would disagree since he clearly draws a distinction between "socialism" and "communism, such as here:
Clearly, then, you don't know shit about me and my politics.

But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism. The great significance of Marx's explanations is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards communism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, “concocted” definitions and fruitless disputes over words (What is socialism? What is communism?), Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic maturity of communism. you ignore said analysis for political reasons.


The economic basis for the complete withering away of the state is such a high state of development of communism at which the antithesis between mental and physical labor disappears, at which there consequently disappears one of the principal sources of modern social inequality--a source, moreover, which cannot on any account be removed immediately by the mere conversion of the means of production into public property, by the mere expropriation of the capitalists.
Clearly about the intelligenstia.

Most importantly, in nowhere does he state that the dictatorship of the proletariat does not continue into socialism, in fact he supports the use of the state still. Except for the fact that he feels the need to seperate them all right?

Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers.
This. Isnt. Even. Relevant.

Ergo, I am shit and my politics are worse. Fixed.



I thought you didn't believe in revisionism because you're not an ML or something? ML is revisionism. So I don't give a shit of what you view as revisionist.


Anyway, using this quote to disprove socialism in Russia is dogmatic and ahistorical. It's obvious that Engels is writing this from the theoretical standpoint that revolution would occur in the most advanced capitalist countries first, which was the dominant viewpoint during his lifetime. This was proven to be mistaken, and revolution occurred in the weakest link of imperialism. The stance about Revolution occuring is wrong. However, the need for other socialist countries is still there.

your reasoning on socialism being in russia is because... there was socialism in Russia.


Not only that, but he doesn't really argue that it's "impossible" either. Neither did I. Did you even read this? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2677154&postcount=11)


He doesn't state that it is impossible. He states that it won't happen. It did happen.


Socialism in Russia happened because socialism in Russia happened Fixed.

Because it was a stupid, immature post that added absolutely nothing to the conversation, and the only reason you're not agreeing with me is because Subvert is your "dog," as you would say.
I agree that it was stupid, immature, and added nothing to this "conversation." But my critique is still correct, and mocking you for saying "full communism" is justified.

By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution.
So regular Communism?

[Ismail]

Yes. Clearly the Allied invasion of Italy had nothing to do with this.The Allies, led by the Soviet Union, were obviously the most important external factor in the victory of the Albanian national liberation struggle. No one was denying that. But it is a fact that the Soviet Union had next to nothing to do with the formation of the Communist Party of Albania and the Albanian National Liberation Army, nor were the Soviets in a position to assist it. Unlike Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and the like, Albania had to liberate itself.

[synthesis]

As Stalin wrote (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/01/18.htm), "the serious assistance of the international proletariat is a force without which the problem of the final victory of Socialism in one country cannot be solved."

In the context of that quote (talking about whether "intervention" was necessary - the guy he was writing to support was basically arguing against isolationism) it seems pretty obvious to me that Stalin was using this line to justify imperial expansion and the exploitation of the Soviet Union's imperial holdings, not about solidarity with the international working class.

[Ismail]

In the context of that quote (talking about whether "intervention" was necessary) it seems pretty obvious to me that Stalin was using this line to justify imperial expansion and the exploitation of the Soviet Union's imperial holdings, not about solidarity with the international working class.Except this is from 1938, so its "imperial holdings" were... the Mongolian and Tuvan People's Republics.

[Remus Bleys]

Actually Stalin never trusted Mao, as Mao himself admitted after Stalin's death. Stalin warned against nationalism in the CPC, whereas Mao constantly went on about Stalin's so-called "mistakes" in regards to China. Still yes, the Soviets rendered valuable assistance to the CPC in its efforts against the Chiang Kai-shek clique, and thus paved the way for a bourgeois-democratic revolution which, however, revisionism would ensure would not become a socialist revolution.
YES IT WAS STALINIST REVISIONISM THAT PREVENTED SOCIALISM, NOT THE FACT THE PROLETARIAT NEVER RULED!


There was nothing imperialist about the USSR's relations with Eastern Europe in Stalin's time. It was the Soviet revisionists who called for an "international socialist division of labor" in which the policy of Lenin and Stalin for the development of heavy industry would be subordinated to the needs of Soviet capital.:laugh::laugh::laugh: STALIN NEVER EVER EVER TOOK AWAY RESOURCES FROM THE EASTERN BLOC TO REBUILD THE USSR!


Except "supporters" of Stalin in Russia don't view him as Stalin the Marxist-Leninist theorist and leader of socialist construction in the USSR, so I don't see how that's relevant.
good. Neither do I. Because do you know what I see as relevant to socialism? IF the proletariat is in charge. Even if I was a goddamn stalinist, I wouldn't worship him like you do because I understand its worker control that matters, not masturbating


Czechoslovakia didn't resist; its revisionist leadership under Dubček capitulated and engaged in collaboration with the occupying forces,It WAS A REBELLION AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT! OF COURSE IT WAS GOING TO TAKE IT DOWN
given the left com nature of this uprising, Im surprised you support it.

and the Czechoslovak people did not have arms. :rolleyes:

What happened to your dogs stance "ITS THE MASSES THAT MAKE HISTORY"?

Albania's strategy, as already noted, was to train the entire people in armed defense of the country, it didn't rely solely on the armed forces of the country. Every Albanian in school had to train for use in weapons and many had guns in their homes, ready to respond to regular drills in which a foreign invasion would be simulated.Why wasn't it invaded?


From Hoxha's last interview (http://ml-review.ca/aml/Albania/ALBANIANLIFE/No321985.htm), in December 1984: "I am only a member of the Party of Labour and I only serve my people. Every success achieved here has its origin in our own forces; everything has been realised with the People and in unity with it. The enemies of our country say that I am a dictator. But a single person can neither act nor work with the necessary strength without being surrounded by friends and comrades."this is especially frustrating.
I AM ONLY A MEMBER OF THE PARTY OF LABOR, WHO HAPPENED TO BE ITS RULER ALL OF M Y LIFE.

[Remus Bleys]

The Allies, led by the Soviet Union, were obviously the most important external factor in the victory of the Albanian national liberation struggle. No one was denying that. But it is a fact that the Soviet Union had next to nothing to do with the formation of the Communist Party of Albania and the Albanian National Liberation Army, nor were the Soviets in a position to assist it. Unlike Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and the like, Albania had to liberate itself.
Here's what your boy said
Futhermore, Russia and Albania both defeated external counter-revolution (well, in Albania's case the revolution started against the fascist occupation, but you see my point) without any significant foreign aid. Which means Albania did it all by itself

[synthesis]

Except this is from 1938, so its "imperial holdings" were... the Mongolivan and Tuvan People's Republics.

Less than a year before the Soviets went dutch with the Nazis on Poland, and this ignores Stalin's grip on the former Czarist Empire.

[Ismail]

It WAS A REBELLION AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT! OF COURSE IT WAS GOING TO TAKE IT DOWN
given the left com nature of this uprising, Im surprised you support it.There was hardly any rebellion, thanks to the treacherous policy of Dubček and Co.

Besides the fact that there was no "left-com" coloring to that resistance which did emerge, the basic fact is that the Soviet social-imperialists invaded a sovereign country; as in Afghanistan, the natural response was to denounce the aggressors and demand their ouster from said country. On that basis the Albanians praised the resistance that did occur, but also pointed out the utterly demagogic Titoite phraseology which guided the "theorists" of Dubček and Co.


Why wasn't it invaded?Because an invasion would not serve the interests of the Soviet social-imperialists, for both logistic and other reasons.


this is especially frustrating.
I AM ONLY A MEMBER OF THE PARTY OF LABOR, WHO HAPPENED TO BE ITS RULER ALL OF M Y LIFE.
Lenin was head of the Bolsheviks, which he obviously founded, for 21 years and counting at the time of his death, so I'm not sure why Hoxha, who also basically founded the CPA, wouldn't be its leader pretty much his entire life as well.


Less than a year before the Soviets went dutch with the Nazis on Poland, and this ignores Stalin's grip on the former Czarist Empire.Pretty sure the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't even a proposition when Stalin wrote the work in question.

Also I don't think Stalin had in mind Byelorussian peasants or Turkmen nomads when he referred to the proletariat of other countries, but alright then.


Which means Albania did it all by itselfIt pretty much did, especially in comparison to the rest of Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia didn't liberate itself primarily using its own forces either using that logic.

[synthesis]

Pretty sure the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't even a proposition when Stalin wrote the work in question.

If it wasn't (and I'm sure he would have still had the question of how to divvy up Poland on his mind) then it was only because he was too busy fighting an inter-imperialist war with Japan over the territories bordering Manchuria and the Chinese Eastern Railway.

[Ismail]

If it wasn't (and I'm sure he would have still had Poland on his mind) then it was only because he was too busy fighting an inter-imperialist war with Japan over the territories bordering Manchuria and the Chinese Eastern Railway.Great, how about you actually address Stalin's work and stop making up random excuses as to why Stalin said that the final victory of socialism in the USSR, and the guarantee of the possibility of the construction of socialism in one country, was inseparable from efforts by the proletariat of other countries to assist the Soviet cause?

Also you're the first person I know who characterizes Japanese aggression against the USSR and Mongolia as "inter-imperialist." Not to mention that Stalin naturally had Poland on his mind, calling on its leadership to enter into an alliance against Nazi Germany in order to defend Poland's territorial integrity. Instead the Polish regime sounded out the Nazis and eyed itself on territorial expansion in the Ukraine.

[synthesis]

Why the hostility? The point is that the dilemma between "intervention" and isolationism that is discussed in that correspondence was just code for imperial strategy; the same dilemma was afflicting the American empire at the time.

And all war over territory is inter-imperialist.

[Ismail]

And all war over territory is inter-imperialist.I guess Lenin was engaging in an "inter-imperialist" dispute by refusing to recognize the Romanian occupation of Bessarabia, then?

[Remus Bleys]

Besides the fact that there was no "left-com" coloring to that resistance which did emerge, the basic fact is that the Soviet social-imperialists invaded a sovereign country;http://libcom.org/library/internationale-situationiste-12-article-1
as in Afghanistan, the natural response was to denounce the aggressors and demand their ouster from said country. Nice to see Hoxha, Mr. Banned Religion, supported the Muj.


On that basis the Albanians praised the resistance that did occur, but also pointed out the utterly demagogic Titoite phraseology which guided the "theorists" of Dubček and Co. :rolleyes:Everything goes back to Tito. I wonder why....


Because an invasion would not serve the interests of the Soviet social-imperialists, for both logistic and other reasons. Really? Doesn't this contradict what you previously said?

Why was this? Albania was irrelevant.


Lenin was head of the Bolsheviks, which he obviously founded, for 21 years and counting at the time of his death, so I'm not sure why Hoxha, who also basically founded the CPA, wouldn't be its leader pretty much his entire life as well.
That was shitty of both of them.

It pretty much did, especially in comparison to the rest of Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia didn't liberate itself primarily using its own forces either using that logic.So, the Allied invasion did not help?
Which was my entire fucking point.


I like how you "refute" less and less of what I say.

[Ismail]

Everything goes back to Tito. I wonder why....Because, as the Albanians noted, every revisionist in the end praises Tito and seeks his approval, whether it be Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Castro and Kim Il Sung, Nagy and Dubček, etc. For it was Tito who rose up against "Stalinism" and demonstrated the bourgeois-nationalist "socialist" alternative, and thus became a sort of revisionist "godfather." The Yugoslavs, of course, also promoted Dubček's policies, and it should be quite obvious that many Czechoslovak revisionist "theorists" exalted the Yugoslav system.


Nice to see Hoxha, Mr. Banned Religion, supported the Muj.Indeed, and during the National Liberation War the Albanian Communists, including Hoxha, also sought out the support of any clergyman willing to take up a gun against the occupiers. Such is the Marxist approach which views the situation dialectically. It does not change the reactionary character of religion or the need for its abolition under socialism. At the same time Hoxha praised the Afghan resistance, he was also stressing that the Iranian Communists should never fall into the trap of "religious socialism" as the PMOI and other groups were promoting.


Really? Doesn't this contradict what you previously said?No? Losing China was a massive loss to Soviet social-imperialism, and there were many fears in the world that a nuclear war would erupt between the two countries, and yet that never happened. No one on earth would say China was "irrelevant" because of this, or that somehow Soviet social-imperialism wasn't hindered by the loss of the Chinese revisionists from its orbit.


So, the Allied invasion did not help?
Which was my entire fucking point.The Germans helped Lenin return to Russia, I don't think anyone in their right mind would credit the Kaiser with the Russian Revolution.


I like how you "refute" less and less of what I say.More like I care less and less about what you say.

[Red_Banner]

There was hardly any rebellion, thanks to the treacherous policy of Dubček and Co.

Besides the fact that there was no "left-com" coloring to that resistance which did emerge, the basic fact is that the Soviet social-imperialists invaded a sovereign country; as in Afghanistan, the natural response was to denounce the aggressors and demand their ouster from said country. On that basis the Albanians praised the resistance that did occur, but also pointed out the utterly demagogic Titoite phraseology which guided the "theorists" of Dubček and Co.

Because an invasion would not serve the interests of the Soviet social-imperialists, for both logistic and other reasons.

Lenin was head of the Bolsheviks, which he obviously founded, for 21 years and counting at the time of his death, so I'm not sure why Hoxha, who also basically founded the CPA, wouldn't be its leader pretty much his entire life as well.

Pretty sure the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact wasn't even a proposition when Stalin wrote the work in question.

Also I don't think Stalin had in mind Byelorussian peasants or Turkmen nomads when he referred to the proletariat of other countries, but alright then.

It pretty much did, especially in comparison to the rest of Eastern Europe. Yugoslavia didn't liberate itself primarily using its own forces either using that logic.

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan wasn't imperialist.
They were invited in by the Parcham faction of the PDPA.

[Ismail]

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan wasn't imperialist.
They were invited in by the Parcham faction of the PDPA.As Hoxha wrote in 1969 in regard to Czechoslovakia:

Fully defeated also, was the "legal" argument of the Soviet revisionists to justify their aggression in Czechoslovakia. The "famous" letter of some Czechoslovak personalities allegedly addressed to the Soviets and to some other Warsaw Treaty countries "to ask for their aid in suppressing counterrevolution in Czechoslovakia" was absolutely proved to be a fraud. Nobody came out to confirm being the author of that letter. The Soviet troops were not invited either by the Czechoslovak Government, or by the President of the Republic, by the parliament or the Central Committee of the Party. Even Hitler in his time acted with some tact: at least he obtained by force the signature of the President Hacha, when he occupied Czechoslovakia.And so the USSR was "invited" into Afghanistan and promptly murdered the country's leader, while replacing the actual government (and faction) in power with a puppet regime, bringing over its leader (Babrak Karmal) in via plane from Czechoslovakia, where he had been serving as the Afghan ambassador.

I don't think anyone on earth would consider that a legitimate invitation.

[Remus Bleys]

Because, as the Albanians noted, every revisionist in the end praises Tito and seeks his approval, whether it be Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Castro and Kim Il Sung, Nagy and Dubček, etc. For it was Tito who rose up against "Stalinism" and demonstrated the bourgeois-nationalist "socialist" alternative, and thus became a sort of revisionist "godfather." The Yugoslavs, of course, also promoted Dubček's policies, and it should be quite obvious that many Czechoslovak revisionist "theorists" exalted the Yugoslav system. Or maybe because Hoxha went insane and developed a different theory to explain away all the contradictions of "sioc" with a degenerated and failed revolution.
It goes back to Yugoslavia because of Kosovo. Hoxha, being the nationalist he is, demanded Kosovo. He shoulda gotten it, sure. But that is why everything goes back to Yugoslavia.


Indeed, and during the National Liberation War the Albanian Communists, including Hoxha, also sought out the support of any clergyman willing to take up a gun against the occupiers. Such is the Marxist approach which views the situation dialectically. It does not change the reactionary character of religion or the need for its abolition under socialism. At the same time Hoxha praised the Afghan resistance, he was also stressing that the Iranian Communists should never fall into the trap of "religious socialism" as the PMOI and other groups were promoting.
Did you really just say the Muj are better than Soviets?
What the fuck is wrong with you? You don't even pretend to be on neither side.

Goddamn Reactionary.
the rest isn't even remotely relevant.

No? Losing China was a massive loss to Soviet social-imperialism, and there were many fears in the world that a nuclear war would erupt between the two countries, and yet that never happened. No one on earth would say China was "irrelevant" because of this, or that somehow Soviet social-imperialism wasn't hindered by the loss of the Chinese revisionists from its orbit. Albania =/= China
for very obvious reasons


The Germans helped Lenin return to Russia, I don't think anyone in their right mind would credit the Kaiser with the Russian Revolution.
False comparison. And you know why.

More like I care less and less about what you say.
Then why are you replying?

Keep grasping at straws. Thatll make the people who read this know it is you and Comrade Hoxha who are the true proletarians.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

There was nothing imperialist about the USSR's relations with Eastern Europe in Stalin's time. It was the Soviet revisionists who called for an "international socialist division of labor" in which the policy of Lenin and Stalin for the development of heavy industry would be subordinated to the needs of Soviet capital.

What about the transfer of capital goods (sometimes almost the entire physical plant in factories) to the SSSR as war reparations? The establishment of 'trade enterprises' whose purpose it was making money for the SSSR and engaging in rather the shifty unequal trade with various occupied zones, of which the SovRom enterprises in Romania are a good example. Why was that not imperialist? Was it not feeding the capitalist machine at home?

[Remus Bleys]

Also, are we going to act like Lenin wasn't a HUGE PART OF THE BOLSHEVIKS, and NOT JUST SOME MEMBER?

[Ismail]

It goes back to Yugoslavia because of Kosovo. Hoxha, being the nationalist he is, demanded Kosovo. He shoulda gotten it, sure. But that is why everything goes back to Yugoslavia.He never "demanded" Kosovo. In fact bourgeois nationalists in Albania and Kosovo today claimed he was a "traitor" because he refused to claim any Yugoslav territory. The most he went was to support Kosovar Albanian calls for their own republic within Yugoslavia, alongside Serbia, Croatia, etc.

As for Afghanistan, I'll let Hoxha himself speak, from his January 5, 1980 article in Zëri i Popullit:

The occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union is a product of its expansionist and aggressive strategy. It demonstrates quite clearly once again that aggression and the use of military force is the most prominent feature of Soviet foreign policy today. In its rivalry with American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism has been striving with might and main to secure new strategic positions and to extend the sphere of its control and domination in Asia, Africa, Latin America and everywhere else. . . .

On the other hand, the hypocritical demagogy of the American imperialists and Chinese social-imperialists who are trying to present themselves as 'defenders' of Afghanistan and shedding crocodile tears over its fate, can deceive no one. The American imperialists are trying to take advantage of these troubled situations for their own benefit, to justify their threats of military measures against Iran and other countries of the Middle East. The peoples do not forget the criminal war of the American imperialists in Indochina and elsewhere, do not forget the criminal fascist-type aggression of the Chinese social-imperialists against Vietnam, just as they can never forget Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and so on. It is clear to them that the American imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists, the Chinese social-imperialists and all other reactionaries are equally bloodthirsty aggressors, mortal enemies of the freedom and independence of the peoples. . .

Now the freedom-fighters of Afghanistan have taken up arms and are fighting courageously in the mountains and in the cities against the domination of the Soviets and their agents. Everywhere they are displaying exemplary bravery and proving their determination to keep the banner of freedom and national sovereignty flying and to fight to the end to drive out the occupiers.

In this just and lawful struggle they have and will continue to have the support of all the freedom-loving peoples and honest and progressive persons everywhere in the world. . . .

The Albanian people express their profound conviction that the valiant Afghan people will deal the Soviet social-imperialist aggressors crushing blows and drive them from their country.There's also Reflections on the Middle East, which has extracts from his political diary in the years 1958-83, for instance:

THURSDAY
NOVEMBER 3, 1983

BRAVO THE AFGHAN PATRIOTS!

As news agencies report, in recent days the Afghan patriots attacked the general staff of the Soviet army of occupation and the embassy of the Soviet Union in Kabul. The reports also speak of bold actions in the other major cities of the country and attacks on Soviet strategic military positions. Fire, uninterrupted fire, on the foreign occupiers!He was quite excited at seeing the Afghan resistance, he noted in his diary that it reminded him of Albania's National Liberation War against the fascist occupiers. Clandestine Marxist-Leninists in the GDR also put materials in the hands of troops of the Soviet Army stationed in the country, urging them to defect and help turn the imperialist war in Afghanistan into a civil war.

[Remus Bleys]

]In this just and lawful struggle they have and will continue to have the support of all the freedom-loving peoples and honest and progressive persons [/SIZE]everywhere in the world. . . .
So, the percursor to the Taliban are honest, progressive, and freedom loving according to you?

All you're doing is proving my point about stalinism being reactionary.
How are you not restricted?

[Red_Banner]

As Hoxha wrote in 1969 in regard to Czechoslovakia:
And so the USSR was "invited" into Afghanistan and promptly murdered the country's leader, while replacing the actual government (and faction) in power with a puppet regime, bringing over its leader (Babrak Karmal) in via plane from Czechoslovakia, where he had been serving as the Afghan ambassador.

I don't think anyone on earth would consider that a legitimate invitation.

Weather you agree with the PDPA weahter it be Parcham, Khalq, or neither isn't so much the issue.

How was the USSR even imperialist?

[Ismail]

So, the percursor to the Taliban are honest, progressive, and freedom loving according to you?

All you're doing is proving my point about stalinism being reactionary.
How are you not restricted?
Once again you act as an apologist for the Soviet revisionists, while also displaying ignorance about the Afghan resistance, which encompassed various groups, not just those forces which Pakistani intelligence would later have form the Taliban (which, at any rate, was certainly militarily opposed by other Mujahideen factions grouped into the Northern Alliance.)


Weather you agree with the PDPA weahter it be Parcham, Khalq, or neither isn't so much the issue.The issue is you trying to pass off the Soviet invasion and occupation as an "invitation."


How was the USSR even imperialist?On concrete examples of Soviet social-imperialism in the 60's and 70's see: http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7-Ch4.pdf

[Brotto Rühle]

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan wasn't imperialist.
They were invited in by the Parcham faction of the PDPA.

I hereby invite the USA to invade my parents homeland of Zimbabwe. Not imperialism if they do it now.

[Red_Banner]

I hereby invite the USA to invade my parents homeland of Zimbabwe. Not imperialism if they do it now.

Eh, I'm not sure what you are getting at.

[Remus Bleys]

Once again you act as an apologist for the Soviet revisionists, while also displaying ignorance about the Afghan resistance, which encompassed various groups, not just those forces which Pakistani intelligence would later have form the Taliban (which, at any rate, was certainly militarily opposed by other Mujahideen factions grouped into the Northern Alliance.)
And these encompassed a whole what, ten people?
Why don't you give me links and uphold yet another irrelevant group.

Where were they after the invasion?

[Ismail]

Eh, I'm not sure what you are getting at.He's saying that there was no validity to the claim that the Soviets were "invited." Invited by who? Not the President (who the Soviets immediately killed upon entering the country), not the government, not the Afghan people, but a defeated faction of a tiny party that came to power in a military coup.

@Remus, the point is that the Afghan people opposed the Soviet occupation, leftists (who the revisionist PDPA persecuted) and rightists alike. That the Mujahideen forces were obviously predominant doesn't matter one bit. The primary contradiction was that between the Afghans and the Soviet social-imperialist occupation with its quisling forces. Taking "neither side" when a superpower blatantly invades a militarily defenseless country is absurd.

[Remus Bleys]

@Remus, the point is that the Afghan people opposed the Soviet occupation. That the Mujahideen forces were obviously predominant doesn't matter one bit. The primary contradiction was that between the Afghans and the Soviet social-imperialist occupation with its quisling forces. Taking "neither side" when a superpower blatantly invades a formally defenseless country is absurd.
The Soviets who came and established women's rights, minority rights, and at least industrialised a bit were worse the Muj.
Because of some moralistic "right to self determination" or whatever.

And your right about that. The Soviets were obviously superior to the Muj.

@Redbanner stop being a weird anarcho-tankie.

[synthesis]

I guess Lenin was engaging in an "inter-imperialist" dispute by refusing to recognize the Romanian occupation of Bessarabia, then?

I'm not sure how you're tying this in with the statement that "all war over territory is inter-imperialist" - did Lenin actually engage in armed conflict with Romania over the issue?

edit: I admit I'm not particularly familiar with this issue, but didn't the PDPA make huge strides for women's rights before the Soviet invasion?

[Ismail]

The Soviets who came and established women's rights, minority rights, and at least industrialised a bit were worse the Muj.
Because of some moralistic "right to self determination" or whatever. No, the Soviets were worse because they used those lofty causes as a cover for a bloody occupation. Your narrative is essentially the one where the Soviets play a "civilizing" mission.

The Fascists paved some of Albania's roads, and in fact some Albanian "leftists" actually argued that it was reactionary to oppose the Italian occupation, which was supposedly creating a proletariat in the country. How is that different from your apologetics for the Soviets?


I'm not sure how you're tying this in with the statement that "all war over territory is inter-imperialist" - did Lenin actually engage in armed conflict with Romania over the issue?If he did, would it be inter-imperialist? Stalin didn't resolve it through war.

[Red_Banner]

Once again you act as an apologist for the Soviet revisionists, while also displaying ignorance about the Afghan resistance, which encompassed various groups, not just those forces which Pakistani intelligence would later have form the Taliban (which, at any rate, was certainly militarily opposed by other Mujahideen factions grouped into the Northern Alliance.)

The issue is you trying to pass off the Soviet invasion and occupation as an "invitation."

On concrete examples of Soviet social-imperialism in the 60's and 70's see: http://www.bannedthought.net/USA/RU/RP/RP7/RU-RP7-Ch4.pdf

"The issue is you trying to pass off the Soviet invasion and occupation as an "invitation."

Because they were invited in by memebers of the internationally recognized government weather you like it or not.

"while also displaying ignorance about the Afghan resistance,"

Oh, like the Communist(Maoist) Party of Afghanistan?

Or are they "revisionists" too because they don't fit your narrow dogma?

Or what about the Afghanistan Liberation Organization, another Maoist group, are they "revisionists" too?

Do you know what imperialism is?
You tell me what imperialism is.

[Ismail]

Because they were invited in by memebers of the internationally recognized government weather you like it or not.By who? I don't even think Babrak Karmal "invited" them.

Also the Maoists, such as the ALO, took up arms against the Soviet occupiers. I don't see why you bring them up.

[Remus Bleys]

No, the Soviets were worse because they used those lofty causes as a cover for a bloody occupation.
I guess the Muj were peace loving hippies?

Your narrative is essentially the one where the Soviets play a "civilizing" mission.
It is? I guess I just hate Afghanis. Don't you know all condemnation and seeking to change culture is chauvinism. We all know Hoxha didn't do that.

Your narrative is based off an absurd idea (the only leninist one you uphold) of the "nation's right to self determination," which is inherently nationalist, which is inherently reactionary.

[Ismail]

I guess the Muj were peace loving hippies?No, but then again they weren't occupying Soviet territory sooooo...


Don't you know all condemnation and seeking to change culture is chauvinism.It is in cases like these, actually, otherwise you might as well be upholding Cecil Rhodes and the "humanitarian" objectives of French and Belgian colonialism.


Your narrative is based off an absurd idea (the only leninist one you uphold) of the "nation's right to self determination," which is inherently nationalist, which is inherently reactionary.It is you who is in the reactionary position of apologizing for Soviet revisionism and its social-imperialist adventures abroad. If you want to defend foreign occupations from an "intenationalist" position then be my guest, it's certainly what all the pro-Soviet revisionist parties did.

[synthesis]

If he did, would it be inter-imperialist?

It seemed like I didn't need to specify the exception that civil war would not be considered inter-imperialist, because as far as I can tell, a nation-state, even one embroiled in civil war, cannot be composed of two separate empires with two separate imperial agendas.

[Red_Banner]

By who? I don't even think Babrak Karmal "invited" them.

Also the Maoists, such as the ALO, took up arms against the Soviet occupiers. I don't see why you bring them up.

The reason why bring them up is because if they ran Afganistan, you'd be against them.

I am not a Brezhnevist, I am not thrilled that he had Afghanistan invaded.

but their primary opposition is a bunch of NATO puppet right-wing religious nutjobs such as the Mujahadeen.

I'm inclined to be in favour of the USSR and DRA.

So still, how is the USSR "imperialist"?

[Ismail]

The reason why bring them up is because if they ran Afganistan, you'd be against them.Yes, so what? At least they wouldn't have been installed by the bayonets of a foreign power which was bombing entire villages and terrorizing the country in "pacification" campaigns à la Vietnam. The primary contradiction would switch from repelling the invaders to turning the national liberation revolution into something else, something Maoist ideology is quite inimical towards.


So still, how is the USSR "imperialist"?I already gave examples.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I already gave examples.

And what of my examples of that existing during the Stalin-era?

[Red_Banner]

Yes, so what? At least they wouldn't have been installed by the bayonets of a foreign power which was bombing entire villages and terrorizing the country in "pacification" campaigns à la Vietnam. The primary contradiction would switch from repelling the invaders to turning the national liberation revolution into something else, something Maoist ideology is quite inimical towards.

I already gave examples.

I want a definition not examples.

[Remus Bleys]

No, but then again they weren't occupying Soviet territory sooooo... You do know a lot of the muj aren't even afghani? Even if they were, I highly doubt the Muj represented the people of Afghanistan more than the Soviets.


It is in cases like these, actually, otherwise you might as well be upholding Cecil Rhodes and the "humanitarian" objectives of French and Belgian colonialism.
Yeah dude. Fuck women. Fuck ethnic minorities. Every situation can be approached broadly and generally. These situations and the circumstances about them are totally the same.

It is you who is in the reactionary position of apologizing for Soviet revisionism and its social-imperialist adventures abroad. If you want to defend foreign occupations from an "intenationalist" position then be my guest, it's certainly what all the pro-Soviet revisionist parties did.If you want to uphold some backwards ass reactionary group that ran a dictatorship, be my guest.
But we all knew you did before you admitted to supporting the Muj.

About that National Question. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/index.htm)

Ffs ismail, the muj weren't even afghanis.

LEST WE FORGET, THE MUJ WERE NOT ONLY SOCIALLY BACKWARDS AS COMPARED TO THE SOVIETS, BUT WERE
ALSO AN IMPERIALIST POWER
HOW DOES THE US'S ASS TASTE?

(http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1909/national-question/index.htm)

[Ismail]

You do know a lot of the muj aren't even afghani?Well let's see, out of notable Mujahideen commanders you had Massoud (Afghan), Ismail Khan (Afghan), Hekmatyar (Afghan), Haqqani (Afghan), Wardak (Afghan), Rabbani (Afghan), Gailani (Afghan), and so on.

Not seeing the foreign domination of the Mujahideen here, although obviously foreign volunteers did enlist, but that's like saying the Spanish Civil War was between Spaniards and Brits/Irishmen/German anti-fascists/etc. because of the existence of the International Brigades.


I highly doubt the Muj represented the people of Afghanistan more than the Soviets.And you'd certainly be very wrong, unless you can explain why the PDPA was unable to retain control over the countryside and even major cities and towns (such as Herat) without Soviet "fraternal aid" compensating for massive defections on the part of the PDPA's armed forces.


Yeah dude. Fuck women. Fuck ethnic minorities. Every situation can be approached broadly and generally. These situations and the circumstances about them are totally the same.Mysteriously things only seem change when one side waves a red flag and denounces Stalin.


If you want to uphold some backwards ass reactionary group that ran a dictatorship, be my guest.Sounds like the PDPA regime.


LEST WE FORGET, THE MUJ WERE NOT ONLY SOCIALLY BACKWARDS AS COMPARED TO THE SOVIETS, BUT WERE ALSO AN IMPERIALIST POWERhttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/28/1303978425303/Afghan-mujahideen-in-Bagr-007.jpg

- Afghan imperialist power.

Also once again, Fascist Italy was "socially advanced" compared to Albania. Did that make struggling against its occupation "reactionary"?

[Remus Bleys]

Well let's see, out of notable Mujahideen commanders you had Massoud (Afghan), Ismail Khan (Afghan), Hekmatyar (Afghan), Haqqani (Afghan), Wardak (Afghan), Rabbani (Afghan), Gailani (Afghan), and so on.

Not seeing the foreign domination of the Mujahideen here, although obviously foreign volunteers did enlist, but that's like saying the Spanish Civil War was between Spaniards and Brits/Irishmen/German anti-fascists/etc. because of the existence of the International Brigades. So, what? Do you support the Chechen Muj too?


And you'd certainly be very wrong, unless you can explain why the PDPA was unable to retain control over the countryside and even major cities and towns (such as Herat) without Soviet "fraternal aid" compensating for massive defections on the part of the PDPA's armed forces.did I say that? I meant interests.
Democracy is shit.


Mysteriously things only seem change when one side waves a red flag and denounces Stalin.http://whofortedblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/strawman2.jpg


Sounds like the PDPA regime. Or like the USSR at any point past 1920


http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/28/1303978425303/Afghan-mujahideen-in-Bagr-007.jpg

- Afghan imperialist power.http://rt.com/files/news/1e/4a/90/00/americans-train-syrian-rebels.si.jpg

I suppose you support these guys too?
You know the syrian rebels?

Wait - no you don't. Because they are an imperialist power.

The Muj magically wasn't.

[Remus Bleys]

Also once again, Fascist Italy was "socially advanced" compared to Albania. Did that make struggling against its occupation "reactionary"?
Lets all sit down and pretend like the social change the Soviets brought with them were being done to albania by the fascists.

Do circumstances mean anything to you? Do you even pretend to understand marxism?

Or are you just an idealist, a utopian, with a fetish for the past he never knew?

And, for the love of God, please stop strawmanning me.

[Ismail]

So, what? Do you support the Chechen Muj too?Do you support the Russian state?


I suppose you support these guys too?

You know the syrian rebels?There's been no imperialist invasion of Syria, so I don't see why you bring them up.


Lets all sit down and pretend like the social change the Soviets brought with them were being done to albania by the fascists.You mentioned how the Soviets "at least industrialized [Afghanistan] a bit." So did the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupations of Albania. If you're going to dangle around social reforms then you could just as easily endorse the US invasion of Afghanistan, since they used the same excuses of "giving democracy to women" and whatnot.


Do circumstances mean anything to you? Do you even pretend to understand marxism?If I were to learn from you, I'd find out that ostensibly defending "minority rights" is a legitimate excuse to invade a country.

You know, like Hitler.

[Remus Bleys]

Do you support the Russian state?

There's been no imperialist invasion of Syria, so I don't see why you bring them up.
Yeah. America has no stake in Syria. Nor are they planning on going there.


You mentioned how the Soviets "at least industrialized [Afghanistan] a bit." So did the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupations of Albania. If you're going to dangle around social reforms then you could just as easily endorse the US invasion of Afghanistan as well, since they used the same excuses of "giving democracy to women" and whatnot.
But they didn't. And using history of the US to involvement in the rest of the fucking world, it would be obvious.

Not all situations are the same.



If I were to learn from you, I'd find out that ostensibly defending "minority rights" is a legitimate excuse to invade a country.

You know, like Hitler. yes. Because hitler defended minority rights.

Y'ALL READ IT FOLKS. ISMAIL IS SO STUMPED THAT HE BROKE GODWIN'S LAW.

[Ismail]

Yeah. America has no stake in Syria. Nor are they planning on going there.You seem to think only the US is capable of being an imperialist power, or that other imperialist powers are somehow "better." The fact is that no one is occupying Syria, so comparing the Afghan resistance to the Syrian rebels does not make sense.


Not all situations are the same.Alrighty, what other Soviet social-imperialist ventures do you endorse abroad? How about that time they used their Cuban puppets as mercenaries in Angola and Ethiopia? Pretty sure you'd defend Soviet revisionism in those cases as well.


yes. Because hitler defended minority rights.The Soviet social-imperialists at any rate were certainly concerned that the triumph of the Afghan people against the occupation would encourage Central Asia to rebel against the new Tsars.

Also I used the Hitler remark as a joke (alluding to Danzig and the Sudetenland), because of how ridiculous it is to cite "minority rights" to somehow justify a foreign invasion.

[Remus Bleys]

You seem to think only the US is capable of being an imperialist power, or that other imperialist powers are somehow "better." The fact is that no one is occupying Syria, so comparing the Afghan resistance to the Syrian rebels does not make sense. The point was that even though they are native to the population, does not mean they aren't the arm of an imperialist power. You seem to think that the Muj wasn't an imperialist power.
And it was. By stating the Muj > Soviets you too are deciding that some imperialist powers are better. In your case, you have chosen America as your imperialist as choice, because, hey, at least they don't have the audacity to condemn stalin and pretend to be communist.


Alrighty, what other Soviet social-imperialist ventures do you endorse abroad? How about that time they used their Cuban puppets as mercenaries in Angola and Ethiopia? I don't know enough about those situations to pass judgement.


The Soviet social-imperialists at any rate were certainly concerned that the triumph of the Afghan people against the occupiers would encourage Central Asia to rebel against the new Tsars.There is no doubt that the Soviets got involved simply for their own benefit.


Also I used the Hitler remark as a joke (alluding to Danzig and the Sudetenland), because of how ridiculous it is to cite "minority rights" to somehow justify a foreign invasion.
Yes. I got the reference. But really? wtf man
Ismail. Stop with the fucking Strawman. You've massacred enough.

[Ismail]

The point was that even though they are native to the population, does not mean they aren't the arm of an imperialist power. You seem to think that the Muj wasn't an imperialist power.This is funny coming from the same type of person who would declare that the Vietnamese national liberation struggle was reactionary because the Vietnamese, despite their struggle being undermined by the Soviet and Chinese revisionists, received arms from both when it suited said revisionists in their efforts to pressure the US imperialists for deals. And yet the Vietnamese ousted French and American neo-colonialism using those arms for such a purpose. And so did the Afghan resistance oust Soviet neo-colonialism using American arms. In both cases the character of the national liberation struggle was not changed.


I don't know enough about those situations to pass judgement.You can't take a consistent line against imperialism, such shows the bankruptcy of your "internationalism" that you would differentiate between "good" and "bad," "better" or "worse" imperialism. No doubt if we were discussing Angola, though, you'd take the Soviet revisionist line that anyone opposed to the Soviet-Cuban occupation were acting as stooges for Apartheid, just as you try connecting opposition to Soviet social-imperialism with supporting US imperialism in the case of Afghanistan.


There is no doubt that the Soviets got involved simply for their own benefit.So why do you defend them? How is it different from defending the US invasion? In reality it is no different from the Trot line that the "gains of the October revolution" were magically spreading to Afghanistan.

[Remus Bleys]

This is funny coming from the same type of person who would declare that the Vietnamese national liberation struggle was reactionary because the Vietnamese, despite their struggle being undermined by the Soviet and Chinese revisionists, received arms from both when it suited said revisionists in their efforts to pressure the US imperialists for deals. And yet the Vietnamese ousted French and American neo-colonialism using those arms for such a purpose.
http://theswash.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/burning_man_effigy_black_city_nevada.jpeg

NOW I AM GOING TO LOOSE ALL SENSE OF CIVILITY YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT. I SAID THEY DIDN'T DO IT ON THERE OWN. WHICH IS SOMETHING YOU JUST ADMITTED.

And so did the Afghan resistance oust Soviet neo-colonialism using American arms. In both cases the character of the national liberation struggle was not changed.DID YOU REALLY JUST COMPARE THE VIET MINH TO THE MUJ?
You can't take a consistent line against imperialism, such shows the bankruptcy of your "internationalism" that you would differentiate between "good" and "bad," "better" or "worse" imperialism.BY TAKING INTO ACCOUNT DIFFERENT SITUATIONS REQUIRE DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS, AND THAT MARXISM IS A SCIENCE WITH THE METHODOLOGY APPLIED AS SUCH, AND NOT A BLIND MONOLITHIC UNCHANGING IDEOLOGY WITH ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOLUTIONS.

ARE YOU REALLY THIS FUCKING STUPID?


So why do you defend them? How is it different from defending the US invasion? In reality it is no different from the Trot line that the "gains of the October revolution" were magically spreading to Afghanistan.I AM APPARENTLY A TROTSKYO-SOVIET-YUGOSLAVIAN-NAZI

ACCORDING TO ISMAIL ALL SITUATIONS ARE THE SAME AND THUS AUTOMATICALLY REQUIRE THE SAME SOLUTION. BECAUSE HE IS A MARXIST WHO APPLIES METHODOLOGY, NOT A DOGMATISTS.

I'VE EXPLAINED MY POSITION ENOUGH TIMES YOU TWAT.

[synthesis]

yes. Because hitler defended minority rights.

Y'ALL READ IT FOLKS. ISMAIL IS SO STUMPED THAT HE BROKE GODWIN'S LAW.

Actually, just because I love being pedantic, he actually exercised Godwin's Law; breaking it would have meant not comparing the Soviets to Hitler.

(Although I do think Godwin's Law is an overused concept - some Hitler comparisons are perfectly valid, if often overly emotionally loaded. I'd say this one was half-valid, because the Soviets weren't invading Afghanistan to protect ethnic Russians.)

[Ismail]

Situations aren't exactly the same, actually. For instance, in Afghanistan the main force resisting foreign occupation happened to be the Mujahideen which lacked internal unity and, obviously, did not enjoy the advantage of being guided by the Marxist-Leninist ideology, as Hoxha noted in his political diary.

As for imperialism being opposed, yes, Marxists don't change their mind on that.

[Questionable]

It's going to be difficult to respond to Remus's post since the majority of it ranges from irrelevant ranting to petty insults, but I'll do my best.


Show me how the Party of Labor was controlled by the Proletariat.

The Party of Labor's congress was elected via regional councils which then sent delegates to vote on their behalf. More importantly, their actions of refusing to capitulate to imperialism or revisionism, and establishing socialist relations among the Albanians, shows that they had the proletariat's interests in mind.

Your accusation that the bureaucracy fought for its own interests is rather silly when we look at history. If they were fighting for themselves, it would have made more sense to give into Soviet or Chinese revisionism as many Party bureaucracies did, or American imperialism in the case of Yugoslavia, and increase their own material wealth and social status at the expense of the masses. They did no such thing, and in fact made their own personal lives much harder by sticking to their principals and opposing the world superpowers based on Marxism-Leninism.


So I am supposed to believe that a world superpowers help had no effect on a war?

Are you getting a discount for buying all of this straw in bulk?

I never once said that the influence of the world superpowers made no difference, or that technology/funding makes no difference, or any of these other bizarre accusations you're throwing at me.

I said that the people were the main component of any war, and that they were the ones who made history. In many cases, the people have been able to beat a technologically superior force if their war had popular support, as was the case in Vietnam, and modern-day Afghanistan.


Albania was irrelevant in world politics.

Geopolitically speaking this is untrue, because all three of the superpowers had some interest in bringing Albania to their side, due to its strategic position near Russia.

Ideologically speaking this is blatantly untrue, as Albania was the last bastion of actual socialist relations in the world, and provided inspiration and material support to many Marxist-Leninist parties long after the Soviets started telling them to basically become reformists.


You know lenin was very inspired by orthodox marxism, right?

Insofar as he took what was correct from the Second International figures and disregarded what was faulty, yes. Leninism also represents a further development of Marxism in that it is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. I've seen many Orthodox Marxists argue that Lenin was essentially the Russian Kautsky, which is untrue.


Recognizing Marx and Engels used it differently than Lenin, and perfering Lenin's usage is not a contradiction.

Then stop trying to tell me about how Marx and Engels used the term interchangeably as if to criticize my position when it's wrong.


Actual inequality being discussed in the Critique of the Gotha Program, actual inequality being one that result from "to each contribution" instead of need.

Yes...and? Lenin says the state remains due to bourgeois law (the birthmark of capitalist society), and it will not completely wither away until complete communism (which, by the way, reminds me a lot of my "full communism" phrase that you took such issue with). This is completely aligned with the Marxist-Leninist definition.


you ignore said analysis for political reasons.

Are you seriously typing this and believing it, or are you just trying to troll me at this point? I honestly hope it's the latter, because I am defending Marx's analysis in Critique of Gotha, as well as Lenin's further elaborations on it, not ignoring it. Why the fuck would I be posting this quote in defense of Marxism-Leninism if I was ignoring this? Why would I be talking about it at all?


Clearly about the intelligenstia.

Once again, you say nothing to prove nothing. The intelligentsia was one of the holdovers of capitalism that needed to be abolished by socialism. It is, in fact, where the internal counter-revolution stemmed from in Russia.


Except for the fact that he feels the need to seperate them all right?

Elaborate. In nowhere does he say that the dictatorship of the proletariat ceases under socialism. He supports the use of the state under it. Marxism-Leninism did not "revise" anything, it draws it conclusions directly from Lenin's theoretical contributions here!


This. Isnt. Even. Relevant.

How so? He clearly says the use of a strict state is necessary until complete (or "full, if you will) communism has been reached.


ML is revisionism.

You have done absolutely nil to prove this.


However, the need for other socialist countries is still there.

Russia had other countries aiding it by the end of World War II, when the Red Army liberated and established DotPs across Eastern Europe.


your reasoning on socialism being in russia is because... there was socialism in Russia.

Because socialist societal relations were constructed based on what Marx and Lenin described, and based on the dialectical advancement toward the abolition of classes.


Neither did I. Did you even read this? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2677154&postcount=11)

This is incorrect because not only did nations such as Albania persist on their own for a considerable length of time and still did very well, Russia also did all it could to spread the revolution, and did quite well.


But my critique is still correct, and mocking you for saying "full communism" is justified.

No more than mocking Lenin for using "complete communism."


So regular Communism?

The highest phase of communism, yes.

You're either an idiot or a troll by pursuing this line of argument, I can't tell which. Obviously there is a qualitative difference between the lower phase of communism (socialism) and the higher phase. It's outlined by Lenin himself! The lower phase consists of a state, bourgeois right still exists, and the the division between mental and physical labor still exists. In the higher phase, all three of these things have been abolished based on the expansion of the productive powers of society.

To deny this is to deny the dialectical evolution that the different stages of society proceed through. There was, after all, capitalism in its embryonic phase with an immature form of the proletariat and wage-commodity relations existing in France during the time of the French Revolution, but it would be incorrect to describe this as "full capitalism." Similarly, imperialism in its present form didn't exist during the time of Marx and Engels. Hell, what did Lenin call it? "The latest stage of capitalism."

[Remus Bleys]

I like how you ignored any and all criticism of Hoxha and Stalin being revisionist, in favor of focusing on your support of the Muj. At least Questionable tried to answer. Maybe your his dog, and I had it the other way around.

Furthermore, then getting on Chat and accusing me of being the anti-communist because I am apparently an idealist. Ismail, at worst I am a dualist. Im not even a full Catholic. Then you have the gull to accuse me of being a Titoite. Yes, because of the way I once was in my unknowing days, I must still abide to ridiculous theory.

You gave me that Lenin quote, and then ignored the fact it also said that the masses should be religious, something Hoxha was obviously against.

Finally, you accused me of being an internet tendency and being "the worst mix of eclectically leftism" and said I was a bit of a Trot. Just ask fucking Geiseric if I am trot. But the criticism that I am unsure and idiotic since I am eclectic?

According to Ismail, marxism is not a science that has many methodologists, and thus different people to expand it in different ways. Ismail views marxism as The Church of Stalin.

If anyone is an idealist Ismail, its you. You literally believe that the denunciation of Stalin determines the economic and political.

Its basically like this:


Look, Evolution can explain how things were created. It has evidence, reasoning, and everything else behind it..

Well, you don't understand physics!

How is this relevant???

I only take inspiration from one thing, the Bible. You take inspiration from multiple, and sometimes conflicting, sources. Thus I am right.


This entire "debate" you have been straw manning me.

Vietnam was backed up by the USSR "Revisionists".

This is funny coming from the same type of person who would declare that the Vietnamese national liberation struggle was reactionary because the Vietnamese, despite their struggle being undermined by the Soviet and Chinese revisionists, received arms from both when it suited said revisionists in their efforts to pressure the US imperialists for deals.

HOW THE FUCK DOES WHAT I SAY IN ANYWAY IMPLY THAT?

I predicted this entire debate, down to the point of you even calling me a Nazi. The only thing I didn't see coming is you blatantly supporting the Muj.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY FINAL POINT. IF I AM A SOVIET IMPERIALIST AND AN APOLOGIST TO SOVIET IMPERIALISM, THEN YOU ARE AN APOLOGIST AND AN ISLAMIST AND AN AMERICAN IMPERIALIST.
YOU SUPPORT THE MUJ. THIS INCLUDES ALL OF THEIR "HONOR KILLING," RAMPANT HOMOPHOBIA, OPPRESSION OF WOMEN AND MINORITIES. NOT TO MENTION THE DANCING BOYS.

If this is a debate, Ismail, I am winning. Are you really this stupid? Or are you just hiding behind dogmatism?

[Remus Bleys]

It's going to be difficult to respond to Remus's post since the majority of it ranges from irrelevant ranting to petty insults, but I'll do my best.



[QUOTE]The Party of Labor's congress was elected via regional councils which then sent delegates to vote on their behalf. More importantly, their actions of refusing to capitulate to imperialism or revisionism, and establishing socialist relations among the Albanians, shows that they had the proletariat's interests in mind.Hugo Chavez's has been supposedly "ground up" as well. He has made the claim to support grassroots democracy, and create communes. This means nothing. This was a sham, and nothing more.



Your accusation that the bureaucracy fought for its own interests is rather silly when we look at history. If they were fighting for themselves, it would have made more sense to give into Soviet or Chinese revisionism as many Party bureaucracies did, or American imperialism in the case of Yugoslavia, and increase their own material wealth and social status at the expense of the masses. They did no such thing, and in fact made their own personal lives much harder by sticking to their principals and opposing the world superpowers based on Marxism-Leninism.And what about their political lives? What about their political offices? They certainly increased their own social standing. And given the amount of shit deals they would have received via these powers, they would have gotten better lives out of just being independent bureaucrats.




Are you getting a discount for buying all of this straw in bulk?

I never once said that the influence of the world superpowers made no difference, or that technology/funding makes no difference, or any of these other bizarre accusations you're throwing at me.Then why do you keep denying that the Vietnamese and Albanians had no foreign aid?


I said that the people were the main component of any war, and that they were the ones who made history. In many cases, the people have been able to beat a technologically superior force if their war had popular support, as was the case in Vietnam,THE SOVIETS BACKED UP THE VIET MINH
and modern-day Afghanistan.
Afghanistan likewise has international support.



Geopolitically speaking this is untrue, because all three of the superpowers had some interest in bringing Albania to their side, due to its strategic position near Russia.And what did they do about it? How much did they care?


Ideologically speaking this is blatantly untrue, as Albania was the last bastion of actual socialist relations in the world, and provided inspiration and material support to many Marxist-Leninist parties long after the Soviets started telling them to basically become reformists.
:laugh:
Ideology trumps reality apparently.



Insofar as he took what was correct from the Second International figures and disregarded what was faulty, yes. Leninism also represents a further development of Marxism in that it is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. I've seen many Orthodox Marxists argue that Lenin was essentially the Russian Kautsky, which is untrue. No argument here.




Then stop trying to tell me about how Marx and Engels used the term interchangeably as if to criticize my position when it's wrong.
Marx and Engels used them interchangably. I was stating that for historical accuracy. That wasn't a criticism of you.



Yes...and? Lenin says the state remains due to bourgeois law (the birthmark of capitalist society), and it will not completely wither away until complete communism The state is an administration of things in socialism. Not the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

(which, by the way, reminds me a lot of my "full communism" phrase that you took such issue with). Lenin used complete to mean higher phase....
This is completely aligned with the Marxist-Leninist definition.I'm sorry, youll have to show me how.




Are you seriously typing this and believing it, or are you just trying to troll me at this point? I honestly hope it's the latter, because I am defending Marx's analysis in Critique of Gotha, as well as Lenin's further elaborations on it, not ignoring it. Why the fuck would I be posting this quote in defense of Marxism-Leninism if I was ignoring this? Why would I be talking about it at all?
You are bastardizing the analysis to fit your idea of SioC, which you inherent from idolizing state capitalists who waved red flags.

You are clearly not defending it, you have vastly misinterpreted. Read what I wrote. Im not going to rewrite what i wrote.



Once again, you say nothing to prove nothing. The intelligentsia was one of the holdovers of capitalism that needed to be abolished by socialism. It is, in fact, where the internal counter-revolution stemmed from in Russia.How does this disprove anything I have said you fuckwit?




Elaborate. In nowhere does he say that the dictatorship of the proletariat ceases under socialism. He supports the use of the state under it. Marxism-Leninism did not "revise" anything, it draws it conclusions directly from Lenin's theoretical contributions here!

Scumbag Questionable, says this.
After seeing this:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...terev/ch05.htm Notice how Transistion of Capitalism to Communism, First Phase, and Second Phase are all seperate.



How so? He clearly says the use of a strict state is necessary until complete (or "full, if you will) communism has been reached.
OR HIGHER PHASE!
And strict fucking sate? Under socialism, the state is an administration of things, not a government of people.



You have done absolutely nil to prove this.Are you being intentionally difficult?




Russia had other countries aiding it by the end of World War II, when the Red Army liberated and established DotPs across Eastern Europe.
K den.
Wait, Russia established DotPs? You uphold those as DotP? Those petty-bourgeoisie beaurcarcts?



Because socialist societal relations were constructed based on what Marx and Lenin described, and based on the dialectical advancement toward the abolition of classes.Socialism is not the path to the abolition of class, Socialism is the abolition of class




This is incorrect because not only did nations such as Albania persist on their own for a considerable length of time and still did very well, Russia also did all it could to spread the revolution, and did quite well.Albania even traded with fucking Yugoslavia. How did they make Lithium?




No more than mocking Lenin for using "complete communism."
He wasn't



The highest phase of communism, yes.

You're either an idiot or a troll by pursuing this line of argument, I can't tell which. Obviously there is a qualitative difference between the lower phase of communism (socialism) and the higher phase. It's outlined by Lenin himself! The lower phase consists of a state, bourgeois right still exists, and the the division between mental and physical labor still exists. In the higher phase, all three of these things have been abolished based on the expansion of the productive powers of society.

To deny this is to deny the dialectical evolution that the different stages of society proceed through. There was, after all, capitalism in its embryonic phase with an immature form of the proletariat and wage-commodity relations existing in France during the time of the French Revolution, but it would be incorrect to describe this as "full capitalism." Similarly, imperialism in its present form didn't exist during the time of Marx and Engels. Hell, what did Lenin call it? "The latest stage of capitalism.":laugh::laugh::laugh:
I was being semantical with you saying "full" and not "higher."

Tell me Questionable, do you ever get tired of being a douchebag?

[Questionable]

Hugo Chavez's has been supposedly "ground up" as well. He has made the claim to support grassroots democracy, and create communes. This means nothing. This was a sham, and nothing more.

Yes, because capitalism still existed in Venezuala during Chavez's time. He came to power via a military coup, not a proletariat revolution. Venezuala was not a socialist state.



And what about their political lives? What about their political offices? They certainly increased their own social standing.The Party actually carried out multiple purges of the bureaucracy in order to deliver more power to the working class, so this makes no sense either. But at least you're consistent in that.



Then why do you keep denying that the Vietnamese and Albanians had no foreign aid?I never denied it for the Vietnamese, I only said that the masses are the primary component of any war, and I stand by that.

I deny it in the case of Albania because it is a lie. Albania was liberated by the Albanians. It is well-documented by experts in Albanian history such as Jon Halliday in his book "The Artful Albanian." Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I am going to begin ignoring this point of yours, because I don't need to argue against a total fabrication.



And what did they do about it? How much did they care?The USA parachuted multiple CIA agents into the country, who were subsequently captured by the Albanians. Yugoslavia and Russia likewise had many agents introduced into the Party who were purged once their allegiances were found out.


Ideology trumps reality apparently.The proper ideological defense of Marxism-Leninism is what allowed them to remain on the correct path, and provide material support to parties. What you're saying here is, yet again, a strawman which you've pulled out of your ass.



Marx and Engels used them interchangably.No they didn't, as Critique of Gotha and State and Revolution prove.



The state is an administration of things in socialism. Not the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.Lenin clearly states it only becomes the administration of things in the higher phase of communism. He draws a distinction between this and a state, which is required in socialism.


Lenin used complete to mean higher phase....Yes...so did I. I pointed this out, and you mocked me for it, since your response to being intellectually outmatched is to use abuse.


I'm sorry, youll have to show me how.Because it concludes the bourgeois influence remains under socialism and needs a state to suppress it.


You are clearly not defending it, you have vastly misinterpreted. Read what I wrote. Im not going to rewrite what i wrote.I read it. I debunked it.


Scumbag Questionable, says this.
After seeing this:The state that persists into socialism is nothing less than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat!


And strict fucking sate? Under socialism, the state is an administration of things, not a government of people.Yes, that is what Lenin says about the higher phase, not the lower phase/socialism.


Socialism is not the path to the abolition of class, Socialism is the abolition of classThe abolition of classes is a gradual process that has taken place insofar as exploitative relations between men no longer exist, yes.


Albania even traded with fucking Yugoslavia.Before Albania recognized their revisionism and hostility towards socialism in the country, and broke off relations with them.


I was being semantical with you saying "full" and not "higher."So you understood what I was saying and you chose to be an idiot about it.

Or, more likely, you're embarrassed that I ripped apart your stupid post so thoroughly, and now you're falling back on the "I was only joking!" method.

In fact, I'll spell it out for you, just so there can be no misconstruing.

I used the phrase "full communism," to which Subvert responded by telling me there is no such thing. My response:

"By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution."

You and Subvert mocked me for this, saying there is no such thing as "full communism."

Then, when I pointed out that Lenin used "complete communism" to be synonymous with "higher phase," exactly the same manner in which I used "full communism," your response was that Lenin meant "higher phase," as if that is somehow different from what I was saying. But it's not. My "full communism" and Lenin's "complete communism" mean the exact same thing - the higher phase.

Then, you told me you were being "semantical" with me using "full" instead of "higher." If so, why not criticize Lenin for using "complete" instead of "higher"?

He and I have done the exact same thing. Your confusion over this seems to stem from the fact that you can't seem to decide whether you adhere to the interpretation of socialism being synonymous with communism, or if they're divided into stages.

Do you understand?

And even if Lenin hadn't used "complete communism" in such a way, you would still be wrong, because, as I pointed out, economic modes of production are indeed divided up into different stages throughout history. Even Marx talked about the embryonic forms of capitalism, as distinct from the industrial capitalism he saw in his lifetime, or imperialist capitalism which Lenin analyzed and which we now live in. So yes, there is such a thing as a "full" mode of production; it is when the mode of production is fully established, as opposed to being in a developmental stage.

My expectation is that you'll realize the contradictions being raised here by trying to simultaneously embrace the "socialism=communism" position as well as the Leninist conception and drop Lenin altogether, becoming some sort of anti-Lenin LeftCom like your buddy Subvert. It wouldn't be the first time you switched theories, after all.


Tell me Questionable, do you ever get tired of being a douchebag?I get very tired of you refusing to see my point, but I never get tired of defending my correct politics against you smashing your face into your keyboard, no.

[Remus Bleys]

Yes, because capitalism still existed in Venezuala during Chavez's time. He came to power via a military coup, not a proletariat revolution. Venezuala was not a socialist state. Capitalism likewise existed in Albania during Hoxha's time. He came to power via a national liberation struggle, not a proletarian revolution. Albania was not a socialist state.



The Party actually carried out multiple purges of the bureaucracy in order to deliver more power to the working class, so this makes no sense either. But at least you're consistent in that.
Except careerists like good ol' hoxha, right?



I deny it in the case of Albania because it is a lie. Albania was liberated by the Albanians. It is well-documented by experts in Albanian history such as Jon Halliday in his book "The Artful Albanian." Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I am going to begin ignoring this point of yours, because I don't need to argue against a total fabrication.
You do know my argument is the Italian invasion helped Albania out significantly, right? Do you get tired of playing with straw?


The USA parachuted multiple CIA agents into the country, who were subsequently captured by the Albanians. Yugoslavia and Russia likewise had many agents introduced into the Party who were purged once their allegiances were found out.
Source and Date. I'll admit I don't know much about Albania as compared to you to. Then give me the significant after tones.

The proper ideological defense of Marxism-Leninism is what allowed them to remain on the correct path, and provide material support to parties. What you're saying here is, yet again, a strawman which you've pulled out of your ass.

SO, LIKE ALL PROPER MARXISTS, YOU ARE A MATERIALIST. MATERIALISM TO YOU APPARENTLY MEANS UPHOLDING STALIN AS THE DETERMINING FACTOR OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL.

No they didn't, as Critique of Gotha and State and Revolution prove.
Lenin and Marx were different people.


Lenin clearly states it only becomes the administration of things in the higher phase of communism. He draws a distinction between this and a state, which is required in socialism.

Yes...so did I. I pointed this out, and you mocked me for it, since your response to being intellectually outmatched is to use abuse.

Because it concludes the bourgeois influence remains under socialism and needs a state to suppress it.

I read it. I debunked it.

The state that persists into socialism is nothing less than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat!

Yes, that is what Lenin says about the higher phase, not the lower phase/socialism.

The abolition of classes is a gradual process that has taken place insofar as exploitative relations between men no longer exist, yes.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma52qzVsRo1rvwttvo1_500.gif

Before Albania recognized their revisionism and hostility towards socialism in the country, and broke off relations with them.
Wait... So I know more about Albania than you?

Albania was never isolated. Hoxha pointed out various times that there was never an intention for the country to have a completely autarkic economy. In fact Yugoslavia was, after the 70's, one of the main countries that traded with it, others being France, Turkey, the Scandinavian countries, etc.

The only countries Albania flat-out refused to establish trade with were Francoist Spain, Salazar-era Portugal, and Israel. And the only countries Albania flat-out refused to establish any diplomatic (and thus trade) contact whatsoever were the USA and USSR, since Hoxha noted that it would be quite difficult to speak of any equality in relations with them.



So you understood what I was saying and you chose to be an idiot about it.

Or, more likely, you're embarrassed that I ripped apart your stupid post so thoroughly, and now you're falling back on the "I was only joking!" method.

In fact, I'll spell it out for you, just so there can be no misconstruing.

I used the phrase "full communism," to which Subvert responded by telling me there is no such thing. My response:

"By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution."

You and Subvert mocked me for this, saying there is no such thing as "full communism."

Then, when I pointed out that Lenin used "complete communism" to be synonymous with "higher phase," exactly the same manner in which I used "full communism," your response was that Lenin meant "higher phase," as if that is somehow different from what I was saying. But it's not. My "full communism" and Lenin's "complete communism" mean the exact same thing - the higher phase.

Then, you told me you were being "semantical" with me using "full" instead of "higher." If so, why not criticize Lenin for using "complete" instead of "higher"?

He and I have done the exact same thing. Your confusion over this seems to stem from the fact that you can't seem to decide whether you adhere to the interpretation of socialism being synonymous with communism, or if they're divided into stages.

Do you understand?

And even if Lenin hadn't used "complete communism" in such a way, you would still be wrong, because, as I pointed out, economic modes of production are indeed divided up into different stages throughout history. Even Marx talked about the embryonic forms of capitalism, as distinct from the industrial capitalism he saw in his lifetime, or imperialist capitalism which Lenin analyzed and which we now live in. So yes, there is such a thing as a "full" mode of production; it is when the mode of production is fully established, as opposed to being in a developmental stage.
I chose to make fun of you for using such immature statements such as "full communism." Say it out loud and tell me if it is immature or not.

My expectation is that you'll realize the contradictions being raised here by trying to simultaneously embrace the "socialism=communism" position as well as the Leninist conception and drop Lenin altogether, becoming some sort of anti-Lenin LeftCom like your buddy Subvert. It wouldn't be the first time you switched theories, after all.
Are you for real? I use Lenin's definition when reading Lenin and in day to day. I use marx's when reading marx.

I get very tired of you refusing to see my point, but I never get tired of defending my correct politics against you smashing your face into your keyboard, no.Yet again, how does none of this apply to you?

[Ismail]

Most of Albania's trade in the 80's was with Yugoslavia. This did not, however, alter the fact that the Albanians continued their polemics against Titoism and explicitly said they would never cease such polemics. This was in conformity with the policy of Lenin and Stalin on mutual trade between states with different social system.

The trade between Albania and Yugoslavia was conducted on an equal basis, not on the basis of loans, joint-ventures, or other policies which the Albanian Constitution of 1976 clearly prohibited as fostering unequal relations (and which had reduced Albania to a Yugoslav neo-colony in the 1944-48 period.) With the superpowers (the USA and USSR) there was no possibility of equal relations, ergo there was no desire on the Albanian side to restore such relations.

[Questionable]

Capitalism likewise existed in Albania during Hoxha's time. He came to power via a national liberation struggle, not a proletarian revolution. Albania was not a socialist state.

A national liberation struggle that coincided with the proletarian revolution against capitalism. The Albanian communists also proceeded to establish socialism afterwards, whereas Chavez continued to have capitalist relations exist without doing anything to curb them except for social-democratic reforms. Not that he could have done anything different since he came to power in a military coup in a bourgeois state, instead of smashing said state with the proletarian revolution.


Except careerists like good ol' hoxha, right?Hoxha was instrumental in the campaigns to eliminate bureaucracy and insure working-class power. This distinguishes him from actual careerists such as Khrushchev, who did the exact reverse; they took power away from the working-class and entrusted it in bureaucrats.



You do know my argument is the Italian invasion helped Albania out significantly, right? Do you get tired of playing with straw?The Italian troops were replaced with German ones after they withdrew who continued to fight the Albanian resistance, so I don't see how that changes much.


Source and Date. I'll admit I don't know much about Albania as compared to you to. Then give me the significant after tones.Source is Albania Defiant, pages 14-15. You can find a link to a .pdf here: http://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/albania-defiant.pdf


SO, LIKE ALL PROPER MARXISTS, YOU ARE A MATERIALIST. MATERIALISM TO YOU APPARENTLY MEANS UPHOLDING STALIN AS THE DETERMINING FACTOR OF ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL.Can you please stop typing like this? It makes your posts harder to read and makes you look childish.

Anyway, the USSR under Stalin represented the proper construction of socialism, so yes, the revisionists who criticized Stalin for his "dogmatism" in an attempt to excuse their own "national roads to socialism" came from the right-wing.

The economic and political factors in Russia during Stalin's time were pursuing the correct path toward communism, hence we Marxist-Leninists defend them.


You don't know what you're talking about, do you?If you have a problem with my reasoning, point it out instead of posting useless things like this. I've consistently used quotations from Lenin and analyzed them to support my reasoning. You have done nothing except post smug one-liners in response to this for your last few posts.


Wait... So I know more about Albania than you?After the 70s, yes, when unequal trade between the states was disallowed.



I chose to make fun of you for using such immature statements such as "full communism." Say it out loud and tell me if it is immature or not.Once again, you've completely failed to address any of the main points in what I'm saying.

I am using "full communism" the same way Lenin used "complete communism," to describe the higher phase. If "full communism" sounds immature to you, then "complete communism" must sound immature as well.

Furthermore, you've still chosen to ignore the fact that describing an economic mode of production as reaching its full state is not erronenous at all, and is completely in line with Marxism.


Yet again, how does none of this apply to you?Because I use critical reasoning and evidence to back up my viewpoints, whereas you call me names like "douchebag" and post silly meme pictures in an attempt to appear clever, none of which lend you any intellectual credibility.

[Remus Bleys]

A national liberation struggle that coincided with the proletarian revolution against capitalism. The Albanian communists also proceeded to establish socialism afterwards, whereas Chavez continued to have capitalist relations exist without doing anything to curb them except for social-democratic reforms. Not that he could have done anything different since he came to power in a military coup in a bourgeois state, instead of smashing said state with the proletarian revolution.
You still have yet to explain how Albania was socialist. What, according to you is socialism?

Hoxha was instrumental in the campaigns to eliminate bureaucracy and insure working-class power. This distinguishes him from actual careerists such as Khrushchev, who did the exact reverse; they took power away from the working-class and entrusted it in bureaucrats.
So Hoxha eliminated opposition to his power?


The Italian troops were replaced with German ones after they withdrew who continued to fight the Albanian resistance, so I don't see how that changes much. So... Allied invasion of Germany didn't matter either?



Can you please stop typing like this? It makes your posts harder to read and makes you look childish.NO. Can you stop acting like your better than everyone else becuase you uphold stalin?


Anyway, the USSR under Stalin represented the proper construction of socialism, so yes, the revisionists who criticized Stalin for his "dogmatism" in an attempt to excuse their own "national roads to socialism" came from the right-wing.
So, it is not if the proletariat has political or economic power, it is your view on Stalin.

Yeah. Totally not idealistic.

The economic and political factors in Russia during Stalin's time were pursuing the correct path toward communism, hence we Marxist-Leninists defend them.:rolleyes:


If you have a problem with my reasoning, point it out instead of posting useless things like this. I've consistently used quotations from Lenin and analyzed them to support my reasoning. You have done nothing except post smug one-liners in response to this for your last few posts. I stopped taking this seriously as soon as Ismail and you started to reply less and less and strawman more and more.
However, it seems that you might want to have an actual debate. Okay then.


After the 70s, yes, when unequal trade between the states was disallowed.So how the fuck does this disprove what I was saying about international support and trade?


Once again, you've completely failed to address any of the main points in what I'm saying.Did you think I was trying? What about Takayuki's points both of you have conveniently ignored?


I am using "full communism" the same way Lenin used "complete communism," to describe the higher phase. If "full communism" sounds immature to you, then "complete communism" must sound immature as well.It does.
However, you are using it out of context.


Furthermore, you've still chosen to ignore the fact that describing an economic mode of production as reaching its full state is not erronenous at all, and is completely in line with Marxism. The Dictatorship is the path to socialism. Socialism is the path to Communism. Communism may lead to something else, i don't know, and I don't really care.
They reach a phase and then transfer to a new one. Hence, the use of "Full Communism" is erroneous.


Because I use critical reasoning and evidence to back up my viewpoints, whereas you call me names like "douchebag" and post silly meme pictures in an attempt to appear clever, none of which lend you any intellectual credibility.See above.

Wait a second here... You are saying you use critical reasoning? As in your interpretation and reasoning of it? Arent you the same guy who said this?

He states that nowhere, except in the inferences you are making.Scumbag Questionable, attacks me for inferences, says he is better because of his inferences.
Boo fucking hoo I call you names

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2678478#post2678478) It must be hard to think with a piece of shit in your head instead of a brain. Scumbag Questionable attacks me and acts like a victim. Did I hurt your feelings? Is someone upset because I made fun of a dictator?
So, to your points you want me to address.


So you understood what I was saying and you chose to be an idiot about it.

Or, more likely, you're embarrassed that I ripped apart your stupid post so thoroughly, and now you're falling back on the "I was only joking!" method.

In fact, I'll spell it out for you, just so there can be no misconstruing.
Here's what I said:

Why does that make him an idiot? There is no such thing as "full communism" the most its used in is Socialist Meme Caucus jokes. Socialism constructs and turns into communism, which may construct some higher phase (maybe). However, it doesn't "advance." There is no such thing as full capitalism, full feudalism, full primitive communism, full feudalism, so why would you use full communism in a serious matter.

Unless of course you believe that Socialism does advance its self. Which would mean Lower Phase Communism advances into... Lower Phase Communism. Which you obviously do believe, as you keep insisting things such as Socialism in One Country and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat staying to Socialism.
I knew you meant higher-phase communism, just the word choice was piss poor, because of its implications. Why don't you address that?

"By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution."

You and Subvert mocked me for this, saying there is no such thing as "full communism."
No, we were clearly mocking you for this

Socialism is indeed the abolition of classes, in that sense that the differences between the proletariat, the peasantry, and the intelligentsia are slowly abolished, paving the way for full communism. Your not taking this seriously, and being intentionally thick. I have gone over this too many times. So I may as well have some fun.

Then, when I pointed out that Lenin used "complete communism" to be synonymous with "higher phase," exactly the same manner in which I used "full communism," your response was that Lenin meant "higher phase," as if that is somehow different from what I was saying. But it's not. My "full communism" and Lenin's "complete communism" mean the exact same thing - the higher phase. No. You said complete communism meant full communism. I said it meant higher-stage communism. There is a difference.

And about Lenin's use of the word "Complete Communism." I find that problematic and would ridicule lenin for that as well.

Then, you told me you were being "semantical" with me using "full" instead of "higher." If so, why not criticize Lenin for using "complete" instead of "higher"?
When did I imply I wouldn't?

He and I have done the exact same thing. Your confusion over this seems to stem from the fact that you can't seem to decide whether you adhere to the interpretation of socialism being synonymous with communism, or if they're divided into stages.Are you really this daft? I mean, my fucking God (Stalin?) are you really this idiotic? No one can be this dumb.

How many times do I have to state that I recognize Marx and Engels did not differentiate between Socialism and Communism, whilst Lenin did. Thus, the definition of these words are different when reading different authors.




And even if Lenin hadn't used "complete communism" in such a way, you would still be wrong, because, as I pointed out, economic modes of production are indeed divided up into different stages throughout history. Even Marx talked about the embryonic forms of capitalism, as distinct from the industrial capitalism he saw in his lifetime, or imperialist capitalism which Lenin analyzed and which we now live in. So yes, there is such a thing as a "full" mode of production; it is when the mode of production is fully established, as opposed to being in a developmental stage. This is even proves my point. Can you stop using this against me dipshit?

Why the fuck would I take this seriously?

IF Lenin viewed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Socialism as synonymous, why were they under different sections?

On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Lenin says this:
And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence.
...
Furthermore, during the transition from capitalism to communism suppression is still necessary, but it is now the suppression of the exploiting minority by the exploited majority.
Clearly, in the DotP, the Proletariat suppresses the class of others, and makes everyone else proletariat. Not everyone is to participate in the running of society.

The bit right under First Phase

The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it. So, in the first phase of communism, "to each according to ability," everything belongs to all. Notice how their are no suppressed groups cut off from society. Notice how their are not classes subjugated. Notice how he says "whole of society." IF socialism was to be class based, then this would make no sense.
But thats only for conflicting classes! Therefore, socialism did not occur anywhere either. Are we going to pretend that the class interest of the peasant is in the class interest of the proletariat?


And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.
However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.
This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.
Lenin states that socialism has not abolished inequality, that the fact that inequality is still around is what incorporates bourgeoisie law. The distribution is still run in a Bourgeoisie manner, and the State as we know it is abolished, being an administration of the distribution. The state has withered away in the sense that "no longer... any classes." But like I have stated earlier, inequality still persists under socialism, by its very nature of "to each according to his contribution." This very real inequality is the essence of class society that still exists. But, distribution is only somewhat related to classes.
Complete Communism was a misnomer imo.


Now, moving on to "Higher Phase"



The state will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", i.e., when people have become so accustomed to observing the fundamental rules of social intercourse and when their labor has become so productive that they will voluntarily work according to their ability. "The narrow horizon of bourgeois law", which compels one to calculate with the heartlessness of a Shylock whether one has not worked half an hour more than anybody else--this narrow horizon will then be left behind. There will then be no need for society, in distributing the products, to regulate the quantity to be received by each; each will take freely "according to his needs". The Bourgeois law that is destroyed is clearly stated as the idea of "to each according to his contribution."
The rest of this describes life under Communist society, that is "according to his needs" and full worker control. Full employment of one worker to another, with no beaurcacry or intelligenstia.


Did I address your points? Or are you going to whine some more about how Lenin was a Stalinist?

[reb]

Stalinists aren't marxists, why are you trying to get marxist definitions from him?

[Remus Bleys]

Stalinists aren't marxists, why are you trying to get marxist definitions from him?
Hence why I am only quoting Lenin.

[Questionable]

You still have yet to explain how Albania was socialist. What, according to you is socialism?

I define it as Bill Bland did, which is:

"The social system constructed by the working people, led by the working class, after their seizure of political power in a socialist revolution. It is a social system in which the exploitation of man by man has been abolished and in which production is centrally planned with the aim of maximising the welfare of the working people."

http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course8-CL.htm


So Hoxha eliminated opposition to his power?Except not really because the point of the purges in Albania was to allow more room for working class participation in the process of socialism.


So... Allied invasion of Germany didn't matter either?In my readings on the topic of Albania, I've yet to see any evidence that it had a direct impact.

Your position is that the Allies did all the fighting for Albania somehow without even stepping into the country, and they had no impact on their own national liberation war. It is stupid, and unless you can cite any kind of credible source for it, I'm going to begin ignoring it.



Can you stop acting like your better than everyone else becuase you uphold stalin?But I am better than those who denounce him because I am upholding the correct theoretical line.


So, it is not if the proletariat has political or economic power, it is your view on Stalin.My, for someone who complains about strawmen so incessantly, you sure do create a lot yourself.

The proletariat held political and economic power throughout Stalin's time, therefore it is right to uphold him against attacks.


However, you are using it out of context.Elaborate. I can see no discernible difference between how I used it and how Lenin used it.


They reach a phase and then transfer to a new one. Hence, the use of "Full Communism" is erroneous.This, and the above portion, is gibberish. I've already explained multiple times that "full communism" refers to communist relations being fully established, similar to how we could use "full capitalism" to describe the era in which commodity-wage relations and private property reign supreme, and feudal relations have been fully abolished.



Scumbag Questionable, attacks me for inferences, says he is better because of his inferences.My inferences make more sense than yours, which are convoluted and contradictory. You have done nothing to penetrate my argument thus far, your two main strategies have been to either re-state your previous argument, or insult me and ignore the content of my message.



No. You said complete communism meant full communism. I said it meant higher-stage communism. There is a difference.I said no such thing...I said full communism and complete communism were both referring to "higher stage" communism. You are putting words into my mouth by implying that full communism meant anything else. If you continue to refuse to confront what I said properly, I will ignore this as well.


And about Lenin's use of the word "Complete Communism." I find that problematic and would ridicule lenin for that as well.
When did I imply I wouldn't?Because you ridiculed me and said nothing about Lenin's complete communism remark.



How many times do I have to state that I recognize Marx and Engels did not differentiate between Socialism and Communism, whilst Lenin did. Thus, the definition of these words are different when reading different authors.You can state it is many times as you want. It's not true. Lenin did not event the distinctions, he drew it from Marx and Engel's writings, primarily Critique of Gotha.


This is even proves my point.How so?


IF Lenin viewed the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Socialism as synonymous, why were they under different sections?They're not synonymous, you silly little fool.

Socialism is when the exploitation of man-by-man has been abolished and the economy is centrally planned by the productive members of society. Obviously the dictatorship of the proletariat changes characters throughout this, what I'm saying (And what Lenin would have agreed with) is that it persists, from being an instrument for the direct appropriation of the means of production during the revolution proper, to being a tool for the suppression of internal and external counter-revolution during the era of socialism.


Clearly, in the DotP, the Proletariat suppresses the class of others, and makes everyone else proletariat. Not everyone is to participate in the running of society. I fail to see how this contradicts my argument that the dictatorship of the proletariat persists on into socialism, and still works toward communism.


The bit right under First Phase
So, in the first phase of communism, "to each according to ability," everything belongs to all. Notice how their are no suppressed groups cut off from society. Notice how their are not classes subjugated. Notice how he says "whole of society." IF socialism was to be class based, then this would make no sense.No Marxist-Leninist ever said that the state persists under socialism for the purpose of exploiting a particular class. It exists to suppress the now disenfranchised ruling class which would still seek to restore its rule internally, to protect from external counter-revolution, and to direct socialist construction and educate the masses on Marxism-Leninism. I see nothing here that puts these three main functions at odds with Lenin.


The state has withered away in the sense that "no longer... any classes." Yes...there are no longer classes in the economic sense, but old bourgeois ideology will still linger among the masses, and the threat of external counter-revolution still exists.


Complete Communism was a misnomer imo.Or, more likely, you realized what a dumbass you were for ridiculing my "full communism" remark, and now that I pointed out that Lenin himself used a similar phrase, you're trying to cover your ass.



The Bourgeois law that is destroyed is clearly stated as the idea of "to each according to his contribution."
The rest of this describes life under Communist society, that is "according to his needs" and full worker control. Full employment of one worker to another, with no beaurcacry or intelligenstia. I agree with what Lenin is saying. Again, how does this contradict me? Embolden the parts from Lenin that do, since every time you're left to explain your viewpoints yourself it becomes a garbled mess of words.



Did I address your points? Or are you going to whine some more about how Lenin was a Stalinist?

Of course he wasn't. Stalin was a Leninist.

[reb]

I define it as Bill Bland did, which is:

"The social system constructed by the working people, led by the working class, after their seizure of political power in a socialist revolution. It is a social system in which the exploitation of man by man has been abolished and in which production is centrally planned with the aim of maximising the welfare of the working people."

http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course8-CL.htm

I normally don't argue with idiots but that's pretty funny. It bares no relation to actual history or reality. The only thing defining it as being socialism, apart from all of the moralistic appeals to the working class making it, which is a joke to begin with because to make socialism you have to make capitalism and the conditions for socialism, is a centrally planned economy, with the qualifier of "maximizing the welfare of the working people". I don't know who this Bill Bland is, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know who Karl Marx is.

You have made no single mention of actual economy, of any class relations, or anything! You're as bad as a trot, appealing to legalistic outside forms as proof of socialism. It's little wonder that Stalin and his loyal and cretinist followers support things such as the Democratic Party in the USA and the Labor Party in the UK. Shucks, I'm surprised that you people don't like trots that much what with your appeals to "maximizing the welfare of the working people".

[Questionable]

It bares no relation to actual history or reality.Elaborate.


The only thing defining it as being socialism, apart from all of the moralistic appeals to the working class making it,I fail to see how this is moralistic, anymore than saying the point of the revolution is to liberate the proletariat is moralistic.


which is a joke to begin with because to make socialism you have to make capitalism and the conditions for socialismWhere does it say that capitalism does not precede socialism? In fact, if you read Part 1 of Bland's lessons, he talks about this in greater detail.


I don't know who this Bill Bland isYou apparently don't know much of anything, judging by this post.


You have made no single mention of actual economy, of any class relations, or anything!If you click on the link, Bland goes into greater depth about the functioning of the economy and the position of class relations. This is obviously meant to be a brief definition. As for myself, I've been discussing class relations under socialism throughout this entire discussion, as the main point of disagreement between myself and Remus is that he doesn't believe class struggle continues under socialism.

I still don't see what the complaint is, though. Obviously the working class is in power during socialism, while doing its best to integrate the peasantry by way of collectivization.


I normally don't argue with idiots but that's pretty funny.If this pitiful post is all you have to offer, I encourage you to stick to this philosophy instead of embarrassing yourself.

[reb]

Elaborate.

I fail to see how this is moralistic, anymore than saying the point of the revolution is to liberate the proletariat is moralistic.

Where does it say that capitalism does not precede socialism? In fact, if you read Part 1 of Bland's lessons, he talks about this in greater detail.

You apparently don't know much of anything, judging by this post.

If you click on the link, Bland goes into greater depth about the functioning of the economy and the position of class relations. This is obviously meant to be a brief definition. As for myself, I've been discussing class relations under socialism throughout this entire discussion, as the main point of disagreement between myself and Remus is that he doesn't believe class struggle continues under socialism.

I still don't see what the complaint is, though. Obviously the working class is in power during socialism, while doing its best to integrate the peasantry by way of collectivization.

If this pitiful post is all you have to offer, I encourage you to stick to this philosophy instead of embarrassing yourself.

Look, I know exactly what the Stalinist argument is. I know exactly what the implications are and how it deviates from actual marxism. Obviously the working class was in power when it had to beg to have wages raised, and obviously it was in power when it experienced the greatest drop in non-war living standards in human history, obviously it was in power when privileges were granted to those who ran the capitalist state in regards to education, work and purchasing privileges, when it enforced it's own labor discipline upon itself, when it enforced one man management. This is just a basic over view. You can go into all sorts of marxist reasons as to why this thing you call "socialism" isn't socialism in the marxian sense, but I don't feel like I have to paraphrase whole sections of Capital to someone who is too lazy to read it.

You offer nothing to anyone. You're not a marxist. You're a stalinist. The best that you can offer is social-democracy, "maximizing the welfare of the working people", except when it isn't.

[Questionable]

Obviously the working class was in power when it had to beg to have wages raised, and obviously it was in power when it experienced the greatest drop in non-war living standards in human history, obviously it was in power when privileges were granted to those who ran the capitalist state in regards to education, work and purchasing privileges.

Can you cite any of this? Each country that implemented socialism experienced a high increase in living standards, education, and workplace conditions. It was when revisionism took hold, after Stalin's death, that these began to decline, with the introduction of increased bureaucratization.


The best that you can offer is social-democracy, "maximizing the welfare of the working people", except when it isn't.

It is the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into socialism which maximizes the welfare of working people, not reforms as social-democracy claims.

[Alexios]

It is the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into socialism which maximizes the welfare of working people, not reforms as social-democracy claims.

If we're to understand social democracy as being just a welfare state under the guise of socialism then I think the USSR and the rest of the Stalinist states would meet the definition pretty well. There was no revolutionary transformation of society; it was a bourgeois revolution carried out with the intent on developing capitalism.

[Remus Bleys]

I define it as Bill Bland did, which is:

"The social system constructed by the working people, led by the working class, after their seizure of political power in a socialist revolution. It is a social system in which the exploitation of man by man has been abolished and in which production is centrally planned with the aim of maximising the welfare of the working people."Bill Bland was one of the most shittiest human being ever alive. And Ill let reb handle why this is bad.


Except not really because the point of the purges in Albania was to allow more room for working class participation in the process of socialism. Because that's what Hoxha said the purpose of it was?


In my readings on the topic of Albania, I've yet to see any evidence that it had a direct impact.

Your position is that the Allies did all the fighting for Albania somehow without even stepping into the country, and they had no impact on their own national liberation war. It is stupid, and unless you can cite any kind of credible source for it, I'm going to begin ignoring it. So when country X attacks Country Y, and Country Z attacks country X, Country Z's invasion of Country X has no affect on the war between X and Y. K Den.




But I am better than those who denounce him because I am upholding the correct theoretical line.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XPCxL3ggDzA/T1dpC1Jl3QI/AAAAAAAABkU/ZCcm5SfTlUU/s1600/Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-we-got-a-bad-ass-over-here-meme.png


STALIN IS THE WAY THE TRUTH THE LIFE

My, for someone who complains about strawmen so incessantly, you sure do create a lot yourself.

The proletariat held political and economic power throughout Stalin's time, therefore it is right to uphold him against attacks.
Read Ismail's argument. It wasn't about the proletariats in China, it was China denounced Stalin.

Elaborate. I can see no discernible difference between how I used it and how Lenin used it. This was a typo.


This, and the above portion, is gibberish. I've already explained multiple times that "full communism" refers to communist relations being fully established, similar to how we could use "full capitalism" to describe the era in which commodity-wage relations and private property reign supreme, and feudal relations have been fully abolished.
You would say full capitalism? How ridiculous sounding.
Feudal Relations were destroyed before the current phase of capitalism anyway. The last stage of capitalism is the dictatorship of the proletariat.


My inferences make more sense than yours, which are convoluted and contradictory. You have done nothing to penetrate my argument thus far, your two main strategies have been to either re-state your previous argument, or insult me and ignore the content of my message.
When you ignore me over and over, and consistently ramble on about bullshit. And this isn't even true.
Does any non-stalinist agree with Questionable's inferences?


I said no such thing...I said full communism and complete communism were both referring to "higher stage" communism. You are putting words into my mouth by implying that full communism meant anything else. If you continue to refuse to confront what I said properly, I will ignore this as well.
By full communism I meant the highest phase of communism, when the division between mental and physical labor is abolished, the state withers away, and the productive powers of society increase tremendously, among other things. It is when communist relations are fully established, and there is no risk of counter-revolution. I stand corrected. I can admit when I am wrong, and I self criticize. My apologies.

I still take issue with the phrase "Full Communism" Its childish.

Because you ridiculed me and said nothing about Lenin's complete communism remark. Oh Im sorry. I guess every time i ridicule something I should bring in historical figures. BECAUSE THATS WHO I AM FUCKING TALKING ABOUT



You can state it is many times as you want. It's not true. Lenin did not event the distinctions, he drew it from Marx and Engel's writings, primarily Critique of Gotha. Prove it. Go on. You made an assertion, back it up.


How so?
Shit. I read that wrong.
Actually, this is moronic spew. I will put the quote here in context:

And even if Lenin hadn't used "complete communism" in such a way, you would still be wrong, because, as I pointed out, economic modes of production are indeed divided up into different stages throughout history. Even Marx talked about the embryonic forms of capitalism, as distinct from the industrial capitalism he saw in his lifetime, or imperialist capitalism which Lenin analyzed and which we now live in. So yes, there is such a thing as a "full" mode of production; it is when the mode of production is fully established, as opposed to being in a developmental stage. This is pure bullshit in its finest forms.
Industrial Capitalism and Imperialist capitalism are phases in capitalism. This are not seperate development, it is the same mode of production, but with a different style, different flavor, a different phase.


They're not synonymous, you silly little fool.
Honestly, you pretentious shit, you have lost all right to complain about me not acting civil and namecalling.


Socialism is when the exploitation of man-by-man has been abolished and the economy is centrally planned by the productive members of society.
Socialism is the abolition of class. Socialism is the first phase of communism, when the economy runs "to each according to contribution."

Obviously the dictatorship of the proletariat changes characters throughout this, what I'm saying (And what Lenin would have agreed with) is that it persists, from being an instrument for the direct appropriation of the means of production during the revolution proper, to being a tool for the suppression of internal and external counter-revolution during the era of socialism.:laugh::laugh::laugh: I think you've had enough Kool Aid.
Like, seriously, what the fuck does this even mean?


I fail to see how this contradicts my argument that the dictatorship of the proletariat persists on into socialism, and still works toward communism.
Socialism is the abolition of classes.
This next part, I am going to edit out shit.

No Marxist-Leninist ever said that the state persists under socialism for the purpose of exploiting a particular class. It exists to suppress the now disenfranchised ruling class which would still seek to restore its rule internally, to protect from external counter-revolution, and to direct socialist construction and educate the masses on Marxism-Leninism. I see nothing here that puts these three main functions at odds with Lenin.

The state under socialism does not exist for the purpose of exploiting a particular class. It exists to suppress disenfranchised ruling class If this still makes sense, tell me, and Ill have to explain the obvious.... again.



Yes...there are no longer classes in the economic sense, but old bourgeois ideology will still linger among the masses, and the threat of external counter-revolution still exists. How the fuck is that even relevant? This is criticizing something else completely. I don't think this is strawman, and Im going to file this under accidental misinterpretation.


Or, more likely, you realized what a dumbass you were for ridiculing my "full communism" remark, and now that I pointed out that Lenin himself used a similar phrase, you're trying to cover your ass.Don't flatter yourself.



I agree with what Lenin is saying. Again, how does this contradict me? Embolden the parts from Lenin that do, since every time you're left to explain your viewpoints yourself it becomes a garbled mess of words.
Scumbag Questionable. Takes something that wasn't a critique of what he was saying, but a clarification. Ignores the relevant parts that were clearly under first phase

But thats only for conflicting classes! Therefore, socialism did not occur anywhere either. Are we going to pretend that the class interest of the peasant is in the class interest of the proletariat?

Lenin states that socialism has not abolished inequality, that the fact that inequality is still around is what incorporates bourgeoisie law. The distribution is still run in a Bourgeoisie manner, and the State as we know it is abolished, being an administration of the distribution. The state has withered away in the sense that "no longer... any classes." But like I have stated earlier, inequality still persists under socialism, by its very nature of "to each according to his contribution." This very real inequality is the essence of class society that still exists. But, distribution is only somewhat related to classes.
So, basically, Fuck you.




Of course he wasn't. Stalin was a Leninist.:rolleyes:


Questionable, this post is so obviously fucking arrogant on your part. Your a pretentious, arrogant little prick.
You think so highly of yourself.

It would be so easy to just write you off as an internet armchair arrogant neckbeard prick.

But that's most likely not the case.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Hurr durr, the Liberation Theologian accusing you of falling under this.
Yet you claim to believe this, so why not?
Because, this quote nicely describes your fetish for Stalin.

I'm gonna do some guessing, and you tell me if I am right.
You feel mildly depressed, not everything is going right. You hate your job, you can't keep a girlfriend. When you started out, you were fairly liberal, and then stumbled upon revleft one day.

The world seems like shit to you, and a paradise named Albania was given to you. These were the anti-revisionists, the only true socialists to keep to an end. An exclusionary club, that you can rise up in, that you can defend.
One who's every solution is given to you, which you uncritically accept.

You will help lead the Revolution. It is you who has the only correct theory. You will resurrect the long dead paradise that is Albania, and spread the good news of Stalin to all peoples of the World.

And things have seemed to be getting worse ever since picking up Hoxhaism. Shit has gotten farther, friendship means less, human interaction has gotten shittier and shittier. IF only the outside world was as smart as you, then it would be okay. Everything would work out. If only.
And you are constantly doubting yourself. Maybe its something wrong with you? Maybe other people hate you for a reason. These are thoughts you quickly dispel, but they persist. Sometimes, you wanna die.

Which is why you are on Revleft. It makes you feel so smart, and it makes you feel great. Except, you have shit politics. So, you aren't good at this. Thus, the only way out is to constantly strawman, redefine words, play the Victim who gets picked on by the mean-bad Revisionist Remus, but assert your intelligence over him. If only he was as smart as you, and became a Hoxhaist. You are pretty sure he isn't smart enough for it, and you feel comfortable telling him so, because your good at politics.
Except you aren't.

But you can't find a way out. You've devoted so much time reading about this country.

Obviously something was wrong with Hoxha's theory, as Albania has been officially capitalists for quite some time now. You know this to be true. Its never to late to turn away from this utter bullshit, and people will thank you for it later, and you will think yourself more for it later.

You feel alienated, so you buy into a fiction and take to it like my cousins take to Southern Baptism. Then you use it to be a dick. In all actuality, I am more of a Materialist than you are.
And honestly, Hoxhaism is a thousand times more reactionary than Liberation Theology ever could be.

However, if this was wrong, and you really are just some arrogant hipster, then I have no doubt you'll vote Democrat in ten years.

[Ismail]

Obviously something was wrong with Hoxha's theory, as Albania has been officially capitalists for quite some time now.I don't see how there was something wrong with Hoxha's theoretical views just because Albania experienced a capitalist counter-revolution. The Paris Commune did not survive, but it was quite glorious for what it was and represented.


And you are constantly doubting yourself. Maybe its something wrong with you? Maybe other people hate you for a reason. These are thoughts you quickly dispel, but they persist. Sometimes, you wanna die.You seem to be projecting onto Questionable your own shitty life.

[Remus Bleys]

I don't see how there was something wrong with Hoxha's theoretical views just because Albania experienced a capitalist counter-revolution. The Paris Commune did not survive, but it was quite glorious for what it was and represented. And there was something wrong with its material conditions.
The material conditions that caused liberalization in Albania was trying to be a socialist country in a cpaitlaist world.


You seem to be projecting onto Questionable your own shitty life.Nah. My life's great.
Plus, every human has that.

But wait ismail... you are not Questionable.
Interesting hiw you have quoted something not addressed to you, but have utterly failed to even attempt to reply to yuki.

[Ismail]

Interesting hiw you have quoted something not addressed to you, but have utterly failed to even attempt to reply to yuki.Because Takayuki hasn't actually given examples of an imperialist relationship. It was the Soviet revisionists who dissolved the SovRoms, for example. Bourgeois sources note that Comecon under Stalin had promoted, in their words, "autarky on the model of the inter-war USSR, and thus the seeds of later difficulties were sown. . . . Stalin's death in 1953 opened a second phase in which the new Soviet collective leadership made significant changes. The pursuit of autarky was largely abandoned, and there was a shift towards the 'socialist division of labour', in which countries were to specialise in what they could do best and trade their surpluses to meet other member's deficits. . ." (Dawson, Planning in Eastern Europe, 1987, p. 299.)

In other words, the planned and proportionate development of the national economy was to be subordinated to the supposed "socialist community of nations," with the Soviet neo-colonialists at the head, hence Khrushchev's calls for Hoxha to turn Albania into the "garden" of Eastern Europe. Bourgeois sources likewise note that Comecon had only become truly active following 1956, while the Albanians noted time and time again its inherently exploitative character under the new regulations and norms imposed by the Soviet revisionists: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/albeconint.htm

And let us not forget that the revisionists in Eastern Europe and China likewise praised Khrushchev and Co. for supposedly promoting "equality" in relations on a "Leninist" basis, as opposed to the Stalin era where there were supposed "violations" in this regard.

[Questionable]

Christ's sake, what a long and tedious post.


Because that's what Hoxha said the purpose of it was?According to historical evidence gathered by people who studied Albania, it is indeed what actually happened.


So when country X attacks Country Y, and Country Z attacks country X, Country Z's invasion of Country X has no affect on the war between X and Y. K Den.I'll give one actual source for the fact that the Albanians did undermine the fascist war effort. Nexhmije Hoxha speaking at the National Conference of Studies on the Anti-fascist National Liberation War of the Albanian People, 1975, p. 32, "In proportion to its very small population and territory, insurgent Albania made a valuble contribution to the common victory over fascism, by fully engaging in this war 15 Italian and German divisions and inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. It did not permit the Italian and German occupiers to send even a single small detachment of Albanian mercenaries to fight on the Soviet Front or any other front outside the country."

Furthermore, the Albanian communists never denied that the anti-fascist coalition provided assistance (Nor did I, I just contested your bizarre line of argument that the Albanians no impact on the war they fought), but that the communists were the ones who took power after the war. Imperialist powers such as the UK encouraged reactionary groups such as the monarchists to take power after removing the fascists.


You would say full capitalism? How ridiculous sounding.

You haven't really done a good job explaining why this is so ridiculous. You just piss and moan about how it does, offering no explanation as to why I'm wrong. Speaking of capitalism as being in a premature phase before it reaches fully developed wage-commodity relations, a market system, and private propety, is completely in alignment with Marxism.

In none other than the Communist Manifesto, Marx speaks of the origins of capital within feudalism:

"We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class."

Not only in Marx's works, but even non-political scholars make note of the struggle between the newly emerging bourgeoisie, which made their fortune via trade, against the aristocracy, who inherited their social status via bloodlines and tradition.

Hell, how could the French Revolution even be explained from a dialectical materialist standpoint unless we recognize that it was the revolution of the newly emergent bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy? With the sans-culotte faction representing the immature proletariat.

Premature capitalist relations existed alongside the feudal system, but it was not, I'll say it again, yet full capitalism.


The last stage of capitalism is the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The last stage of capitalism is imperialism, as Lenin himself noted. The dictatorship of the proletariat marks a qualitative change as capitalism ends and the advancement of mankind toward communism begins.


Prove it. Go on. You made an assertion, back it up.

Prove what? That Lenin drew his theories from Critique of Gotha? It's right there in the very same chapter of State and Revolution that you're quoting! The entire chapter is Lenin dividing society up into stages, drawing his reasoning from Marx! Here is what Marx has to say on it:

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."

In fact, I would challenge you to show me where Marx and Engels use the term interchangeably.



Industrial Capitalism and Imperialist capitalism are phases in capitalism. This are not seperate development, it is the same mode of production, but with a different style, different flavor, a different phase.

Wow, you really are an idiot.

When I said that they're divided up into different stages, this is exactly what I meant! Different phases of the same mode of production, dialectically evolving toward the resolution of its own contradictions!

If you weren't so bullheaded and focused on mocking me, and this debate was a little more productive, you might have realized that. But your only concern is trying to make me look foolish, except in the process of that you only reveal yourself to be the idiot by saying things such as this.


Like, seriously, what the fuck does this even mean?

It's not my fault that you're too unintelligent to understand my posts.


If this still makes sense, tell me, and Ill have to explain the obvious.... again.

Yes, classes no longer exist in the economic sense, but their lingering ideology is still around, and the members of the ruling class, now disenfranchised and no longer holding ownership over the means of production, still plot to restore their rule. More than that, they seek the military assistance of the ruling classes of other nations to do so.

All this is proving is that you don't understand the form which class struggle takes under socialism.


So, basically, Fuck you.

I explained how none of this contradicts with Marxist-Leninist theory. You have done nothing but continue to repeat yourself ad nauseum, as per usual.


However, if this was wrong, and you really are just some arrogant hipster, then I have no doubt you'll vote Democrat in ten years.

Thank you for writing this rant. It made me laugh very hard, and was a good way to start the day.

[Remus Bleys]

Christ's sake, what a long and tedious post.Sigh. You gonna send the mods a hundred pms about this too?
Funny, considering you wrote this piece of shit. I'm going to count the times you have strawmanned me and clearly state what i mean, so everyone else knows what an intellectually dishonest piece of shit you are.

According to historical evidence gathered by people who studied Albania, it is indeed what actually happened.
Who? Bill Bland? Bourgeoisie sources?

I'll give one actual source for the fact that the Albanians did undermine the fascist war effort. Nexhmije Hoxha speaking at the National Conference of Studies on the Anti-fascist National Liberation War of the Albanian People, 1975, p. 32, "In proportion to its very small population and territory, insurgent Albania made a valuble contribution to the common victory over fascism, by fully engaging in this war 15 Italian and German divisions and inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. It did not permit the Italian and German occupiers to send even a single small detachment of Albanian mercenaries to fight on the Soviet Front or any other front outside the country."
Furthermore, the Albanian communists never denied that the anti-fascist coalition provided assistance (Nor did I, I just contested your bizarre line of argument that the Albanians no impact on the war they fought), First Strawman. Where did I say that these countries were completely irrelevant? I said they had help defeating a world power.
Every time a backwards country has successfully taken on a superpower and won when international support was given.


but that the communists were the ones who took power after the war. I'm sorry, I am not a substitutionalist. I don't give a damn if a party took over, even if it calls themselves "communist."

Imperialist powers such as the UK encouraged reactionary groups such as the monarchists to take power after removing the fascists.I don't particularly see how this would hurt the national liberation movement, considering Hoxha worked with reactionary classes.



You haven't really done a good job explaining why this is so ridiculous. You just piss and moan about how it does, offering no explanation as to why I'm wrong. Speaking of capitalism as being in a premature phase before it reaches fully developed wage-commodity relations, a market system, and private propety, is completely in alignment with Marxism.
Strawman Number 2.
Capitalism establishes itself after the bourgeoisie seize political power and abolish feudalism completely.
Socialism obviously cannot work this way, as feudalism => capitalism is class to class, whilst capitalism to socialism is class to classless. Feudalism likewise was not an international system whereas capitalism is.



In none other than the Communist Manifesto, Marx speaks of the origins of capital within feudalism:

"We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class."

Strawman number 3.
And they didn't abolish feudalism and establish themselves as a dominant form right away. It didn't take as long as socialism will, because, like I stated above, feudalism was not global, but capitalism became so by its very nature.


Hell, how could the French Revolution even be explained from a dialectical materialisthttp://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/300x300/38434142.jpg
standpoint unless we recognize that it was the revolution of the newly emergent bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy? With the sans-culotte faction representing the immature proletariat.Strawman Number 4.
Where did I say anything close to this?

Premature capitalist relations existed alongside the feudal system, but it was not, I'll say it again, yet full capitalism. Strawman Number 5.
Where did I imply that? And, no, it wasn't capitalism. It was feudalism. Because feudalism was still the dominant mode of production.

But, go on and show me socialism existing within capitalism right now.



Not only in Marx's works, but even non-political scholars make note of the struggle between the newly emerging bourgeoisie, which made their fortune via trade, against the aristocracy, :laugh:
Right now the proletariat and bourgeoisie are in a class war. Do we have socialism now? That's what you seem to be implying.


who inherited their social status via bloodlines and tradition. This isn't always true, and a vast oversimplification of the aristocracy.





The last stage of capitalism is imperialism, as Lenin himself noted. The dictatorship of the proletariat marks a qualitative change as capitalism ends and the advancement of mankind toward communism begins.So, you admit the dotp exists as the last remnant of capitalism, but insist it is not the last stage?
Also, Lenin himself? Really? Not Lenin. Lenin himself.



Prove what? That Lenin drew his theories from Critique of Gotha? It's right there in the very same chapter of State and Revolution that you're quoting! The entire chapter is Lenin dividing society up into stages, drawing his reasoning from Marx! Here is what Marx has to say on it: Strawman Number 5.
Lenin assigned socialism to Marx's concept of lower stage, and Communism to higher stage.
Saying this does not mean that I think State and Revolution wasn't derived from the Critique.


"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
Irrelevant quote to what you are criticizing. Therefore, Strawman 6.

In fact, I would challenge you to show me where Marx and Engels use the term interchangeably.Show me where they didn't. Go on.
The vast majority of works have certainly implied that, but everytime I bring it up, you simply are to obtuse to see.


Wow, you really are an idiot.

When I said that they're divided up into different stages, this is exactly what I meant! Different phases of the same mode of production, dialectically evolving toward the resolution of its own contradictions!
No it isn't.
This is what you are saying:

there is such a thing as a "full" mode of production; it is when the mode of production is fully established, as opposed to being in a developmental stage. As in the mode of production is different in the main, and not just in details. This is wrong.

If you weren't so bullheaded and focused on mocking me,
You're right. I should leave the mocking to you. Because you were completely innocent and never said an unkind word. This is a stretch of the definition, but Strawman 7 for acting all pure and shit.

and this debate was a little more productive, you might have realized that. This isn't a debate. I am clearly winning.

But your only concern is trying to make me look foolish, except in the process of that you only reveal yourself to be the idiot by saying things such as this.My concern in the "debate" is to make you look wrong? THATS THE FUCKING POINT OF ARGUMENTS!
And of course arguing marxism looks incorrect to a dogmatic stalinist.



It's not my fault that you're too unintelligent to understand my posts.
Scumbag Questionable, sees this
I think you've had enough Kool Aid.
Like, seriously, what the fuck does this even mean? Quotes this
Like, seriously, what the fuck does this even mean? Strawman 8.

Clearly I was mocking you.
What I was mocking you for:

Obviously the dictatorship of the proletariat changes characters throughout this, what I'm saying (And what Lenin would have agreed with) is that it persists, from being an instrument for the direct appropriation of the means of production during the revolution proper, to being a tool for the suppression of internal and external counter-revolution during the era of socialism.
Essential of this argument:

The Dotp is at first a tool for establishing socialism then for suppression of classes. Lenin would have agreed with me.
You have yet to prove Lenin would have agreed with you. Did you know Lenin?
Also, that Socialism is the abolition of classes quote proves you wrong here too. Thats why I didn't address it. Its just a long time to say stupid shit.


Yes, classes no longer exist in the economic sense, but their lingering ideology is still around, and the members of the ruling class, now disenfranchised and no longer holding ownership over the means of production, still plot to restore their rule. More than that, they seek the military assistance of the ruling classes of other nations to do so.

Classes don't exist, but they do.


All this is proving is that you don't understand the form which class struggle takes under socialism.Strawman 9. I know the argument, and any confusion I have results from it not being possible, irrational, and impossible.
Rejecting =/= Not understanding.




I explained how none of this contradicts with Marxist-Leninist theory. To which I reply with. You havent debated me on that.
You have done nothing but continue to repeat yourself ad nauseum, as per usual.

You continue to ignore my points, forcing me to repeat myself. Strawman 10.


Thank you for writing this rant. It made me laugh very hard, and was a good way to start the day.Sure. Why not?

YOU HAVE A LOT OF NERVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT STRAWMAN MR TEN FUCKING TIMES.

[Ismail]

Every time a backwards country has successfully taken on a superpower and won when international support was given.And yet what international support was given to the Albanians by the USSR? That the CPA came to power with no real Comintern connections, no Red Army helping to liberate the country, and in the face of British efforts to create an anti-communist regime after the war, was a pretty big achievement.

[Questionable]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "strawman" really means. It is whenever in a debate someone misrepresents their opponents viewpoint, and then claims victory by attacking that misrepresentation, which is often easy to attack because it is an illogical caricature of the actual argument.

Let's take this, for example:


You gonna send the mods a hundred pms about this too?In reality, I sent a single personal message to Takayui, complaining about you typing in oversized text and making your posts obstructive.


Who?Several sources, credit goes to Ismail for providing them:


"In October 1965, the Central Committee of the Party and the Council of Ministers published an Appeal to the broad masses of the people to participate in the discussion and drafting of the 4th Five-year Plan (1966-1970)... Unlike the previous discussions... this time in the draft-directives the central state organs gave not detailed figures, but only some main tentative ones." (The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania, 1988, pp. 232-233.)
"henceforth workers in enterprises would discuss broad plan targets, which the enterprise would use in drafting a detailed project plan, rather than being sent a detailed plan from the state hierarchy without any such preliminary.... neither was he any longer to be simply the recipient of centrally determined tasks requiring unquestioning execution." (Stalinist Economic Strategy in Practice: The Case of Albania, 1982, pp. 27-28.)
"Laws, codes and ordinances were put forward for discussion to the working masses, reviewed with a critical eye and unburdened from unnecessary articles, complicated formulations, everything outdated and alien, and thus made easier to understand." (The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania, p. 236.)
"In industry, building work and other sectors, individual standards of work were slowly replaced by collective standards representing a higher level of socialist organization. More and more, priority was given to the moral stimulus... salaries for the most part no longer carried bonuses now that higher salaries had again been reduced. The funds thus saved were returned to the workers by raising lower salaries, increasing credit allowed for the maintenance of crèches and nursery schools and the suppression of tax [abolished in 1969] from workers' incomes." (The History of Albania: from its origins to the present day, 1981, p. 279.)
Where did I say that these countries were completely irrelevant? I said they had help defeating a world power.
Every time a backwards country has successfully taken on a superpower and won when international support was given.It is obvious from reading your posts that you don't believe the masses are the main component of an anti-imperialist war and that you view it as hopeless without some kind of foreign aid, a view which has been proven wrong by history, and is also similar to what the Soviet revisionists had in mind.

Likewise, you will also be unable to find a quotation from me saying that international aid makes no difference (The Soviet aid to Spain made a great deal of difference, for example), but that the people are the primary feature of a war, as they're the ones that are, you know, actually fighting it. This should be common sense to even non-Marxists.


I don't particularly see how this would hurt the national liberation movement, considering Hoxha worked with reactionary classes.The National Liberation Front worked with non-communist factions which were willing to remove the fascists, but it is noted in Jon Halliday's "The Artful Albanian" that the bulk of the fighting was done by the communists themselves, who gained popularity and support amongst the people by doing this.

Furthermore, most of the reactionary factions broke away from the LNC (National Liberation Front) toward the conclusion of the war and strove to restore the Zog monarchy. The communists defeated the two prominent movements in a civil war, the Balli and Legaliteti, and declared Albania completely liberated.


Strawman Number 2.
Capitalism establishes itself after the bourgeoisie seize political power and abolish feudalism completely.Firstly, I challenge you to explain how this is a strawman. I am not misrepresenting your viewpoint at all.

Secondly, this is a flawed, mechanical view of historical materialism. As I've said so many times that I've lost count, capitalism is not established fully until feudalism is completely abolished. Which also took many decades to accomplish, as after the revolution the bourgeoisie divided state power amongst itself and the nobility, although capitalist relations took more and more primacy in society.


Strawman number 3.
And they didn't abolish feudalism and establish themselves as a dominant form right away.I think you've confused "strawman" as meaning a disagreement with yourself.

The reason I'm discussing this is because you mocked me for using the phrase "full capitalism." I'm quoting Marx here because even he recognizes that the seeds of capitalism existed within feudalism, but it was not completely established as the dominant social system we see now. Therefore, it is completely Marxist to use the phrase "full capitalism," as distinct from embryonic capitalism.


It didn't take as long as socialism will, because, like I stated above, feudalism was not global, but capitalism became so by its very nature.You're simplifying things. Socialism proceeds more rapidly than capitalism because it is the abolition of private property and class relations, whereas capitalism, and the modes of production that preceded it, were merely the transfer of power from one class to another, thus enshrining their own mode of production as the primary one.


DIALECTICSI initially typed out that meme shit like this is bad for your brain, but then I remembered you've got a lump of shit up in there instead.

However, if you're capable of it, I'd like to see you demonstrate why my usage of dialectics here is incorrect. I know you won't be able to, but please, amuse me.


Where did I say anything close to this?Do I really have to? You said it yourself in the next portion of your post.


Where did I imply that? And, no, it wasn't capitalism. It was feudalism. Because feudalism was still the dominant mode of production.So the existence of small-scale commodity production and wage-labor, as well as the emergence of bourgeois private property, are characteristics of feudalism? I'd have to see a quotation from Marx or Engels or Lenin or, hell, anybody except you, before I considered that.

The Communist Manifesto quotation makes it very clear that capitalism bursted the fetters of feudalism.


But, go on and show me socialism existing within capitalism right now.I truly feel sorry for someone as stupid as you.

Socialism does not exist within capitalism because the socialist revolution is not merely the transfer of power from one class to another, but the abolition of said class power. It is the most radical revolution throughout human history because the proletariat does not seek to establish itself as the dominant class in society, but, because it possesses no means of production of its own, it seeks to abolish class relations entirely. Ergo, so long as we live in a class-based society such as capitalism, socialist relations cannot exist in an embryonic form the way capitalist ones existed within feudalism.

By the way, this would actually be a legitimate example of a strawman argument, since I never claimed anywhere that socialism existed within capitalism. You got that claim from a misrepresentation of my views.


Right now the proletariat and bourgeoisie are in a class war. Do we have socialism now? That's what you seem to be implying.Except it's not, it's just something you pulled out of your ass because you don't seem to understand the rudiments of Marxism.


So, you admit the dotp exists as the last remnant of capitalism, but insist it is not the last stage?I never said that. The moment the dictatorship of the proletariat comes into existence, it begins dismantling capitalist relations.


Also, Lenin himself? Really? Not Lenin. Lenin himself.I believe the title of the book is "Imperialism - The Highest Stage of Capitalism."


Saying this does not mean that I think State and Revolution wasn't derived from the Critique.Since Lenin viewed communism as being divided into multiple stages, and he drew those stages from Marx, if you're going to argue that they use the terms interchangeably, it logically follows that you must believe Lenin misinterpreted Marx's writings.


Irrelevant quote to what you are criticizing. Therefore, Strawman 6.I fail to see how its irrelevant. It shows that Marx recognized that there is not one single, monolithic "communism" that appears without any kind of dialectical evolution, and that he recognized that it goes through phases as the remnants of capitalism are removed.

Also, even if it were irrelevant (which it isn't), this still wouldn't be a strawman, because I haven't made a caricature of your views which I subsequently knocked down. It would just be an irrelevancy.


Show me where they didn't. Go on.My quotation from Critique of Gotha, as well as the entirety of the text itself, shows how Marx viewed the evolution of communism.

I think the real reason you said this is because you actually have no examples of them using the terms interchangeably, because if you did, it would only be necessary for you to quote them and destroy my argument, instead of trying to push the burden of proof onto me.


The vast majority of works have certainly implied that, but everytime I bring it up, you simply are to obtuse to see.Then show them to me.


As in the mode of production is different in the main, and not just in details. This is wrong.This is gibberish.


You're right. I should leave the mocking to you. Because you were completely innocent and never said an unkind word. This is a stretch of the definition, but Strawman 7 for acting all pure and shit.I haven't misrepresented your viewpoint and attacked said misrepresentation, so no, still not a strawman.


This isn't a debate. I am clearly winning.If you call this winning, I'd hate to see your definition of losing.


You have yet to prove Lenin would have agreed with you. Did you know Lenin?I never knew him personally as he was deceased for about eighty years by the time I was born, but I'm certain he would have agreed with me since everything I've said is in alignment with his writings and you've yet to prove how I am contradicting him.


Also, that Socialism is the abolition of classes quote proves you wrong here too.The abolition of classes has taken place under socialism insofar as that the means of production is in the hands of public ownership. Now class struggle takes the form of removing bourgeois right from society, and the prevention of internal counter-revolution (by way of lingering bourgeois ideology amongst the masses and leadership) and external counter-revolution (by way of military intervention, ideological struggle, and covert sabotage).


Classes don't exist, but they do.Once again, you've posted an actual strawman, since nowhere in my post did I claim that "classes don't exist, but they do." I said that the classes no longer exist economically speaking, but their ideological presence is still felt on society, and the actual ruling class itself still exists now that they are thrown out of power, obviously interested in restoring capitalism.


YOU HAVE A LOT OF NERVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT STRAWMAN MR TEN FUCKING TIMES.

None of the things you called strawmen were actually strawmen. Ironically, you created multiple ones yourself in this post.

[Remus Bleys]

Questionable this isn't even a debate. Take this

But, go on and show me socialism existing within capitalism right now. Which you replied with

I truly feel sorry for someone as stupid as you.

Socialism does not exist within capitalism because the socialist revolution is not merely the transfer of power from one class to another, but the abolition of said class power. It is the most radical revolution throughout human history because the proletariat does not seek to establish itself as the dominant class in society, but, because it possesses no means of production of its own, it seeks to abolish class relations entirely. Ergo, so long as we live in a class-based society such as capitalism, socialist relations cannot exist in an embryonic form the way capitalist ones existed within feudalism.
Which was my fucking point. Calling me stupid for that? Seriously?
You're not as good at being a dick as I am. Stop trying so hard.



Also, Lenin himself? Really? Not Lenin. Lenin himself. To which you replied with the name of the book.
Whoosh.

Misquoting me.
This is going nowhere. Fuck this. I'm done, Go on and criticize my posts, ill just ignore it. Because every fucking "criticism" has been out of context and wholly obtuse. You quote me out of context, and do shit like I first mentioned above.

No matter how many times I say something, you and Ismail insist upon ignoring it. Go on and think you won. What you gonna win? Revleft points? Its a good thing your own tendency is so fucking sectarian that it will prevent you from ever actually getting a movement.

Any neutral observer can tell ive won this. And I don't feel like talking to idiots who insist on a strawman, and then have the gull to call me a liar.

Fuck you reactionaries. Have a nice time being irrelevant, as "One mustnt deviate from Stalin!!"

[Questionable]

Which was my fucking point. Calling me stupid for that? Seriously?

You asked me to point out socialist relations existing within capitalist society. I pointed out that there was no such thing, because it is impossible due to the nature of socialism and capitalism.

You don't seem capable of understanding how the proletarian revolution differs from all previous revolutions.


To which you replied with the name of the book.

You said Lenin didn't view imperialism as the last stage of capitalism. The book contradicts you entirely.


No matter how many times I say something, you and Ismail insist upon ignoring it. Go on and think you won. What you gonna win? Revleft points?

You seem to be projecting your own insecurities onto me. I never said anything about "winning." I participate in these debates for my own amusement. Most Revlefters don't have a positive view of Stalin or Marxism-Leninism in general, but I couldn't care less.


Its a good thing your own tendency is so fucking sectarian that it will prevent you from ever actually getting a movement.

Marxism-Leninism has had more historical relevancy and influence than any other tendency on this forum, and most active parties in the world still describe themselves as belonging to some variety of it, with anarchism possibly being a contender in terms of historical influence and membership.

I will go much farther following its guidelines than being some lame Left Communist who picks an obscure figure like Ruhle or Bordiga and clings to them, calling every successful revolution in history "state-capitalist."

But I hold no grudges. If you ever get tired of 'Anti-Stalinism' and want to learn more about Marxism-Leninism, feel free to ask me.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Look out folks, it's big letters joe!

[Ismail]

Its a good thing your own tendency is so fucking sectarian that it will prevent you from ever actually getting a movement.

[...]

Fuck you reactionaries. Have a nice time being irrelevant, as "One mustnt deviate from Stalin!!"Pretty sure I already pointed out elsewhere that most every pro-Albanian party (from ones that exist today such as the PCMLE and PCRCI to historical ones such as the PCdoB and MAP-ML) was more relevant than just about any "left-communist" group in the past 80 years.

Also you seem to switch abruptly between claiming that pro-Albanian parties are "sectarian" to claiming they collaborate with the bourgeoisie and/or US imperialism.

[Brotto Rühle]

Pretty sure I already pointed out elsewhere that most every pro-Albanian party (from ones that exist today such as the PCMLE and PCRCI to historical ones such as the PCdoB and MAP-ML) was more relevant than just about any "left-communist" group in the past 80 years.

Also you seem to switch abruptly between claiming that pro-Albanian parties are "sectarian" to claiming they collaborate with the bourgeoisie and/or US imperialism.
The SPUSA is more relevant than any of those. Doesn't mean their ideas are legitimate, or Marxist.

[Ismail]

The SPUSA is more relevant than any of those. Doesn't mean their ideas are legitimate, or Marxist.No it isn't, the SPUSA hasn't been relevant as a national force since the 40's. To call it more relevant the PCMLE is dumb; the latter's electoral front, the MPD, is capable of obtaining seats in the national legislature and has a notable influence among educators plus the ability to run TV ads, not to mention a few other pro-Albanian parties such as those in Benin and Mali (the former played the leading and the latter a leading role against the pro-Soviet regimes in power at the time), those in Burkina Faso (significant enough to have a presence in Sankara's government) and Nicaragua (again able to secure seats in the national legislature), and so on.

[Brotto Rühle]

No it isn't, the SPUSA hasn't been relevant as a national force since the 40's. To call it more relevant the PCMLE is dumb; the latter's electoral front, the MPD, is capable of obtaining seats in the national legislature and has a notable influence among educators plus the ability to run TV ads, not to mention a few other pro-Albanian parties such as those in Benin and Mali (the former played the leading and the latter a leading role against the pro-Soviet regimes in power at the time), those in Burkina Faso (significant enough to have a presence in Sankara's government) and Nicaragua (again able to secure seats in the national legislature), and so on.The Democratic Party of the USA, the New Democratic Party in Canada, the Labour Party of the UK...ALLLLLL MORE RELEVANT THAN ANY HOXHAIST SECT.

Doesn't make them Marxist or right.

[Ismail]

The Democratic Party of the USA, the New Democratic Party in Canada, the Labour Party of the UK...ALLLLLL MORE RELEVANT THAN ANY HOXHAIST SECT.

Doesn't make them Marxist or right.You've been reduced to mentioning openly capitalist parties that have been integral to their respective national political scenes for either decades or over a century. Not comparable.

The point isn't that popularity correlates to having a correct line, otherwise parties toeing the Soviet revisionists would be "correct" by default, the point is that "left-communism" has literally been irrelevant almost everywhere for the past 80 years, because of its reliance on spontaneity, its scholasticism in regards to the treatment of Marxism, etc. Both Trots and to a lesser extent Maoists can point to notable parties over the past 30 years, because despite their revisionism they do base themselves, in some way, on the Leninist framework. The same is the case with pro-Albanian parties.

[Brotto Rühle]

You've been reduced to mentioning openly capitalist parties that have been integral to their respective national political scenes for either decades or over a century. Not comparable.I only did as you did, mention capitalist parties.


The point isn't that popularity correlates to having a correct line, otherwise parties toeing the Soviet revisionists would be "correct" by default, the point is that "left-communism" has literally been irrelevant almost everywhere for the past 80 years, because of its reliance on spontaneity, its scholasticism in regards to the treatment of Marxism, etc. Both Trots and to a lesser extent Maoists can point to notable parties over the past 30 years, because despite their revisionism they do base themselves, in some way, on the Leninist framework. The same is the case with pro-Albanian parties.You just contradicted yourself.

[Questionable]

The Democratic Party of the USA, the New Democratic Party in Canada, the Labour Party of the UK...ALLLLLL MORE RELEVANT THAN ANY HOXHAIST SECT.

Doesn't make them Marxist or right.

Just to be clear, there's obviously a great deal of difference between the legal opposition of bourgeois nations that have the financial, intellectual, and martial backing of the ruling state, and a party that seeks to base itself in the working class.

[Ismail]

I only did as you did, mention capitalist parties.Except the comparison is asinine for the reason Questionable just made.


You just contradicted yourself.No I didn't. I've never seen names like Bordiga, Rühle or Dunayevskaya pop up in Soviet revisionist, Chinese, Albanian or even Trot materials (unless dealing with the former two in the context of the 1910s or early 20s, when Lenin himself mentioned them.) The fact that none of these tendencies, which attracted actual followings, movements, parties and some even had a presence in governments, pretty much ever mentioned "left-communists" in their polemics is pretty striking.

[Alexios]

No I didn't. I've never seen names like Bordiga, Rühle or Dunayevskaya pop up in Soviet revisionist, Chinese, Albanian or even Trot materials (unless dealing with the former two in the context of the 1910s or early 20s, when Lenin himself mentioned them.) The fact that none of these tendencies, which attracted actual followings, movements, parties and some even had a presence in governments, pretty much ever mentioned "left-communists" in their polemics is pretty striking.

Bordiga and Left-Communism were actually a major political force in the Italian and Balkan communist milieu of the pre and post WW2 period, and continue to be a relatively substantial group today. I believe Bordiga was even the author of two of the Comintern's "19 Conditions," not to mention the fact that much of Lenin's State & Revolution was borrowed from Pannekoek.

[synthesis]

I will go much farther following its guidelines than being some lame Left Communist who picks an obscure figure like Ruhle or Bordiga and clings to them, calling every successful revolution in history "state-capitalist."

I hate to say it, because it seems like the hostility has more or less died down in this thread, but this comes across as you projecting your own idolatry onto another tendency. Most variants of communism don't share Marxist-Leninists' tendency towards hero-worship.

[Questionable]

I hate to say it, because it seems like the hostility has more or less died down in this thread, but this comes across as you projecting your own idolatry onto another tendency. Most variants of communism don't share Marxist-Leninists' tendency towards hero-worship.

I don't see any base for this claim honestly. As I explained before, the reason Marxist-Leninists uphold figures like Lenin and Stalin is because they were instrumental in steering their countries toward the construction of socialism, therefore we view it as important to seek wisdom from their lessons. It's not like we admire them because they had cool mustaches or something.

Whenever I see a LeftCom going on about how some obscure figure with no real influence in communist history had the correct line and every major figure was actually a revisionist, I can't help but think they're just trying to be controversial.

By the way, to further elaborate on my point about bourgeois parties versus proletariat ones, Lenin pointed out that even the largest and most successful workers' parties in history had only a small percentage of membership in the working-class:



The correctness of this statement is perhaps most clearly confirmed by Germany, because constitutional legality steadily endured there for a remarkably long time--nearly half a century (1871-1914)--and during this period the Social-Democrats were able to achieve far more than in other countries in the way of "utilizing legality", and organized a larger proportion of the workers into a political party than anywhere else in the world.
What is this largest proportion of politically conscious and active wage slaves that has so far been recorded in capitalist society? One million members of the Social-Democratic Party - out of 15,000,000 wage-workers! Three million organized in trade unions--out of 15,000,000!

[Alexios]

Whenever I see a LeftCom going on about how some obscure figure with no real influence in communist history had the correct line and every major figure was actually a revisionist, I can't help but think they're just trying to be controversial.

You must be thrilled.

[synthesis]

Whenever I see a LeftCom going on about how some obscure figure with no real influence in communist history had the correct line and every major figure was actually a revisionist, I can't help but think they're just trying to be controversial.

1. Again, you seem to be implying that "the correct line" is determined by popularity.

2. When have you ever seen a left-communist use the term "revisionist" outside of conversations with or about Marxist-Leninists?

[Questionable]

1. Again, you seem to be implying that "the correct line" is determined by popularity.

That Marxism-Leninism achieved momentum amongst the working class and had an actual impact on history is, to me, very indicative of its validity, as opposed to some weird tendency like "Left Leninism" that almost no proletariat in the world will have heard of.


2. When have you ever seen a left-communist use the term "revisionist" outside of conversations with or about Marxist-Leninists?

Example:


The essential argument of Marx's revisionists was that he had begun in this matter, to revise the Marx of 1848 while writing "Capital". The proof that they have never understood anything, is that in "Capital", Marx cites in this passage his previous work to the "Manifesto" itself, "The Misery of Philosophy" written against the "The Philosophy of Misery" of Proudhon of 1847. He notes just before the phrase "This antagonistic character of capitalistic accumulation", "These relations only produce bourgeois wealth, that is to say the wealth of the bourgeois class, while continually annihilating the wealth of the members making up this class and while constantly producing a ceaselessly growing proletariat".

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1949/class-struggle.htm

The fact that you seem to think 'revisionist' is a strictly Marxist-Leninist term only shows your ignorance of history. It was used as early as 1908 by Lenin to describe the Bernsteinites. Trotskyists also charged the Soviets, of course, with being revisionists of Marxism, without using the term sardonically:


Revisionist plans cannot solve the capitalist crisis or eliminate the class struggle. Nevertheless, they pose a problem which demands a certain answer. Despite the differences between Belgium and the United States, Trotsky’s method in dealing with the problem is of the greatest interest and value to the American Marxist movement and the class-conscious workers.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1934/01/planning.htm

[synthesis]

That Marxism-Leninism achieved momentum amongst the working class and had an actual impact on history is, to me, very indicative of its validity, as opposed to some weird tendency like "Left Leninism" that almost no proletariat in the world will have heard of.

That Marxism-Leninism has never accomplished anything except furthering the capitalist mode of production - not inherently a bad thing - is also very indicative of its validity. But it's nice that you're admitting your appeals to popularity.


Example:

I meant recently:


Whenever I see a LeftCom going on about how some obscure figure with no real influence in communist history had the correct line and every major figure was actually a revisionist, I can't help but think they're just trying to be controversial.


The fact that you seem to think 'revisionist' is a strictly Marxist-Leninist term only shows your ignorance of history. It was used as early as 1908 by Lenin to describe the Bernsteinites. Trotskyists also charged the Soviets, of course, with being revisionists of Marxism, without using the term sardonically:

The fact that you think that's what I was saying only shows your lack of reading comprehension.

[Questionable]

That Marxism-Leninism has never accomplished anything except furthering the capitalist mode of production - not inherently a bad thing - is also very indicative of its validity.And I obviously disagree with that assessment.


But it's nice that you're admitting your appeals to popularity.I don't see how it's a negative thing that I value an ideology that has actually guided the working-class to revolution on multiple occasions over some intellectual sect that prides itself on doing nothing.


The fact that you think that's what I was saying only shows your lack of reading comprehension.Actually, it shows that your post is vague and stupid. You asked for an example of a Left-Communist using revisionist as a word. I provided them, and only after you looked like a fool did you update your request mean "recent" examples. I guess I was supposed to infer that without any hint somehow.

In any case, it's still a vague request, even if you've narrowed it down to "recent" examples. How recent? 1950s? 60s? 2000s? Last six months? Last week? Are you looking for publications by left-wing groups, or websites, or forum posts?

Furthermore, it's still a silly request because for some reason you exclude Marxist-Leninists from being the subject. Since most major figures in history called themselves Marxist-Leninist, it stands to reason that most of the charges of revisionism will be placed against them. In this very thread you have Remus calling Marxism-Leninism revisionism, and there are countless other examples on Revleft.

I really don't see the point in pursuing this argument, unless you just wanted to catch me in a lie. Even if there didn't exist any examples of LeftComs using the word revisionist, it's still true that they consider pretty much all successful revolutions to be 'bourgeois-nationalist' or 'state-capitalist' or whatever the flavor of the month is.